Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Crownslayer, You’re Just Giving Yourself AwayYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Little Bear had completely misread the situation between Lucian and Crownslayer.

Honestly, you couldn’t blame the child. Just moments ago, the two of them had been pressed flush against each other in the narrow shadows of a back alley, hiding like a pair of guilty thieves. Anyone stumbling upon that tangled mess of limbs and hushed breaths would have jumped to the exact same conclusion.

While the misunderstanding was perfectly logical, the fallout was proving disastrous.

“This is the very first time Brother Lucian has come to my house to play!” Little Bear chirped, her round Ursus ears twitching upright with pure joy. She clamped one small hand around Lucian’s fingers and the other around Crownslayer’s, practically skipping down the street. “I’ve been telling my mom all about you, Brother Lucian, and she said she really wanted to meet you too!”

Lucian managed a polite, albeit stiff, smile. Crownslayer, remarkably, was maintaining the facade of a perfectly ordinary, gentle older sister.

But the moment Little Bear looked away, the Lupo assassin shot Lucian a glare laced with pure, unadulterated murder.

“Explain yourself. Now,” she hissed through a forced smile. “This brat has the completely wrong idea.”

“Is this my fault?” Lucian replied, his tone infuriatingly even. “If you want to clear the air, be my guest.”

He wasn’t the least bit intimidated. As the old saying went, a man already standing in the fire doesn’t fear a few sparks. He had built up an immunity to this exact scenario ages ago, back when Xiao Ling and the other slum kids had loudly declared him to be Madam Ch’en’s boyfriend.

That beautiful Lungmen Guard Department officer might possess a razor-sharp tongue and a notoriously strict demeanor, but beneath the uniform, she was just as soft-hearted as he was. Ch’en frequently patrolled the slums, quietly dropping off toys and snacks for the Infected children. Since Lucian did the exact same thing, their paths crossed constantly. Naturally, the precocious Xiao Ling had assumed they were a couple.

That particular rumor had long since been squashed, though Xiao Ling still used it to mercilessly tease Ch’en whenever she visited. So, as far as Lucian was concerned, juggling a few more baseless relationship rumors was water off a duck’s back.

But for Crownslayer, or rather, Miss Lyudmila, the situation was sheer agony.

It would have been manageable if only a clueless child had gotten the wrong idea. The real nightmare was that her own subordinates had bought into the illusion hook, line, and sinker.

With Little Bear present, the undercover Reunion Movement operatives couldn’t exactly break character to ask their commander what was going on. Instead, they simply trailed behind the trio, shooting Lyudmila highly suggestive, knowing looks. The dark, liver-colored flush creeping up the assassin’s neck absolutely refused to fade.

Lucian was thoroughly enjoying the free entertainment, though one detail genuinely surprised him.

As they walked, tethered together by the little Ursus girl, he leaned close to the assassin’s ear. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to play the role of a sweet neighborhood girl just to get close to the Infected. Why not just stand on a soapbox and announce you’re planning to riot in Chernobog?”

Lyudmila shot him a venomous sideways glance. “That works on adults. How exactly am I supposed to tell a kid the truth? My cover would be blown in five minutes.”

“Fair point,” Lucian conceded.

As an Infected, Little Bear carried the weight of a tragic past, but she was still far too young to truly comprehend the bitter, systemic hatred of the world. If someone tried to explain the violent ideology of the Reunion Movement to her, she would inevitably babble about it to her best friends like Xiao Ling. The secret would spread like wildfire.

So, Crownslayer had simply offered her real name and adopted the persona of a kind, older sister. It was a flawless disguise.

Lucian looked at her with a newfound sliver of respect. “You’re actually great with kids. I couldn’t tell you were such a good woman beneath all that edge.”

“…Huh?”

Lyudmila’s face instantly twisted into a grimace of deep disgust, looking as though she might actually dry-heave right there on the pavement.

But the infamous Crownslayer was still far too naive when it came to dealing with him.

Before she could formulate an escape plan, the excited little girl had dragged them both into her modest home and practically shoved them into chairs at the dining table. Lyudmila had desperately hoped to find a polite excuse to slip away, or, at the very least, expected Lucian to make a tactical retreat.

Instead, she discovered that this man’s skin was thicker than a Catastrophe meteorite.

Not only did he stay for dinner, but he actually commandeered the kitchen.and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Under Lyudmila’s incredulous, wide-eyed stare, the former Holy Son of Laterano rolled up his sleeves and began expertly chopping vegetables, completely surrounded by a gaggle of undercover Reunion operatives and local Infected. And he was infuriatingly good at it. The rhythmic, rapid-fire sound of his knife work echoed through the small apartment.

‘My brain must be Infected…’ Lyudmila thought, her face completely ashen. The hand gripping her chopsticks felt entirely numb, detached from her own body.

The gathered Reunion members, operating under the firm belief that Lucian was their commander’s secret boyfriend, were treating him like royalty. They crowded around the stove, enthusiastically calling him Big Brother.

And Lucian was eating it up.

Just an hour ago, he had been trading lethal blows with her in a dark alley. Now, he was laughing and swapping cooking tips with a radical Infected terrorist cell. His acting skills were terrifyingly flawless. If Lyudmila didn’t already know for a fact that he wasn’t Infected, she would have sworn he was a veteran comrade.

‘Please, just let this end…’ Her stomach cramped with phantom pain. She couldn’t even taste the masterful dishes he had placed in front of her.

The lively atmosphere hit a sudden, jarring speedbump when one of her subordinates, riding the high of the excellent meal, spoke without thinking.

“Big Brother Lucian, your cooking is insane!” the operative gushed, his mouth half-full. “I swear, even when we use the exact same ingredients, the slop our logistics squad churns out tastes like pig feed that’s been rotting in a damp warehouse for a whole season!”

A second operative elbowed him. “What kind of gross metaphor is that? You make it sound like you’ve actually eaten rotting pig feed.”

“I mean, I have?” the first man replied, blinking in surprise. “Last winter, back before Patriot liberated the originium mine I was slaving in, the wardens shipped all the decent rations out. Anyone who complained got a pickaxe to the skull. A few of us only survived by hiding in the livestock feed warehouse and… ah. Sorry. Probably not the best dinner table talk.”

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.

It was a common enough conversational hazard within the Reunion Movement. Every single one of them was a brutally oppressed Infected; they all carried horrifying scars. When they brought up these nightmares, they weren’t fishing for pity. It was simply their twisted version of normal small talk, the equivalent of an ordinary citizen sharing an embarrassing childhood memory. There was always someone who had suffered worse.

Lyudmila remained perfectly still, silently biting down on the tip of her chopstick as she locked her gaze on Lucian.

She wanted to see exactly how he would handle this. If he offered them cheap, condescending pity, she would instantly mark him as an enemy. She would find a way to slit his throat the moment they were alone.

Instead, Lucian set his bowl down and nodded, his expression shifting into one of quiet, heavy understanding.

“True starvation is a terrifying thing,” he said softly. “I know the feeling. When I first fled my homeland, I ended up wandering the barren wilderness for nearly a month. I had no idea where the nearest settlement was, or when the next Catastrophe might roll in and wipe me off the map. There was nothing out there but endless desert, jagged gobi rocks, and the massive, crushing tread marks left behind by mobile cities. I survived by digging up raw cacti with my bare hands and boiling them in a rusted pot with a hole in the bottom. It was… desperate times.”

The operative’s eyes widened. “Whoa! Big Brother Lucian, you’ve been through hell too!”

The shared trauma instantly shattered the awkward tension. The Infected crowded closer, their faces softening with genuine empathy as they peppered him with concerned questions.

Lyudmila was so stunned her piece of braised pork slipped from her chopsticks and splattered onto the table.

‘What is going on?’she screamed internally.’You aren’t even Infected! Why are you making your past sound so utterly miserable? Fled your homeland? Why the hell did you flee?!’

Another Infected leaned in, curiosity burning in his eyes. “Most of us here are from Ursus. We’ve hardly ever seen a Sankta like you, Brother Lucian. Your country is Laterano, right? Is it really that bad for the Infected over there too?”

Lucian nodded solemnly, his tone carrying the weight of absolute truth. “It is. Laterano has zero tolerance for the Infected. The moment someone contracts Oripathy, they are immediately deported. And it’s even more ruthless for the Sankta themselves. It doesn’t matter how high your rank or status was, the second those originium crystals appear, you are stripped of your citizenship and exiled. The lucky ones manage to scrape by in foreign lands. Those who refuse to leave, who try to fight back… they are dealt with by the Notarial Hall.” He offered them a grim, sympathetic smile. “But, honestly, it’s still a paradise compared to the frozen hell of Ursus. You’ve all had it incredibly hard.”

Little Bear, swinging her legs under the table, enthusiastically chimed in. “Mhm, mhm! The Ursus mines were so, so cold! Nobody had warm clothes, and Mommy and Daddy had to dig for shiny stones all day and night… but I’m super happy here in Lungmen! I get to eat the yummy char siu buns Brother Lucian makes every single day!”

The dark shadow over the conversation instantly lifted. Lucian chuckled, his eyes crinkling with genuine warmth as he pulled the little Ursus girl into a one-armed hug, affectionately ruffling her round ears. They looked exactly like a real, loving family.

Lyudmila sat frozen in her chair.

She stared at the man laughing with her subordinates, her gaze incredibly complex. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t see through him.You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.