Limon snapped his eyes open.
At the same time, he drew the sword by his bedside.
Maintaining a posture that could respond to a surprise attack at any moment, Limon spoke in a low voice.
“Who is it?”
It was more of a warning than a question.
It was an ultimatum, telling anyone who dared to approach him carelessly to be prepared to be cut down by his blade.
These were the words of a Sword Master, imbued with a chilling killing intent that even a Monarch could not ignore.
The person’s response to the question was simple.
“It is room service.”
“…What service?”
“Room service. I have brought your breakfast.”
Limon blinked blankly for a moment at the response from beyond the door, which was more polite than he had expected.
He looked around the room.
A large bed, an even larger room, carpets on the floor, and paintings on the walls.
After taking a slow look at the interior that gave off a luxurious atmosphere, Limon finally relaxed his tension.
‘Ah, right. This was the Leviathan Hotel, wasn’t it?’
He wondered if habits were truly terrifying things.
Even though a few days had already passed since he started staying at the Leviathan, Limon let out a sigh at his own foolishness for waking up and drawing his sword once again.
His head knew he was safe.
The problem was that his body, having spent years fighting the Seven Dragons Society, perceived this place as being in the middle of enemy territory.
“May I come in?”
“Ah, sure.”
*Click.*
Limon put away his sword.
As if he had been waiting, an old man in a suit, Youin, pushed a wagon into the room.
He didn’t seem shaken at all, even though he saw Limon holding a sword in one hand.
It was as if he had grown accustomed to this.
He calmly prepared breakfast on the table.
He laid out silver utensils wrapped in napkins and set out hot pumpkin soup, bacon, and toast topped with a sunny-side-up egg.
He even poured lemon water.
It was like a video with the sound turned off.
Watching Youin prepare breakfast without making a single sound or presence, Limon clicked his tongue.
‘This is why I can’t help but be on edge.’
Those who didn’t know better might just be impressed.
They would say that his clean movements, which didn’t make any noise, were a model for all service industries.
However, Limon knew.
That silence wasn’t for the convenience of the customer; it was the result of training to thoroughly hide one’s presence to approach and handle a target.
It was only natural.
This was none other than the Leviathan Hotel.
Before it was the world’s best hotel, it was the nest of the Black Dragon Clan.
That was why Limon spoke sarcastically as he bit into his toast.
“Is it okay for the General Manager of the hotel to be doing room service himself like this?”
“Providing special service to special guests is also the job of the General Manager.”
“Well, I’m honored.”
“The honor is mine.”
He said he never expected to receive Limon as a guest.
Limon glanced at Youin, unable to tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere because of his polite attitude.
He grumbled inwardly that the Black Dragon Clan was difficult to deal with as he finished swallowing the toast he was chewing.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s a special service or what, but I’ll admit the food is delicious.”
“Thank you for enjoying it.”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the chef who cooked this.”
“That is why I should be the one to thank you.”
“Huh?”
After blinking once, Limon looked back and forth between the empty plate he had cleared and Youin, then asked tentatively.
“Was this… did you make this?”
“As I mentioned, providing special services is also the job of the General Manager.”
“Damn it. Isn’t it enough for a General Manager to be good at management? Why are you so good at cooking too?”
Limon frowned without realizing it.
The crispness of the toast.
The gold of the sunny-side-up egg. Even the delicate seasoning of salt.
The toast, whose exquisite skill stood out more precisely because it didn’t go through a special cooking process, was clearly the work of a top-class chef.
Youin didn’t act proud.
He simply replied calmly, as if this was just a trivial talent.
“When you live for a long time, you tend to develop various skills.”
“……Are you being sarcastic right now? Are you calling me an old man who only learned how to cut things despite living to this age?”
“How could that be?”
“Sure, I bet.”
He wondered if this was truly fitting for a General Manager.
While snorting at Youin’s polite sarcasm, Limon picked up the bowl of pumpkin soup and gulped it down.
Even if he was a bit annoyed, there was no reason to refuse the prepared meal as long as it wasn’t poisoned.
After finishing his simple meal and rinsing his mouth with lemon water, Limon asked as if he had suddenly remembered.
“Where is the Princess?”
“She has gone out.”
“It’s only 6:00 AM. She’s busy from the morning.”
“The amount of work she has to handle urgently has increased, thanks to a certain someone.”
He was pointing out that Li Qingwei had become busy because of him.
“Why didn’t you raise your subordinates better? If there were people she could entrust work to, she would have been more comfortable.”
Limon’s words hit home, suggesting that Li Qingwei was moving around busily because she couldn’t trust them.
“I regret that point as well, but there are certain circumstances unique to our clan that the Princess must resolve herself.”
It was a counter-attack, implying that it wasn’t something an outsider like him should speak of.
“That’s a shame. If we had already held the wedding, I could have helped her.”
This was a verbal blow, reminding him that if he married Li Qingwei, his status would be higher than Youin’s.
It was truly a battle between a dragon and a tiger.
Even though they weren’t holding swords, it was a scene of sharp wit where they didn’t hesitate to drive poisonous fangs into each other through their words.
However, compared to the harsh conversation, the atmosphere between the two was calm.
No, it was more than calm.
Both Limon and Youin were veterans of the world.
To those who had experienced countless real battles where their heads could be blown off in the blink of an eye and had become able to drive a knife into a heart while smiling, this level of bickering was just a light joke.
After chatting harmoniously for a moment, Youin cleared the empty dishes once Limon finished his meal and politely asked.
“What is your schedule for today?”
“Schedule? What kind of schedule would I have here?”
Limon snorted lightly.
He then spoke of the only schedule he had been repeating for the past few days.
“I should go do my morning training.”
***
He swung his sword.
Slowly rather than quickly.
Softly, as if pushing away clouds.
Yet, heavily, as if holding a rock.
It moved so slowly that it seemed to have stopped altogether, yet it never stopped for a moment.
The fluidity that continued endlessly was truly a piece of art.
It was a Blunt Sword that contained the aesthetics of extreme slowness, making it impossible to take one’s eyes off it once seen.
“Ah, dammit.”
However, the owner of that sword, Limon—who had been silently swinging his sword for four hours since finishing breakfast—stopped his sword with a curse.
After sheathing his sword and wiping his sweat with a towel, he frowned deeply.
“Is this not working either?”
It was a strange thing.
He wasn’t talking about the situation of training with a sword.
For Limon, swordsmanship training was a daily routine.
Unless he was exceptionally busy, it was a part of his life that he had done for several hours every day.
The problem was Limon’s expression.
It would be one thing if he felt refreshed, but it was rare for him to be annoyed after practicing swordsmanship.
This was only the case if something urgent came up and he had to quit halfway, or if he didn’t like the sword path he had drawn.
Of course, no one had interrupted Limon.
His sword path hadn’t been terrible either.
There was only one reason he was annoyed: he hadn’t achieved any results.
“That damn snake… what on earth did it leave in my body?”
Limon clicked his tongue.
The reason he had been devoted to swordsmanship training for the past few days wasn’t just because it was hard to walk around outside as a traitor.
It was because of the alien sensation he felt in his body ever since he cut down ‘The Snake That Connects Ends.’
At first, he thought it was a curse.
He had experienced many instances where insignificant bastards left curses before dying, and if they were Constellations, it wouldn’t be strange for them to struggle that much.
But Limon soon realized.
This was something much more annoying and unpleasant than a curse.
It was the remnants of starlight that had shattered and seeped into him after he cut the snake.
“Hell, what are Constellations made of that every time I cut one down, they leave things behind in someone else’s body?”
There had been signs for a long time.
Such as being able to see Constellations after his Regression.
Or the system message saying he was absorbing something whenever he cut them down.
Looking back on those things, it was easy to guess that ‘something’ was being absorbed into him every time he cut a Constellation.
The problem was what that ‘something’ was.
‘It seems useful for now, but…’
If what he absorbed was the power of a Constellation and it simply allowed him to see them, it wasn’t necessarily bad, even if it was unpleasant.
It would be convenient to see the targets he had to cut.
Perhaps he could use this power in other ways that he hadn’t realized yet.
But what if it wasn’t just power?
What if something else was mixed into that starlight?
What if the personality of a Constellation was also absorbed?
What if, as a result of cutting Constellations and absorbing their fragments, he himself ended up turning into one of them?
“It’s definitely suspicious.”
Limon clicked his tongue.
It might just be an unfounded fear, but he couldn’t help but be wary.
Especially after seeing the state of Park Hyun-gun, who had naively accepted the power given by a Constellation and ended up being eaten by the snake.
The alien sensation itself was proof.
Alien meant something of a different quality.
Feeling that within himself meant the situation wasn’t right.
‘It could just be simple indigestion, but…’
He had cut three before his Regression.
He had cut one when he defeated Lee Cheon-gi.
Even if they were only parts of their bodies, Limon had experienced cutting down Constellations and absorbing their fragments.
Considering that he had never felt an alien sensation until he cut the snake, it was possible that he had absorbed too many fragments of the snake and was feeling bloated.
Or perhaps it was just a matter of compatibility, and he would naturally adapt as time passed.
‘But there’s no law saying that something I thought was indigestion won’t turn out to be heavy metal poisoning.’
Limon didn’t just think optimistically.
The fact that it could naturally get better also meant it could naturally get worse.
In particular, as someone who didn’t know when he would have to fight Constellations again or how many more he would cut down, Limon couldn’t just leave everything to time.
Furthermore, solving the alien sensation wouldn’t fix everything.
‘Power that you cannot control yourself is bound to cause problems eventually.’
Even the ‘power to see Constellations’ that Limon had obtained wasn’t something he used because he wanted to.
It activated on its own.
But what if he obtained a power like ‘turning anyone who makes eye contact into stone’ or ‘killing anyone who hears his voice,’ and it activated on its own?
It would be a terrible catastrophe.
‘I should at least be able to control it…’
That was why Limon had devoted himself to swordsmanship training until he sweated for the first time in a long while.
For him, as a Sword Master, there was no better way to observe and manage his inner self than swordsmanship.
The problem was that the results were not good at all.
Whether he changed his swordsmanship for training, swung his sword all day, or even tried meditating.
No matter what method he used, he couldn’t even activate the power to see Constellations, let alone control it.
It wasn’t that there were no results at all; the alien sensation had decreased slightly, but the speed was so slow that at this rate, he would have to swing his sword for ten years.
It was only natural that he was annoyed.
“Tsk, should I look for another way?”
Limon scratched the back of his head.
He was a swordsman, but he didn’t believe that swordsmanship could accomplish everything.
Swordsmanship was, in the end, for fighting.
There were others who specialized in dealing with such complex issues from the beginning.
The problem was that he didn’t feel like borrowing their power.
Now that he had even joined hands with his arch-enemy, the Seven Dragons Society, there was no reason he couldn’t borrow anyone else’s hand, but…
“…Fine, I’ll put it on hold for now.”
Limon organized his thoughts.
It had only been a few days since he started his swordsmanship training, so it was too early to conclude that there were no results.
Furthermore, he wasn’t in a situation where he could rashly go around meeting others.
“Anyway, I have to resolve this treason charge first before I can do anything.”
Limon, who was lightly clicking his tongue, suddenly looked at the calendar as if something had occurred to him.
‘Come to think of it, is that today?’
He counted the dates for a moment.
After reflecting on his memory and confirming that he wasn’t late yet, Limon muttered to himself as he left the training room.
“Let’s see. It’s too much of a hassle to go back to my room just to watch a little TV. Somewhere suitable to watch would be…”
As he was walking, Limon narrowed his eyes and looked in one direction.
“Ah, that place was there, wasn’t it?”