Chapter 53 :

Chapter 53 - Playing Innocent

“Mmph!! Mmph!!!”

“Why is this damn little girl so strong?!”

The man snapped irritably and covered Jill’s mouth even harder.

She was not struggling like this because she was strong.

She had merely seen with her own eyes the end of the friends who had been dragged away by these bastards.

‘When Seya kicks people, they all fall over.’

Jill worked her feet hard, imitating Seya, whom even the adults in the neighborhood had been unable to handle, but it was nothing more than flailing.

Her strength was gradually leaving her.

With the stamina of a child who could not even eat thin gruel, the most she could do was slow the man’s movements a little.

Jill moved her feet with all her strength one last time.

Thwack!

“Aaagh!”

Along with a sound louder than the impact she felt against her foot, the man screamed, and the force covering her mouth slowly loosened.

Did it work?

Am I more talented at fighting than I thought?

While her head, deprived of oxygen for a while, came up with nonsense, a voice she had longed for rang out from afar.

“Hey! You crazy bastard!! Let go of Jill!!!”

At the sound calling her, Jill snapped her head up.

The man who had been dragging her was bent over, clutching his head.

And beside him lay a rock of a size that was impossible to ignore.

The moment she took in that much, Jill smiled at the strong force pulling her arm.

This time, she did not need to resist and say she would not go.

Jill dragged her trembling legs with difficulty and ran with all her strength in the direction the round head led her.

“Seya!”

As long as the mad dog of this neighborhood was on her side, there was nothing to fear.

While the man had not yet recovered from the shock of being hit by the stone, the two were able to hide themselves deeper inside the narrow alley.

After catching her breath, Jill slapped Seya’s back while Seya was still holding her hand and looking around.

“Hey! What happened? Are you alive? How are you alive? No, wait, how did you get here?”

“Shh. Be quiet.”

Seya scratched her stinging back and brought a finger to her lips.

“You be quiet!”

Unable to recover from the excitement of meeting the friend she had thought was dead and the shock of surviving a crisis where she had nearly died, Jill answered roughly.

Still, perhaps she was not so out of it that she failed to understand the situation, because she lowered her voice as much as she could.

The child replaced the emotions that could not be let out along with her lowered voice by hitting Seya’s back.

“If you were alive, you should have said you were alive. You and Mir both disappeared, and I was so! So…”

Seya, who had been quietly letting Jill hit her, grabbed both of Jill’s hands at those words.

“Mir disappeared? Because he was looking for me?”

“Yes! My little brother made a huge fuss because you disappeared.”

“You should have stopped him!”

“Do you think there was any chance to?! When you’re not around, he doesn’t listen to me either.”

Seya’s mind went faint, and she clutched her head.

She had been lucky enough to meet a kindhearted young master and survive, but Mir must have gone straight to the food distribution center.

She had thought that might happen, but she had not expected him to move this quickly.

‘If I chase after him now, can I catch up?’

If he had already been caught, there was no way to get him back.

At least, not as far as Seya could think.

But if Mir went in on his own, that means he has a way to get out.

Step.

“Shh.”

The sound of footsteps caught Seya’s sensitive hearing as she was organizing her thoughts.

Seya looked down at her friend, who had not yet realized what was happening.

Her eyes were clear, as if she had recovered, but it was obvious that strength had not yet returned to her legs.

If it was Jill, she might be able to move her legs through sheer grit, but even then, she would not be able to go far.

Step. Step.

At last, the sound of footsteps grew loud enough for Jill to hear as well.

“That dog-like bastard. I’ll definitely catch him and kill him as painfully as possible.”

The venomous voice came as an extra.

Jill silently gripped Seya’s sleeve tightly.

Her legs were trembling little by little, and her breathing still had not fully settled.

In the first place, it made no sense for a little kid who had grown up unable to even eat thin gruel to shake off adults.

It was clear that Jill had used up all her stamina confronting the man and running.

Seya had clearly better stamina than Jill, but after running all over the place today to shake off Jack, then jumping out of a carriage and rolling around, her condition was terrible too.

She could somehow get herself out alone, but there was no way she could drag Jill along as well.

Would both of them be caught, or would one of them choose a path that was certainly safe?

“Jill. Can you run?”

Jill wanted to answer that she could run as much as needed, but she knew herself too well for that.

“Just a little. If I rest just a little, I think I can go fast.”

So don’t leave me behind.

Seya was not dull enough to miss the desperation filling both of Jill’s eyes.

Seya squeezed Jill’s hand once.

When she did not like the options, she had to find another one. This, too, was something Mir had taught her.

Because there was also the path of certain safety for one person and uncertain rescue for two people.

“Okay. Rest just a little.”

“What?”

After speaking quickly, Seya sprang to her feet.

Jill, who had thought they would recover their strength and then run, was horrified by her friend’s sudden action.

“Hey! Are you crazy?!”

“Rest a little, and when that bastard and I get farther away, run right away!”

Jill hurriedly tried to grab Seya’s hand, but Jill was too ordinary and weak to catch the hand of a child like a wild horse.

Only her hand cutting through empty air grew desperate.

Seya’s figure quickly disappeared between the alleys.

Jill sat there stupidly, tears streaming down her face.

“You bastard, stop right there!”

“I’d be an idiot if I stopped just because you told me to!”

After several shouts were exchanged, and at last the sharp sound of clashing blades rang out, Jill ended up covering her ears with both hands.

But Jill, who had been lowering her head while making sobbing sounds, soon came to her senses.

It was a chance Seya had made for her.

She could not just stay face down and let it fly away.

As soon as the trembling subsided, the child raised her body and ran in the opposite direction from where Seya had gone.

The shadow made by the tall temple tower rising across the alley was hiding Jill.

She staggered this way and that, feeling as if someone might call out to her and chase her at any moment, but she did not stop.

Thud!

However, the moment she turned right at the very next fork in the road, the child collided with something huge and fell backward.

Jill had hit it so hard that tears sprang to her eyes, but she was certain of one thing: it was a man far larger than the person who had caught her.

And that he was reaching out his hand toward her.

“Aaaaaaah!”

Jill screamed without even opening her eyes.

“No, little one. Try to calm down.”

Standing in front of Jill, who was screaming without knowing that she was safe now, Jack had to break into a cold sweat at the appearance of yet another new little brat.

* * *

“His Highness seems a little strange, doesn’t he?”

Anna tilted her head at the line that seemed somehow familiar.

Rin, who worked as a maid with her, was doing laundry with a rather serious expression.

“Uh, well?”

“No, he is definitely strange. The other day, when I brought him breakfast, he smiled.”

“He smiles normally too. Like this.”

Anna crookedly raised one corner of her mouth.

“No, no! Not just one side like that. He raised both sides like this.”

At Rin’s words, Anna slapped her foam-covered hands together and smiled as if she understood.

“Like this?”

This time, she pulled in her chin and stretched both corners of her mouth wide.

When delinquency was added to crookedness, her expression became even rougher than when only one side had been raised.

“Anna… So you can look a bit fierce too when you smile like that.”

Rin expressed pure admiration and shock, then quickly came to her senses and waved her hands.

“No! That’s not it. He really just smiled normally, I’m telling you. Like this, brightly! And alone, too!”

“No, if you say it wasn’t one side raised, and it wasn’t both sides raised either, then it just wasn’t anything!”

Anna, deliberately pretending to be sulky, rinsed off her foam-covered hands and the rest of the laundry.

“There is a subtle difference that cannot be expressed in words. Truly.”

Anna shook her head as if she still did not understand.

“Didn’t you just see it wrong? There isn’t anything especially good going on, so there’s no way he would suddenly smile. I’ll go hang these up.”

After reaching that conclusion, Anna picked up the basket piled with finished laundry and moved away.

Behind her, she heard Rin shouting, “You really don’t know?!” but Anna pretended not to hear and quickened her steps.

In truth, Anna, who was quick-witted, had also felt that the atmosphere around the 7th Prince had changed.

If even other people could notice it, there was no way Anna would not.

He spent more time than before with an expressionless face, but instead, the number of times he frowned like before had also decreased.

He seemed somehow excited, and from another angle, he also seemed as if he were worried about something…

Pretending not to know what Rin was saying was both a small retaliation against her for not believing Anna’s words before, and a bit of loyalty that had blossomed in her as someone who had come to know the 7th Prince’s small secret.

Anna knew that recently, one person had entered his daily life.

Celos Abiran.

He was said to be the younger brother right below the 7th Prince.

She had heard that he had come by once in a while even before to harass the 7th Prince, but the last time had been her first time seeing him in person.

And strangely, she had also gotten tangled up with him despite resolving never to run into him again in her life.

After all, when people had a close sibling, they were bound to soften.

Anna thought the change in the 7th Prince’s atmosphere seemed to have happened after he had grown a little closer to his younger brother.

But she had no intention of going around loudly talking about that.

The prince also clearly did not seem to want that to become widely known.

Perhaps that was why he had sent her so secretly to the 8th Prince’s palace to send a single squirrel.

Seeing that, contrary to what she had heard, the 8th Prince was not behaving tyrannically here, Anna judged that the relationship between the two must have improved, and walked down the hallway.

It must be true, seeing as he sent over a squirrel he treasures so much!

The misunderstanding piled up neatly like the laundry stacked in the laundry basket.

* * *

“Isn’t it about time you revealed your identity?”

Unlike Anna’s mistaken idea, the squirrel was caught in the 7th Prince’s hand, rolling its large eyes around and avoiding his gaze.

The small creature, which had been happily eating breakfast only to suddenly have its body grabbed, chewed the nuts stuffed in its mouth as if it had no idea what was going on.

“I am trying to have a conversation right now.”

“…Squeak?”

Only then did the creature raise its head and meet the eyes of the human before it.

Confusion and suspicion settled in those black eyes.

He drove in the final wedge with his words.

“If we are to talk, you need to return to a state where you can speak human words. Like you did in the forest last time.”

A single chestnut, which had been held carefully in the creature’s tiny hands, rolled away and fell under the desk.

* * *

—Calm down. I said I was sorry about earlier, didn’t I? You stepped on my tail once too, didn’t you? Let’s just call it even with that.

That day, when he had used an excessive amount of strength and hidden himself in the hollow of the tree, surprisingly, Ran Abiran had still been faintly conscious.

Though his body had been so heavy he could not move an inch.

This meant that he had heard the voice of someone talking to a wolf, and it also meant that he had realized that the squirrel he had been carrying around was not just an animal.

The number of choices he could make could be simply divided into two.

First, he could pour out questions like a waterfall: what kind of bastard are you, how can you transform into a squirrel, why have you been following me, and does the person you were waiting for happen to mean me?

In other words, he would reveal that he knew the squirrel’s identity.

Second, just as he had done until now, he could pretend not to know anything, as if nothing had happened.

For him, it was not a very difficult choice.