CH 9.1

“I can’t believe there’s an orphanage in the mountains like this.”

The Knights of Rexion, led by the Duke of Elrad, arrived in front of the Tessar Orphanage.

As soon as the Duke of Elrad entered the entrance, he was greeted with an eerie atmosphere lingering around.

Weeds that grow indiscriminately.

An old swing that has aged-rusty and has a rustling sound that you don’t want to hear even in a single breeze.

It was a space with a gloomy atmosphere to the extent that it was hard to imagine that it was a place for children to stay.

The Duke glanced at him with a cold gaze and spoke, “Call the director.”

“Yes sir!”

And a little later.

“Oh, I didn’t know that a precious person had come.”

A man in shabby clothes ran out of the orphanage. The man couldn’t even make eye contact with the Duke.

When the Duke said he would check on the children, he just moved quickly and gathered the children into the cold yard.

The children, who were almost bare naked even with their shattered clothes, were shaking and bowing their heads.

Before the Duke with a frown could say anything, the director immediately raised the arms of the skinny children and burst into tears.

It was an appeal that children were struggling to survive each day with small subsidies from the state.

Instead of answering, the Duke quickly glanced at the children at that blatant appearance.

As expected, there was no Diana among the children that were gathered.

From the moment the Duke realized that the child’s disappearance was the work of the kidnappers, he already thought Diana couldn’t be in an orphanage like this, but he felt exhausted nonetheless.

Then, suddenly, the Duke felt a strange sense of incongruity with the director.

They crouched down and acted like they were frightened and openly asked for support, or say that he’s worried about the children, but the series of actions that led them into the cold.

“Have you ever seen a girl with silver hair and blue eyes?”

When the Duke asked, the children’s shoulders visibly flinched. The child, who slowly raised his head out of curiosity, also avoided his gaze.

“Aren’t you going to answer? Answer me now!”

As the director approached, the oldest child among them spoke, “I-I’ve never seen anyone like that.”

“If you tell a lie, I will never forgive you!”

“Well, I really…”

The Duke’s face grew colder at the child’s trembling voice.

The director, who saw it, got goosebumps, but he looked brazen again.

The anti-cognitive artifact, which was purchased with half of the money earned so far, has been installed in the attic and the safe in his office.

The director was confident that even the Duke of Elrad and the Knights of Rexion would find no evidence of the child and the slave trade.

It was then…

Thud!

Even before the full-scale search could proceed, the mana in the air fluctuated greatly, and Bianca, who was the first to detect this, jumped forward.

“I can feel a flow of mana.”

“I see. Director, may I take a look at the orphanage?”

As soon as the director nodded dazedly, the Duke turned his gaze, and the search party moved in unison.

At that moment, an ominous feeling crossed the director’s spine.

⚝

“…What is this?”

Bianca, who first arrived after reading the flow of mana, was completely stiffened by the unexpected scene.

She couldn’t lift her finger at the sight of the child lying almost unconscious on the ground.

“Captain!”

It was one of the men who came with her that brought Bianca to her senses, who was in daze.

“I can feel the mana from that child.”

At his words, Bianca felt a mana so pure and powerful that she wondered why she hadn’t noticed until now.

The uncontrollable energy of mana was flowing out of the child’s body.

However, the mana was twisted arbitrarily.

‘There’s no other doorway nearby, so it seems like she fell from the upper floor, but wasn’t injured that much. Did she use magic to protect her falling body?’ Bianca thought after checking the situation.

It’s not common, but there were children like that.

Before learning magic properly, there were cases where a child couldn’t handle its own mana and caused a runaway.

The problem was that if it went on like this, that small body might explode as it was.

Bianca was obsessed with the idea of saving her somehow, so she walked up to the child and reached out to her.

At that moment, the knights surrounded the perimeter of the backyard, and at the same time, the Duke of Elrad and the director who followed arrived.

Soon, the director’s face turned pale when he found Lia laying on the ground.

‘I’m sure the windows were covered with boards in several layers, but how!’ The director exclaimed inwardly.

Furthermore…

“Dad!”

Duke Elrad immediately raised his head to the unexpected voice.

It was the voice of Diana, who was observing the situation with her hand covering her mouth and holding her breath at the appearance of strangers after Lia jumped off, and shouted after she found the Duke.

The Duke stopped breathing in relief as soon as he found his daughter, whom he never dreamed of meeting here.

However, for a while, his impression  was frighteningly frozen.

Diana was sticking her face out through the narrowly broken window.

The Duke’s mouth immediately opened as Diana, who was in a dangerous position, was about to jump off for him to catch her at any moment’s notice.

“Diana, hold still and wait.”

At that moment, the face of the director, who seemed unable to get enough of it anymore, turned almost to suffocation.

“Cough!“

Then, with Bianca’s help, Lia, who had calmed the mana, coughed up.

“…!”

Barely regaining her consciousness and blinking her eyes, Lia froze at the sight of a pair of blue eyes that were as cold as ice.