“That… why that.”

Aeli stared blankly at the jewel of the brooch that had been shattered unsightly.

Although it wasn’t completely broken yet, so the protective magic would still be working, the crack indicated that it had received a comparable shock.

The child was under attack.

With her face turning pale at this realization, Aeli covered her mouth as if about to scream and turned her back.

She hesitated.

−…….

Realizing that even if she went, there was nothing she could do but watch, Aeli immediately stopped walking.

Aeli turned her head to look at Lutis. His behavior of just staring blankly at the brooch like someone completely out of it naturally made her voice come out sharp.

It was clear he wouldn’t hear, but she just couldn’t stand it anymore.

Feeling like she would lose her mind if she didn’t do this, Aeli looked at Lutis and said.

−Are you crazy? The brooch is broken and you’re just staring at it?

“…….”

−You know what this means, you just said it yourself!

You should be running to find them even if you can’t see them right now. Aeli shouted.

Of course, those words didn’t reach Lutis.

Even if he just went into the alley in front, he would find the path he had just marked.

In this urgent situation, standing like a statue in front of that small distance was maddening.

‘Should I… should I go back again? I’ve already done everything I could.’

She had marked sparingly using her hair, but there was a limit to how much she could use while still making it noticeable enough as a marker.

After conserving so carefully, she had reached a street one block ahead of the alley where the child was first taken.

−I’m sure you can see it… black hair isn’t common, and everyone in Rattleriff has light colored hair.

Just looking at Lutis’s platinum blonde hair proved that.

In a territory where even the darkest hair was only light brown, black hair strewn in a line on the ground.

Although it might look unsightly, if one just looked, they would surely recognize it as traces of the child at a glance.

But it was just hair, so it would scatter if someone walked over it a few times.

‘No, even without people, just the wind blowing…’

That’s why she was in a hurry. Every time even a faint breeze blew, her heart sank as if it were a typhoon, and this had happened several times.

−Lutis, please snap out of it! I…

I can’t let the child end up in the same situation as me.

Not just because she was worried about Lutis being left alone, but fundamentally, even a single scratch on the child’s body hurt her as if she herself were being slashed with a blade.

Even now, she felt like she was betraying the child who was probably still waiting and believing in her, and it was burning her up inside.

Thud.

As if he had finally come to his senses, Lutis took a step.

His slow walk soon became a sprint that was hard to keep up with even for a ghost’s body.

“…….”

Lutis discovered the child’s hair scattered on the ground and his pupils trembled slightly.

He stopped moving and froze, frowning deeply, then quickly swallowed and opened his mouth.

“Why is this… here….”

A pathetically thin voice scattered through the air.

At that moment, Lutis drew his sword from its scabbard.

−What are you trying to―

Just as Aeli was about to narrow her brows with a questioning look.

Swoosh!

−……!

Lutis gathered his sword energy and sent it flying into the sky.

It took Aeli a moment to realize that it was no different from a silent flare.

It didn’t take long for the knights who received the signal to gather in one place.

Lutis roughly scanned the knights gathering one after another with his eyes and said.

“From now on, we’ll follow these traces. Keep a close eye out for anything suspicious along the way and report immediately if you find anything.”

“Yes, understood!”

With those words, Lutis turned his back and followed the traces Aeli had left.

Even as he ran, his expression showed he still couldn’t grasp what exactly was going on.

Honestly.

Even as Lutis and the knights entered deeper and deeper into the alley, and finally entered the building where Aeli had first started leaving traces and went down the stairs, Aeli was still anxious.

If asked whether she was worried about the child’s situation, that was a given and goes without saying.

‘The building interior had a high chance of being discovered because people often walked around. So I couldn’t leave marks…’

To cut to the conclusion, it was a needless worry.

As soon as they came down the spiral staircase, hearing the commotion from far away, Aeli hurriedly moved her body.

There was no way Lutis and the other knights wouldn’t hear this sound, and she couldn’t wait any longer due to her anxious heart.

So when she headed back to the place where she had first left the child.

“You bastard, what is this! How can you use magic when I’ve laid out circuits?! Won’t you stop?!”

“I, I told you not to touch it! Waaah!”

The child curled up protecting something, a shield surrounding the child.

And a man indiscriminately kicking towards it, upon seeing this, she froze in shock.

Aeli staggered, at a loss for words at the violence pouring down on the child’s small body.

Immediately after, Aeli rushed over without thinking and embraced the child, knowing it was futile.

Only then.

‘…The doll.’

She could see what the child had been protecting.

A rabbit doll, torn to shreds with cotton sticking out here and there as if someone had roughly pulled it apart, was clutched in the child’s hand.

It seemed the child had come out to protect this and provoked the man.

Just as Aeli gritted her teeth.

Bang!

“You son of a― W-What?!”

“…….”

Lutis, who had violently broken down the door and entered, could be seen taking a sharp intake of breath for a moment.

Small scratches on the feet and scabbed ankles, marks left on the skin from being tied up with ropes.

Finally, the handcuffs still on the child’s wrists and the broken doll.

After staring blankly at the series of sights, Lutis silently ordered the knight commander who had entered behind him. It was a surprisingly restrained voice that made even Aeli pause.

“…Take the child and wait outside. Identify all entrances and exits and seal them off, and catch every rat inside without missing a single one. Release those who are being held captive.”

“Understood.”

“You may kill those who resist. However, the one who appears to be the mastermind must be captured alive and brought before me.”

The knight commander who bowed his head at Lutis’s order carefully picked up the child.

Only then did the child realize that Aeli and Lutis were in the room and cried out loudly, stretching out both arms.

“M-Mommy… Daddy….”

Coincidentally, the direction Lutis and Aeli were standing was the same.

Aeli, having eyes to see, could not embrace the child reaching out to her, but instead held the child’s face with both hands and pressed their foreheads together.

Only then did relief fill the violet eyes that met hers.

Tiny hands grasped her fingers.

To others it looked roughly like she was stroking the child’s cheek with the back of her hand, so Aeli left the room like that.

‘I was planning to watch how Lutis dealt with that bas… that man from the side.’

She had no choice because the child was looking at her with anxious eyes.

However, if there was one thing she saw just before leaving the room…

“W-Wait, I was just ordered to…!”

It was the fact that Lutis had drawn his sword.

Thinking that even the lines were as cliché as a third-rate villain, Aeli saw the busy knights as she escaped outside the building.

Heart-rending screams could be heard from all around.

Coming outside and examining the child closely, Aeli clenched her molars and frowned.

The swollen eyelids puffy from crying and the reddened eyes were pitiable beyond words.

The child shivered in the chilly night weather without even shoes, let alone an outer garment.

The knight commander holding the child like that handed the child over to another knight.

“Young master, you must be very tired, but could you please bear with this for a moment?”

“Sniffle… I d-don’t know…”

“Please cover yourself with this until the Duke arrives. You can sleep if you’re weary.”

The knight commander said as he took off his official cloak and wrapped it around the child. The face with dried tears and salt stains from the night wind stared at him blankly.

Then soon after, the child tightened their grip on Aeli’s hand.

−…I’m sorry Mommy was late.

“……”

The child silently shook their head slightly.

It was a conversation just between the two of them that no one else could know.

It was some time later, when the noise coming from inside the building had died down.

It was just noise to those outside, but for it to be heard all the way up here from down below, it was obvious that it must have been like a scene from hell.

The child, who had been slowly blinking sleepy eyes as if the tension had eased, suddenly lifted their head and tugged on the cloak of the knight holding them.

“Yes, young master.”

“…Put me down please.”

At the child’s words, the knight looked at the knight commander, checking his reaction.

The knight commander bent down slightly to meet the child’s eye level and spoke gently.

“Young master, you’ve injured your feet, so it would be best to refrain from walking directly for a while. Also, you don’t have shoes right now, so if you walk like this, you could get more injured, so please bear with it.”

“But…”

“If there’s something you need to do, please tell me. I’ll go in your stead.”

The child rolled their eyes around hesitantly before speaking.

“I want to go see Daddy…”

“…If you wait a little, he’ll come up here―”

“Now… sniffle.”

“……”

“I want to see him now…”

As if overcome with emotion while speaking, tears welled up again in the large eyes that had just dried.

“……”

The knight commander being unable to refuse this was perhaps only natural, Aeli was certain.