Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 97

Chapter 97: The Winter General

“Um, excuse me… Your Excellency?”

While Lucian was still weighing their options, Anna took the initiative to break the heavy silence. Her voice was polite and carefully reserved, though a fragile thread of hope trembled beneath her words.

“You came from outside the campus, right? Does that mean… the tragedy is over? Is it safe out there?”

Lucian shook his head, his expression unreadable. “No. It’s infinitely worse beyond these gates.”

“Reunion has completely occupied the city. The Ursus military hasn’t lifted a finger to intervene. Chernobog is already a dead city.”

His blunt assessment struck the girls like a physical blow, instantly shattering the tiny, fragile sprouts of hope they had just managed to nurture. Muffled, suppressed sobs began to echo through the ruined corridor.

Anna lowered her eyes, her shoulders slumping in quiet devastation. “Is that so? I understand… Then, why did you come here?”

“I told you, I came to help.”

Lucian met her gaze steadily. “My name is Lucian. Just think of me as a passing savior.”

“Pack your things. Anyone who wants to live, follow me. I’ll escort you to a safe zone far away from Chernobog. Especially you, Sonya,” he added, shifting his attention to the fierce Ursus girl. “I promised your mother I’d bring you back in one piece.”

In truth, Lucian had only promised to “confirm Sonya’s situation.” But in such a brutal, extreme environment—unless Reunion had completely lost their minds and locked the students up specifically for a sick battle royale—it was practically a given that a seventeen-year-old girl would be suffering a miserable fate.

Sonya, of course, was the glaring exception to that rule.

The sheer, imposing ferocity with which she wielded that bloodstained fire axe, standing her ground to protect her companions amidst absolute hell, had genuinely earned Lucian’s admiration.

So, he deliberately exaggerated his mandate to give them an anchor. “I was entrusted with your rescue. Those who are willing to trust me, follow my orders and we move as one. I won’t force anyone who doesn’t want to come. You’re perfectly free to stay here and wait for the Reunion mobs to come watch your little tragicomedy for entertainment.”

He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat before adding, “Or wait until they get bored of watching and decide to actively invade you.”

The noble girls, who had just narrowly escaped being violated by the rioting men, let out terrified shrieks, their faces draining of all color.

Through the tactical earpiece, Exusiai’s voice buzzed with immediate disapproval. ‘I’m telling you, girls are incredibly delicate creatures, you know! Couldn’t you have comforted them a little more gently?!’

“Are you sure about that?”

Lucian’s lips curled into a wicked, teasing smirk. “I suppose I could gently comfort them right now. I could feed them, pour them drinks, and take careful care of their every need. To make sure they sleep soundly, I could even hold them in my arms all night.”

“If you don’t have any objections, I’d be more than happy to oblige. These girls are all quite pretty, after all. It would be my absolute pleasure.”

‘…’

Miss Exusiai firmly opted for selective deafness.

Reality was just that pragmatic. Even if it were her beloved sister-in-arms Texas, Exusiai would absolutely explode with jealousy if she had to watch Lucian holding another woman. Let alone a group of young, adorable high school girls… Exusiai’s dark side was practically bubbling over the comms.

Lucian’s internal thoughts, however, were entirely clinical.

These girls were currently in a state of severe emotional flux. It would be ridiculously easy to take advantage of their vulnerability. Literally speaking, Lucian could probably charm them all into his bed within three minutes.

But he wasn’t quite that despicable.

He just needed to aggressively stimulate their survival instincts to force them into rapid action.

Turning back to the axe-wielding leader, he asked, “We don’t have time to waste. Sonya, who else in this school do you think is worth bringing? Go gather them, quickly.”

Without a word, Sonya hoisted her fire axe over her shoulder.

“Only the few of us left here are still sane,” she spat, her voice dripping with contempt. “The rest of this school is either noble scum or commoner scum.”

She leveled a harsh glare at the shivering aristocrats huddled nearby. “If you ask me, we shouldn’t bring those parasites either.”

Natalya immediately stepped in front of the accused group, her voice laced with desperate pleading. “Sonya! Please, don’t be like that! The noble boys are all dead, and there’s no one left to protect them! If we leave them behind, you know exactly what kind of terrible things will happen to them… For the sake of us all being women, I beg you…”

Sonya raised a skeptical eyebrow, her tone biting. “Noble women and commoner women. Tell me, in your eyes, are we even the same species?”

…Natalya choked on her words, completely silenced.

The bitter irony was that Sonya was entirely correct. The nobility had never once looked at the commoners as their equals, let alone the same species.

Even Natalya herself had undergone a brutal awakening. When she saw her peers being pinned to the ground by desperate men, their expensive clothes torn away while they remained utterly powerless to resist, she realized the horrifying truth: the title of ‘noble’ was nothing but an empty word. It offered zero protection when the world burned.

Sensing the suffocating tension in the air, Lucian stepped forward and lightly patted Sonya’s shoulder.

“Enough people have died today. Let’s not add any more bodies to the pile.”

He gave her a knowing chuckle. “Sonya, you’re the protector of the weak, aren’t you? The great Winter General. Look at those girls trembling over there; they can’t even meet your gaze. Do you think they’re strong, or do you think they’re weak?”

Caught in the inescapable logic of Lucian’s argument, Sonya found herself entirely speechless. Irritated, she shook her shoulder, roughly brushing his hand away.

“Lada. Rosalind,” she barked ungraciously at her fellow Ursus Student Self-Governing Group members. “Keep an eye on those women. Don’t let them pollute my line of sight.”

Despite her harsh words, the tsundere leader had yielded. Beneath the aggressive exterior, she was actually quite reasonable.

Natalya let out a massive sigh of relief, turning her tear-filled eyes toward Lucian with overwhelming gratitude.

“Lord Lucian, thank you! Thank you so much!”

She spun around to face the others, her voice trembling with excitement. “Everyone, Lord Lucian saved us! Please, show him your proper gratitude!”

At her command, the noble girls—who had been mere inches away from being defiled by the rioters—swarmed around Lucian like ducklings.

Whether it was the classic suspension bridge effect, or simply the fact that Lucian was naturally handsome, possessing a Holy Son’s innate charismatic aura that acted like a homing beacon for teenage girls…

Whatever the cause, the girls gazed up at him with painfully adoring, tear-streaked eyes, looking so delicate they might melt.

Exusiai’s voice crackled through the earpiece, dripping with pure, unadulterated vinegar. ‘In the end, it always comes back to this… you walking aphrodisiac, perverted Holy Son, absolute lolicon.’

“Hey, that last one crossed a line. Now you’re just throwing baseless slander.”

Lucian felt deeply wronged. Truly, deeply wronged.

Regardless of the banter, the situation was finally stabilized. Lucian managed to soothe the highly emotional girls and organize them according to his escape plan.

The group consisted of four members from the Winter General’s crew, plus five noble ladies including Natalya. Nine in total.

In a stealth extraction, hiding non-combatants and clearing a safe path was paramount. This amount of dead weight was already pushing the absolute limit of what he could safely escort.

Outside their temporary haven, the rest of the school was descending into total madness as the fires spread. Manic shouting, hysterical crying, deranged laughter, and the brutal sounds of slaughter echoed from every direction.

Hell on earth couldn’t possibly look worse than this.

A cold, heavy malice settled in Lucian’s chest toward whoever had orchestrated this massacre. He was genuinely furious.

But now was not the time to vent his anger. His absolute priority was getting these girls to a safe zone.

From her vantage point in the sky, Exusiai acted as their overwatch, feeding Lucian safe coordinates and guiding them away from the most chaotic slaughter zones.

Lucian led the trembling procession to the outer perimeter of the school, physically lifting the girls one by one over the high iron fence.

Just as he set the last one down, a sickeningly sticky, malicious gaze locked onto the back of his neck.

Instinct flared. He roared into the night:

“Zima! Get down!”

In that split second of life-or-death urgency, Lucian bypassed her real name entirely, shouting the imposing moniker of the Winter General.

And Sonya—no, Zima—reacted with terrifying speed.

Her body moved before her conscious mind could process the command. With a sweeping kick and a brutal shove, she knocked the surrounding girls flat into the dirt!

A fraction of a second later, a glowing purple arrow shrieked out of the darkness, detonating violently in the exact spot Lucian was standing!