"Marry?"
Leon hadn't expected that this was what Brellita was aiming for.
"So, Holy Maiden… you want to kill two birds with one stone—pull both me and Iris, the elven diplomat, into your camp?"
"Talking to someone smart like you is easy. Yes, that's exactly my goal. Think it over, Leon Bellron. I can give you one week—how about that?"
Faced with Brellita's proposal, Leon burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha—Holy Maiden, you really know how to joke."
"I'm not joking!"
Leon's reaction was not what Brellita had anticipated.
And yet, strangely enough, even laughing without the slightest concern for appearances, Leon still gave her a sense of carefree charm.
Brellita ended up looking at him a few times longer than she meant to.
When Leon finished laughing and noticed her gaze, he met it openly, unbothered.
"Holy Maiden, I suggest you reconsider that proposal. It would be more prudent."
"Why?"
"Because you may be underestimating the power hidden behind Iris. Her marriage isn't something humans can decide so easily."
Brellita frowned slightly. "Even though the Elven Holy Land has already ordered these diplomats to strengthen intermarriage with humans?"
"Even so," Leon said. "Holy Maiden, you might want to investigate a bit more."
Then he smiled faintly.
"I've enjoyed our chat tonight, but I still have something to take care of, so I won't trouble you further. See you."
With that, he slowly stepped backward, retreating into the shadow at the corner of the wall.
From Brellita's perspective, the moment Leon's body entered that corner, it blended into the darkness like ink dropped into water—melding with the shadows and vanishing from the spot in an instant.
The sight cast a cold shadow over Brellita's expression. She realized her investigation into Leon had been incomplete as well.
After a brief silence, Brellita murmured under her breath,
"What an astonishing performance… A rare class—Phantom Walker?"
Yet her face, instead of darkening further, took on a different kind of pleased delight.
The rarer an extraordinary class was, the stranger and more unique its core skills tended to be.
Like her own class, Holy Supplicant: even if her raw mana wasn't the very highest, she could still pray for the blessing of the goddess Astalia and produce tremendous power.
That was why—even as only a fourth-tier—she could still accomplish many great feats.
She had already mentally marked Leon as a future subordinate. Naturally, she found it gratifying to see him reveal new strength.
She decided then and there: she would push Leon and Iris together, make them marry—and then bring them both under her banner.
…
In front of Iris's estate.
Leon stood with his back against the wall by the main gate.
The estate was in a remote area of the royal capital's western district, with a cemetery not far away.
So close to midnight, the surroundings were terrifyingly quiet.
Iris—who had made the wager with Leon—clearly hadn't made it back here yet.
"Scary," Bisce muttered beside Leon, still shaken. "I thought your pretty face might even lure the Holy Maiden."
Before dying, Bisce had also been a priestess of the Church of Astalia.
Back when she'd been active in her early years, Brellita hadn't risen yet—but in Bisce's mind, the purity and sanctity of a church Holy Maiden was still something almost untouchable.
If even a Holy Maiden could be drawn in by Leon's looks, Bisce didn't know what she should be more afraid of.
Was she supposed to fear her faith collapsing… or fear her master getting stolen?
"Ugh. It's so hard to choose."
Leon slapped Bisce away just as she was about to lick his face, then grabbed her by the chin with five fingers, keeping her head and tongue from coming closer.
"Why are you in heat again?"
"I'm not in heat—after agonizing over it, I decided to follow my heart."
"If you keep messing around, I'll recall you."
"Don't! There's a cemetery nearby—this spooky aura is perfect for me to train my mana!"
"Then train your mana properly! If you keep acting up, I'll stuff you into a latrine drain."
Bisce looked utterly shocked. Finally, she quieted down.
And the front of Iris's estate fell back into silence.
Leon, for his part, was happy to have peace. He checked the panel for anything he might have missed while waiting for Iris to return.
This wager was the key to what he planned to do next.
Huh.
He suddenly noticed there were new updates to his own personal panel as well.
[Leon Bellron]
[Age / Lifespan: 17 / 109]
[Current Tier: Mage (First) / Phantom Walker (Second)]
[Primary Stats: Vitality 29 / Mana 25 / Stamina 27 / Strength 31 / Agility 39]
[Current Title: Wyvern (Juvenile) Strangler]
[Class Core Skills: High-Speed Mana Recovery / Shadow Leap]
[Skills Mastered: Water/Earth/Wind/Fire magic (chantless); Shadow Breathing, Shadow Sword Slash, Phantom Step / Shadow Blade, Shadow Thrust, Shadow Shield]
[Active Quests: Chosen by Royal Authority (0%), Fallen Dark Elf (1%), Paladin Selection (0%)]
[Because you have repeatedly deceived targets at least two tiers stronger than yourself and achieved perfect success, you may unlock an extraordinary class: Trickster. Do you choose to take this class?]
Deception?
Was it the way he'd deceived Iris earlier that delivered the final push?
For instance, claiming he could use divination—purely a lie to cover the fact that he knew the plot and future information.
"I never thought I'd get a bonus like this."
Leon was delighted.
Each additional extraordinary class provided corresponding boosts across the board.
Generally speaking, a first-tier attribute cap was 10, second-tier was 20, and so on—up to fourth tier, after which the stat gaps grew even more dramatic.
Of course, for people with A+ potential and above, with focused training, breaking a tier's attribute limits and reaching two or three times the baseline cap wasn't rare.
But for ordinary people, they might never even come close to the cap.
That was why every extra extraordinary class effectively let a normal person break the cap one more time.
Leon's mana reaching 25—while his other attributes hovered near or above roughly double the normal limit—was precisely the result of having two extraordinary classes.
Most ordinary second-tier individuals had mana hovering around 10–15.
If you could approach 20 mana, you were already top-tier among second-tiers.
However, extraordinary classes were difficult to obtain.
Take Mage: you needed to learn three beginner spells before receiving the world's "enlightenment," completing the class awakening, and gaining a core skill tailored to your circumstances.
Leon's core skill, earned after training to chantless casting across four elements, was High-Speed Mana Recovery.
With that core skill and chantless magic, he could output combat effectiveness comparable to having 40–50 mana in a short burst.
And after taking a class, triggering a second class awakening was usually difficult.
Even if the conditions were similar, a second awakening required doing it more perfectly, more deeply, for success to even be possible.
If your second class target was also Mage, you'd need at least six beginner spells before you even had a chance.
If it was Warrior, then similarly, you'd need at least six combat techniques.
And note: that only gave you a chance.
Some people might master seven or eight and still fail.
Techniques and spells needed synergy.
If what you learned was a messy grab-bag—one thing here, one thing there—forming no coherent system, you still might not qualify.
How to unlock rare classes, how to pair skills for awakening, how to advance tiers—much of that was secret knowledge known only to top nobles, the church, the royal court, and other elites.
Leon's second class, Phantom Walker, was something he'd "cheated" into using game experience—specifically learning three corresponding shadow spells and shadow techniques to grind the requirements.
But he hadn't expected that his habitual practice of deceiving the strong—combined with this final push with Iris—would unlock a third extraordinary class, and a super-rare one at that!
This was a class he'd never even encountered in his past life, despite clearing every side quest.
Could it be that deceiving a heroine drew more attention from the world's enlightenment?
Since Iris still hadn't arrived, Leon simply chose to take the class.
"Awaken class: Trickster!"