Shockingly, the director was working with kidnappers to regularly bring children to the slave market. Most likely, those guys who visited the orphanage with Diana not too long ago were part of the abductees.
Her eyes burned with anger.
“Never let go.”
Shaking her clenched fist, she managed to regain her composure and pulled out a wad of paper from the desk. Then, by means of magic, she immediately began duplicating ledgers and statements of transactions. The idea was to take the original with her in case of an emergency, and keep a duplicate in the safe. After some time, it would go back to meaningless paper, but it was enough for a brief trick.
‘Because Duke Elad will come soon.’
Thanks to the incomparable fullness of mana before, the copy was made much faster than she thought.
‘Come to think of it, I need to find out why the amount of mana suddenly increased…’
“Heuk.”
Then, suddenly, blood gushed out of her throat. A lot of mana was suddenly used, and her weak body couldn’t stand it. She felt a tremendous sense of exhaustion, but she quickly raised her hand to dissipate all the drops of blood so as not to leave any evidence. At the same time, she stumbled and her body sank to the floor. As she feared, her mana ran out, and her whole body, starting with her hands, began to tremble, but her eyes as she looked at the evidence shone brightly.
* * *
“Are you being lazy again, you worms!”
Recalling the night a few days ago, she was barely suppressing what she wanted to overturn right away, when she suddenly heard the director’s voice from downstairs.
“Are you buggy?”
“Nothing! I didn’t say anything to Dana.”
She said urgently while watching Diana copying the director’s words with an innocent expression. Somehow she had a bad feeling.
Last night, the director, who went out for a drink as usual, returned to the nursery before midnight, his face white as if he had seen a ghost. Then he found Diana all over again. No matter how many times I asked her, she didn’t make a big noise and she didn’t cry even when she faced the big ledger. Knowing how much Diana usually fears the director, she kissed her on the cheek affectionately after the director had gone and whispered in the child’s ear.
‘Your father will come to rescue you soon, so be patient.’
According to memory, the Duke would visit tomorrow. With the thought that she really only needed to hold on a little bit now, she got up, hoping that the day would pass quickly.
“Dana, I’ll come after cleaning myself, so sleep for a bit.”
* * *
“Duke of Elad, no way… Hopefully not. Yes, that’s right. She doesn’t have silver hair. It’s light gray!”
Her hand, which had been wiping the floor with a mop for a long time, stopped at the words of the director who muttered frantically as he went back and forth in the room as if he was nervous. Then the director looked at her and shouted sharply.
“You! Bring that gray-haired girl from yesterday.”
“…yes?”
“I’ll make you say it twice!”
She hurriedly ran out of the director who scared her with his eyes wide open. Her heart was beating like crazy.
‘Shall we run away now? No. What if I cross paths with the Duke?’
Nervously biting her nails, She came to a sudden stop. Come to think of it, the director had shown this much interest in Diana in the past. In the end, the day before the Duke came, he even locked her in the attic. At the time, it was taken for granted that Diana was punished because she couldn’t adjust to life at the nursery school…
<You guys, no matter what you hear, you must say you know nothing!>
When the Duke of Elad stormed into the nursery school, and even remembered what the director said before calling the children to the yard, a lightning-like realization came.
He already knew.
She knew that he was involved in the abduction of Princess Elad, and that if this fact were revealed, her life would end that day. Feeling breathless, she looked up and found herself in front of the bedroom door.
“Dana?”
Of course she thought Diana was sleeping, she was standing by the bed and then she found her and suddenly she started crying.
“Brother…”
“Why, why?”
Embarrassed, she quickly approached, but Diana rather hesitated behind her, and she only cried.
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s okay. You have me.”
‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’
After several times she spoke in a calm tone, she calmed down a bit and the child finally stopped crying. Only then did she, who was relieved, see the situation properly.
“Ah…”
Diana’s clothes and blanket were wet. Diana twitched her fingers and sobbed, knowing she couldn’t hide it any longer.
“Dana… You should rest.”
“But…”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind…”
Seeing her retort to her comforting words, Diana, smart and quick-witted, seemed to have already noticed the poor conditions in the nursery.
“I missed Missi.”
Diana wiggled her fingers as she stretched out, then bowed her head. It was when she quickly wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and held her child in her arms.
“What the hell are you doing! Are my words funny?”
The door jumped open, and the director, who had come up to the second floor, came out and glared at Diana with a ferocious gaze. In an instant, her heart pounded with both of her bats. When she first joined the guild, Terranchium received a request from a shabby bar in a dangerous back alley. A variety of people, including nobles and low-ranking knights, mercenaries, and commoners, could come and go, and there were often cases of a large man like the director getting drunk. She tried not to show it, but she was very scared.
Fortunately, soon after, the headquarters was changed to a cafe located in the downtown area on the whim of the Master, and since then, she had forgotten about this fear because she was no longer exposed to the menace of the big man. She thought maybe she had overcome it. It was a stupid idea.
“Oh, Missi…”
Diana called to her as she stood still. But she had no way to answer. Because the director, having discovered Diana, stretched out his hand toward the child. It was the same situation as in the past.
She didn’t go out then, but this time it was different. She hugged Diana in a hurry and curled her up like a hedgehog.
“Ugh.”
But it wasn’t her who gave the groan of death. When she opened her eyes in surprise, she saw Jack’s gray hair.
* * *
“Hey…”
How much time had passed? She flinched at the sound of a small whimper next to her and opened her eyes. In her pitch-black vision, she immediately knew where she was. It was the attic at the top that the nursery school children hated the most. She thought that now that Diana hadn’t disobeyed her director, she wouldn’t be locked up in the attic, but she was wrong. She was locked in the attic in the first place because Diana was the daughter of Duke Elad.
She felt sorry for herself for not noticing in advance.
“…Dana.”
“Missi!”
As if she had been waiting, the child was held in her arms. Her facial expression contorted at the sound of the crying voice. Her voice seemed to tremble in her throbbing heart, but she forced herself to clear her throat to calm the child.
“Dana, believe me. Your father will come to rescue you soon.”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes. Dana, only Missi.”
Her eyes lit up at the child’s kind words. She was grateful and felt sorry for the child who relied on her, whom she had just met.
“Okay. Dana, hold on.”
After patting the child’s back a few times, she quickly examined the mana inside her body. She couldn’t feel her mana well, probably because she couldn’t rest properly or eat since she used magic yesterday. She knew she wasn’t feeling well, but she managed to put out her hand and put out a small spark. Soon, the girl’s face was covered with tears and snot.
“Jack…”
She was speechless when she saw Jack with his eyes closed as if he had lost his mind. In the past, Jack had wrapped Diana up from the director and locked her in the attic together, but this time it seemed that he was much more seriously injured than before.
‘It’s all my fault.’
She… As she came back from the dead, she felt terrible and wanted to cry, but when she noticed that the sparks on her fingertips were noticeably smaller than before, she quickly looked at Jack calmly. Looking at Jack’s condition, it seemed that a day had passed since he had lost his mind.
Duke Elad must have arrived at the nursery school by now. And after a long search, he would find this attic.
“I can’t wait.”
She didn’t want to keep these children in the dark for even one second longer. And just in time, even the dangerously flickering flames faded into silence. Without hesitation, she turned toward what she assumed was the attic window, the one she had looked at earlier when the flames were lit.
“Ugh.”
No matter how many layers the windows were blocked, it was not easy to remove the boards with bare hands. But she couldn’t stop even though her delicate fingers were pricked by tree thorns and were bleeding. At that time, the board was torn off a little, but a thin ray of light came in, and she could see the outside scenery narrowly. Only then did Diana realize what she was doing in the dark and turn white.
“Oh, Missi. Blood, blood…”
“It’s fine. Because I’m fine…”
She comforted Diana who was at her side and gave me strength over and over again. Part of the planking was removed, revealing a hole in the window that was already broken. If she sang like this, it seemed like it could be heard even outside. But the short-lived expectations soon turned into disappointment. No matter how loudly Diana shouted “Daddy!” there was only silence outside the window.
“Nonsense…”
The Empire’s best knights who deal with auras must have come together. Then she believed that they would recognize this sound and come.
She muttered softly as she held the necklace in her hand out of nervousness as a habit.
“I, I have to go myself.”
After all, she was the only one who could put everything back in place. Her heart beat fast as she looked down at the ground through the window and measured the distance. If it was the she from before, she would have landed lightly even from this height. But now she was too weak. If she was lucky, she would end up with a broken leg or arm, but if she was unlucky, she might die.
‘I want to live.’
Even after screwing things up like this, she still wanted to live. As if it was imprinted as the only desire. Eventually she decided to take one last adventure.
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. Thank you very much for reading.
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