Chapter 203: A Tragic, But Romantic End

Leona immediately strained, every muscle in her body tensing as she poured all her effort into the impossible task.

Unfortunately…the boulder didn’t budge.

But before she could ’I told you so’, Luca shouted encouragement.

“Come on, Leona! You’re not putting in your full potential! Lift with all your heart! Lift as if both of your daughters are right underneath this boulder right now and you need to save them!”

The words hit her like lightning. Leona’s eyes flashed with sudden spirit. She gritted her teeth, determination blazing across her face, and lifted—really lifted.

And to her utter shock, the boulder actually started to rise. Even if it was only a couple of inches—it was unbelievable to her.

“Luca! Luca!” She cried, voice cracking with excitement. “The boulder is actually getting lifted! We’re actually lifting this massive thing off the ground!”

Luca grinned from the other side.

“Didn’t I tell you, Leona? I told you to have confidence in yourself!”

His voice turned more focused.

“But right now, no more talking. We need to lift this all the way. Focus!”

Leona nodded fiercely, teeth still clenched, every muscle burning as she gave it everything she had.

Slowly, surely, the ancient boulder that had sat there for centuries—maybe even thousands of years—rose from the earth.

First to knee height, then waist, then chest, until finally Luca and Leona stood side by side beneath it, arms raised high, holding the impossible weight overhead.

It looked utterly ridiculous—two small figures supporting a mountain of stone.

Leona was the most excited of all. A huge smile broke across her face as she realized what she had just accomplished.

“I did it!” She shouted, voice bright with joy. “I actually did it! Who would have thought that someone like me would be able to lift something like this?”

She puffed up even more, haughty and proud.

“All this time! All this power hiding inside me! If I had known, I could have solved so many problems! I could have lifted this boulder ages ago! I could have—”

She paused. A strange thought crept into her mind.

“How am I this strong?” She looked at her hands, at the impossible weight they supported. “Elves aren’t supposed to be this strong. Are they?”

But then her eyes trembled in horror. A terrible possibility bloomed in her imagination.

“Don’t tell me…did Mother cheat on Father with an orc? Is that where my strength comes from? Do I have orc blood? Am I actually half—”

She shook her head violently.

“No, no, no! Mother would never do that. She had her problems with Father, but she was faithful. She was.”

But then the doubt crept back. “But then how am I so strong? How is this possible?”

She stood there confused for a moment, then pushed the thought away with a bright smile.

“Whatever it may be…I’m the strongest elf to ever exist!”

She turned her head to look at Luca, eyes shining.

“I did it! I actually did it! I can’t believe I really had so much potential in me. Thank you so much for awakening that!”

She glanced down at her own hands, awed.

“With this much strength…I may as well become the next Hero or Heroine, just like you.”

She was already planning it. Training regimens. Adventures. The two of them, side by side, unbeatable

She felt like she had discovered an entirely new purpose in life.

“Pfft—!”

But just then she heard a strange sound from Luca.

Llike he was desperately holding back laughter.

She looked over and saw him biting his lip hard, shoulders shaking as he fought to stay silent.

Leona blinked, confused and a little offended.

“What, Luca? Why are you laughing at me?!” She demanded. “With the power I’ve revealed right now, I can even beat you up, you know!”

“I could just give you a punch here, a punch there, and—Bam!—you’d go flying away!”

She said it with total confidence, while Luca took a deep breath. Another. He was trying so hard to control himself.

“Leona.” He said, his voice strained. “I’m so glad you’ve discovered your hidden potential. Truly. It’s inspiring. But before you challenge me to a duel…”

He glanced at her, and the amusement in his eyes was barely contained.

“Could you look at my hands for a moment?”

She frowned. “What? Why?”

“Just humor me.”

She looked at her own hands. Strong. Capable before saying,

“There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“Now can you look at my hand?” He asked.

She raised her eyes to Luca’s hands. One was resting casually at his side. The other was casually—single-handedly—holding up the entire boulder.

For a moment she didn’t understand what he was getting at.

Then the teasing look on his face combined with the sight of that one relaxed hand supporting the impossible weight clicked into place.

Realization hit her like a thunderbolt.

Her face went pale. All the “power” She had felt drained away in an instant. She looked up at him in the most adorable, pitiful manner possible.

“Y-You’re carrying the boulder on your own…”

“Even though you said you couldn’t, you’re carrying it with a single hand…”

“That means you never needed my help…and I didn’t help at all. So, does that mean I’m not as powerful as I thought I was…?”

Luca couldn’t hold it back anymore. He burst out laughing—loud, genuine, and full of affection, the sound echoing through the trees.

“Of course not, Leona!” He managed between laughs. “There’s no way you could lift something like this! I was just playing a joke on you!”

He kept laughing, shaking his head.

“But who would’ve thought you’d actually fantasize yourself as some kind of warrior who gained miraculous power! Thinking of yourself as a mighty hero!”

He grinned at her.

“That’s the kind of thing children imagine when playing with their friends—but who would’ve thought the dignified Matriarch would actually believe it!”

“Hahahaha—!”

While Luca laughed his heart out—even while effortlessly holding a boulder with one hand as if it were no big deal at all—Leona herself fell into complete despair.

For just a moment, she’d genuinely believed she’d become a superhero, a supernatural being, an elf with unlimited power.

She’d already been imagining showing off such incredible skills to her daughters, becoming a heroine in their eyes.

She could already see them clapping their hands and looking at her in amazement, their faces bright with admiration. She’d wanted to show off so badly.

But Luca had just dumped a bucket of ice-cold reality straight over her head.

All those dreams shattered in an instant. Her lower lip trembled. Her eyes stung. She looked like she was about to cry right there under the boulder.

Then she stopped herself.

No. She would not cry. Not in front of the man who had caused this.

Leona’s expression hardened into pure, blazing anger. She glared at Luca with the full force of a matriarch who had just been tricked and humiliated.

“LUCA!” She shouted, voice cracking with rage.

Before he could even finish his laugh, she charged straight at him like a furious woodland storm.

In one fluid, furious leap she jumped onto his back, arms wrapping tightly around his neck and legs locking around his waist as she hung off him like an angry koala.

“I hate you, Luca! I hate you so much!” She yelled, voice muffled against his shoulder. “I hate you to the extent that I’m going to bite your neck off!”

She opened her jaw wide, exactly like he had done the day before, and sank her teeth straight into the side of his neck.

She nibbled and chewed with surprising ferocity, mumbling between bites.

“You horrible man! I-I can’t believe you would treat me like that! You’re supposed to be a Hero, not some scammer like this!”

She kept biting all over his neck and shoulder, almost like she had turned into a tiny, vengeful vampire.

The sudden extra weight and her wriggling made Luca stumble a step. The boulder wobbled dangerously overhead.

“Hold on, Leona!” He protested, trying to steady himself. “If you keep doing this I can’t keep my balance! The boulder will fall and we’ll both be crushed!”

Leona didn’t care in the slightest.

“I don’t care!” She snapped, switching to the other side of his neck and chewing like an angry puppy. “Let’s get crushed! If I can take down a horrible man like you in the process, it would be worth it!”

Luca let out a strained laugh even as he fought to stay upright and he decided to try a different approach.

“It would be a really horrible death, you know.”

He said in a eerie tone like he wanted to scare her.

“Not only would the rock absolutely crush us and turn us into mush—blood and broken bones everywhere—but worse than that, the others wouldn’t even be able to find our bodies since they’d be under the rock.”

He paused for effect. “Everyone would search and search for us, never knowing we were right there the whole time. It would be a terrible tragedy.”

Hearing this, Leona finally pulled back from his neck. Luca thought she’d regained her senses, that she’d been scared off by what he’d said.

But to his surprise, that wasn’t what happened at all.

Instead, she had a dreamy, distant look in her eyes.

“Well…that would be a tragedy, but…”

Her voice turned wistful.

“Wouldn’t it also be really romantic?”

Luca’s head snapped back in shock. “…What?”

Leona continued in a whimsical manner, like she was narrating a storybook.

“Just think about it, Luca. It’s like those tragic lovers you hear about every once in a while—the ones who take their lives together because they can’t be together in life.”

Her eyes grew even more distant.

“But it wouldn’t be just any common tragedy. It would be even more romantic because we’d be under this rock together.”

“And even though everyone would search for us, they’d never find us—never knowing we were right there around them the whole time.”

“And even if they did find us, they wouldn’t be able to move the rock to get us out.”

She rested her chin on his shoulder, gazing at nothing.

“We’d be here forever and ever, for ages to come. Just like this rock has been here for thousands of years, we’d also be here for thousands of years.”

“It’s almost like the rock would be our gravestone…”

She looked at him with that loving, faraway expression.

“…Don’t you think that’s so romantic?”

She clearly expected him to agree, eyes bright and hopeful.

But Luca only gave her a big, knowing smile, the kind that said he had seen right through every single word.

It was then that she realized what she’d just said—and the implications behind it.

She’d basically just referred to Luca as her lover.

Someone she wanted to rest even in her death with.

Her entire face flushed scarlet, along with her ears.

“Wow, Leona.” Luca couldn’t help but chuckle. “I didn’t expect you to love me so much that you actually want to die with me. Do you really—”

Before he could finish, she grabbed his mouth and clamped it shut with her hand.

“Shut up, shut up! I didn’t mean it like that!” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “I was just speaking my thoughts! I-I was using you as an example! I didn’t say you were actually my lover or anything!”

But Luca just looked back at her with that same piercing, teasing gaze—even with his mouth covered by her hand.

She felt like her entire body was heating up from embarrassment and she looked absolutely adorable in her flustered state.

Finally, unable to handle it anymore, she grabbed onto his neck like she was steering a ship and pointed forward.

“Just go, Luca! Go! Let’s transport this rock before anyone comes over and sees what we’re doing!”

He blinked. “You’re not going to get off?”

She smirked, digging her chin into his shoulder.

“This is punishment for teasing me, mister. You made me look like a fool. Now you have to carry me as compensation.”

She pinched his cheek and pouted cutely and quickly added,

“And don’t you dare say you’re struggling with me on your back. You can lift a boulder with one hand—I’m pretty sure you can lift a dainty elf like me.”

Luca glanced back at the way her body was pressed against him—warm, thick thighs wrapped securely around his waist, her massive, humongous breasts squishing softly against his back.

He gave her a deliberately lewd gaze and grinned.

“You are most definitely slender all over and you have a top-tier figure…”

Leona felt a proud little spark at the compliment.

“But there are certain aspects where it’s extra heavy.”

He continued, voice dripping with mischief.

“So heavy, in fact, that with how big they are, they’re even heavier than the rock I’m holding. So I would say you are a substantial weight right now.”

She realized where he was looking. Her chest. Her very large, very prominent, very much pressed against his back chest.

“Shut up! Shut up, stupid!” She hissed, swatting his shoulder. “Just go forward already, or else I’ll really bite you!”

Luca laughed softly.

“Fine, fine.”

He started walking forward, still balancing the enormous boulder overhead with one hand and Leona on his back with the other.

Leona pointed imperiously.

“Go left! Go left!”

He obediently turned left.

“Now go right! Right!”

He turned right without complaint.

Seeing him be so obedient, Leona’s anger melted away into pure delight.

She hugged him even tighter, resting her chin comfortably on his shoulder.

“This is so fun…” She murmured happily.

And even though Luca was basically being treated like an ox—carrying a mountain of stone plus one very clingy elf—he didn’t mind at all.

Every time he glanced back at her, he saw how radiant she looked: that bright, adorable smile as she pointed directions, the way her golden hair brushed his cheek, the warmth of her body against his.

He felt completely satisfied.

So, he just continued walking through the forest, carrying both a massive ancient boulder and a beautiful elf on his back, neither one weighing on him nearly as much as the warmth in his chest.

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