The man swung his arms wildly to shake Rio and Dive off and kicked at the children with his feet.
“Urgh!”
“Ah... it hurts.”
The two children also cried out in pain as they rolled across the ground.
But without either one waiting for the other, Rio and Dive quickly pushed themselves back up and ran to Sena, planting themselves in front of her so the man could not come any closer.
“......”
Only then did Sena open her eyes and look at the two children. Staring blankly at Rio and Dive as they stood in front of her with both arms spread wide, shielding her, Sena parted her lips in a daze.
“You little... brats!”
The man, his anger surging as high as it would go, looked like he could no longer see anything else. He snatched up a wooden stick lying nearby.
Then he strode toward them.
The moment Sena saw that, her eyes trembled without pause.
[Kill him. You can kill him. Isn’t that man your darkness?]
At that moment, Lu’s voice burrowed into her head.
‘Kill... him?’
[Of course! I can erase him without leaving even a trace! If you want it, I will give you as much power as you like!]
“......”
That man was my darkness?
I can make that darkness disappear?
By then, the man had already come close enough and was about to swing the wooden stick at the children. But though Rio and Dive were trembling all over, neither of them stepped aside from in front of Sena.
“Kill—”
It was the moment Sena was about to make her choice and cry out.
Smack!
“Ghk!”
A brown dress shoe struck the man squarely in the head.
“What is this piece of trash?”
It was Camilla.
“Ghh...!”
Apparently she had hit him hard enough for real, because the man crouched down clutching his head, groaning over and over.
“Big sister!”
“Big sister Camilla!”
At her appearance, Rio and Dive felt relief, and at the same time it was as if the hurt they had been holding back came rushing in. Both their eyes reddened almost at once.
“......”
Camilla’s expression, too, turned cold as she looked at the three children.
Not only was Sena scraped raw and bleeding from being dragged around here and there, Rio and Dive were also covered in injuries, as if they had rolled across the ground when they had been kicked just now.
[Camilla?]
[Child?]
Sensing the atmosphere around Camilla, Zeno and Aisla called to her cautiously.
Should I beat that bastard to death, or freeze him to death?
After a brief moment of consideration, Camilla—
“Ghh! What the hell are you n—!”
“Aisla.”
—chose freezing him to death.
“W-wait, wai—mmph!”
The man, already working himself into a rage and trying to swing the hand holding the wooden stick once more, began to freeze solid in an instant.
At first, not understanding what was happening, he only looked startled. But soon his face twisted in fear and pain.
“Kwaah...!”
Even the sound of his screaming quickly died away.
“He’s not actually dead, right?”
[He’s alive. He’ll thaw on his own in a few hours. He’ll get frostbite, though.]
That was none of my business.
After confirming the man had gone quiet, Camilla finally hurried over to the three children.
“Are you okay?”
“Sniff... big sister...”
“It hurts here and here. Big sister Sena got hurt the worst!”
Should I really just kill that bastard?
Seeing the children’s condition up close, Camilla felt her anger flare up all over again.
At times like this, it would have been nice if Arena, that priest ghost, were still here. Then injuries like these on the children could have disappeared in no time at all...
And then it happened.
Fwoosh!
“Hm?”
At the very moment she was lamenting Arena’s absence, a bright light poured out from Camilla’s hand.
The soft glow, holy enough to look sacred, wrapped around the children in an instant.
“Wow!”
“Big sister, did you do this?”
A moment later, when the light disappeared, the children’s wounds had also vanished without a trace.
“Who knows.”
Looking at the children in awe, Camilla herself could not hide the surprise in her eyes. What in the world was this?
“For now, should we move somewhere else?”
Only then did Camilla realize that countless people were staring at them, and she suggested they leave the spot.
“Big sister, did it hurt a lot?”
“Are you okay?”
Rio and Dive went over to Sena, who was still sitting collapsed on the ground.
“......”
Sena looked at the two of them in silence.
Seeing that, the two children’s faces turned worried again, as though they wondered whether she still had someplace that hurt.
“Did you get hurt anywhere else?”
“Big sister, does it still hurt?”
Slowly, Sena shook her head.
It had always hurt, but it had not hurt.
It had always been miserable, but it had not been miserable.
Because that kind of life had been normal for me.
And yet...
“Big sister, don’t worry now! I’ll protect you from now on too!”
Then why does it hurt so much now?
That gentle question asking if it hurt, that face looking at her in worried concern... why did they hurt this much?
“Uh...”
“Big sister?”
The child I had wanted to protect protected me instead.
Why did that hurt so much?
And...
“Ugh...”
Why did it feel this good?
Tap.
Camilla, who had come over to her side at some point, stroked her head in silence, as if she understood exactly what Sena was feeling.
“Ah... hhk...”
At that touch, at that gentle touch, Sena began crying out loud for the first time.
[Damn it! Damn it! Daaamn it!]
All while hearing Lu’s voice, thick with irritation, growing louder.
Chapter. The Mage Ghost
“What happened to that man?”
“The sentence will be handed down tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? That’s faster than I expected.”
“I think everyone’s nerves are on edge because the situation is what it is.”
They were talking about that thing who called himself Sena’s father.
“Selling his own child to the Eva Church wasn’t enough, and then he pulled that... kind of insane stunt too, so there’s no way they’ll let it slide lightly. Frankly, the first reason alone is more than enough grounds to throw him in prison.”
The man Aisla had frozen solid had, just as she said, not died. Before long, he had thawed out of the block of ice on his own.
But by then, he had no choice but to be dragged off exactly as he was by the guard after they arrived in response to the report.
“It didn’t look like he’d be getting out easily.”
“Of course not.”
Those people moved, after all.
The Duke of Sepra and the Duke of Esclara. The sons of two ducal houses had been kicked and injured by that bastard.
“There was almost a war.”
When word spread that Rio had been hurt, the Duke of Sepra personally went to the guard station.
Everyone who saw him was horrified, but among them all, the one most terrified was none other than the perpetrator himself—Sena’s father.
‘So you’re the one who hit my son.’
‘Th-that, I...!’
At the murderous atmosphere that felt like he might draw his sword at any moment, Sena’s father could not even finish a proper sentence and only trembled.
‘You dared lay a hand on my son? And you’re a foreigner on top of that?’
The Duke of Esclara had been the same.
The son of one of the most powerful figures in the Gracia Empire had been injured while traveling in another country.
Naturally, the imperial family also had to react sharply to this incident. It was the kind of thing that could turn into a national issue.
But the center of this case was never supposed to be Rio and Dive.
“I hope Sena can feel a little more at ease now...”
“Time will take care of that.”
“I suppose it will.”
What should have been central was what that child had suffered at her father’s hands, the times she had been hurt and in pain.
The man’s crimes should be judged on that, and his punishment should be carried out for that.
Because of that, Camilla stopped the Duke of Sepra and the Duke of Esclara from getting involved any further in this matter.
‘Because we can’t let what he did to Sena be treated lightly.’
She did not want him to think the reason he was being imprisoned and punished was not because he had abused his child, but because he had touched the children of nobles.
That was not what Sena wanted, and it was not what Camilla wanted either.
“Miss Sena testified much better than expected.”
“She /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ did.”
They had told her she did not have to if it was too hard, but Sena personally testified in court about everything concerning her father.
From the violence she had suffered since childhood to the fact that she had been sold to a follower of the Eva Church for thirteen gold.
As she calmly laid out every one of those things, everyone in that place felt sorry for her.
At the same time, they were also deeply proud of her.
‘Standing in a place like that at her age couldn’t have been easy.’
And it had been a place where she was accusing her own parent.
Even so, Sena had not hesitated.
At that age, she already seemed to feel a sense of responsibility toward what she absolutely had to do. It was admirable, and at the same time heartbreaking.
“It sounds like he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“He should.”
For a moment, it had even become a case the imperial family was paying attention to.
Two ducal houses were entangled in it, and as Sena’s guardian, I personally appeared in court every time as a duke’s daughter.
After seeing all that, what judge would have the nerve to treat this case lightly? They must have searched through every law there was and every law there wasn’t to pile on every punishment they could possibly apply.
Sena’s father, too, seemed to sense that vicious atmosphere around him and only then began spewing late regret, but it was already too late.
“Well, anyway, Sena’s matter was wrapped up well.”
“Yes.”
The wounds in the child’s heart, the hurts she had carried for so long, were not things anyone could do anything about right away.
All I could do was quietly watch over the child as she grew.
“And Rio is there too.”
Sena was no longer alone.
‘Big sister, does it still hurt? Hm?’
‘...No.’
I saw the corner of Sena’s mouth lift into a faint smile for the first time as she looked at Rio, who was on the verge of tears and kept pouring out worried words at her.
The fact that someone hurts on your behalf brings a greater comfort than you would expect.
Maybe Sena’s pain, too, would gradually begin to fade.
