“Talk!
Talk!”
“Secret!
Secret!
You definitely have some secret with the Emperor!!!”
Invincible Reason.
The Primarch’s private meditation chamber.
No one was allowed to approach without Lion El’Jonson’s personal permission.
Most members of the fleet weren’t even qualified to know that this room existed.
And at the moment, the Primarch clearly wasn’t meditating.
She was practically jumping around in frustration.
The calm facade she had maintained in front of everyone else had already exhausted all her patience.
Even her ability to speak normally seemed to be breaking down, as though she had returned to the wild, primitive Lion who had once lived alone in the forests of Caliban.
Ha!
The Emperor’s strange concern for Merlin was simply beyond her understanding.
Fortunately, in the end, the Emperor hadn’t taken Merlin aboard his flagship.
After saying that shocking sentence—”You have worked hard”—the Emperor had simply left Caliban.
Leaving Lion alone and thoroughly confused.
Deep down, she had certainly felt relieved.
Thank goodness…
Thank goodness the Emperor hadn’t taken Merlin away.
But!
Just because Merlin hadn’t been taken away in the end, did that mean she wasn’t allowed to be angry anymore?
This bastard had even insisted that he had never met the Emperor before!
After everything that had happened, how could there possibly be nothing between them?
There was clearly a secret!
And Lion hated nothing more than someone keeping secrets from her.
The Emperor probably had countless secrets he refused to reveal, but Lion didn’t care about those.
She would simply perform her duty and fight humanity’s wars as required.
But Merlin was different.
He absolutely, absolutely could not keep secrets from her.
None!
“No!
You’re not allowed to have secrets!!!”
“I don’t!
I really don’t!
Don’t…
don’t bite me!”
“Confess!!!”
“I don’t have anything to confess!
Ow, ow, ow…
let go!”
“Secret!
Confess!!!”
“Ow!”
Merlin’s innocent expression only made Lion even angrier.
She wanted to bite something.
“I’ll bite you to death!
Hiding secrets from me—I’ll bite you to death!”
Bite, bite, bite, bite, bite!
Lion latched onto Merlin’s arm and kept biting.
There was no point maintaining her dignified facade around Merlin anyway.
He had seen through it long ago.
So why bother pretending?
This lady was a beast!!!
If he refused to confess, she’d bite him to death!
Merlin stared helplessly at Lion while feeling the carefully controlled pressure of her teeth on his arm.
He was being wronged here.
Admittedly, the Ring of Sagittarius really was a secret he hadn’t told her about…
But Lion’s accusation was still absurd.
From the way she was reacting, anyone would think Merlin was planning to elope with the Emperor and never come back.
“I!
Don’t!
Care!”
“Confess!!!”
The pressure on his arm increased.
Help…
The pet he had raised for more than ten years had evolved into a biting monster!
“Confess!
If you don’t confess, I’ll bite you to death!”
“Bite you to death, bite you to death, bite you to death, bite you to dea—”
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the meditation chamber door.
In an instant, Lion El’Jonson transformed.
The furious beast who had been chewing on Merlin’s arm disappeared so quickly that the movement was almost impossible to follow.
By the time Lion pressed the control to open the door, she was already seated calmly and elegantly, wearing the stern expression expected of a Primarch.
Except for the teeth marks on Merlin’s arm, there was no evidence that anything had happened.
“Enter.
I am discussing classified matters with the Wizard.”
“Classified matters…”
Merlin’s mouth twitched.
This woman really was abusing the excellent soundproofing of her private chamber to torment him, then pretending to be perfectly normal the moment someone else appeared.
“Primarch?
Um…”
The First Legion warrior who entered glanced between the two of them, apparently unsure what to make of the scene.
“My Lady, aside from the companies currently deployed elsewhere, the warriors of the First Legion have assembled and are awaiting your inspection.”
The First Legion.
The Legion whose gene-seed was derived from Lion El’Jonson’s genetic lineage.
The warriors who would later become known as the Dark Angels.
Perfect timing.
Lion was already angry.
And now a group of willing targets had presented themselves.
It would practically be a waste not to beat someone.
“Good.
“Wizard, you’re coming too.”
Seeing Merlin attempting to quietly slip away before she could torment him any further, Lion reached out, grabbed him, and dragged him along behind her.
Perhaps it was another consequence of this strange world created by the Ring of Sagittarius.
Instead of the towering giant Merlin remembered Primarchs being, Lion El’Jonson had grown into a comparatively petite woman.
The warriors of the First Legion, meanwhile, included both men and women, and most of them still towered over ordinary humans.
Even the female Space Marines were generally close to two meters tall.
As a result, Lion, who was half a head shorter than Merlin himself, looked particularly small while walking between the assembled ranks of the First Legion.
Some of the Space Marines had to lower their heads to properly look at their Primarch.
Others simply stared straight ahead, almost as though Lion wasn’t even within their line of sight.
Hmph.
Lion immediately understood what they were doing.
They were trying to intimidate her.
Many of these Terran-born Space Marines, veterans from [Holy Terra] itself, were proud of their accomplishments and had little respect for a Primarch who had yet to achieve anything on the galactic stage.
The First Legion was even more troublesome.
They were among the earliest Astartes created by the Emperor, and many of them had fought in humanity’s earliest wars on Terra.
They were veterans with enormous pride in their history.
Lion El’Jonson?
As far as some of them were concerned, she was merely a savage from the forests of Caliban—a barbarian who had never even seen interstellar civilization until recently.
Why should they respect her?
She might be their Primarch, their gene-mother, but their loyalty had always belonged first and foremost to the Emperor of Mankind.
Whenever a Space Marine Legion was reunited with its Primarch, there were bound to be a few who refused to accept their new commander immediately.
That was unavoidable.
“I noticed your little provocation.”
Under the thoughtful gazes of the assembled warriors, Lion walked to the front of the formation.
Fortunately, she was very familiar with this sort of problem.
“Come.”
Lion rested a hand on her sword.
“Duel me.”
Back on Caliban, plenty of knights had challenged her authority.
Some called her a barbarian.
Others thought she looked too small and slight to bear the responsibility of leadership.
Lion had always dealt with such problems in the same way.
Beat them.
Then beat them again.
Keep beating them until nobody dared call her a barbarian anymore— and everyone agreed that she was extremely civilized.
That was simply Lion El’Jonson’s way.
“You don’t know who I’m talking to?”
Lion looked over the First Legion warriors, who were now exchanging uncertain glances.
A faint, dangerous smile appeared on her face.
“First Legion.”
“I’m talking to all of you.”
She drew the longsword at her waist.
“So…”
“Who’s first?”
It really helps the fic grow!