“A, Adele? Are you all right?”

Even though time had passed since the situation had settled, his voice still sounded frightened.

“I said boss.”

Upon hearing the composed reply, Vincent shook his head vigorously, then came to his senses and jumped to his feet. He then ran over to Adele and began examining her from every angle.

“Are you hurt? What was that just now?”

The rapid-fire worry came as a bonus.

Vincent was looking at her with glistening eyes. Adele quickly shook her head. If she did not let this little one know she was fine soon, he looked as though he might burst into tears.

He must have been startled himself by the sudden turn of events, and yet he was immediately worrying about someone else.

The fruits of training were beginning to show. Adele thought so, and answered with a satisfied smile.

“Life doesn’t always flow the way you expect it to.”

“Wh, what does that mean?”

“It means that events like that are simply part of life.”

She was not entirely sure what it meant, but it sounded impressive somehow.

Hearing Adele’s words, Vincent felt a strange sensation, as though a bolt of lightning had flashed through his mind. At the same time, his heart was pounding so fiercely that he could not collect himself.

‘Th, that’s right! This is exactly that…… reverence? Awe? Anyway, that’s what this is!’

Whether it was reverence or awe, or some other nameless emotion, Vincent placed his hand over his thumping heart and caught his breath.

It was a whirlwind of emotion too overwhelming for a young child.

In the midst of all this, the sorcerer finally seemed to have recovered his completely depleted stamina and staggered to his feet. His limbs were still trembling, but whatever might be said about his comical appearance, the sorcerer’s eyes were sharp.

“What on earth is our Adele’s true identity?”

Before Adele could answer, Vincent cut in.

“What do you mean, what is she! She’s the boss!”

How moving. For the first time, the word ‘boss’ had come out of Vincent’s mouth.

Adele’s nose shot up into the air without a care for the sky above.

It was probably because he had been won over by the overwhelming power she had just displayed. After all, the basic nature of people, especially villains, was to be strong against the weak and weak against the strong.

Even during Adele’s days as a knight, there had been many who had looked down on her for being a woman.

Should a knight not let their sword do the talking?

Every time someone had underestimated her, Adele had immediately drawn her sword. Afterward, everyone had followed her. Just like Vincent right now.

“Good attitude. Continue to serve me that way from now on.”

Vincent nodded his head vigorously at Adele’s words.

The sorcerer, on the other hand, shook his head back and forth. He could not come to his senses, having been continuously swept up in these children’s game of make-believe.

Right now was not the time to focus on the children’s chatter, but to think about what on earth had suddenly appeared.

Until now he had simply thought of her as a slightly suspicious little lady, but what had just happened made him realize that the degree of suspicion was absolutely not ‘slight.’

What on earth could be going on inside those clear green eyes?

When those chubby little hands clenched into a fist, magical energy swirled in a way similar to when he himself cast a spell.

But strictly speaking, it was not magic.

It was aura, something that even talented knights needed at least ten or more years of training to use.

Ten years of training was one thing, but seeing it in a small child who had not even lived ten years could not simply be described as talent.

A thrilling yet eerie feeling wrapped itself around the sorcerer. He looked at the goosebumps rising on his arm and pulled up the corner of his mouth.

It was a good feeling. The kind that felt as though it would quench his thirst for knowledge. The very truth he had spent his whole life searching for.

Something that was disturbing this world, and the small child who had shattered it. How astonishing was this?

The sorcerer thought of a place he absolutely had to visit in order to properly understand what he had just come to know. He could not guarantee whether it would be possible to find answers there either.

Even so, he had to set out before the sensation of that strange phenomenon he had just felt faded from his memory.

‘Why is he smiling like a pervert again?’

Adele, watching that, felt goosebumps for an entirely different reason.

“Children, I’ll be taking my leave. I’ll probably be away for quite a long time.”

The sorcerer made a meaningful face and waved his hand.

At that, Vincent and Adele spoke simultaneously.

“Good riddance.”

“Where are you going? How long will you be?”

The ill-mannered young master she had met for the first time today showed a predictable reaction, but the fact that the haughty Adele was showing curiosity about him was something else entirely.

The sorcerer felt an inexplicable lump in his throat and asked.

“Why? Are you worried about me?”

Adele’s expression immediately twisted.

“What are you talking about? What about my meals?”

Well, of course.

The sorcerer tried his best not to let the tear that had slipped out be seen by the heartless children, and waved his hand once more.

“Figure it out yourselves!”

With those parting words, his body gradually turned transparent and soon disappeared without a trace.

“What? The boss’s servant can do all sorts of things, can’t he?”

Was this the presence-erasing technique that Adele had shown earlier? Vincent rubbed his eyes in surprise and looked around.

Indeed, it seemed the boss had taught her servant well too. Vincent had not even thought that what he had seen was magic and continued to marvel at it.

Adele, meanwhile, was serious.

‘What about my meals?’

Did she need to look for work again? More than that, was there even any work that would hire a young child? And where was she supposed to stay?

He had been the one to approach her with interest, feed her, and give her a place to sleep, and now he was just leaving like this so suddenly? They said there was no one in this world you could trust, and it turned out the one right beside her was that very person! True to being from an enemy nation, he had been a bad person after all.

She had also been let go from her job, so there was no way to earn money for food. She was at risk of starving to death before she could even conquer the world.

As Adele stared blankly at the empty air where the sorcerer had disappeared, her face pale, Vincent asked from beside her.

“Adele. What are you actually going to do about food?”

“Where did the word ‘boss’ go?”

“The servant left the house, didn’t he?”

“So what about the boss?”

The peculiar habit of answering a question with an entirely different question repeated itself.

Vincent persisted and asked again.

“Then what about our house?”

“What about it?”

“You can’t go hungry. I’ll share my food with you.”

How thoughtful. Adele snapped back to her senses immediately.

She was moved by her subordinate’s admirable consideration for his boss and nodded her head.

It had been inconvenient enough that the wicked sorcerer had disappeared so suddenly.

“All right. I’ll accept that offer, and we’ll hold the next training session at the Rogato ducal estate.”

– – –

Duke Usder Rogato, standing in the garden, was taken aback.

A sharp, stinging pain had suddenly flashed through the back of his head. And it was a sensation he had experienced before. He touched the back of his head, which was completely clean without so much as a scratch.

The brief nap he had fallen deeply into, and the shattered window.

The moment Duke Rogato brought that situation to mind, his head felt foggy and suffocating. For some reason, his stomach was also churning and he was breaking out in a cold sweat.

All of these symptoms had begun the very moment he had laid eyes on that little brat.

Red hair that brought fire to mind. It had a flickering, blazing quality, yet the hair itself was perfectly still. The duke pondered whether it was because of that hair that he had felt so overwhelmed.

It was not only the hair color that bothered him. The light green eyes that looked as though they contained a foul and unpleasant temperament were also, for some reason, difficult to look at directly.

No, more than anything else, why was there such a sharp-looking little child in his estate? Had another noble come to visit the estate? But how could he not know a child who made such a strong impression?

Duke Rogato, who knew virtually every noble family and their children, tilted his head.

No matter how many times he looked at the child’s face, no name came to mind. The same was true even when he tried to think of nobles with red hair and light green eyes.

The moment Usder realized that, he found himself thinking of Vincent, his own son and yet a boy who did not resemble him in a single way.

The one who had hidden his bloodline and crept into this household like a parasite.

A wave of displeasure rose within him in an instant.

And in the very next moment.

“Ugh!”

The child vanished from before his eyes, and a sudden pain struck the back of his head.

Duke Usder Rogato thought to himself as his vision grew dim.

‘Th, this sensation, it’s like that time……’

– – –