Killing intent

"And that will be all for today," Leon muttered, falling back onto the bedding and releasing an exhausted sight.

'I don't think I spoke so much in a single day since like... my academy days?' he thought, rummaging through his memories just to prove his mental point before himself.

"So you basically enabled me to use mana, something I would otherwise have to find another teacher to achieve..." Sarah muttered under her nose, speaking to herself to organize her thoughts.

Leon's lesson consisted only of what he considered the fundamentals of magical knowledge. This, along with the test he conducted on her earlier came up as the absolute total of perks he could offer.

'I can't talk to her about advanced mana constructs, she would knowledge necessary to get a degree in physics and engineering to grasp it,' he thought, glancing over at the girl only to shake his head and turn his eyes towards the ceiling.

The darkness of the night passed several hours ago, bringing them well into the new day. And with the exception of the short window of time when Sarah went out to fetch food for them, Leon spend all this time doing nothing but explaining stuff that he would expect a grade-schooler to understand back in his home world.

'Advanced constructs are no-go. Teaching her the nature of mana would only make it harder for her to learn about how mana works in this world. And without the advanced mana constructs, she won't understand a thing from any of the nine schools of magic,' Leon thought, running through the list of all the magical knowledge he obtained back in the academy.

The bloodmancer then heaved a deep sigh.

"It's not easy teaching someone from scratch," he muttered, only to have Sarah cast a curious glance at him.

He then glanced back at the girl and sighed again. "Okay," he said, turning around to face the girl before thinking hard about what else was there left for him to teach her. "I seriously can't think of anything else that I could teach you without cutting your potential short," he announced only to raise up and sit on the bed's edge. "Now, I believe it's time to get into the topic you dislike talking about."

"It's about my..." Sarah spoke up, only to cut her words short and turn her head around, checking out the surroundings. She then rose up from her knees on which she spent nearly half the day before leaning over Leon's ear. "My bloodline, right?"

Leon didn't bother to use any words to reply, opting to nod his head instead.

'From how she acts around this topic, it's not something to speak carelessly about out in the open,' he put the obvious into thought to have an easier time remembering it.

Whether the girl's worries were warranted or not, it didn't matter. Since she wanted to keep her ancestry under wraps, Leon had no wish to do her in by stupidly revealing it to the world.

"I only know one thing for sure," Sarah said, averting her eyes a little. "And it's that people of my... situation, are the only ones that can give birth to..." the girl looked around again before repeating the same movements as before as she neared her mouth to Leon's ear.

"Give birth to heroes," she whispered.

Leon froze.

His blood boiled, upsetting the mana contained within.

'No, don't jump to conclusions,' the bloodmancer reminded himself. 'The mana works differently in this world. Why should I assume the word hero has the same meaning here as it did back home?'

Leon took a deep breath, calming down the fury that raged in his soul. And then, he took another.

"Tell me," he finally got himself into a state where he could speak without cursing the world and everything in it. "What does make one a hero?" he asked.

"A hero?" Sarah opened up her eyes wide, looking at Leon as if he was some sort of a child lost in the mist. "Isn't it obvious?" she then asked, leaning her head to the side. "It's all about them having a heroic spirit!"

The time stopped for Leon. The blood ran right to his brain, supplying it with an ample amount of oxygen.

And for the first time since he was faced with the threat of dying from the golden light, he unknowingly released his bloodlust.

"Aaa..." The pressure squeezed the air out of Sarah's lungs, causing her to make a weird sound. She then fell down on her ass, once again bending her knees in a way that couldn't be healthy.

'Leon! Calm the fuck down!' the bloodmancer attempted to persuade himself. 'What if this heroic spirit also means something else?!'

The first time Leon tried to use this kind of reasoning, he could convince himself. But for two words to be related in the exactly same way between the worlds and only for the other one to mean something else? The chances for that happening were...

Too damn low.

'Should I just kill her?' Leon seriously considered the option. 'If she can birth more heroes, then I will do this world a favor by stopping that!'

A brutal way of cutting the womb out of the girl's stomach appeared before Leon's eyes.

The tears appeared in Sarah's eyes. The pressure of Leon's killing intent made her unable to breathe. At this moment, all she could do was stare at Leon and accept her fate.

'I'm not here to fix this world.'

A single sentence appeared in Leon's mind.

And just like that, his killing intent vanished into the thin air.

"You need to leave," he then said, staring down at the trembling girl with only coldness in his eyes. "Leave, before I won't be able to stop myself from killing you."