Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 100

Chapter 100: Girls Can’t Say ‘I Can’

A few hours later, the dead of night settled over the ruined city.

Lucian, Exusiai, and Zima regrouped, wasting no time in moving out. Zima and her battered companions had all witnessed the blinding laser cannon that had pierced the heavens just moments before. The shock still lingered in their wide, trembling eyes.

They hadn’t seen Lucian pull the trigger firsthand, but these girls were far from foolish. Looking at the sheer devastation left in the wake of the battle, it took very little deduction to realize who had called down that apocalyptic beam of light.

They had never seen a weapon capable of such destruction. In truth, their minds struggled to even classify it as a weapon. Where in this world did a beam of light exist that could dissolve reinforced concrete buildings into ash with a single strike? What was that blinding flash? And what was the terrifying pillar of energy that had rained down from the moon itself?

They didn’t know. More, they didn’t dare to ask.

But one thing was absolutely certain: they would never question Lucian’s instructions again. The fierce, desperate survivors were now as docile as tamed pups. This shift was especially obvious in Natalia and the other noble girls Lucian had pulled from the wreckage.

The way they looked at him now bordered on religious reverence. One could easily imagine them trying to immigrate to Laterano, failing to secure citizenship because they lacked Sankta halos, and settling for spending the rest of their lives serving as an angelic Guard Squad just to stay near him.

Lucian and Exusiai escorted the group through the shadows, carefully handling around the chaotic patrols of the Reunion Movement. Once they had put enough distance between themselves and the blast zone, Lucian noticed the heavy, dragging footsteps of the Ursus girls. Their stamina was completely spent. Spotting an abandoned apartment building tucked away in a quiet alley, he called for a halt.

“We’ll spend the night here.”

The area was clear of Reunion forces. Though the building had been thoroughly looted of anything valuable, the heavy wooden doors and intact beds remained.

Lucian produced a stash of emergency rations he had conveniently lifted from a fallen Reunion squad. Paired with some freshly squeezed soy milk, it made for a surprisingly decent meal. The starving bear cubs descended upon the food ravenously. By this point, the highborn young ladies had entirely abandoned their strict etiquette, stuffing their cheeks until they were round and bulging. It was a rather endearing sight.

Once the meal was finished, the group set about clearing three of the intact rooms.

Without a single word spoken, Natalia’s noble faction and Zima’s autonomous group naturally divided themselves into separate quarters. They had absolutely no intention of sharing a room. The invisible wall between them was thick and heavy with recent history.

Lucian understood the silent divide perfectly. Just a few short hours ago, these same girls had been locked in a brutal struggle against one another over scraps of food and drops of water. A heavy blood debt lay between their factions. Even if some of them hadn’t directly raised a weapon, the simple act of taking sides carried a weight of responsibility that couldn’t be washed away in a single evening. Getting along harmoniously was a luxury they couldn’t afford right now.

That was a knot they would have to untangle themselves. Lucian had no place interfering in their grief.

Besides, he was exhausted. Having drained a significant amount of his own blood recently to process into blood-replenishing sugar candy, a deep lethargy had settled into his bones. He dropped heavily onto the nearest mattress.

“Exusiai, I’ll leave the first watch to you. If you get tired in the middle of the night, wake me up.”

Exusiai flashed him a bright, energetic smile. “Got it. Get some good rest.”

She agreed far too easily. Lucian knew her well enough to realize that unless he woke up on his own, she would stubbornly stand guard until dawn without ever shaking him awake. Her fierce consideration was touching, but it left him feeling a bit useless as the man of the group. He made a mental note to force himself awake in a few hours.

A few minutes after Exusiai slipped out into the hallway, the air in the room grew heavy and quiet.

Through the thin, poorly insulated walls, Lucian could hear the steady, exhausted breathing of the Ursus girls. There were no excited late-night whispers, no giggling over high school crushes, no games. Simply having enough food in their stomachs and a safe place to close their eyes was the absolute pinnacle of happiness for them right now.

Where exactly was the boundary between a peaceful daily life and a desperate struggle for survival? What triggered the collapse? Setting aside the bitter reality of the Infected, the nobles and commoners of Ursus already viewed each other as mortal enemies. Yet to the Infected, both classes were nothing but oppressors.

‘How troublesome.’

Lucian let out a long, slow breath, closing his eyes and forcing his racing thoughts to a halt.

He was just drifting off, half-expecting a dream where he was trading blows with Ch’en, when his sharp senses caught the faint, metallic click of his bedroom door easing open.

The intruder was trying desperately to be stealthy, but her movements were incredibly clumsy. It was almost cute. She crept silently to the edge of his mattress, leaning down into the darkness to check his breathing.

Lucian rolled over in a flash, his hand snapping out to catch her slender wrist.

“What exactly are you trying to do, Natalia?”

“L-L-Lord Lucian!”

Natalia jumped, looking exactly like a bear cub caught with her paw deep in a honey jar. Her rounded ears trembled violently in the shadows. Despite her elegant, mature appearance—which easily disguised her true age—she was still just a seventeen-year-old high school student. Her mind was far from fully formed.

She glanced around in a blind panic, her wrist still trapped in his loose grip. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as her chest heaved. Biting her lower lip, she looked down at him with a pitiful, desperate expression.

“I know my request is entirely presumptuous. It’s… it’s completely immodest. But I still have to ask.” She swallowed hard. “Lord Lucian, may I be permitted to sleep beside you?”

Driven by some strange, quiet impulse, Lucian released her wrist and shifted over.

Natalia let out a shaky breath and slipped silently under his heavy blanket.

“Thank goodness,” she whispered into the dark. “I was terrified of what I would do if you refused. I think I would have died of shame right on the spot.”

Lucian raised an eyebrow, his voice dry. “I’m fairly certain you should be feeling ashamed right now.”

Being rejected by a man, versus actually climbing into a man’s bed in the middle of the night—which one was supposed to carry more shame? Lucian genuinely couldn’t decipher the bizarre standards of noble Ursus etiquette.

He kept his posture rigid, playing the perfect gentleman and making absolutely no moves on the fragile girl beside him.

Natalia, however, had no such reservations. She actively closed the distance, pressing her soft frame directly against his chest. She had already shed her heavy winter coat, leaving her in nothing but a thin, slightly translucent uniform shirt.

Her pantyhose were gone as well, carelessly discarded on the floor near the door.

If Lucian were to open his eyes and turn on the light, he would be greeted by the sight of her scattered skirt and sheer stockings strewn across the floorboards—a visual that was incredibly dangerous for any man’s mental fortitude.

Yet she seemed entirely oblivious to the tension she was creating. She rested her forehead against his collarbone, letting out a long, trembling sigh that brushed warm air against his skin.

“I knew it. When I’m with you, Lord Lucian, I can finally breathe. From the very first moment I met you… when I held your hand, I felt this overwhelming sense of absolute security.”

Lucian let out a low chuckle. “What is this, some kind of dependency complex?”

He gently patted her back, keeping his touch light and strictly comforting, doing his absolute best to ignore the soft curves pressing into him. Considering the sheer amount of trauma these girls had endured over the past few days, he understood why she was acting so erratically. It was the only reason he hadn’t sent her back to her own room.

“Can you not feel safe around the others?” he asked quietly.

Natalia shook her head against his chest. “No.”

“I can’t forget the way they looked at me back in that hell,” she murmured, her voice hollow. “Every time I look at my friends, I am reminded that I am an incompetent, hypocritical woman. And I can’t stop the tears.”

She spoke with a chilling calmness, a clear sign that she had repeated these self-deprecating thoughts in her own mind a thousand times over.

When her fellow noble students were being dragged away and brutalized, she had frozen. Paralyzed by pure terror, she hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it. Objectively, no one had the right to criticize her for that. No one could reasonably demand a seventeen-year-old girl to suddenly become a hardened warrior.

But Natalia was the elected leader of the noble student council. That was her original sin.

Even among peers, the moment a hierarchy is established, expectations and heavy burdens naturally follow. When she failed to meet those expectations, when she failed to protect the people who looked up to her, resentment was the only natural outcome.

A person with thick skin would have shrugged off the psychological pressure. But a person with thick skin would never have accepted the mantle of leadership in the first place. Natalia had been raised on elite education; she possessed the deep-rooted consciousness of the upper class. Taking responsibility was carved into her bones.

That was why the guilt was eating her alive. Even if she masked it perfectly during the day, the cracks would inevitably show in the dark. And no one in her faction could save her from it.

She buried her face deeper into Lucian’s embrace, clinging to his shirt like a drowning woman holding a lifeline.

“Lord Lucian… how can I ever make amends? How do I kill this weak version of myself and become someone better?”

“That depends entirely on the person,” Lucian replied, his hand moving in a slow, rhythmic soothing motion across her shoulders.

“Everyone is dissatisfied with who they are. Disciplined people will bleed to change themselves, while carefree people will just muddle through the days. Neither path is wrong, as long as you can live with the reflection in the mirror. But if you are absolutely determined to change, then my advice is to find a role model.”

“A role model… like Zima?”

Lucian had deliberately brought up the most volatile of the bear cubs. The Winter General.

Sonya was sharp, brutally tough, and unapologetically brilliant. She made no effort to hide her eccentricities, living every moment with burning intensity. Her political commissar, Anna, had showered her with chuunibyou titles—’Winter General’, ‘Protector of the Weak’, ‘Bane of Bullies’.

In a normal world, if it were just schoolyard brawls and loud arguments, she would be nothing more than a delinquent high schooler. But in this blood-soaked, extreme environment, Zima had proven that the fire inside her was real. She had earned the title of General.

Lucian didn’t believe for a second that Zima felt no pressure. If she could slaughter her fellow students without a single shred of psychological burden, she wouldn’t be a leader; she would just be a natural-born psychopath.

He didn’t know the Ursus girl intimately, but he could confirm one absolute truth about her.

“Zima knows exactly what she wants,” Lucian said softly into the dark. “She wants to protect her crew. And to keep her people breathing, she is willing to pick up a fire axe and butcher anyone in her way. It has nothing to do with good or evil. It’s a terrifyingly simple resolve. That’s what makes her excellent.”

Silence stretched over the bed for a long moment.

“…Lord Lucian, you really admire Sonya, don’t you?”

Natalia bit her lip, a dark, complicated glint of resentment flashing in her eyes.

Her spirit had been completely shattered by the horrors of the school. She had been dragged from a lightless hell into a world of hope, and every single piece of that salvation had been handed to her by the man currently holding her. He was impossibly powerful, shrouded in mystery, and an absolute pillar of reliability. Yet, he didn’t carry the suffocating arrogance of the Ursus nobility. He was warm. Approachable.

He was the living embodiment of the hero who kicks down the dragon’s door to save the princess.

Of course she had fallen for him. What woman wouldn’t?

There was just one agonizing problem.

This hero wasn’t looking at her. He hadn’t carved a path through the burning city specifically for her sake. She wasn’t the princess of this story. She was just a background character, a nameless extra he had scooped up along the way.

The realization twisted a knot of awkward, burning jealousy deep in her chest. It made her skin feel too hot, her breathing too shallow.

Driven by a sudden, desperate need to prove she existed, she gave into the impulse.

Natalia shifted upward, her soft lips brushing against the sensitive skin of Lucian’s neck.

Chu.

A light, lingering kiss.

As Lucian’s body went completely rigid in surprise, she wrapped both of her arms tightly around his waist, burying her flushed face into his collar.

“Lord Lucian,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a dark, heavy heat. “I… I can.”