My Second Chance in Life in Another World-Chapter 71: SHATTERED BONDS

"Get the fuck out of here—or do you want to die?" I spat, voice low and trembling, each syllable laced with fury. My eyes drilled into Alad’s like twin blades, sharp and unwavering. The scent of the clinic mixed with the metallic tang of dried blood on my lips.

Alad didn’t flinch. He stood at the foot of my bed, unbothered, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his black coat. That smug grin remained carved across his face like it had been etched there for years.

"Well, well, calm down, little hero," he said, his tone annoyingly serene. "I’m not here to fight."

His voice oozed with that same mockery I’d come to hate. My fists clenched the stiff clinic sheets, the gauze on my left leg tightening uncomfortably. I could still feel the phantom sting of the blade he’d sunk into me.

"Is that a proper way to talk to your senior? I’m disappointed in you, Will," said another voice—soft, stern, and unmistakably smug.

Leonardo.

He stepped forward, arms crossed over his chest, wearing that same condescending expression he always wore when pretending to be above everything. His cape fluttered lightly with the breeze from the open window, catching the fading orange light of the afternoon sun.

I laughed dryly, bitterly. "Mr. Leonardo, did you know that this guy"—I pointed at Alad like he was vermin—"is the one responsible for all of this? He’s the reason I’m in this damn clinic, wrapped up in bandages like a fucking corpse."

Leonardo didn’t blink. His gaze didn’t waver. "I know everything. He told me everything, and that’s why we’re here."

I stared at him in disbelief. My jaw slackened. My heartbeat began to thunder in my ears, louder than the ticking of the clock on the wall. The betrayal was too sharp, too surreal.

"I’m here to apologize," Alad added, stepping forward.

The room went dead silent.

"I did all of that to avoid suspicion from other fighting ground members," he said, and then he bowed. Bowed. "I had to hold that event so every member would be present, and we could capture all of them. I’m sorry I used you—and even hurt you. Please forgive me."

The silence cracked.

What the hell is this guy saying?

"Are you fucking serious?" My voice was hoarse, almost hysterical. "Is that the story you told them? That’s the bullshit you fed them, and they just... believed it?"

I shot a look at Leonardo, and then at Fia—who had been standing quietly in the corner, arms folded, lips pressed in a thin line. Her expression was unreadable.

Rage surged. I tried to get up from the bed, my leg screaming in protest, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to drive my fist into Alad’s smug face and watch that smirk shatter.

"Will!" Fia rushed to my side and pushed me back gently. Her touch was soft, but firm enough to stop me.

"Will, calm down," she said, her voice surprisingly gentle.

I glared at her. "So even you, Ms. Fia, believe this bastard?"

"It’s not that I believe him or not. All I want is for you to calm down so we can talk calmly," she replied.

Calmly? Talk?

"What the hell are you saying?" My voice cracked with disbelief. "So you believe him after all?"

"Huh? What are you saying? Didn’t I just say to calm down?" she said, her tone tightening.

I laughed again, but it came out more like a broken rasp. My chest ached, not just from the wounds—but from the humiliation, the betrayal, the unbearable feeling of being used like a pawn in a game I never asked to play.

"Because if you don’t believe him, then there’s no need to talk," I continued, seething. "That bastard started a mess, kidnapped me and Crestia, tortured me, made me fight fifty people without rest, stabbed my left leg, sent my friends to the battlefield—and you want me to calm down?"

Fia opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. Her eyes flickered downward.

"Will..." she said quietly, but it felt empty. Like she had no words to soothe the storm inside me.

"That’s enough." Leonardo’s voice cut in sharply, carrying the weight of command. "Any more than that, and you’ll get what you want."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "And do you think I’m afraid of you?"

His face hardened. "You brat!"

I saw his hand move before the flash of metal caught the light. He was already half-drawn, his sword humming faintly as it left its sheath. But before it could clear the scabbard fully—

"Stop!" Fia shouted, her voice finally rising with urgency. "Leonardo, don’t do it."

The tension snapped like a pulled thread. Leonardo froze, jaw tight. The sword hovered, caught halfway between threat and action.

"Fia... but..." he started, then his voice softened. "I’m sorry. I lost my composure."

He let the blade slide back into its sheath with a final, resonant click. The sound echoed through the clinic room like the closing of a coffin.

"Alad," Leonardo said, his voice low but firm, laced with a cold undertone. "I’ll ask you something—so answer me with sincerity."

The room seemed to tense at his words. Alad looked up, eyes sharpening like a beast that had sensed a trap.

"Is what Will just said... all true?"

The question hung in the air like a suspended blade, ready to fall depending on the answer. A beat of silence passed—then Alad exhaled, feigning a hint of weariness as he straightened his posture.

"Maybe because he just woke up, so his memory’s a bit jumbled," Alad said, putting on a mask of reason. "But all that I told you before—that’s the truth. Everything he said just now... it’s not."

His expression hardened, like he wanted to appear noble, honest. A lie spoken with a straight face.

"You heard him," Leonardo said, glancing my way without a shred of doubt. "I don’t think he’s lying."

That made something inside me snap.

"Just like that? You believe him?" My voice cracked, layered with disbelief and disgust. "Are you and your father the same? Are you both idiots—?"

The wind was knocked from my lungs as a cold, metallic gleam suddenly shimmered before my eyes. Leonardo’s sword was already at my throat. I hadn’t even seen him move.

The blade kissed the skin of my neck. A single movement and I’d be dead.

"Didn’t I say it before?" Leonardo muttered, his voice calm but laced with unrelenting threat. "I can take you insulting me—but don’t you dare involve my father."

His eyes were filled with something more than anger—fanaticism, maybe. As if his entire soul flared at even the suggestion of his family’s failure.

"Leonardo! Stop it!" Fia’s voice cut through the haze, sharp and commanding.

"I’m sorry, Fia," Leonardo replied, not looking at her. "But Will went too far."

He didn’t move the blade. His arm was steady. My heart, however, was not. I could feel every beat echo in my ears. My breath came out ragged.

"Apologize," he said, his voice louder now, authority creeping in like poison. "Apologize to my father. To Alad. To me. And to Fia. Do that, and I’ll spare you."

I met his gaze. My eyes didn’t waver.

"Then why don’t you kill me?" I said. "Is that your solution every time someone goes against you? When someone tells the truth and you can’t handle it? Cut them down and pretend you were right all along?"

His hand twitched.

"You’ve asked for it."

The sword lifted.

I didn’t move.

Then—

"Rock Bullet!"

A sharp thrum of magic cut through the air. A sharp projectile of stone—small, fast, precise—shot toward Leonardo’s wrist. His grip failed. The sword dropped with a metallic clang, bouncing against the stone floor.

"What are you doing, Fia?" Leonardo snapped, turning to her with wild eyes.

"I’m sorry..." Fia said, standing her ground, hands already forming the next incantation. Her stance was wide, prepared to defend. "But I believe Will."

His eyes narrowed. "Huh? Do you actually believe the nonsense he’s spouting?"

Fia’s expression was unreadable—calm, resolute. "Didn’t you see it? He was ready to die rather than accept Alad’s lie. Is there any liar who can do that?"

"There’s no proof," Leonardo barked. "You’re blindly believing him!"

"Then isn’t that the same thing with you?" she shot back instantly.

Leonardo blinked. "What?"

"You’re blindly believing everything Alad says. There’s no proof for what he told you either, right?"

Leonardo was silent for a moment, like a machine that just stopped working.

"But... I trusted Alad!" he finally burst out, as if that alone could justify the entire matter.

"And I trust Will," Fia declared. Her voice was not loud, but it echoed with undeniable conviction.

"Why?!" Leonardo’s voice cracked. "Why do you believe that brat? What’s so good about him? Why do you blindly put your faith in him?"

Fia paused. For a moment, there was nothing but the faint wind whistling through the cracked window.

"Leonardo..." she said softly. "I thought you were better than this."

Her next words were like an arrow through the chest.

"It seems like I overestimated you."

"Huh...?" Leonardo stepped back, face pale, like the weight of the world had suddenly fallen onto his shoulders. He looked around as if he had nowhere to go—nothing to say that could change what just happened. The cold look in Fia’s eyes gutted him more than any sword could.

Then—

A calm, mocking voice echoed through the room.

"Hmmm... may I interrupt your lively little conversation?"

A figure stepped into the doorway, as if he’d been standing there all along, watching the collapse of their beliefs like an amused spectator.

He was tall, draped in a fine black coat with silver trimming, his long brown hair tied loosely at the back. A faint smirk tugged at his lips. His presence filled the room with tension, yet he held himself with an elegance bordering on theatrical.

Fia’s expression darkened instantly. "Hans," she murmured.

He raised both hands, as if in mock surrender. "No, no, no need to be alarmed. I’m not here to fight or take sides. I just came with a little message."

His gaze swept over everyone, then landed squarely on me.

"For that patient over there," he said, raising a single gloved finger and pointing straight at me.

I frowned. My body instinctively tensed. "What message?"

Hans’s smile deepened, his eyes gleaming with secrets.

"Come to the principal’s office. Ordered by the principal. That’s all. Goodbye!" Hans said with his usual infuriating smugness, his voice practically dancing with mockery. Without waiting for a reply, he pivoted on his heel and disappeared out the door, his footsteps echoing down the corridor like a clock counting down to something inevitable.

"Principal’s office?" I murmured under my breath, watching the doorway where Hans had vanished.

What the hell does that damn principal want with me now?

As the silence settled in, Fia turned sharply toward Leonardo, her stare cold and piercing like a blade drawn in moonlight. "Leonardo, what did you do?"

The air thickened instantly. Leonardo straightened in alarm, his face pale. "N-no, I didn’t do anything," he stammered, his voice higher than usual. His eyes darted from her to me and then away, almost like a child caught in a lie—but this time, the fear was genuine.

I narrowed my eyes, reading him carefully. No twitch, no hesitation in his tone after the first instinctive flinch. He wasn’t lying... not this time.

"Will, what are you going to do?" Fia asked, her voice softening as she turned back to me.

I took a breath, chest still sore. "I also want to talk to him after all... I’ll go."

There were too many unanswered questions, too many pieces that didn’t fit—and if the principal truly knew something, I wasn’t going to let the chance slip.

"Then I’ll join you," Fia said, her tone firm now, a resolve burning in her eyes like steady flame.

I looked at her, surprised—but thankful. "Thank you."

Slowly, carefully, I pushed off the edge of the clinic bed. The sheets wrinkled under my trembling grip, and the moment I shifted my weight onto my feet, pain exploded through every nerve in my body. My muscles groaned like rusted metal. But nothing compared to what came next.

As I took a step, my left leg—where Alad’s blade had carved deep—screamed in agony. The sharp, blinding pain sent my body crumpling toward the floor.

"Will!" Fia rushed to me, worry etched across her face as she knelt at my side.

"I’m okay," I gritted out through clenched teeth. "I just... I just can’t move my left leg. That bastard really did a number on it."

My eyes darted toward Alad, who stood behind Leonardo, his arms crossed, the picture of calm satisfaction. That damn smile still played on his lips like a predator watching its prey struggle.

"Do you want me to carry you?" Fia offered gently, her hands already slipping under my arm.

"No need," I said quickly, my pride not yet broken. "Please... just get me a crutch."

Without arguing, Fia nodded and turned to leave. But before stepping through the door, she glanced back—her eyes sharp, her voice ice.

"If you do anything to Will," she warned the two men left behind, "I’ll kill you."

The moment she was gone, a different kind of silence filled the room.

The kind that held tension.

The kind that could snap.

Leonardo stiffened. Even Alad shifted slightly, no longer quite so smug.

The threat of the academy’s top-ranked elite magician... it wasn’t just words. It was law.

"Alad, you can leave now," Leonardo said stiffly, avoiding my eyes. "I’ll accompany them to Father."

"I understand," Alad replied in a voice laced with false civility.

As he turned to leave, he paused in the doorway. Just before crossing the threshold, he glanced back at me. That smile again. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Smug. Triumphant. As if saying: You’re still crawling. I’m still standing.

This bastard...

You think this is over?

Just you wait. You’ll regret every second of it.

A few minutes passed in silence before Fia returned, holding a pair of sleek, black crutches she must’ve borrowed from the infirmary storage. She handed them to me with care.

"They didn’t do anything, right?" she asked, scanning the room warily.

"That’s right," I said.

"Thank God. I don’t have to fight them." She exhaled with a tiny smile, like she’d been holding her breath the whole time.

Her voice still held an edge—she was ready to unleash hell if she’d come back to a mess.

"Thank you, Ms. Fia," I said quietly, adjusting my grip on the crutches. "And... I’m sorry for shouting at you earlier."

She blinked. Then that brilliant smile returned—warm and forgiving. "You’re welcome. And don’t mind it. If you hadn’t shouted at me, maybe I would’ve been fooled by Alad too."

The warmth of her words caught me off guard. It was genuine... comforting. A rare kindness in a place like this.

But as always, kindness drew unwanted eyes.

Leonardo’s face twisted as he watched us, like a sour taste had taken root in his mouth. His eyes narrowed with something almost like... jealousy?

And to think, I actually went out of my way to get the two of them closer. Supported him. Thought they’d be good together. All that effort—and in the end, he just blindly believed Alad and raised a sword at me.

Then go ahead. Choke on your own bitterness.

Die out of jealousy.

With that, I pushed myself upright with the crutches, my steps slow and uneven. But I was moving—and that was enough.

Fia walked beside me without a word, her presence a quiet support. Leonardo followed behind us, strangely quiet now.

The hallway stretched ahead like a tunnel. Cold. Clean. Sterile. But every step I took toward that office felt heavier than the last.

Something was waiting at the end.

Answers, maybe.

Or something worse.

And I was ready to find out.