Ch.1717 – Their Sense of Mission

# 17 – Their Sense of Mission

Jesse urges me to run away quickly.

Outside the window, doctors are glancing in our direction while making calls on their magic communication devices.

“Hurry!”

Jona and Leaf aren’t bad people.

“I know a place to hide!”

But the word ‘hiding’ flipped a switch inside me.

Skill proficiency work.

Hiding function.

A secret passage that can’t be easily found under normal circumstances.

Isn’t this a chance to boost my proficiency?

“Hmm… okay. Since I don’t want Leaf to worry too much, just one hour?”

When I tried to compromise, Jesse’s expression turned grim.

She looked like a tough mother about to deliver a full swing to the back of her foolish daughter’s head.

Just as I flinched at that expression, the emergency room door opened and two nurses approached.

“Come on, let’s eat some candy with the ladies until your guardian arrives.”

“What flavor is it?”

“Strawberry~”

“Oknodie! What nonsense are you talking about?!”

“Now, now, your friend shouldn’t be playing with friends late at night either. Your guardian will worry, right?”

I can’t trust that guardian.

Jesse, who was glaring fiercely at the nurse ladies, suddenly pressed a button on her wristwatch.

Pop pop.

With a cute sound, tiny needles flew out.

The surprised nurses lost their strength, sat down, leaned against the hospital bed, and fell asleep.

“Come this way, hurry!”

Jesse pulled me toward the back door, taking the lead.

Even Oknodie, a former player, was surprised by her bold action.

“Are you perhaps a playable character?”

“Will you stop saying weird things? Get in here!”

As Jesse pushed me from behind, I got into a laundry cart, and the hurried footsteps of doctors and nurses passed by us.

“What was that just now?”

“It’s a needle with sleep magic. My dad gave it to me saying that even if we’re just a minor baronial family, you never know when strange people might try to kidnap a nobleman’s daughter.”

“Heh. So it’s a self-defense item.”

“He said it’s super expensive.”

“Would it work on monsters too?”

“Probably not? Monsters are often bigger than animals, so drugs don’t work on them.”

“Tch. Then I won’t buy it.”

If it doesn’t work on monsters, it won’t work on people who can easily beat monsters either.

[You hid with your friend in a laundry cart to evade pursuit.]

[Hiding experience +3]

[You moved for 1 minute in a laundry cart, deceiving the guards.]

[Hiding experience +3]

[Stealth experience +1]

[Infiltration experience +1]

[You hid with your friend inside a promotional mascot costume to evade the guards for 1 minute.]

[Hiding experience +3]

[Deception experience +1]

[You walked right past the guards while wearing the mascot costume.]

[Deception experience +3]

[Boldness experience +1]

My skill proficiency is rising at a frightening speed, as if I’d purchased a growth booster cash item.

“Jesse, you’ve got some serious guts.”

“You’re super strong too, Oknodie! I couldn’t walk inside a mascot costume while giving someone a piggyback ride.”

“Hehe. This is nothing.”

It seems like just yesterday I was grumbling about having inefficiently high physical stats despite my small size, but it feels rewarding when it actually helps like this.

Regardless of efficiency, high stats are always good. My diligent training has paid off.

“Now, if we activate this emergency escape port, we can get out of the secret passage.”

Jesse and I have successfully evaded the guards and are about to escape.

However, a person appeared from the shadows next to the escape port, as if they had been waiting for us.

“Have you enjoyed your entertainment enough, young lady?”

“Jona.”

The all-purpose butler with a menacing mafia-like aura.

Jona Wiheomhae, with whom I’d been on awkward terms for a while, blocked the exit.

* *

Jesse saw it.

Oknodie’s expression darkening.

“Come here, young lady. It was a small commotion, but if you take my hand, this will end as nothing more than a minor incident.”

“I’m sorry, Jesse. I don’t want to trouble the butler.”

“No, Oknodie! If you surrender to such bad people, your future will be even more miserable!”

The international identity registration magic is so popular that even in commoner families, children over 5 years old voluntarily register, and some even try to get tested again by lying about their names.

Children who aren’t allowed to receive this magic, which is permitted even for orphans in orphanages, can only be those whose identities are being hidden from the world for malicious purposes.

Children used and discarded by criminal organizations for criminal purposes.

Pimps who prevent the registration of girls they intend to sell to brothels, exploiting the fact that they won’t be protected by law.

Desperately poor commoners who intentionally don’t register their children to avoid paying taxes.

Rotten parents who try to deprive children of their rightful rights for the purpose of child abuse, or to sell them as slaves because they aren’t protected by law.

Even noble families who rescue such children to raise them as secret weapons.

‘Oknodie must be a child from such a noble family!’

Even as the daughter of a minor baronial family, Jesse is still a noble. She’s heard rumors about the nobles’ dirty scandals.

Oknodie probably isn’t being raised as a concubine or plaything.

There’s no reason to train a plaything who would be troublesome if they ran away, making them unnaturally strong and agile for their age.

They put such a child through the entrance exam of the world’s best academy to transform them into an outstanding talent, manipulating them from behind the scenes to use them according to the family’s wishes.

It’s a frighteningly meticulous scheme to control a person’s life from childhood into adulthood.

“Oknodie. A noble girl doesn’t have to train until her hands are calloused. You don’t have to live a hard life for someone else’s purposes!”

“Jesse. Thank you. I really mean it. This is the first time I’ve had such a young friend.”

Tears welled up in Jesse’s eyes.

Why are you saying such weak things?

When you’re so strong and agile.

When you could get into the capsule port right now if you wanted to.

Suddenly, Jesse realized.

The butler with the frightening eyes.

A trained observer disguised as a butler.

That dangerous person was watching them.

If Oknodie tried to escape, she might be able to, but Jesse couldn’t.

Oknodie gave up escaping to protect Jesse.

Whatever the truth was, that’s how she interpreted it.

“So I’ll be honest.”

Instead of opening the capsule door, Oknodie patted Jesse’s head.

“I’m going to enter the academy. Jona and Leaf, they’ve all done their best to help me. I don’t want to waste that time by running away on my own.”

“Are you really okay with that, Oknodie…? Not being able to live like a normal child because of bad people, sniff. Your hands becoming so rough from harsh training…”

“It’s all what I wanted. If I don’t enter the academy, someone like me would surely live an unhappy life. I wouldn’t be able to collect food freely, and my stats would be terrible.”

“I don’t understand… sob. I don’t understand what Oknodie is trying to say at all…”

“I just need to graduate from the academy with good grades. Then everything will be fine.”

Oknodie let go of Jesse’s hand.

She approached the butler who was looking down at her with a complicated expression and took his hand.

“Let’s go, Jona. Leaf must be very worried.”

“You knew that, yet you caused this commotion.”

“I’m sorry. I was just hiding as a prank, but I didn’t know the guards would be this incompetent.”

Oknodie doesn’t ask anything.

Why her identity wasn’t registered.

Why they want her to enter the academy.

Jona doesn’t tell her anything.

The things she didn’t ask about.

The reason why she doesn’t ask.

Still, the two of them walk hand in hand.

They simply inform the guards that it was just children playing a prank, and as an apology, they give the sweating guards a small compensation for their trouble.

“Jesse! Your parents are really worried. What were you doing here alone?”

When her peer Maxs ran up and asked, Jesse wiped her eyes with her sleeve and answered.

“Maxs. I’ve made a decision.”

“What? To become a runaway teenager?”

“I’m going to help Oknodie. That poor child.”

Jesse tells Maxs about Oknodie.

After hearing the story, the same determination that appeared in Jesse’s eyes flashed in Maxs’s eyes as well.

“Your sister is at the academy too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s tell her when vacation comes. Your sister. I’ll tell my brother too.”

A miserable child with no one to rely on.

An unregistered person who is returning to the darkness of a noble family, who isn’t protected by law and legally doesn’t even exist.

If poor Oknodie enters the academy, please let them be a source of strength for that child.

“She never complained even when my youngest sibling pulled her hair. I can’t stand to see such a good person being mistreated by bad adults!”

“That’s right. Well said, Maxs. We’ll somehow save Oknodie with our own strength. It’s impossible now because we lack power, but somehow, someday, definitely!”

“This is unfair. Oknodie deserves a better life.”

“What admirable children.”

Jesse turned around with a startled “Eek!” She was tense, worried that the intimidating butler had returned, but fortunately, it wasn’t him.

A handsome young man with a nice beard and a kind-looking smile.

“You’re not the only ones who want to help Oknodie. I feel the same way.”

“Who are you, mister?”

“The leader of the ticket hunters. The ticket black marketeer. In the underworld, I’m commonly known as Giselle the General Merchant.”

Children of baronial families.

Maxs Montblanc of the Montblanc family.

Jesse Millefeuille of the Millefeuille family.

They themselves may not be much, but their siblings, having been raised and educated by good parents, boast outstanding talents.

Enough to already be attending or seriously aiming for Gift Academy, considered the world’s top educational institution.

Jessica Millefeuille, Jesse Millefeuille’s sister, who will be a sophomore at the academy this year.

Maximus Montblanc, Maxs Montblanc’s brother, who is aiming to enter the academy this year.

Their motivation and background have sufficient value to be used as stepping stones to help Oknodie.

“It’s a long time to wait until Jessica’s next vacation. And we can’t guarantee that Maximus will definitely be admitted.”

“That’s true, but…”

“Do you have another way to contact your sister?”

“I can help you. With Maximus’s admission. With delivering your handwritten letters to Jessica.”

The children’s expressions brightened.

The smile on Giselle’s lips brightened as well.

But his eyes didn’t smile.

‘This is just one small stepping stone among many. Not nearly enough to save Miss Oknodie.’

Nevertheless, it’s clearly a stepping stone that will help in the future.

Giselle thought.

This one step, the gap created by the brave action of the girl named Jesse, the contact made with these people by exploiting that gap, was not in vain.

He would make sure it wouldn’t be in vain, by any means necessary.