Dungeon Overlord: Monster Girl Harem!-Chapter 142: Echoes in the Heart

His gaze stayed on hers, and for a moment something flickered behind his eyes—curiosity, maybe. Or the first breath of something more dangerous. A question he hadn't yet phrased to himself.

Erina's lips parted with a wet smack from her lip gloss. She didn't tremble, at least not visibly, but her heart, like a frantic deer, thrashed inside her chest.

Leonhardt saved them many times, fought and guided their group. He even protected her when no one else would. The others whispered about monsters and control, but in that moment, all she could see was him. The man no one dared get close to.

The one she already had.

And when her hand lifted to his wrist—not to stop him, just to feel something real—she thought he might pull away.

But he didn't.

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And somehow, that scared her more than anything else.

Her breath caught—soft, barely audible—but enough for him to notice. His fingers lingered beneath her chin. It wasn't forceful or possessive, just… steady. Like he didn't trust the air to hold her gaze as well as his hand did.

"You're trembling," Leonhardt said, his voice low. Quietly curious, not mocking. "Is it fear?"

Erina's jaw rattled, unable to answer him instantly as her lips parted, but the words became lodged in her throat. In honesty, she wasn't sure because her brain became a mess of white noise and pink thoughts. She became warm, her pulse racing, and finally she uttered in haste.

"I don't know."

His brow furrowed just slightly.

Not from confusion, but maybe something a little closer to calculation.

"I could step back," he offered. "Is that what you want, Erina?"

It almost sounded like he wanted to resist and hated the thought.

Erina swallowed.

Her hand reached up—not to push him away, but to touch his wrist. Just to feel something real.

"You make it hard to think," she said, voice barely a breath.

Leonhardt didn't flinch, but something in his gaze shifted. A flicker. Like a part of him—buried deep beneath the layers of control—had stirred.

"That's not my intent," he replied.

"Isn't it?" she asked, finally meeting his eyes fully. "You show up in my prayers. In my sleep. You stand this close and ask me questions like that… and then say it's not your intent?"

A pause. The flicker behind his eyes grew brighter.

"I know how humans work," he said slowly. "I've studied them. Their minds. Their hearts. I understand attraction. Attachment. The things that make them crawl toward pleasure and fall apart in love."

His voice dropped half a breath lower.

"But knowing isn't the same as feeling it."

Erina blinked.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying…" He paused, a beat longer than needed. "You might be the first thing I've touched that made me wonder if I've missed something."

Erina was different.

Not like Asuka, whose blood ran too hot and wild, more monster than mortal—easy to understand, easier still to predict. Nor like Sylvie, whose Fae lineage clung to her like mist, soft and strange, her scent muted and nostalgic, almost soothing.

Erina was human.

Utterly, painfully human.

And humans, to Leonhardt, smelled foul. Their fear, their sweat, their blood—it all reeked of weakness and noise. A kind of rot he had learned to ignore, but never quite forget.

Yet...

The scent coming off her wasn't the same.

It wasn't clean. It wasn't sweet.

But it stayed with him.

Softly bitter. Quiet. Like warm parchment and ironed linen, touched by old incense and a flicker of guilt. It made Leonhardt's instincts recoil and reach in the same breath.

"I should hate this," he murmured, almost to himself.

Erina blinked. "What…?"

Leonhardt's hand finally dropped from her chin. Slowly. As if breaking contact required effort.

"You're dangerous," he said. "And I don't know why."

Erina frowned, confused. "I'm dangerous?"

"To me, you are"

A moment later, he muttered, adding, "That's the problem."

Erina touched her chest as it fluttered from his words. Not like a bird desperate to flee a predator, but one surprised by the cage door swinging open. His words didn't contain the romantic flair of a bard, nor were they kind.

Yet they had pierced through her defences like paper.

"Then why are you here?" she asked, voice fragile.

Leonhardt said nothing at first. His eyes didn't move from hers. There was no cruel amusement, no feigned indifference. Just a silence that pressed in from all sides, heavy and searching.

"Because I need you," he said.

She didn't understand what he meant.

Not fully.

And the way he said it made her want to both run and stay forever.

To her, his words landed with strange weight. Unclear. Suggestive. A thread of meaning she couldn't untangle. But to Leonhardt, they made perfect sense.

He did need her.

She was the voice the villagers listened to. The name they trusted. The anchor that kept them calm while his shadow stretched across Arlet inch by inch. Soon, the Crimson Hawks would resume their operations, and Erina—still wrapped in robes, still carrying the last glow of her false divinity—would stand at his side as Vice-Leader, unaware that each step brought her closer to blood.

Closer to Enzo.

Her own father.

Her death, if he willed it.

But beneath that cold purpose, a second need stirred. Not born of strategy. Not spoken aloud.

It lived lower.

Darker.

An instinct that didn't speak in language, but in tension—the silent obsession of a predator circling its chosen mate, not with fangs bared, but hidden. Always near. Always watching.

Like an eclipsed moon.

Half light.

Half hunger.

Erina's hand dropped from his wrist as if it had suddenly burned her.

She turned quickly, the fabric of her robe twisting at her knees as she moved—too fast to seem natural, too slow to call a retreat.

"I… I should return," Erina said, her voice light but uneven. "The villagers are waiting. The prayer scripts need review."

Erine didn't look back... but rather, she couldn't.

Her cheeks felt warm as her throat tightened, and the strange flutter in her chest made it difficult to stand near him. If she stayed longer, if he said anything else—if he touched her again—

She might not walk away.

And that scared her more than the monsters she'd once trained to fight.

The moment she left the room, something shifted.

Leonhardt's body stayed still, but his eyes lost their softness. Whatever warmth had been in his voice, whatever uncertainty had danced at the edges of his silence, it vanished like smoke pulled through cold stone.

He turned slightly.

Toward the shadowed edge of the corridor, and narrowed his gaze, his atmosphere becoming cold, like fleeting fog washed over the chapel.

"Dia."

The name was flat. Mechanical. An order wrapped in syllables.

He didn't seem to be the same man from a moment before.

The masked figure stepped forward soundlessly, her white cloak trailing behind her like mist. She didn't speak.

"You will follow her," Leonhardt said. "Observe who she speaks to. Who tries to influence her. If she begins to doubt her place… remind her."

Dia nodded, slow and silent.

Leonhardt's eyes narrowed, the glow behind them pulsing brighter—a soft pink thread of magic drifting into the still air.

"And… don't let her feel alone."

He paused.

"Even if she is. Protect her."

The glow sharpened—then vanished.

"Do not be seen."

Another breath.

"Do not fail."