Read Novel Full Chapter 65
Chapter 65
Those Who Steal
Gerard glared at him as he stood up again.
“You damn brat……!!”
(……..don’t let him notice it.)
He had no intention to let Gerard notice even a single lapse in his breathing. Leonardo continued to act all calm and composed, and glanced outside the window.
It was a blind spot from here so he couldn’t really see the gates of the mansion itself but, he could see all the subordinates outside hastily running towards where the gate was.
(Francesca must have gotten outside with her father then.)
Confirming that, he felt genuinely relieved.
“……..now then, I was hoping to beat some info out of you about the real [mastermind] but, you don’t like you’ll be very useful anymore.”
“Shut up……..I’ll kill you, I’ll definitely kill all of you. Calvino and his damned daughter as well…..!!”
“——and like I said, I won’t let you.”
Hearing his freezing cold voice, Gerard scowled again.
“If it’s like this, there is only one objective I can still achieve here.”
Everytime Leonardo breathed, his lungs would obviously expand, which meant that the wound on his abdomen would worsen from the pressure. If he wasn’t careful, his breathing would very quickly become lighter, and he’ll start to go dizzy from the lack of oxygen reaching the brain.
But, he made sure that simply didn’t happen.
“Now that you’re completely following the orders of the mastermind, you’re going to target Francesca who has learnt your secret. And her father, and even the innocent people. Things that Francesca wants to protect. And so, to make sure that you bring them no harm……..”
Leonardo exhaled shortly, and laughed as tilted his head to the side.
“I will have to kill you right here.”
“HAH……..!!”
For a completely brainwashed man, Gerard still had enough ego to glare at him after his proclamation.
“Haven’t you tried that many times already!? With my strongest defensive skill active, no physical attack will ever hurt me. Not to mention, one of the skills you have is a mind control skill. And that’s useless on me now too!!”
“……..”
“You’ve kept your other two skills hidden right? But, no matter how incredible those skills may be, attack skills won’t work inside this mansion anyway.”
Showing a stiff smile, Gerard pointed his finger towards Leonardo.
“That’s right, let me guess one of those other two skills!! Your father had a skill that could exchange his own wounds with someone else’s. As his son, you probably have the same. And you used that to heal Calvino didn’t you!?”
“………..”
The pain he was feeling was becoming unbearable at this point but, Leonardo showed no fluctuation in his expression.
The blood from his abdomen didn’t stop flowing. In just a bit more, his body was going to become unable to even move.
But, he’ll be fine even if he can move it even a little.
“HAHAHA Bullseye eh!? The Aldini family head of all people actually chose to kill himself than let the head of another family die!? And here everyone thought that you were so different from your father but I guess, both his skill as well as his true nature were inherited by you eh?”
“………Serranova.”
“!”
Still smiling, Leonardo asked him.
“Your defensive skill only stops direct physical attacks, right?”
That was a feature that was characteristic to not just Gerard’s skill, but all defensive skills in general.
“Even if you can repel bullets, it’s not like you are covered by an invulnerable wall or something after all. I mean, air has to be able to pass otherwise you won’t be able to breathe, and I’m sure you can still feel warmth or cold as well.”
“……..Just what are talking about so suddenly?”
“Oh, nothing? But, I was simply wondering how you must have lived your entire life only being cautious of attack skills or guns, considering how much pride you have towards your defensive skill that’s all.”
Not paying heed to Gerard’s confused look, he simply continued to talk freely.
“——I finally get why someone got you so easily with a mind control skill and made you stoop so far as to break even a blood signed oath. All because you didn’t see it coming.”
“You bastard…….!!”
Gerard aimed his gun at him again, but it was right at that moment.
“Wha………”
Leonardo activated one of his skills.
“Physical attacks, skills, gun………..are you sure that’s the only way to kill a person?”
“This is………….”
In a matter of moments, something spread across the entire room. It was flames. Brightly burning flames.
It was as he had hypothesized, just igniting a fire around him alone didn’t qualify as an [attack] skill, and so he was able to use it inside this mansion’s barrier as well.
The flames began to burn the carpet, and sparks began to fly from the floor, creating a hot wind.
It was the same as that day. That fateful day 7 years ago.
“The third skill you had, it was the ability to freely control fire…….!?!”
“—–……”
Trying his best to not breathe in the smoke, Gerard quickly covered his mouth and nose.
Even while being so utterly brainwashed, he still possessed the ability to make more calm and calculated actions it seemed. Whoever had brainwashed Gerard was clearly extremely adept at using their mind control skill.
“Certainly, even my defensive skill can’t save me from the smoke rising from a fire. But……..fufu, AHAHAHA!”
Gerard made a fist and then smashed the window nearby.
Enhanced by the protection of his defensive skill, he broke the window glass very easily. And the sudden burst of wind that entered the room only fed into and flared the fires even larger.
“The reason why you can’t directly burn me is because it would activate the barrier as doing so would deem it as an [attack] skill, and seal it. Which means, you have to let the fire spread naturally, and wait for me to [coincidentally] die from it. Right?”
“………”
“But you can’t hold or restrain me here either. And you certainly can’t kill me! And lastly, if I were to jump down this window, I will take no injury thanks to my skill………..But what about you?”
“…………”
“None of your skills are good enough to stop me!! How unfortunate!!”
Gerard moved to put his hand on the window pane.
“Just you wait. I’ll go and quickly kill that Calvino girl and——……..”
“Hold it right there. Serranova.”
“!!”
Gerard’s body suddenly stopped mid action.
Unable to understand or accept how that had happened, his eyes opened wide with shock. But, no matter how much he struggled or squirmed, Gerard simply couldn’t move himself to the window to run away.
“Impossible. Just what is……..”
And then finally, Gerard’s sight moved towards his own feet.
“………Ice??”
Both his feet had been covered in thick ice.
The shackles made of ice had been frozen directly with the floor, and had quite literally, stopped Gerard in his tracks.
“What the hell is this…….!?!”
As he struggled and raged in confusion, the shackles of ice showed no sign of breaking. But due to heat of the flames, soon the ice would began to melt.
“If I can’t overwhelm you with pure strength, I had a feeling a shackle like this could still bypass your defensive skill to restrain you. If everything that could touch you had been repelled by your skill, you wouldn’t be able to sit, and your feet wouldn’t even touch the ground after all.”
“That’s not what I’m asking!! How did you make this ice……..”
“Oh, it’s melting already. Let me add some more then.”
Leonardo moved his finger and with a crackling sound, the ice around Gerard’s legs began to expand again. This time, it froze both his hands as well, and then he began to slowly walk towards him.
“To be honest, like you said, I really wanted to burn you to death. Or I could even encase you entirely in ice and kill you with frostbite, and suffocation as well. But in the off chance the barrier of this mansion detected it as a direct attack and sealed it, it’ll be a while before I’ll be able to use it again, and well, that’d be quite the problem.”
While he was not the type to hate such risky gambles, right now, he didn’t have the leeway to play around like that. He needed to be certain, precise, otherwise he feared that this great chance might slip away from him.
“I’ll continue to burn you and freeze you slowly, to make sure that the barrier doesn’t detect it, until you die.”
“Stop………get away from me!!”
“It might take a lot of time. But, don’t worry, I’ll be by your side till the very end okay?”
“NO! STAY AWAY!! SHIT, Why the hell can he use a fourth skill as well!? Or is his third skill the ability to use both fire and ice together or something!?”
Hearing Gerard’s screams, Leonardo could only squint his eyes.
(unfortunately, you’re fundamentally mistaken about my skills.)
As if mocking himself, in self-derision, he thought that.
Probably because his own son had inherited the same skill as his own, he must have thought that Leonardo too had inherited his father’s skills.
But that was not true at all.
(How could someone like me ever a have a skill that could protect and help other?)
“Guhaaa……..!!”
As he expanded the coverage of the ice once more, he made Gerard stoop his head down in place.
(The one who had this ice skill was Ivan, who died 3 years ago. As for the flames, they belonged to Lazaro who was killed 4 years ago.)
Having lost way too much blood, his mind was starting to become hazy, and perhaps that’s why, he once again recalled his older brother’s last words.
[Leonardo. Your skill is——……..]
From inside the collapsing room, before throwing Leonardo out of there, this was what his brother had said.
[–the ability to “steal a skill from the corpse of someone you were close with.”]