The Marquis suddenly stood up from his seat and began calling someone’s name.

“Dicky! Over here!”

“My lord!”

A young knight with completely disheveled hair ran toward us.

“My lord, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. But this Miss Aria here…”

“I’m fine.”

I answered quickly.

“More importantly, please find three children and one woman. They were brought here with us. Hurry!”

“Understood.”

The knight called Dicky promptly opened the prison door and called out to his comrades.

“There are more hostages. Hurry!”

I stepped outside and looked around.

‘…Is this underground? No, more like a semi-basement.’

With its complex structure of many cells and corridors, it didn’t seem easy to find Elodie quickly. My decision was swift.

“I need to search with you.”

“It’s dangerous.”

The Marquis patted my back.

“We don’t know how many bandits remain, so you should evacuate for now.”

His uncharacteristic consideration was evident, but it wasn’t at all welcome to me.

“Elodie is here.”

I interrupted the Marquis.

“I can’t just leave Elodie behind and go outside by myself. Please, I’m begging you…”

“Alright.”

Surprisingly, the Marquis nodded without a moment’s hesitation. This easily?

I opened my eyes wide. The Marquis looked at me with an amused expression.

“You look like you were hoping I would keep objecting.”

“Not at all.”

I answered quickly. Nothing would be more foolish than to upset the Marquis now.

“I’m grateful for your generous accommodation, my lord.”

“You’ve become so sweet.”

The Marquis smiled.

“I suppose you’re that worried about your daughter?”

A bead of cold sweat trickled down. Of course, Elodie was precious to me. But I didn’t think of Elodie as my daughter, as the Marquis suggested. No, I shouldn’t.

Because Elodie is Theodore Baniche’s daughter. Regardless of who her mother was, she was the sole heir who would inherit the Baniche Duke family. I shouldn’t dare harbor such possessive feelings for such a child.

“Elodie is not my daughter!”

“But you think of the young lady as your daughter, Miss Aria.”

“That’s not… no…”

“Do you often tell such blatant lies in front of the young lady too?”

I took a moment to catch my breath. Though I wanted to go find Elodie right away, as long as the Marquis kept asking these meaningful questions, I needed to clarify the facts.

“…My lord, it’s true that I care deeply for Elodie. But only as her guardian, absolutely not as a parent.”

“Well, if that’s what you say, I won’t press further.”

The Marquis smirked as he examined the corridor, then pointed in the direction where a child’s faint crying could be heard.

“It seems to be this way.”

“…!”

I immediately ran in that direction. Safety was not my concern. Even if bandits remained, they would be dead men against the Marquis’s knights. All that mattered to me was Elodie.

“Waaaaaah…”

The child’s loud crying grew closer. Too loud to be Elodie’s.

‘…That’s not Elodie.’

I bit my lip. But even if the crying child wasn’t Elodie, I couldn’t just go in another direction. Paul and Candy were also my friend’s children. As expected, the source of the crying was Paul, and both Paul and Candy were locked in the same room.

“Where’s Mom?”

“We’re looking for her.”

I looked around. The Marquis’s knights weren’t trustworthy enough to leave the children with, but in the current situation, there was no choice.

“Please take these children outside.”

“Understood.”

Surprisingly, the Marquis’s knight responded to me respectfully and took the children outside. Now, then…

“…Aria?”

I turned my whole body around. It was a voice coming from beyond a small, low door that was barely visible.

“Elodie?”

“…Yes, it’s Elodie. Is that really Aria outside?”

“It’s me.”

Tears welled up. I quickly tried to open the door, but the firmly locked padlock wouldn’t budge. In the end, Elodie was only able to escape from the narrow cell after I shouted for the Marquis’s knights.

‘…Elodie.’

My mouth went dry. Elodie was in such a pitiful state that it was hard to look at her directly. Having cried for a long time, her face was covered in tears and mucus, and her clothes were dusty. Her fingernails were split and bleeding, as if she had been scratching at the walls.

“Elodie…”

I immediately knelt down and embraced her.

“I’m sorry. I should have prevented you from experiencing this, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry…”

“How could Aria have prevented it?”

Elodie replied, sobbing.

“The bad men are bad. Aria didn’t do anything wrong.”

My throat tightened, and I couldn’t respond. I wished she would blame me a little, but Elodie seemed to be suppressing her fear and anger without directing it at anyone.

“You’ve already found the young lady.”

The Marquis’s voice was heard. I quickly picked up Elodie and stood up. The child’s body went limp in my arms as she clung to me.

‘Hilde!’

I quickly opened my mouth.

“The mother of those children from earlier…”

“You mean Hilde Devaka? We found her.”

He gestured for me to follow him.

“Everyone is waiting outside.”

“What about the Duke’s knights?”

“…They’re the same.”

I didn’t miss his slight hesitation.

‘Are many of them injured? Or perhaps…’

But there was nothing I could do. For now, I needed to focus on escaping this place with Elodie. The Marquis urged me.

“Miss Aria, come this way. Surely you don’t want to stay in this dirty, musty place any longer?”

“….”

I blinked. The Marquis’s words were reasonable. Having found Elodie, we should naturally go outside. But this unsettling feeling I’d had since meeting the Marquis…

“Miss Aria, if you’re tired, shall I carry the young lady?”

The moment the Marquis extended his hands toward me, I was certain.

“You didn’t need to put on such a show just to court me, Marquis Carbodin.”

“….”

A chilling silence fell. The Marquis didn’t seem surprised or angry. He merely looked disappointed.

“Ha, to be discovered so quickly. Did I underestimate you too much, thinking you were just a worthless commoner without proper education?”

I gritted my teeth. Indeed, this had all been a trap. The problem was that I had no idea how to escape from it.

If I were alone, I might be able to run away, but it was impossible to flee from the Marquis while carrying a limp child. The Marquis approached me with a twisted smile. His rough breath made my skin crawl.

“…You can’t harm me, my lord.”

I slowly opened my mouth.

“Making an enemy of the Duke’s family with nothing to gain would be a grave mistake for the Marquis’s house. So…”

“Who says there’s nothing to gain?”

Marquis Carbodin let out an eerie laugh.

“The gain is right here.”

He grabbed Elodie’s arm. I didn’t think twice. I was willing to do anything to prevent that vile man from harming Elodie. Slap!

When I struck his cheek, the Marquis was so surprised that he loosened his grip on Elodie, and I was able to easily pull her away.

“What a struggle.”

The Marquis sneered loudly.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You can’t escape or fight back anyway. As for this little one, it’s easy to handle her as long as I have Miss Aria…”

At that moment, Elodie’s previously limp body suddenly stiffened.

“Elodie!”

I checked her complexion, fearing she might be having a seizure from shock, but fortunately, her body had only tensed up without any other abnormalities. And then… a wind came from somewhere.

‘Indoors, yet there’s wind…?’

I shivered. It wasn’t an ordinary wind. A piercing, biting wind. Definitely not a temperature that should be felt in early summer.

‘…It’s coming from Elodie.’

I called out to Elodie in a trembling voice.

“Elodie…”

“I will protect Aria.”

Elodie spoke in a monotone voice.

“No one will harm Aria.”

The wind blew even more fiercely, making it impossible for both me and Marquis Carbodin to stand. Now it felt like even my thin clothes were being torn away, so I barely managed to raise my hunched upper body and spoke to Elodie.