Ch.7878. Broken Shackles

“Arrest? Wait, Your Highness! Do you have any evidence?!”

“We have a witness who testified that knights from the Count’s estate carried off a female student. It might help reduce your sentence if you stop lying, even just a little.”

“How amusing. Couldn’t my knights simply deny the kidnapping and be done with it?”

The Count wasn’t the type to submit without a fight.

One might call him shameless, but realistically, the charges being used as grounds to storm his estate and arrest him were kidnapping and attempted murder.

However, since these were based solely on witness testimony, the lack of concrete evidence was a stumbling block.

Words can be fabricated at will. This was precisely why Junon and her companions hadn’t sought help from others.

Without solid physical evidence, who couldn’t make up a story?

There were plenty of people who would commit perjury if asked to be witnesses.

This meant the victim would need to testify, but the victim was nowhere to be found in the Count’s estate, despite searching everywhere.

Therefore, there seemed to be no evidence that the Count had kidnapped Hena or attempted murder, but…

“Very well. Let me show you evidence. Do you know what this is?”

Ophelia held out a blue hair tie as supposed evidence.

“A hair tie…?”

It was a very ordinary blue hair tie, not even particularly luxurious-looking.

For a moment, the Count was about to dismiss it as absurd pressure, but then he realized what it was and drew in a sharp breath.

“Levrant 8th Avenue Street, right side, past the clothing shop and into the empty lot behind it. A place you know well, I presume?”

“…”

“Of course you would. The presumed victim was there, and this ribbon is what she dropped during the battle.”

The Count’s face contorted visibly at Ophelia’s explanation.

It was a location he had thought no one would discover, having already taken measures to cover his tracks.

“A witness from the Ruwen Trading Company came forward, testifying that this hair tie was found dropped at the scene. Not only did you deny the charges, but you even tried to frame others—you won’t be able to avoid being stoned by commoners due to the aggravated punishment, Count.”

What had been mere circumstantial evidence was now backed by concrete proof.

Count Kutelli, who had tried to frame others for his crimes.

He had nowhere left to run.

“We found it, Your Highness! Judging by the ropes and gags, someone was definitely imprisoned here!”

“Are the rescued people safe?”

“Yes. Thanks to a close-combat class student who held up the collapsed ceiling in the basement, no one was injured. The victim doesn’t appear to have been assaulted after the kidnapping either.”

“Then let’s deal with this first. Take them all into custody, every last one!”

This shocking incident would soon spread throughout the principality.

The shocking story of Count Kutelli trying to sell off his illegitimate daughter through an engagement.

The chilling account of how he sent knights to kidnap her when she wouldn’t comply.

When his attempt to forcibly bring Silvia back failed, he kidnapped her friend Hena instead and sent a threatening letter.

Finally, the atrocity of trying to cover up his crimes by killing Hena, his hostage—all of this would enrage every citizen of the principality.

However, the matter wasn’t fully resolved yet.

“Where… where is she?”

“Please calm down, Guild Master. The search is still—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t… I can’t wait any longer!!”

She was here. The child she had searched for but never found.

The daughter who had been kept away from her, never allowing even a glimpse, held in the grasp of high nobles.

She couldn’t hear the plea to wait a little longer while the search continued.

“Senior. Are you okay? I stayed back since they said not to worry, but…”

She turned her attention to a young girl’s voice coming from somewhere.

‘That child…!’

According to the officer, an engagement ceremony was being prepared at the Count’s estate, and the presumed fiancée was likely her daughter.

And before her eyes, there was a girl in a dress.

The mother who had lost her daughter immediately ran to embrace her.

“I found you… I finally found you…”

But the girl quickly pulled away from Rwena’s embrace, looking bewildered, and stepped back saying,

“Um… w-who are you?”

“I… I see. You might not recognize me. That’s understandable.”

How many years had passed? Even with the best memory, it had been years. It wasn’t strange that she wouldn’t recognize her.

In that case, she could show proof.

“Do you see this? It’s almost unique, so I still carry it around. What you used to wear when you were little…”

Rwena rolled up her sleeve to reveal a blue hair tie on her wrist as she continued.

“Back then, it looked so good when your hair was tied up… now you look lovely with your hair down too.”

Having shown the hair tie from when she was much younger, Rwena thought she would understand now. With that thought, she pulled the girl into her embrace again.

“Eh? Um, excuse me…”

“I’m sorry. You’ve grown up so beautifully, but I discovered you far too late.”

“Um… I don’t understand what you’re talking about, ma’am.”

“It’s okay if you don’t remember. From now on, I won’t let you go.”

“But… I never really wore hair ties much…”

“That could be. It’s fine if you don’t remember well because you were so young. But still… but still I…”

For a mother, just seeing and holding her daughter after more than ten years would be deeply moving. However, this reunion seemed somehow wrong.

“The daughter you’re looking for must be someone else. It’s not her.”

“…What?”

“Look at her hair color carefully. Don’t you notice it’s brighter, even though it might look similar from a distance?”

Though they might have seemed similar from afar, up close the difference would be obvious. Not ash-gray, but bright, radiant silver.

“And that blue hair tie—you would have tied it in a ribbon shape when tying hair, wouldn’t you?”

“How did you…”

How could I not know? She was an opponent I tried to overcome in my previous life, and now she’s one of my few friends at the academy.

“I’ll lead the way. To where your daughter is.”

***

The Ruwen Trading Company, which was in charge of this year’s festival, hadn’t come to the academy for simple supply reasons.

In the previous life, even after losing the festival contract, the company had stubbornly maintained a position on the outskirts of the capital, almost to the point of bankruptcy.

They were searching for someone—a girl around the same age. That was all the information they had.

The story of a middle-aged woman desperately searching with such limited clues occasionally became a topic of conversation among students.

Despite her efforts, she never found the person, and the Ruwen Trading Company completely disappeared after a rainy day.

This time, things would not proceed the same way.

“…She’s here?”

“Yes.”

This was a hospital. Patient names were written outside their rooms.

Naturally, Rwena was confused because the name was completely different from what she knew her daughter to be called. Junon was claiming that two entirely different names belonged to the same person.

But there was undeniable evidence.

She had once untied and taken a blue ribbon-shaped hair tie herself, so she couldn’t fail to recognize that nearly identical hair tie, differing only in length.

The door to the hospital room opened, and a girl who had been anxiously standing by the window turned around.

“Junon! Are you okay…?”

The concerned girl’s voice cut off abruptly as the eyes of two people with similar ash-gray hair met.

Their gazes remained locked on each other.

In this space where even breathing seemed inaudible, as if in a dream or reality, no one spoke a word.

The sound gradually filling this quiet space was the footsteps of someone entering the patient’s room.

And then the sound of the door closing, leaving the two alone.

After the door closed and the footsteps faded away…

“I see… You… You… You haven’t changed at all since you were little…”

“Mo… ther?”

“Yes. My daughter… I’m your mother…”

“Really…?”

“Come here, shall I read you a book while you rest your head on my lap like when you were little? Or… shall I tie your hair with this ribbon that you’ve kept all this time?”

Now, the silence did not return.

The sound filling the room and spilling outside made Junon step away from the wall she had been leaning against.

Beside her, her junior who had followed along stood on tiptoes and quietly asked a question.

It was the kind of question anyone would ask after meeting the two people in the hospital room. Well, a nod was enough of an answer.

After hearing the response, Renias looked back at the hospital room and, clutching her chest with emotion, said something like “That’s wonderful.”

‘I think so too.’

Just the reunion of a mother and daughter torn apart by the vicious actions of others was enough to make this worthwhile.

From the hospital room, a name different from the patient’s name could be heard.

Now she could roughly understand why Rwena had been unable to find her all this time.

“…Those vicious bastards. Changing her name so she couldn’t be found.”

That’s why no amount of searching could find her in the previous life.

A baby kidnapped at a young age, beyond even her mother’s reach, would have grown up with the name Silvia Kutelli.

But today, after more than ten years of living as the Count’s puppet, her real name was revealed, and she was finally free from her shackles.

“Adel Lisia… so that’s your name.”

From now on, I’ll call you Adel, not Silvia.

***

With the Count’s affairs completely resolved, it was time to return to normal.

After being involved in this mess and even helping out, there was no way Senia would just let it go.

While Junon had been confident Senia would help, the problem was what would be demanded in return. Senia was the most strict and inscrutable person in Tembris, which made it all the more worrying.

But contrary to expectations, Senia left after saying just one thing:

-‘I’m keeping this as a debt, Junon. Remember it well.’

A debt. Not knowing what would be demanded was the most frustrating part.

“Senior. Don’t I get a debt too? Hehe.”

…Come to think of it, there was one more person who had helped.

When asked if she wanted to spend the rest of the festival together, Renias shook her head and said she expected it as a service.

Unlike Senia, Renias’s simple goal was to reduce the intensity of her training.

Of course, Junon had no intention of granting that.

“…”

Senia stopped walking, turned back to glance at the hospital, and fell into contemplation.

Though they had been pushed around, the outcome wasn’t bad at all.

While there had been some luck involved, they had given everything they could.

Junon.

That person had been strange from the first time they met.

Rushing into fights with no chance of winning like a fool, temporarily submitting but then speaking up and moving again until battered, despite having the option to avoid physical pain.

Each time, Junon must have felt an insurmountable wall, yet never gave up and kept charging forward.

This incident was no different, but the result was markedly different from the past, despite being entangled in a much more difficult situation.

While they had the good fortune of Ophelia’s arrival, could anyone else have achieved this result?

Absolutely not, Senia answered her own question with a shake of her head. What Michelle had revealed was just the tip of the iceberg.

“Who else would think of infiltrating a Count’s estate with only three people?”

In battle terms, it was like designating roles for aggro and ambush.

This was different from the unique magic of reading attack trajectories and identifying weaknesses from mere mana lines. This was the ability to create a strategy.

The determination to never give up even in adverse conditions, the quick situational awareness and decisive response, the mental strength to balance reason and emotion without abandoning either—these qualities clearly marked someone fit for a commander’s position.

But knowing this changed nothing.

“…If they don’t want it, what can I do? Seems like there’s a story there too.”

Despite being the perfect fit for the most important vacant position in Tembris, there was no way to recruit someone who wanted to distance themselves from Tembris.

Swallowing her disappointment, Senia turned and continued walking.