“Do you know him?”

“He is the one who gave this land to Adele!”

Vincent said, stepping in front of Adele.

Adele added an explanation to Vincent’s words.

“Professor of the swordsmanship department at Pilonia National Academy, Charles Theodore.”

The sorcerer was startled by Adele’s words and looked ahead.

“What? That is that person?”

Was it truly that only strange people were drawn to Adele’s side, or was it that people became strange by being at Adele’s side?

“Kids, see you later.”

Thinking that, the sorcerer hid himself.

He had no particular desire to meet the hero of the Kingdom of Pilonia. He simply wanted to live quietly in this country.

Meanwhile, Charles, having arrived at the clearing where Adele was, slowly looked around.

“It seemed like there was one more person here.”

Adele glanced at the spot where the sorcerer had disappeared.

He was from an enemy nation, so he had probably hidden himself out of his own guilty conscience. Since the sorcerer had not yet invaded the kingdom, she had no desire to create unnecessary friction.

“Well. More importantly, I understand this land is now my property.”

There was a kind of warning in her composed tone. Charles noticed it and laughed loudly. The thunderous laughter echoed throughout the clearing.

To think there was someone in his life who would threaten him. And someone as tiny as a lark at that. It was a new and thrilling feeling.

Having laughed for quite a while, he calmed down a little and said.

“That is right. This is your land now. That is not why I came today.”

Only then did Adele lower her guard.

“I recall there being another one besides you two, a yellow-haired fellow, but two will do just as well.”

Charles’s way of expressing himself was rather arrogant. He had referred to none other than Prince Rohide as a ‘yellow-haired fellow.’

How could he not know who the prince was? Vincent concealed his astonishment and asked carefully.

“Do you not know who the person who was with us was?”

“I do not remember anyone who is not strong.”

“Ah, I see……”

It had seemed as though Rohide knew quite a lot about Charles Theodore…… but it appeared to have been one-sided interest on Rohide’s part.

“Cat’s paws.”

He suddenly said that, then looked Adele and Vincent over carefully.

“As small as cats.”

“What?”

Had he come to mock them?

Adele’s expression turned fierce. She had not known her teacher had such a talent for provoking people.

It was because she was reminded of her own range that had been far too short the other day.

“What does that have to do with cats?”

“Someone said they needed a cat’s paw.”

Adele and Vincent looked at each other simultaneously.

They could not understand why he had come to find them when someone needed a cat’s paw.

Could it be that he wanted them to catch a cat?

“Who needs one?”

“Why is one needed?”

Charles thought long and hard at the questions that came all at once. He seemed to be hesitating over whether to answer or not.

“For now, let us go to the academy.”

He ultimately put off the explanation and headed toward the academy with the small children on either side of him.

– – –

“I said I wished I had even a cat’s paw to borrow, and you actually bring children as small as cats? What were you thinking? Does that make any sense to you?”

Jane, the librarian of the academy library, said through gritted teeth.

“Then who should I have brought?”

At Charles’s nonchalant words, Jane finally could not hold back and shouted.

“You should take responsibility for the mess you made yourself! What could children this small possibly do……”

But she immediately clamped her mouth shut at the sight of the children beside her looking up with their round, bright eyes.

They were children who could not be found in an academy where only adults could enroll.

Was this person truly out of his mind?

He had a large body but his head seemed to have stopped growing. How else could he have thought to bring such young children to the academy?

‘How did it come to this.’

The Jane of that morning had simply wanted to clean the library. But then Charles, who looked like the last person who would ever have anything to do with books, had suddenly appeared saying he would help.

Jane had firmly declined, but she could not stop Charles. Probably no one who came could have stopped him.

She had even briefly wondered whether Charles might have a hearing problem.

Having no other choice, Jane reluctantly agreed.

The problem was that Sir Charles Theodore was enormously large and a person far removed from anything delicate.

〈W, wait a moment! Stay right there!〉

〈What is it?〉

The oblivious Charles turned around right where he stood. He had only moved his body in place, but a bookshelf tilted and spilled all the books inside it, then struck another bookshelf.

Every bookshelf in the library had toppled over in an instant.

Faced with a terrible reality she absolutely did not want to believe, Jane muttered.

〈If only I had even a cat’s paw.〉

It had been such a small voice. Somehow having heard it, Charles asked with a solemn face whether she needed a cat.

Even thinking back on it, it was not sane.

Jane had shouted that she absolutely did not, but Charles disappeared faster.

Looking at it now, it did seem as though his brain had gone off somewhere.

“Since these little ones are so small, they will be able to move into every nook and cranny.”

She was at the point of shaking with rage at Charles’s shamelessness. No, his stupidity.

“This is child *buse.”

“How so?”

“You need me to tell you that? Hah, why did you show up saying you would help in the first place.”

“I happened to hear you sighing about having so much to tidy up as I was passing by.”

‘Then why is that any of your concern!’

Jane held those words back and smoothed out the furrow between her brows. Talking with this person made her feel as though she had aged ten years.

On top of that, since when had they been close enough for him to be talking about helping or not helping? To be honest, it was uncomfortable.

Watching the adults bicker, Adele thought to herself.

‘To think Jane and my teacher knew each other.’

So that is why everyone stakes their lives on school connections and regional ties. Just how many connections are formed at the academy?

Adele renewed her resolve to enroll in the academy. Her anticipation of being able to meet most of the people she had known grew even stronger.

From her memory, she had never seen Jane and Charles together.

It had been the height of the war, so Charles had practically lived on the battlefield most of the time, and Jane had fulfilled her role as the royal library’s librarian.

She had come to properly know Jane only after Charles had died.

‘Ah, come to think of it.’

She had also met Jane on the day she had stopped by to look into Vincent’s life. She remembered how Jane’s face had gone pale when she asked for materials on ‘Vincent Rogato.’

Charles, with whom she had been close, had also died at Vincent’s hands, and then someone had come saying they were investigating him. How startled she must have been.

The Adele of that time had no personal acquaintance with Jane, so she had had no way of knowing her past.

The fact that she had been the academy library’s librarian was something she had only just learned now. And her teacher had not been the type to ramble on about himself.

‘Of course, back then I had no room to think of anything other than Vincent, so even if I had heard, I would not have been interested.’

So whether this meeting right now was simply a small event or something more, she was not sure, but it was quite interesting.

A meeting between characters who were not the leads, in a corner of the story. The leads would not spare these people even a fingernail’s worth of attention, yet they lived on regardless.

Herself included.

Adele’s heart beat hard.

“Adele, will you help?”

Vincent, another lead, asked Adele.

Adele nodded. For some reason, she did not want to simply pass this situation by.

“Organizing books requires a high level of skill too. It could be good training.”

Adele passed by Jane and Charles, who were still arguing loudly, and placed her hands on a bookshelf. To organize the books, the bookshelves needed to be organized first.

Jane, who had been in the middle of scolding Charles, was startled and tried to stop Adele.

“Oh my, just leave it……”

Bang!

The situation that followed left her too astonished to finish her sentence.

“Wh, what is this?”

The bookshelves that had been toppled like dominoes found their way back to their original places. She looked back and forth between the small red-haired child and the upright bookshelves in bewilderment.

She slipped to the side of a bookshelf and tried pushing it with some force, but it did not budge at all.

“Could this be a dream?”

“Of course not! The boss can do absolutely anything!”

This time, the grey-haired child made a proud expression and gathered up the books one by one. Charles nodded as well and followed Adele’s lead in moving the bookshelves.

The only person who had still not come to her sen