As the boy began to cry, Lutis and the child were at a loss for words.

Seemingly quite taken aback by the sudden display of tears, the child turned his head towards Lutis.

Blinking repeatedly.

“……”

The meaning was for his father to do something since the boy had started crying at his words.

The child, mouth agape, alternated between looking at the wailing boy and Lutis, swallowing nervously.

“Ke, Kellock! …Kek!”

It seemed he had choked on his saliva from swallowing incorrectly.

At the child’s reaction, Lutis moved his lips as if to say something, then raised a hand to cover his forehead.

The boy, terribly distressed for some reason, opened his mouth as thick teardrops fell.

The story that followed could be nothing but shocking.

“Strange… hic, strange people, killed, killed them all……”

“……”

“They split in half, hunting… then they came, swarming……”

When the guard was weakened, they invaded, capturing the young children who had not yet reached adulthood and killing the adults and elderly.

By the time those who had gone hunting returned after belatedly grasping the situation, the tide had already turned against them.

Upon hearing those words, Aeli narrowed her eyes.

No matter how little they knew, it seemed unlikely that a different race would be weak enough to be so easily defeated.

It was said that even a single child of around ten years old among them surpassed the strength of an average adult male.

‘If the children are at that level, it wouldn’t be difficult for the adults to face several knights alone.’

Since there was very little known information, that was how it was according to the most common oral traditions.

As they were oral traditions, there was no guarantee that exaggeration or distortion had not crept in, but if a minority could evenly match a majority, they must possess that much power.

It was said that the different races stopped mixing with humans after the war of conquest, so the speculation might not be entirely wrong.

‘Moreover, if they intended to overwhelmingly win against such people, there’s no way the number of troops deployed would be small… Then it’s strange that rumors didn’t spread.’

The boy’s condition was poor, as if he had lived on the streets for several years.

Then, did they invade when Lutis had gone to war and before Aeli had opened her eyes in this body?

If so, there was a possibility that the timing prevented them from noticing, Aeli thought as she furrowed her brow.

The boy, who had been sobbing with his head hung low, continued.

It was not meant to pressure, but Lutis also had his brows furrowed in concentration, trying to grasp the situation.

“Strange people, used, it. Swords and, fire… βέλο, not spears but also, strange wea, pons…?”

“…Do you know what those are?”

The boy slowly shook his head. All he said was that it was a type of weapon he had never seen before, and each time it was used, they couldn’t even counterattack properly and their bodies would stop moving and collapse.

Since those who collapsed like that never got back up, if it wasn’t unconsciousness, then……

“…It must have been instant death.”

“Urk, uwaah…!”

As Lutis spoke while stroking his chin with the hand that had been holding his forehead, the boy suddenly covered his mouth. As if recalling a terrible memory, his face turned pale and even blue.

Having not eaten for over a week, there was nothing to come up, so the boy only dry heaved.

However, right after the retching stopped, the boy said he remembered what the weapon looked like and trembled as he brought his hands together.

Lutis faltered at the boy’s hand gesture depicting a long, angular cylindrical shape.

The boy spoke again.

“A stone, μελαγχολικός… gloomy? A stone that emits smoke, the size of a fist……”

If it was the size of a child’s fist, it would be small enough for an adult to hold in their palm.

“…It wasn’t meant to be sold.”

“……”

“Those people, they didn’t sell us. Usually… συνήθως too, they kept making us do things, and the kids who were caught with us and couldn’t keep up kept disappearing……”

“……”

“The people… the people you’re talking about being sold were in a completely different room from us… I, I escaped but got caught again at that time……”

“You’re saying you fled to the neighboring territory but got caught?”

“The first time I escaped, there was a path leading outside, so the people… I secretly rode in the back……”

He meant that he had drifted into Duran like that.

Using this incident as an opportunity, Aeli also developed negative feelings towards Duran, so her brows furrowed involuntarily.

If the boy’s words were true, it meant that in order to find the escaped boy, people were dispatched to the surrounding territories for months, implying that the boy was quite an important figure to the viscount.

‘But of all things, he had to choose a cargo wagon to ride and ended up going there……’

Separately from that, Aeli made a grim expression at the boy who had such terrible luck.

He said that after escaping like that and secretly living in back alleys, he had gone out to buy bread but got caught and taken again.

With his distinct skin color and hair color, he had been deliberately hiding.

The boy pressed his lips together, trembling, and spoke.

“But, but when I went back again… everyone was gone except me, all dead―”

“……”

“Be, because I ran away, because of me… Heuung!”

The boy, who had been rambling incoherently, finally shed tears again.

Although it could not possibly be the fault of the boy who had fled to save his own life, Aeli could imagine based on what she had directly seen of the slave traders before.

It was obvious that they would have deliberately said that to hurt him.

The boy, tightly clutching the blanket covering him, trembled with his pale knuckles. Lutis, who had been silently watching this, asked.

Then, on the day they first met, had he not even considered asking for help?

‘No, but he was dressed like that then, so how would a child know……’

That question was soon resolved. Because Lutis continued speaking.

“It is said that among the different races, although rare, there are those born with the innate ability to sense the strength of others.”

“……”

“You clearly chose your pickpocketing targets yourself, yet the moment your eyes met the child’s, you were terrified.”

“……”

“It was before you even noticed me beside you, so for you to have such a reaction to a child younger than you is quite a coincidence.”

Lutis seemed to have already half-confirmed it by the time he brought it up.

It was astonishing where he learned such information from.

Naturally, the boy, hearing this for the first time, denied it, saying he didn’t know.

Aeli thought that the viscount’s obsession with a young boy of a different race might be related to this.

‘…I don’t know what he intended to use the ability to gauge strength for, but he was obsessed with it.’

It was understandable that the boy, whose vigilance was heightened, did not want to speak honestly.

However, since it happened in his own territory, Lutis had no choice but to inquire, and under the continued pressure, the boy eventually opened his mouth after a short while.

It was after glancing at the child who was blinking blankly while listening to their conversation.

“…When I was captured, I thought it was broken from being used too much.”

“Is there a limit?”

“It’s not like that, but the young lord is a bit strange……”

“……”

“He’s clearly stronger than the men there, but he’s weak. His energy appears and disappears, so Νόμιζα ότι, ήταν σπασμένο… And―”

“……”

“…After experiencing something like that, how can you trust humans.”

That was when the boy’s tone changed as he hesitantly spoke while gauging the reaction.

Although it seemed he had no intention of attacking, judging that he could not win even if he tried, the gaze with which he looked up at Lutis after keeping his head lowered was sharp.

Lutis sighed in frustration at the boy’s obvious display of wariness.

Even to Aeli, who did not know the details of the situation, it was not a trivial matter.

She had a feeling that there was more information to be gleaned from the boy than expected, and it couldn’t be any different.

The child, unable to bear the suddenly changed atmosphere, spoke with trembling pupils.

“I… I’m not a bad person.”

“……”

−Adi……

Aeli let out a small sigh.

He seemed unaware of how suspicious it was to declare oneself not a bad person.

However, perhaps because he was still a young child, his innocent face saying those words truly looked harmless, so it was not without effect.

The child, who had stopped glaring at Lutis and was blankly looking down at him, continued to assert.

“I’ve never done anything bad. Then isn’t it okay?”

“…Pardon?”

“Well… I, I didn’t keep my promise to have snacks and play……”

“……”

“T, that’s not allowed either?”

Am I bad…? The child asked, fidgeting with his fingers.

Taken aback by the unexpected question, the boy blinked his eyes.

Avoiding the gaze of the child staring intently at him, he clenched his fists immediately after.

The boy spoke in a somewhat suppressed voice.

“Γιατί… Why are you doing this to me? From the moment I first saw you, I was trying to steal from the young lord.”

“You said you were hungry.”

So why are you asking me after stealing it yourself? The child truly looked at the boy with that expression.

His face, not hiding his true feelings at all, was quite amusing and cute, but the boy’s emotions seemed to boil over instead, his words faltering.

“Still……”

“……”

“…It was my fault. Even though everyone was harmed because of me, why do they keep saying it’s o, okay……”

Although he was saying that, it didn’t seem like he was really talking to the child.

Muttering unfamiliar foreign names, the boy gritted his teeth. Tears that had stopped at some point were flowing uncontrollably again.

“Why, why… because they resemble my younger siblings―”

“Oh, huh?”

“They’re already g, gone, but ανόητα……”

“Younger siblings… you need younger siblings? Then you be the big brother!”

“……”

…I don’t think that’s what he meant. Aeli thought, rubbing her forehead repeatedly.

At the sudden outburst, the boy turned to the child, shedding tears.

As water droplets fell endlessly from his pitch-black eyes, the child exclaimed again.

“I’ll diligently be your younger sibling. Is that okay then?”

As if he had been wanting to do it for a while, the child leaped onto the bed where the boy was leaning against, at the same time crawling up to comfort the crying boy.

The boy said,

“…I.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I really hate humans……”

However, even as he said that, the boy could not push away the child who had hugged him tightly and showed his tears.

Truly.

He cried like that for a long time.