“……Mom?”

The child, lying on the floor, blinked dazedly for a moment before noticing Aeli and brightening up.

Trying to rise, the child realized their hands and feet were tied, and their mouth fell open in shock.

Aeli bit her lip gently and sighed softly at the child curling up.

Seeing the child’s obvious fear, Aeli quickly lifted them onto her lap and spoke in a deliberately cheerful voice.

“Adi, did you know? Right now, your father and the other knights are all looking for you.”

“Father……”

“Yes. You know how strong your father is, right? So he’ll be able to find you soon.”

In truth, it wasn’t so.

Aeli, having seen the path here with her own eyes, already knew.

This place, unless one deliberately searched for days, was not a level that could be found by someone who didn’t even know such a place existed, no matter how hard they tried.

……Unless someone directly showed the way.

Aeli stroked the child’s head and spoke again, her voice trembling slightly, worried the child might notice.

“Can you perhaps undo the handcuffs and rope with magic? Mom wants to untie you, but I can’t touch the objects… I can’t do it.”

“Umm… just a moment.”

After straining with narrowed eyes for a while, the child shook their head.

They said they might be able to break the rope, but whenever they tried to gather mana, it kept scattering, not amassing enough to destroy anything.

‘Did they install mana interference circuits too? Judging by the scattered flow, it doesn’t seem different from an aura…’

Aeli, trying to calm her increasingly anxious heart, soothed the child, saying let’s try to undo the rope first. She maintained a facade of calmness, knowing if she showed anxiety, the child would become frightened again.

‘It’s better to have at least the feet free than both hands and feet tied for escape.’

It’s better to have even a little freedom of movement.

A little while after Aeli’s words, the child, having cut the rope binding their feet with sharpened mana, frowned slightly.

“It hurts……”

Having walked around barefoot, there were already quite a few scratches on their feet.

On top of that, in the process of cutting the tightly bound rope against their ankle, they had accidentally made a shallow cut in their skin.

Seeing the thin trickle of blood along the child’s pale, slender ankle, Aeli clenched her trembling jaw. She felt she might scream if she didn’t keep her mouth shut.

‘It’s been over a hundred years since slave trading was banned, yet why……’

Her teeth chattered at the unreasonable and cruel situation beyond common sense. She couldn’t understand why such things were happening in Rattliff territory.

She needed to call Lutis here before it was too late.

But she didn’t know where he might be now, and even if she did, there was no way to guide him.

‘……He won’t be able to hear me even if I speak, and I can’t pull him along.’

Then, was there any other way to leave traces along the path……

“……Ah.”

Suddenly, Aeli’s gaze fell on the child’s small head.

She could touch the child.

She still couldn’t touch the child’s clothes or other accessories. But…..

‘Hair, hands, and feet should be fine…..’

The child had hair that had grown past shoulder length, not cut for months, intending to show Mari.

Aeli hesitated for a moment, then spoke while gently stroking the child’s ankle, which was fidgeting from the stinging wound.

“Adi. Mom needs to go outside for a bit-”

“N-No!”

Before Aeli could finish, the startled child clung to her tightly and cried out.

Shaking their head repeatedly, the child’s small fists clenched and trembled. They looked up at Aeli with fearful eyes and made a tearful face.

“Mom, don’t, don’t go……”

“……But,”

“I-I’m scared. Don’t go, stay… stay with me please……”

“……”

Tears finally rolled down the child’s soft, chubby cheeks characteristic of young children.

Aeli turned the child to face her, looking into their eyes as the round droplets passed through her body and wet the dirty wooden floor.

Aeli slowly wiped the child’s tear-stained cheeks and smiled faintly.

“Adi. Do you remember what Mom said earlier today? There’s a very large and beautiful lake in Rattliff’s backyard.”

“……”

“Don’t cry, can you look at Mom for a bit? I have something to tell you.”

“No… No! I won’t listen. If I listen, you’ll leave…!”

As the child shook their head quickly and buried their face in Aeli’s chest, she lowered her gaze.

Faced with such adamant refusal to make eye contact, Aeli had no choice but to hug the child and gently pat their back.

Then she spoke again.

“Our Adi, you wanted to go boating with Dad, eat delicious things, and wear clothes matching your rabbit doll, right?”

“……”

“To do that, we need to get outside first. That’s how you can do everything you want. Also, it’s too dangerous here… and to safely take you out, Dad needs to come.”

“……But……”

“Mom will go quickly to bring Dad… can’t you trust Mom and wait until then?”

Aeli said she would return before Adi could count to the biggest number they knew, kissing the top of their head briefly.

When she lifted the small face with both hands, she noticed it had become wet again.

The child looked at the slightly dirtied rabbit doll lying carelessly on the floor for a moment, then slowly nodded.

“You have to come back……”

“Yes.”

“With Dad, you have to come get me……”

“……Okay.”

When we get out of here, I’ll ask to go boating. I’ll eat cake and pudding and cookies and ice cream as much as I want, and draw pictures with the rabbit too. The child said.

“……Yes, let’s definitely do that.”

Aeli pressed her lips to the child’s forehead and smiled brightly.

We will prepare all of that for you.

As we always have.

And so when Aeli left the room alone, she was holding the child’s hair in one hand.

Aeli had no direct way to tell Lutis where the child was, so this was the only method to show him the way.

When she explained the situation, the child cut their neatly tied hair with sharpened mana without a word.

With a face still not dry from tears, handing over the cut hair made Aeli’s heart unsettled, seeing them as dirty and unkempt as when she first saw them, with hair like a rat had gnawed on it.

“……No, I need to focus. This isn’t the time.”

Aeli, feeling somewhat choked up, quickly moved her body.

Retracing her steps along the path she first came, Aeli was able to notice a few more things.

This place didn’t seem to have just one path leading to it. Well, for an illegal slave auction house, it would be better to have as many passages as possible in case of discovery at any time.

‘Then the passage Adi and I came through earlier was probably the staff entrance……’

There must have been a separate passage for guests to use.

Though she should have looked for that path too, Aeli couldn’t put the thought into action as she was in a hurry.

And so, retracing her steps and seeing the outside again.

“……”

She thought it fortunate this path had few people.

Even though she brought the hair, if there were many passersby, it would have all scattered and been useless.

Aeli moved quickly to find Lutis. She had to, thinking of the child waiting alone for her even at this moment.

“Do you know how much time has passed? What are you going to do if you still haven’t found them!”

Finding Lutis wasn’t difficult. Following the particularly noisy commotion, as if they had increased the troops to search for the child, Lutis was there.

“……”

For a moment, Aeli felt resentful towards Lutis, a Swordmaster, for not doing anything until the child ended up like this.

Even knowing it wasn’t his fault since the child had snuck out using magic to hide their presence and was captured in an unexpected place.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand why they couldn’t find the child.

She knew she wasn’t much different herself.

‘Why are you and I always late……’

Yet her heart couldn’t accept it.

She could only question why they, as parents, couldn’t protect their child properly even once, despite being inadequate and clumsy, with no other thoughts.

Lutis covered his eyes with his hand, seemingly frustrated, and bit his lip.

Taking something out of his pocket, Lutis spoke.

“There’s still no response from the brooch. If it’s broken, we might already be too late, so find them before that no matter what.”

“Yes!”

“If you truly are knights of Rattliff, show it with results, not words.”

At Lutis’s words, the knights dispersed in unison. However, Lutis didn’t seem to trust the knights despite his own words.

“……”

The brooch in Lutis’s hand. She had seen it before too.

It was the same brooch the child had been wearing just last evening when they went out to see the festival in Duke Duran’s domain.

Hearing Lutis’s anxious muttering that this time he had attached it to the inside of the clothing rather than the outer garment just in case, Aeli’s eyes widened in realization.

It was strange how she hadn’t noticed it the day before.

“……So that’s why you stopped Adi from trying to give away the brooch yesterday.”

The brooch in his hand was one of the many protective items her elder brother had made himself and brought over long ago.

It was the kind that protected the wearer in dangerous situations and notified users with the same brooch when magic was cast, which he had given to use as accessories when the child grew a bit bigger.

‘Then why didn’t it work when they were kidnapped?’

……Ah. Aeli sighed.

This was the biggest problem with that brooch.

It only reacts to attacks with intent to harm the wearer.

Meaning when the child was captured by them, it was simple restraint without immediate intent to harm, so the brooch didn’t activate.

Aeli covered her face with both hands at the rush of anxiety.

That’s when it happened.

Crack!

……The brooch cracked.