The Tyrant's Terminally-Ill Childhood Friend (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 41

Places in the slums that paid for children’s lives, like Deborah’s, were usually similar—private investigation agencies or errand offices. In other words, places that bought children cheaply and raised them as weapons for slaughter. Since the slums were always full of impoverished children, their training was invariably brutal.

No one cared if some couldn’t endure it and died. Debona had always been a failure there.

[“I ran away because I thought I’d really die if I stayed. Being torn apart by hunting dogs after escaping or getting sliced to death during training seemed about the same. While I was being chased by those dogs, Lady Anette saved me!”]

[“…I don’t think it’s grand enough to call it ‘saving.’”]

[“If that’s not saving me, then what is? I thought an angel had descended from heaven!”]

Lowell also remembered that moment. After all, the reason her quiet time in the forest had been disturbed was precisely because an unexpected chase had erupted there, as she’d gone there alone as usual to pass the time.

At first, she’d been quite startled by the scene, but by then, Lowell had already fully adapted to Opertha. She’d seen far too many such incidents.

What caught Lowell’s attention wasn’t the chase itself, but the appearance of the child being pursued.

Even as the child gasped for breath, seemingly on the verge of vomiting up her lungs, she never once stopped running. The child never begged anyone she saw for mercy—not once. It was as if she knew no one would ever save her. Everyone who encountered her on the forest path simply looked away and walked past, and the child herself never sought help from anyone.

Yet there was no despair in the child’s eyes—only an unyielding will to survive.

Perhaps that was why. It might have been the first time Lowell ever felt the urge to help someone.

[“Stop right there. Come no closer. I’m taking this child with me.”]

[“I don’t know who you are, but this kid belongs to our office. If you don’t back off right now…”]

Clank. Lowell tossed a pouch filled with gold coins from her pocket.

[“If you need money, buy her in the name of Martinek. If it’s insufficient, come claim the rest yourself. Just say ‘Anette Martinek,’ and they’ll let you through.”]

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