Chapter 3

The moment Charlotte reached out to catch the sandwich dropping to the floor, the boy snatched her handbag and ran off.

“Huh?! My bag!”

When the startled Charlotte turned around, she saw Chris standing stiffly in the deck corridor.

Chris easily caught the rapidly running child, then snatched Charlotte’s handbag from the child’s hand.

“Th-thank you?”

Charlotte stared blankly at the scene, then offered her thanks in a dazed tone.

Chris’s cold gaze lingered on the boy’s hair.

“Ash-gray hair. Are you from Dalteum?”

Suspended in the air, the child glared at Chris with an aggrieved expression and struggled without knowing his place.

“Let go! I said let go of me!”

The child’s feet aimed for Chris’s solid waist.

It was a fairly fierce kick in its own way, but it did not look capable of leaving even a scratch on that body, hard as rock.

He accepted the kicks impassively, then carelessly tossed the handbag he held in his right hand toward Charlotte.

“Catch.”

“……?”

Charlotte’s blue eyes filled with fluster.

It was fortunate to get her handbag back, but she had never expected to receive it like this.

But Chris seemed not to notice Charlotte’s bewildered expression.

His sharp eyes were fixed on the child’s ash-gray eyes.

“Quietly come with me. Unless you want to be reported as a spy from Dalteum.”

“……!”

At the words a spy from Dalteum, the air in the corridor turned cold.

The frightened child’s kicking stopped at once.

Charlotte was equally shocked.

With round eyes, she carefully looked over the child caught in Chris’s hand.

Thin wrists and ankles showed through the worn and torn clothes.

Judging by the hollow cheeks, devoid of the plump healthy color proper to a child, he looked unmistakably like a pickpocket driven by poverty, and a war orphan.

One pushed into such desperation that he would resort to pickpocketing even aboard an isolated ship.

Ash-gray hair and ash-gray eyes were enough to make someone guess he was from Dalteum, but there were plenty of people in Westden with ash-gray hair and eyes as well.

To accuse a mere pickpocket of being a spy.

The punishment for an orphan pickpocket usually ended at a stern scare, but it was an unspoken rule that anyone suspected of being a spy would first be subjected to horrific t*rture.

So neither Charlotte nor the child could help being shocked by Chris’s heartless treatment.

“Chris! That’s too much!”

Charlotte shouted without realizing it herself.

Even though he had tried to steal her bag, she pitied the poor child’s circumstances, and heartfelt protest burst out of her.

Chris’s sharp eyes widened greatly.

His black eyes, gleaming like obsidian, turned toward her.

“You remember my name?”

“That’s not what’s important right now. I’m fine, so please let the boy go!”

Without answering, he once again looked the pickpocket child up and down.

It was the kind of gaze accustomed to crushing and pressing down on people.

Soon, Chris’s hand, which had been gripping the child’s clothes, slowly opened.

As the child fell to the floor, his legs buckled weakly.

As if she had been waiting, Charlotte ran toward the child.

“Are you all right? You must have been very frightened.”

Charlotte carefully looked over the child who, only moments ago, had tried to steal her bag.

Because of this side of her, she was often said at the academy to be excessively lenient, but she did not mind in the slightest.

Moreover, Charlotte had a habit of becoming especially soft toward war orphans like herself.

Enough that she even offered him the sandwich she had meant to eat for lunch.

“Here, I’m fine, so would you like to eat this?”

“…I-is that really okay?”

The child’s trembling eyes turned toward Chris.

It was Charlotte who was offering the sandwich, yet he seemed to be asking Chris for permission.

“It’s fine. You can take it. You’re a war orphan too, aren’t you? Actually, I’m a war orphan too.”

“R-really, are you an orphan too, Miss? You don’t look like one….”

“Yes. I lost my parents when I was about your age too. More importantly, you look terribly hungry, but did you board the ship alone? Is there anyone you need to share the sandwich with?”

At Charlotte’s kindness, the child’s mouth opened honestly.

“There is. My younger sister boarded the ship with me. You can’t tell anyone else. We snuck on board.”

“Of course not. It’s still a long way to the final destination, so how were you planning to eat?”

“I heard we could dig through the dining room trash…. But there wasn’t as much food as I expected….”

“So you pickpocketed?”

“…Yes. I’m sorry.”

Lowering his ashamed eyes, the child readily admitted his crime.

Charlotte let out a soft smile and lightly pinched his thin cheek.

“Still, you mustn’t pickpocket. Instead, tell your circumstances to adults who seem like they might have a child your age. They’ll gladly buy you a meal. All right?”

The child pushed out his lips as if Charlotte’s words were hard to believe.

Charlotte leaned toward him and slowly held out her little finger.

“Come on, make a promise with me. That you won’t pickpocket anymore.”

A bright red flush spread over his dirty cheeks.

The child reluctantly hooked his finger with hers and nodded.

“A-all right.”

“Good. I’ll give a present to a good boy. First, take the sandwich……”

A bright, innocent smile spread across Charlotte’s face.

As if she were delighted over something, she even hummed while pressing a pile of coins into the child’s hand.

Clink-.

“It should be about 20 shellings. With this, I think you and your little sister can eat your fill for a week. Do you have a bag to carry the coins in?”

From 1 lirang to 100 lirang.

At the sight of the piled-up coins, the child’s eyes grew huge.

20 shellings was equal to a commander’s daily wage, but for a child who earned barely 1 shelling, that is, 100 lirang, even after working all day in a munitions factory, it was an enormous sum he had never touched in his life.

“If you don’t have a bag, would you like to put them in my bag and carry it?”

At Charlotte’s generous offer, Chris gave a snort.

Quietly watching the situation unfold, he pulled an old canteen from his arms and threw it to the child.

The opening was wide, so coins would go in easily enough.

“It’d be better to carry them in this. You should know the reason better than anyone.”

“That’s a water bottle. You’re saying it’d be better to carry them in that?”

When Charlotte asked in disbelief, Chris pointed out the reasons one by one in a low voice.

“If he goes around carrying that bag stuffed with money, he’ll just be mistaken for carrying money he pickpocketed. If he’s unlucky, another orphan will steal it from him. In a rough world, the more precious something is, the more it needs to be dirtied. You seem not to know that, Miss Mary Robinson?”

At Chris’s answer, Charlotte’s eyes widened into circles in surprise.

She had not realized he was someone who could speak this well.

And that was not the only surprising thing.

‘My goodness. Since I didn’t think we’d meet again, I just gave a rough fake name. To think he’d remember it.’

Startled, she asked as if to confirm it.

“You remember my name?”

At Charlotte’s question, Chris gave a short laugh.

Instead of answering her, he spoke to the child.

“I’m a war orphan too. Until recently, I was a soldier. This kind of kindness isn’t something that happens often, so accept it gratefully.”

“Yes, Sir!”

As soon as Chris finished speaking, the child quickly put the coins into the canteen.

Charlotte blankly watched the scene, then muttered quietly.

“Ahh, so that’s why….”

Simply by learning that Chris had been a soldier until recently, she immediately understood his suspicious and rude conduct.

Even his excessively sturdy body and rough-looking expression.

Not only her, but anyone who knew how horrific the war of the past two years had been would agree with this.

That a soldier who returned alive from the Second War was no different from a mental casualty.

Chris’s rough palm pressed down on the crown of the child’s head.

Forced to bow his head, the child offered Charlotte his thanks.

“Th-thank you, Miss. Thank you very much.”

At the sincere gratitude, a poignant warmth spread through Charlotte’s heart.

She held the child’s bony hand tightly and asked kindly.

“What’s your name?”

“I-it’s Fred.”

“Fred, you’ve lived a difficult life until now, but from here on, you can live much more happily than you do now. The world is a warmer place than you think.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes. Because just as I did for you, Fred, you’ll show warm kindness to someone else too. Right?”

Fred nodded and held out his little finger first.

Without hesitation, Charlotte hooked her finger with his and smiled sweetly.

“Now you should go.”

In the warm atmosphere, Chris drove the child off as if issuing an order to leave.

The child turned the corner of the deck corridor and disappeared without looking back.

Charlotte’s cool gaze turned toward Chris.

“Do you really have to say things like that?”

Chris looked down at Charlotte, who was crouching, with a puzzled expression.

As she barely endured and met his overbearing gaze, an unexpected question came flying toward her.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Charlotte’s lips rounded in disbelief.

It was not easy to ignore what others said this thoroughly and only say what one wanted to say.

He truly was an astonishingly rude and peculiar man.

She did not know what sort of environment he had grown up in, but there was a self-centered attitude underlying him.

Her pride stung for no reason, and although her stomach was so hungry it felt sick, she shamelessly lied.

“I’m not hungry at all.”

But her stomach immediately refuted her.

Grrrrrrrrk-.

At that n*ked signal, Charlotte’s face burned bright red.

She bit down hard on her lower lip with her head bowed deeply.

She looked at Chris’s feet, hoping the man would please step aside, but those heavy shoes did not budge in the slightest.

“I’ll buy it for you, so come into the dining room.”

A voice that sounded as though it were mocking her came from above her head.