Dimensional Descent

Leonel knew that it wasn't his ice control that had gotten Mistress Oliidark's attention. It might have caused her to perk up a bit, but it wasn't until he displayed his Spear Force that she decided against killing him and took him in.

For all Leonel knew, if he hadn't learned this way of the spear, he would have been killed on the spot, never to see the next day.

It was quite a sobering thought.

A part of Leonel still believed that he would have found a way to escape. But as a person who claimed to be so rational, these thoughts of his were wholly irrational. He didn't even realize that he had had such inner thoughts until Aina pointed them out to him, but now it felt so obvious.

It was no wonder his dad laughed at him when he talked about being a King.

A King, of course, needed confidence. But didn't that confidence need to be built on something?

Leonel thought that he was. After all, his mind was his most powerful asset. He believed that he could think and smart his way out of any situation even if he lacked the raw strength. Even his Dream Class Ratings were based on this.

But wasn't that all theoretical?

Leonel opened his eyes and looked out of the window. There was no sky, no clouds, hardly any sunlight… It was just a wall, a wall to what was probably another big house or mansion in the estate, an estate that was essentially nothing more than a cage to him.

Leonel suddenly remembered that day on the battlefield.

Heavy rain fell from the skies. One by one, friends that he had held so dear for two years fell, their blood mixing into the mud and returning to the earth. Every death was like an added weight on his shoulder, a deeper sort of promise that he swore to keep.

But what if that was the real world?

would be too

was out there. The woman he loved was out there. His brothers were out there. And he was here because he was too weak to leave to go to

one day we'd all die, something that quite a scary proposition, entering an unknown abyss on the

believed himself to be some logically superior being. Even his moral compass was kept dear to him as though he was blessing the world with his kindness. He couldn't find a reason to place the worth of his life above another, so he

made him sound like a prick when you put it like that. And maybe he

he wasn't much

he experienced in the Valiant Heart Zone, that day when all his thinking, all his planning, all his logic, all his intelligence, all his smarts was worth not a

seemed to have just

why? All because he could just revive

when he thought about it. He couldn't find a reason to place one life above another, but didn't this Tablet that could revive the dead do so easily? Wasn't there a different energy requirement for reviving each

still care then? His life was worth more than theirs and

Tablet could obviously accomplish something he could not, so clearly it knew better than him about the secrets of life. Wasn't that the logical conclusion? With

had he

turned his head away from the window and closed his eyes once more. He took

never really hesitated to give worth to

would hesitate to say which parent or child they loved more, and yet Leonel felt pretty clearly that

loved was married off to another man,

things that were clearly beyond their means, and yet he tried to do so

didn't fit, stubbornly and arrogantly jamming them in again and again, yet still being unsatisfied with the

did all of this mean? What was the answer? Where had he gone wrong? Or

have an

was all too complicated, even for him. He

again, to see his mother,