The Hero Who Loved the Scabbard Too Much and the Demon Sword Begging to Be Drawn

Chapter 1: The Hero Who Never Draws and the Dry Blade

Beneath a bruising twilight sky, the battlefield reeked of scorched iron and beast blood. A twin-headed colossal fiend shattered the earth with six corded arms, roaring loudly enough to rattle armor plates. Yet reflected in the cold blue eyes of Leonhart—clad in gleaming silver-white mail—was no monster at all.

His entire soul was fixated solely on the jet-black leather scabbard strapped tightly to his waist.

"Wait, Leon! That's the vanguard boss! Why haven't you drawn me yet?! Why on earth are you re-oiling the rim of my scabbard in the middle of a deathmatch?!"

Around the sheath materialized the translucent spirit of a silver-haired girl whose crimson eyes burned with wounded fury. Claiohm Solais, incarnation of the legendary Demon Blade, stamped wildly in midair.

"Quiet, Claiohm," Leonhart murmured, voice dripping with reverent obsession. "Drawing you ruins this immaculate vacuum seal. Can you not appreciate the snug resistance of this enchanted oxhide? The blade itself is merely decoration. It is the velvet darkness embracing it that defines perfection!"

Dabbing dry cloth into aromatic tallow, he stroked the scabbard's throat with slow, tender, almost scandalous devotion. Every gentle squeak of leather sent a shiver down his spine, utterly unfazed as the monster's fist slammed the dirt two paces away.

Behind him, Saintess Elena pressed a heavy gilded scripture tightly to her chest. Behind thick round spectacles, her amber eyes glistened darkly while beads of sweat traced her flushed cheeks.

"Ah..." Elena whispered, hugging the leather-bound tome closer. "Is Sir Hero teaching me the virtue of agonizing restraint...? Treating my trembling heart like a blade awaiting unsheathing...?"

Mistaking pure equipment fetishism for elaborate romantic foreplay, her knees nearly buckled beneath her white vestments.

"WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG! He's just a deranged leather fanatic! Pull me out! Let me taste battle blood!"

Deaf to the weeping spirit sword, Leonhart dropped low into a razor-sharp stance.

"Sheath-Strike Art: Sealed Impact!"

He launched forward like a silver cannonball. Without budging the hilt a single millimeter, he drove the reinforced tip of the scabbard straight between the twin-headed beast's eyes.

BOOM!

The monster's skull caved inward, sending its mountain-sized frame crashing lifelessly into the dust. One strike—an instantaneous blunt-force takedown. Yet Leonhart showed zero triumph. His eyes locked in horror onto a half-millimeter scuff mark on the scabbard's brass cap.

"...It scratched my treasure. Ten thousand deaths are scarcely enough."

"THAT'S WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT?! Not slaying a mythic beast—just a tiny scratch on the leather?!"

Chapter 2: Late-Night Maintenance and Deepening Misunderstandings

Hours later inside a quiet frontier inn, a single oil lamp cast long shadows across creaking floorboards. Stripped down to rolled-up white linen sleeves, Leonhart sat at a desk lined with small amber vials of conditioning oil, filling the room with rich beeswax and hide aroma.

"Mm... still slightly tight at the collar," Leonhart sighed breathily, thumbing warm oil carefully inside the scabbard's narrow lip. "If I don't work this moisture deep into the inner lining..."

"Hyaaah?! Stop sliding your weird greased fingers around inside my house!! Grab the hilt! Admire my edge, you absolute lunatic!!"

Claiohm rolled clutching her stomach across the bedsheets, feeling every invasive poke straight through her spiritual link. Leonhart didn't blink.

"Starting to glisten nicely... tonight I'll stay up working it all the way down to the bottom tip."

Right beyond a paper-thin wooden wall in the neighboring suite, Elena pressed her forehead tight against the planking, biting her sleeve to muffle a breathless gasp. Misinterpreting every muffled squelch of leather oil and Leonhart's low murmurs as coded yearning directed at her, she trembled violently from head to toe.

"Finally... Sir Hero seeks to claim his vessel... Even if my courage falters, if it is for him..."

At dawn in the inn's lobby, Leonhart buckled the gleaming scabbard proudly over his hip and stabbed a gloved finger onto a parchment map.

"Tomorrow we march straight into the Demon Citadel. Somewhere in its deepest dungeon lies an imprisoned master saddler—the only artisan alive capable of stitching an Ultimate Scabbard worthy of my desire!"

(Who cares about saving the kingdom. Give me mythical dragon-hide tightness!)

"The Demon King's castle?! Surely even you must draw me against the Dark Lord himself! Witness my true glory!" Claiohm cheered, pumping translucent fists.

"So that shall be the altar where we seal our vows..." Elena sighed blissfully, clutching her silver cross.

All three charged straight toward calamity on completely incompatible wavelengths.

Chapter 3: The Demon Throne and the One-Millimeter Unsheathing

Purple hellfire swirled inside the obsidian throne room as the towering Demon King spread midnight talons, gathering enough cataclysmic mana to crack continents.

"Now, Leon!! My grand debut!! Pull me free with everything you've got!!" Claiohm screamed in exultation.

"I am ready to receive everything, Hero Leonhart!" Elena cried dramatically beside a marble pillar.

Leonhart slowly rested his right thumb against the silver handguard. Time held its breath. Slowly, solemnly, he nudged the hilt upward.

Shhk—CLICK!

Exactly one millimeter. A hairline sliver of blinding white steel flashed into open air—only for Leonhart to slam the sword ruthlessly back home with supersonic speed, locking the vacuum seal tight!

KRA-KOOM!!

The hyper-compressed arcane air trapped inside the leather chamber erupted out of that microscopic one-millimeter slit as a focused supersonic vacuum lance.

"Behold! The acoustic resonance of zero-gap resealing! Pure atmospheric perfection!!"

Matter dissolved cleanly down a straight corridor. Caught mid-monologue, the Demon King—along with three hundred yards of solid obsidian castle wall behind his throne—vanished instantaneously in a neat cylindrical bore into the mountain daylight.

"ONE MILLIMETERRRR?! You didn't even pull me out!! Nobody agreed to infinite edging, you monster!!"

Claiohm thrashed wildly through falling rubble while Elena collapsed delicately to her knees, glasses slipping crooked as she flushed scarlet.

"To tease with a mere single millimeter... how cruelly refined... Next time, surely down to the hilt..."

Chapter 4: Into Legend (Unfortunately)

Sunlight poured over tens of thousands of cheering citizens packed into the Royal Capital's grand plaza. From the marble balcony, the tearful King spread open his arms.

"Great Hero Leonhart, savior of our realm! Name any reward—duchies, gold mountains, even my very crown!"

Cheers fell hushed. Standing tall before a sea of adoring eyes, Leonhart spoke with ringing, stone-faced gravity.

"I demand one thousand custom-fitted scabbards crafted from the world's finest leathers—funded wholly by the royal treasury."

Silence. The King's jaw went slack; ministers dropped their scrolls. Then an aged royal philosopher wept aloud in awe.

"O-oh!! What transcendent wisdom!! One thousand scabbards—a metaphor for wrapping every war-torn citizen in warm mercy! Never drawing the sword stands as an eternal vow of pacifism!!"

"Hail the Hero!!" "A saint of non-violence!!"

Thunderous applause drowned out everything as invisible Claiohm wept furiously overhead. "Don't fall for it!! He's just a leather pervert!! Somebody pull me out!! Anyone!!"

Amidst the confetti, Elena threw both arms tightly around Leonhart's waist, gazing upward through starry spectacles. "As the First Scabbard among your thousand, I shall hold you tight for eternity..."

Leonhart heard neither sobs nor vows. Pressing his cheek fondly against the supple hide at his hip, his eyes sparkled toward bright blue skies—already dreaming of tomorrow's next tight fit.