“Congratulations on getting your own room, Elodie.”

On the way to the forest, after Elodie mentioned getting her own room, Erica had told Eric when they were alone:

“Eric, when a friend has something to be happy about, you shouldn’t shout ‘Give me that too!’ but congratulate them first.”

Eric held out the messy bouquet again to Elodie, whose puzzled expression was turning bright.

“Take whatever you like.”

Since he didn’t know what she liked, he had brought everything.

“This one is pretty. That one is pretty too.”

Elodie put her thumb in her mouth and examined each flower as if counting them, then asked in a troubled voice:

“What if I like them all?”

“Then take them all.”

“Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

They exchanged the bouquet. Being children still awkward with their hands, they dropped a few flowers in the process.

Bonk!

“Ah!”

“Ow!”

They both tried to pick up the fallen flowers at the same time and bumped foreheads. Both fell on their bottoms, one laughing with hands on stomach, the other looking at her scattered skirt and flowers with a sad face. Erica, who had been watching quietly, approached the two children.

“I’ll tie them with a string so they don’t scatter, auntie will do it for you.”

Elodie, watching Erica gather everything into one bunch, whispered proudly,

“Eric gave it to me as a gift.”

“Really? Do you like it?”

The child fidgeted with her hands behind her back and nodded.

“You can decorate your room with these.”

Apparently not having thought of that, the child’s eyes widened, and she nodded again.

Erica neatly gathered the flowers and began tying the stems with the ribbon she had used to secure her rolled-up sleeve to her forearm.

Elodie tried not to take her eyes off this sight, but…

‘Huh?’

She couldn’t, because something was staring at her with wide eyes and kept calling her name.

“What’s wrong?”

The words Elodie wanted to say came out of Eric’s mouth. Eric was asking Elodie what was wrong.

Elodie opened her mouth unconsciously but stopped. She remembered her father’s instructions before leaving home that morning as he helped her put on her coat.

“You must keep our secret, even from Eric. Understand?”

“But Dad, you said Eric is a good child.”

“That’s true, but Eric is still young and might not be able to keep secrets well. And as I always say, the fewer people who know a secret, the less likely it is to be discovered.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Elodie gave Eric not the right answer, but the answer she had to give.

“……It’s nothing.”

* * *

“There, done. Here… oh?”

Erica was confused as she tried to return the carefully tied bouquet. The child who had been standing at her feet looking up at her the whole time, like a child waiting for candy to be unwrapped, had vanished without a trace.

‘Where did she go?’

Looking around, Erica saw Elodie standing alone about five steps away.

It was a spot where several birch trees stood tall. Erica didn’t like birch forests. The patterns on the trees resembled human eyes, making her feel like she was facing a tree monster with countless eyes, giving her goosebumps.

Perhaps the child didn’t see it that way, as Elodie was staring intently at the birch tree with the largest and darkest patterns.

“El…”

Erica started to call Elodie but forgot her words. Elodie had opened her eyes wide and shaken her head.

While staring directly at the eyes of the birch tree.

Elodie didn’t stop there but began moving her lips as if speaking. Even though there was no one around.

Goosebumps rose up her spine.

Does she see ghosts?

“Dad!”

Suddenly, the child turned pale and ran calling for her father, who had gone to the stream to fetch water. Erica was following the child with dumbfounded eyes when…

Footsteps approached from the direction Elodie had been looking, and a man she had never seen before leaped over the tall bushes and approached Erica.

“Eric.”

As she instinctively backed away from the strange man and called for Eric, rough-looking men began jumping out from all directions.

“Erica!”

Roderick, who had been by the stream, ran to Erica in the blink of an eye, carrying Elodie in one arm and drawing his sword with the other hand. At the same time, Erica pulled the axe from her waist.

Five men surrounded the three from all directions, grinning unpleasantly. Where’s Eric? Erica’s eyes trembled as she looked around, standing back-to-back with Roderick.

Eric was being held by one of the men with his mouth covered. The moment the hand covering his mouth slipped as he struggled, the child shouted:

“Mom! I hate this! Let me go!”

“Let the child go!”

“What do you want?”

Bandits? Erica guessed from their rough appearance and corrected Roderick’s question,

“How much ransom do you want?”

“The ransom is as written here.”

The man who appeared to be the leader pulled out a parchment scroll from his chest and unrolled it. It was a wanted poster.

“Miss. Let’s end this little game and return to your father who’s waiting for you.”

Only then did everything fall into place in Erica’s mind.

“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m not a noble Miss who eloped with a knight.”

Is eloping with knights the trend in the kingdom these days? Family pursuit teams or bounty hunters frequently sought out Erica, claiming to have received tips.

The reason they came looking for her was because she was a blonde beauty who spoke like someone of noble birth while raising a child alone. She must have been giving off the impression of a noble Miss who had eloped for love.

‘It’s not entirely wrong, but I eloped from a collapsing hut, not a massive mansion.’

Having experienced this countless times meant she had resolved it countless times too.

“Ha, this is ridiculous.”

Erica leaned against Roderick’s back, standing in a crooked posture like a back-alley thug.

“Listen, do you know how many times I’ve been through this?”

Erica abandoned her haughty tone and asked the bounty hunters in a loose, gum-chewing manner.

“Do you know what happened to all those who came before you? Huh? They got an earful back home for training a mutt after making a busy person travel all that way for nothing.”

Roderick’s eyes wavered as he glanced back at her. He didn’t know this was an act to shatter their expectations of a noble Miss.

“I reported them to the security forces. Want to bloom some complications in your life? Then I’m not going anywhere, so bring that so-called father here. No, wait.”

Clap! Erica clapped her hands as if she’d had a good idea.

“Let’s go. Might as well become a noble and try my luck for once.”

Usually, this would make most people scratch their heads and doubt their judgment while looking at the wanted poster again, but these bounty hunters weren’t so easily swayed.

“This Miss is quite clever.”

Erica held her forehead and muttered,

“Look, I’m really not her.”

“Yeah, right.”

The leader snorted and tapped the wanted poster in his hand.

“Blonde hair.”

“This isn’t just blonde. It’s strawberry blonde. That’s not what it says there.”

“Anyway! Blonde hair, green eyes. Twenty-three years old.”

“Look, thanks for thinking I look young, but I’m twenty-five.”

The leader completely ignored Erica’s objections and continued reading the description of the wanted person.

“The knight she fled with has black hair and gray-blue eyes.”

“No, his are just dark blue. Are you color-blind?”

“Age thirty.”

“Wow… a seven-year age gap? That guy was a thief.”

Stealing away a young mistress seven years his junior. Everyone present nodded in agreement, united for this moment in the belief that the knight was indeed a thief.

‘Still, no matter how much I hate this guy, I have to refute this.’

Erica poked Roderick’s cheek, which was as firm and unwrinkled as it had been five years ago, and asked the bounty hunters.