IBMV – 57

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I parted with Alexis in front of the orphanage and, arrived at the mansion instantly with Kian’s transportation magic.

“Thank you, Kian. You worked hard and helped out a lot today. I am lucky.”

“You’ve were very busy today, rest well,”

Kian said as his eyes smiled at me. He gently lowered his eyes and added, “Please take me the next time you go.”

Kian must have been very attached to the children.

It had been a full day so I was tired.

I said farewell to Kian and then turned to enter the mansion.

“Olivia, wait a minute.”

Kian grabbed me.

Kian who had reached out to me was intensely staring at me. He spoke as he put my hair behind my ear.

“You lost your earring.”

“Huh…?”

When I hurriedly touched my left earlobe, it felt empty. A sense of frustration and distress swept through my chest.

I think I had been wearing both earring when I handed out bread to the children.….

“Did I drop it at the orphanage?”

The earrings were a gift from my father for my 20th birthday.

He was a reserved, tight-lipped sort of father so I was moved by the thoughtful gift. Albert, the butler, secretly told me that his father struggled and stressed over what to choose as a gift.

‘That’s why these earrings are more precious to me.….’

I felt heartbroken, Kian tried to comfort me.

“Let’s go and look for it.”

I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow, so I nodded.

I teleported back to the orphanage with Kian.

If one of the children picked found the earring, it was likely to have been brought in to the director’s office.

So I went straight to the director’s office, but the door was firmly shut.

Instead, I met a young teacher who was writing in the next room.

“Oh, my. What brings you two here?”

She wondered why we were back. I briefly explained the whole story.

The young teacher made a small noise, saying, “Ah,” to see if something came to mind.

“Come to think of it, Evan said he picked something up earlier. There was no time to check what it was, I told him to take it to the director right away.”

Evan is a boy with a cheerful impression with a loose tooth, one of the many children I got to know at the orphanage today. I remembered him, so I would recognize him.

“Where is Evan now?”

“After going to the director, he’s probably in the library.”

She informed me that the library was on the first floor of the building.

Kian and I headed straight there. And there, I was blocked by an unexpected obstacle.

“I don’t know what it is, but please go back.”

Two knights were guarding the entrance to the archive room.

It was completely bizarre. I couldn’t imagine there being banned books or classified documents in the library but unbelievably there were knights guarding the entrance.

At that moment, I heard a faint sound over the door. Voices.

It was then that I thought I had to check what was going on inside.

“It will only take a moment.”

“I’m sorry, but please go back. We just follow the orders of our lord, so we can’t help it.”

When the knights blocked my path, Kian stepped forward.

“You are your lord’s loyal servants……. Then you must not hold a grudge.”

After finishing his speech, blue magic rose from Kian’s hands. The knights immediately pulled out their swords.

But they had no time to use them. Their eyes closed and the swords dropped from their hands.

Kian, who easily overpowered the knights, smiled at me and said,

“I’m only following the orders of my master.”

* * *

I was going to protest that I wasn’t Kian’s master anymore—when a cold and overbearing voice was heard from inside the library room— now wasn’t the time to argue.

“Until when are you going to be expensive?”

I couldn’t see his face, but I recognized the voice.

It was Count Selton.

The library was densely packed with high bookshelves.

Because of that, no one noticed Kian or I.

The conversation continued,

“I’m slowly reaching my limit, too. Don’t test my patience anymore.”

This time, a sobbing woman’s voice was heard.

“Okay, I’ll do whatever you want. So please—please, don’t say that you’re going to get rid of the orphanage. Without the orphanage the children would have nowhere to go.”

The voice pleading belonged to Caroline, the director of the orphanage. Then came Count Selton’s hard voice,

“If you don’t want your beloved orphans to be on the street…… Of course you should comply.”

This must have been what caused Caroline’s secretive attitude when she wanted to talk to me but stopped herself from doing so, earlier.

And Count Selton’s brazen actions is what she was hiding.

It all made sense.

The orphans were used to threaten the director.

Such a dirty, filthy tactic.

Count Celton was stroking Caroline’s pale, drained cheeks.

The Count’s hand, which was skimming against her cheek, gradually went down.

I was going to shout halt. But there was a voice that popped out before mine.

“Stop it!”

Someone jumped through the window like a cat.

It was Evan, the boy I met earlier.

“Don’t bully the principle! You bad villain!”

Evan bravely ran toward Count Selton. Shortly after that, a painful howl broke out.

“Argh!”

It was Count Selton who screamed. Evan had bitten his dirty hand with all his might.

He had bit the Count so hard that his hand had started to bleed. The count shouted, his face distorted like a demon’s.

“This bastard doesn’t even know when to kneel!”

The angry count raised his hand to beat Evan—

“Wh—what the hell?”

Count Selton couldn’t move his arm as if it had been held by something.

He tried to swing his arm, spitting out curses, but Kian’s magic had binded his body.

I step out from behind the bookshelf and spoke coldly to Count Selton,

“I think it’s you, Lord Selton, who doesn’t know when to kneel.”

Caroline, Evan, and Count Selton gawked at me in surprise.

“Princess Ashford……?”

Count Selton mumbled as if struck by lightning. He looked like he couldn’t even understand why I was here.

Then, his eyes found Kian beside me and gritted his teeth as he belatedly figured out what was going on.

“Sir Kian! What are you doing? Release this damn spell right now!”

Kian looked at me instead of replying.

“Olivia. “What do you want me to do?”

I opened my mouth after watching the Count’s struggle for a while.

“Release it.”

In fact, I wanted to leave it as it is, but I had to make a “deal” with the Count.

When Kian lifted the spell, Count Selton was red in the face.

“What rudeness is this!”

“What do you mean, rude? Didn’t the lord try to molest Caroline? I was just trying to stop it.”

“Mo…Molest? Aren’t you misunderstanding me?”

The count brazenly tried to evade the charge. But he didn’t stop there.

“Caroline seduced me first.”

* * *

You can read in advance here.