"You're dead, Leo," Art said.
No anger. No disappointment. He wasn't yelling at him. He was just stating a flat, mathematical fact.
"If I was a Lesser Stalker," the Old Man grunted. He slowly pulled his arms apart. The hardened leather of his heavy coat creaked loudly in the quiet clearing. "Your throat would be wide open right now. You'd be choking on your own blood bleeding into the dirt before you even noticed the wind stopped blowing."
Leo exhaled. A massive cloud of white steam plumed out of his mouth. He did the math on his heart rate and forced it down. He lowered his arm, but his fingers were shaking. Post-adrenaline tremor. He hated it. He scratched the side of the sheath twice trying to put the dagger away because his fine motor skills were compromised. He fumbled the safety strap three times before finally securing it. He was furious with his own lack of control.
"Grandpa!" Leo snapped. His voice went up an octave, which was incredibly humiliating. "You almost gave me a heart attack. Your stealth approach is absurd. Are you trying to kill me yourself before the monsters even get a turn?"
"Woods are for people who actually want to keep breathing," Art grunted. He was entirely unimpressed by the boy's panic attack.
He stepped right into the clearing. His massive boots didn't make a single sound. Leo watched his footwork. It was a perfect distribution of weight. Defying basic physics. A guy that massive shouldn't be able to step on dead leaves without snapping them.
"You marched out of Albion looking like a proper soldier. Back straight. Chin up," Art said. He was staring at the boy with brutal, heavy judgment. "Out here? You look like a lost kid looking for a bathroom. Your head is completely back in the city. You're walking in the Elinor, but your brain is still sitting in a tavern."
Leo stared down at the mud caked thick over his boots. The embarrassment burned his neck way worse than the cold air biting his face.
"It's different out here," Leo mumbled defensively. He kicked a wet leaf, instantly hating how childish and stupid the movement looked. "It's too much. The manor is safe. Ecatrice's dummies don't hit back. Out here... I don't know. The variables out here are entirely different. The environment is actively hostile. Everything is a potential threat vector."
"Good," Art said.
He wasn't even looking at Leo anymore. He was checking the dark trees, scanning the high angles, reading the shadows like a book. "Fear keeps a Level 1 from becoming fertilizer. It keeps you alert. But letting it make you clumsy? Shaking so hard you can't even sheathe your weapon? That's just a loud, messy way to die. Fear is supposed to make you sharp. You're letting it make you blunt and stupid."
Leo groaned loudly. He dropped his shoulders. The physiological crash from the scare was hitting his system hard. His muscles felt heavy, depleted of glycogen. His legs had this annoying, weak tremor to them.
"Grandpa, please," he pleaded, looking up at the imposing figure. "I've been doing those sword drills in the courtyard for weeks. Months. Look at my hands." He held out his palms, showing the rough skin. "Blisters on top of blisters. They bleed into my gloves when I swing. I just want to see normal people for a day. I want to see the other districts. Go to a market. Buy an apple. Why do we keep coming out to this miserable, freezing mud pit? What's the point of this?"
"The world out there," Art said, his voice going dead hard, dropping a full octave, "is for people who can actually survive it, Leo. You polish your skills in the dirt so you don't get gutted in the street in those shiny cities." He waved a thick hand at the black trees surrounding them. "A city is just stacked rocks. The wild teaches you why we had to stack them in the first place."
"But Ecatrice said my core is stabilizing! She said I'm strong!" Leo whined. He was smart, way smarter than anyone else his age, and he absolutely hated being treated like a fragile piece of glass when he knew exactly how much power was sitting dormant in his chest.
Art offered a short, humorless smile.
"That witch," he chuckled, shaking his head. "She calls you strong if you survive her chemical trials without going insane and biting your own tongue off. She wants lab rats. Variables for her magical math. I want a warrior who doesn't end up as monster crap by dawn. She likes test results on paper. I like you breathing."
"Being a test subject in a warm room sounds mathematically superior to standing in freezing mud," Leo muttered. He wrapped his arms around his torso to minimize heat loss. His core temperature was dropping, causing him to shiver violently. He hated looking so vulnerable.
Art stopped walking. He turned around slowly.
The grandpa routine died completely. The air in the clearing suddenly felt incredibly heavy. Like a physical weight pressing down right on Leo's lungs. The ambient mana around them went ice cold. Leo's mouth dried up instantly. He shouldn't have talked back. He knew better.
"You want a deal, kid?" Art asked. Voice dangerously low. "Fine. Let's make a deal. We camp up there on the ridge." He pointed a thick finger to a steep, rocky incline mostly hidden in the thick fog. "You do well tonight. Pay attention. Don't mess up. You pass, you get two days in Albion. Total freedom."
Leo blinked, caught totally off guard. "What?"
"But," Art held up a finger, his face deadly serious, "it's your vacation paid in advance. No books. No chores. No Ecatrice making you drink weird potions that taste like copper. No training with me. Just the city. Walk around. Eat all the street garbage you want. Look at the girls. Whatever."
The heavy exhaustion evaporated. Just gone. Leo's brain dumped a massive load of pure relief into his system. His gray eyes went wide. Two whole days without the pressure? Just being a normal kid for forty-eight hours?