Chapter 5: You Reap what You Sow

After satisfying his physiological needs, Leon returned to camp looking much more relaxed.

In truth, he’d been holding it in for a while. If he had stuck around any longer, he might’ve embarrassed himself in front of Fiora. So naturally, he left first.

Because, well—when you like someone, you’ve gotta look cool. You can’t exactly do that while red-eyed and flustered.

“Alright… time to head back. Fiora’s probably still waiting for me,” he muttered with a casual shrug.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Fiora was finishing her preparations.

Her magical trap was complete. All she had to do now… was lure the perverted swordsman into it.

“Once I get rid of that bastard, I’m going back to my mountain to laze around and wait for death in peace!”

She’d done everything—camouflaged the spell array with deceptive illusions so it wouldn’t be noticeable even to a high-level mage.
It was practically foolproof, especially against someone like Leon, who was a swordsman and not a mage.

To ensure her trap’s success, Fiora threw a piece of bait by the campfire:

Her underwear.

And then she, now dressed in just her other pair of underwear, crouched in a frosty bush, letting snow cover her to reduce heat signatures. She waited like a professional predator.

“Fiora… you’re truly a terrible person,” she whispered to herself. “To sacrifice your own dignity for this trap… I respect the hustle.”

Time ticked by.

Then—there he was.

Leon re-entered the camp.

Fiora’s eyes widened. This was it. Her breath caught in her throat.

Judging by his face, he didn’t look relaxed at all. Which only confirmed it—he’d definitely done something evil just now.

The scumbag!

Leon glanced around.

“Huh? Where’s Fiora?”

He bent down and picked up the discarded underwear.

At that moment, Fiora initiated the countdown in her head.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Showtime!

“Absolute Zero Cage—Activate!”
“Ten Thousand Year Ice Coffin—Engage!”
“Ice Dragon King’s Shackles—Seal!!”

Fiora jumped out from behind the bush, shouting her incantations with righteous fury.

But nothing happened.

Absolutely. Nothing.

The spell array beneath Leon’s feet just stared back at her, dumb and quiet.

“……!”

Leon, meanwhile, froze—not from magic, but from the shock of seeing Fiora standing there in nothing but underwear. His eyes widened.

Fiora, too, realized her appearance—and the unbearable shame came crashing down.

Still, she couldn’t give up. She shouted the final line, voice trembling:

“The Song of the Deathly Silence of All Things—Cast!!”

…Still nothing.

Fiora stood frozen, her brain completely failing to process the situation.

Wait, I triple-checked that circle! There’s no reason for it not to work! What the hell is happening?!

“Fiora,” Leon said with a sigh, turning away politely and holding out her clothes. “Put your clothes on.”

“……”

Her whole face was red. She was already shy by nature—and now she was standing in her underwear, magic failing, being stared at by a human male she couldn’t even hit properly.

Like a scolded puppy, she shuffled over, grabbed her clothes, and got dressed in silence.

The two stood back to back in awkward stillness.

And then—

The magic circle finally lit up.

In a glorious delayed activation, the array sucked in all of Fiora’s mana like a black hole.

Leon’s eyes widened as he felt the immense magical pressure around them.

Fiora, now drenched in sweat, looked panicked.

“Quick! Deactivate the circle!”

“I—I can’t!” she stammered. “Once the spell is cast, it’s on autopilot! I didn’t even know there was a delay function!”

Leon, looking calm and cool as always, replied, “My gear can delay lower-level spell activations. It’s an anti-mage function.”

“…My human-form power is weaker than Dragon King level, so of course the spell level is lower than yours…”

Fiora finally realized the truth—and nearly exploded from sheer indignation.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT EARLIER?!”

“Who just walks around explaining all their abilities like a tutorial NPC?”

“This is all your fault!! You’re the one who’s going to get us both killed!”

“Why do I feel like I’m being blamed here?”

As the two bickered, a blizzard descended from above, sealing them in an icy coffin.
Chains of frost locked them tightly together, and the entire campsite became an inescapable prison of doom.

Then, as the spell reached its peak—
BOOM.
The magic exploded from within, shattering the ice coffin into a thousand sparkling shards.

Sometime later…

“Don’t ever try something like that again,” Leon said coldly.

“Uuu… okay…” Fiora looked down, her silver hair drooping like a sad puppy’s ears.

“What’ll you do if you repeat the same mistake?”

“Live a normal 9-to-5 life… get a job… contribute to society… and stop being a useless NEET…”

She said it like she was being tortured by her own soul. For someone with her level of social anxiety, it was basically the death penalty.

“Good.”

Leon nodded, satisfied.

In the end, he had jumped in front of her and absorbed most of the damage during the explosion.

This guy really does have main-character plot armor…

Fiora stared at him with a complicated expression.

After all that, the guy was barely scratched.

A total cheat.

Truly terrifying.