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Episode 12: Criminal Candidates No. 1 & 2
“
Thanks!”
I took the apple with both hands and held it, blushing.
‘It’s just an apple as a gift, but I’m so happy.’
I felt the heart of a boy who climbed the tallest tree, saying he would give me the prettiest thing, and it was touching.
At first, it was hard to just talk to him
 I couldn’t believe I got such a gift.
“A gift from the Sisl, it’s like a treasure!”
As I smiled broadly, Sislin’s ears turned red.
“

”
Sislin scratched the tip of his sharp eyes as if he was occupied with something else.
At that moment, a powerful and confident voice could be heard through the soft atmosphere.
“Sister, look here!”
It was Heinrich’s voice. I looked around while holding the apple in my hands.
“Huh? Where is he? I can’t see Heinri at all
?”
“Voila!”
At that moment, next to the bunch of apples piled up like a mountain, Heinrich’s head unexpectedly popped out.
“Look at this. I got a lot, right?”

Oh my God, our Heinrich picked the whole apple farm!
When I quickly checked, all of the apple trees around were in a bare, plucked state – like a bald head with hair loss.
“What do you think? I’m good at picking apples. Aren’t I cool, Sister?”
“
Uh huh.”
‘Apple trees, I’m so sorry.’
It was when I was sincerely apologizing to the apple tree in front of the happy Heinrich.
Caroline ran out of the mansion and said,
“Annette! Madam Mimosa told me to tell you to go to her room.”
“Now?”
“Yes, right now!”
* * *
‘What’s going on?’
In front of Madam Mimosa’s room. I knocked a little nervously.
Knock, knock.
Suddenly, a cold voice called out, “Come in.”
I mean, just standing in front of Madam Mimosa makes me nervous.
But I wore a bright smile and acted like a model student.
“You called, Madam Mimosa.”
Madam Mimosa was holding a file tied with a string of papers, but upon closer inspection, it was the ‘life record’.
“I called because I had something to ask you, Annette.”
“Yes! Ask me anything, madam.”
“Are you the one who touched this life record the last time you entered the room?”
The children’s identities were written in the life records.
How old they are, what abilities they’ve awakened, what’s their grades and what’s their personality like.
And, what kind of things happened in the past for them to come to the Forest.
It was literally a ledger where one could know everything about the Trees.
Of course, I had never touched it.
“No
 did something happen?”
Madam Mimosa’s cool golden eyes stared at me as if they were penetrating me.
“There are traces of someone entering my room two nights ago and looking through the children’s records.”
“

”
“It seems that someone has contacted Viscount Puterio.”
“
What?!”
I was so startled that I covered my mouth.
How Viscount Puterio found Sislin in the Forest was a mystery.
If he had location tracking magic or other similar magic, he would have come to find him right away, but he didn’t and he came to find him after a delay.
‘This means, someone deliberately gave the location to Viscount Puterio?’
Who would do such a cruel thing?
“Of course it’s not me, madam
 You know I care about Sislin.”
“I know.”
Madam Mimosa simply agreed and put down the life records.
“I don’t think it was Annette who did it either.”
“

”
“But as a matter of procedure, I am asking all the children who came into my room.”
The madam was convinced that it was a child’s work.
Madam Mimosa in the original had a short appearance as an extra, so I had little information on her, but she was quite a keen person. If she thought so, there must be a clear reason.
“If you know anything, come and talk to me.”
“
Yes, madam.”
Madam Mimosa said, “Please leave,” and turned around again with a cold face.
I left the room with a serious expression on my face.
‘Who would have done that?’
Was it related to the shadow of a child I saw at the hideout last time?
Intuitively, I was convinced that the two were the same person.
I finally had to come to this conclusion.
In this Forest;
There was a child bothering Sislin.
A child who was viciously bothering with the intention of sending him far away.
“

”
My fist gained strength. .
* * *
Returning to the classroom before the class began, I held my chin and looked at the children.
All the children looked happy, kind and innocent.
‘It’s cruel for a child to want to send him out so that he can become a slave.’

No.
On the contrary, it could be crueler because it was a child.
Rather than thinking deeply about life after being dragged into slavery, it must have been a simple wish for Sislin to disappear.
“

”
I fiddled with the bright red, shiny apple in my hands.
‘You must find the person.’
Because I didn’t know what else to do with that blind heart.
If you were active enough to tattle on where we were hiding and inform the slave trader, you would surely move again.
‘It happened twice because I didn’t know. I won’t let there be a third time.’
I rolled my head sharply and bravely like a honey badger hiding in the grass.
Now, it was my turn to put aside my love for the Trees and open up cool-headed suspicion.
There were a total of two ‘criminal’ candidates.
The first was that child.
“Heinrich, Heinri! Do you want this brooch?”
The pretty child with platinum blonde hair and vibrant turquoise eyes was named Vivian, 11 years old.
Vivian was a little lady who was still young, but the sprouts of beauty could already be seen.
She was a self-proclaimed ‘Heinrich follower’.
Vivian was a child who was together with Heinrich when he awakened his abilities. She fell in love with Heinrich at a glance after seeing the special first-level magic that was strong enough to wear a ‘magic force suppressor.’
It would have looked even greater to her because her magic was weak.
Since then, she had been chasing Heinrich, though he found her quite annoying.
Heinrich said with a frown as if waving away a fluttering fly.
“I’m not going to take it. Please don’t play tricks and get lost.”
However, Vivian was not intimidated.
She asked Heinrich again, looking out the window with her chin on her hand.
“By the way, why aren’t you replying to my letter? Don’t you like the content? Do you want me to write it again?”
Heinrich replied, staring at Vivian through narrowed purple eyes.
“I don’t know the content. Because I tore it apart without reading it.”
“

”
‘Ah, the way you treat a girl is so rude!’
Huhu, it was totally heartbreaking for me to watch.
Sure enough, Vivian stepped down after suffering internal injuries due to lack of manners from the chihuahua.
Of course, it wasn’t that I didn’t understand Heinrich.
He said he didn’t like it, but she followed him so much that he almost got neurosis.
In particular, she had already sent more than 30 letters. Even though she was ignored every time.
‘She was a huge follower in the original work.’
Vivian liked what Heinrich liked, and blindly hated what he hated.
‘That’s why she followed Heinrich and severely harassed Sislin.’
Then, Heinrich paid attention to her.
However, in the original work, Sislin later did not take revenge on Vivian, but it seemed that he was not interested in her.
In the end, she did not receive anyone’s attention.
I looked closely at Vivian.
‘If it’s Vivian, there’s a possibility.’
Her basic attribute was being a model student, and she had a strong reporting spirit, so if she had found our hideout, she would have reported it.
Contacting Puterio
 It could have been because Heinrich already showed that he hates Sislin.
“In addition, Vivian cleans Madam Mimosa’s room.”
It was an easy position to access life records.
At the time I was contemplating, Vivian made eye contact with me.
“

”
Then she squinted and glared as if she was displeased, and turned her head again.
“Hmm, I’m being hated.”
Vivian hated me quite a bit. The more Heinrich followed me, the more I felt that she hated me.
I was the only one Vivian did not blindly like according to Heinrich’s taste.
Maybe she just disliked me.
‘A check from a little kid
 but it’s not scary at all.’
I shook my head lightly.
Anyway, no matter how suspicious it was, it was not easy to doubt Vivian.
It was a matter to be approached very carefully as the nature of the crime was bad.
Because it could have created an unfortunate child.
Still, the first of the two ‘criminal’ candidates was Vivian.
The last candidate was

At that time, Heinrich appeared, cutting my string of thoughts.
“Sister, give me an award. I’m the best at picking apples and I’m the coolest.”
Suddenly, I remembered the first time I met Heinrich.
The boy with cold eyes like a deep winter forest, with a lot of thorns standing up

Initially, Heinrich was mean to me, but I had no choice but to accept everything.
Because I liked him so much.
I cared for that boy a lot even when he was just the main character in the novel.
Even if he behaved badly, I knew that he wasn’t innately bad, he was just a very lonely child.
However, in this situation, the child with the strongest motive for committing the crime against Sislin was
 It was Heinrich.
I barely kept my cool.
‘You are the second candidate as the culprit. Heinrich.’
“Sister.”
Heinrich’s beautiful eyes that resembled winter nights gently curved along his sharp eyes.
“As a reward, can I sit next to you today and take classes?”
The boy smiled prettily and held his chin. Not knowing what was going through my mind at all.
‘It hurts my heart to conclude that Heinrich is a candidate as the culprit.’
A sense of conflict surged.
There was no way a baby so cute, so naive, and so kind that he couldn’t even touch other people’s hair couldn’t have done that! (This was definitely bean pods. Heinrich once pulled out a handful of hair from a baron during socialization training.)
(PR/N: As said in a previous chapter, bean pods here mean that her eyes are so blinded like bean pods covering her eyes. Basically saying she’s blinded by her love lmao)
My love for my favorite and my sense of reason fought fiercely, so I groaned and touched my forehead.
‘If Heinrich did, it would be even worse.’
Heinrich was basically a child who knew what a slave’s treatment would be.
So, he knew everything and still did it.
If it was any other average thing, I would have wrapped it up with how Heinrich couldn’t have done such a thing.
‘But this is
 This is about Sislin.’
Heinrich was probably the person who wished Sislin would be sent out of the Forest the most right now.
I knew that the troublemaker, who had thought it was natural to monopolize me, hated Sislin a lot these days.
Besides, considering the original

From the character setting to the motive to hate, everything was perfect.
“Sister, why aren’t you answering?”
Heinrich put his elbows on the desk and looked up at me with his pretty face cradled in his hands.
Purple eyes twinkled playfully.
“

”
I put strength in my eyes and said.