Ch#101
"What, appeared?"
At Adelin's question, Tie fidgeted restlessly, staring behind her.
But from moments ago, there really was something there.
Something visible only to Tie's eyes at this instant.
'Before, even Tie didn't know what that was.'
But now she knew.
Because she had encountered Eve, Basto's deceased wife, in Pearl City.
Tie lowered her voice and said.
"That, it looks just like a ghost, no, a spirit......"
"Don't joke around."
But at that moment, Adelin cut off Tie's words.
Her voice was trembling faintly before she knew it.
With bloodshot eyes and her jaw tense, Adelin said.
"That's my mother. No matter how young you are, that kind of joke is......"
Tie drooped her eyebrows.
"It's not a joke......!"
Looking to the members for help, Nordics stepped forward with a serious face.
"The child's words are true."
Adelin stared at Nordics with an expressionless face.
"The child is a mage. Precisely, a necromancer who handles dark attribute magic. She's seen the departed before too......"
"Is that all?"
But Adelin's response was laced with sharp hostility.
"I was trying to help you all. And this is the price?"
"Look here, Adelin. That's not......"
"If this isn't mockery of my mother and me, then what is?"
In the end, tears that Adelin had held back for so long fell drop by drop from her eyes.
Her clenched fists trembled faintly.
"I......"
Staggering, she collapsed to the floor, shoulders shaking.
It was then, as Tie, whose eyes had begun tearing up in tandem, stamped her feet helplessly.
"......"
The woman standing behind Adelin approached Tie.
She then pulled a white handkerchief from her bosom and placed it on Tie's hand.
The woman gazed at Adelin with a sad smile.
As if asking her to pass it on.
Tie hesitated before cautiously approaching Adelin.
And she held out the handkerchief to the sobbing woman.
"Sis, this......"
Adelin looked at Tie with reddened eyes.
Then, the next moment, she held her breath briefly.
On Astie's palm, thousands of tiny lights were gathering.
The lights clustered as if enveloping something, forming a single object.
"......Ha."
A short exclamation burst from Adelin's mouth.
The lights gathered on Tie's palm had become a handkerchief.
The very handkerchief she had personally placed in her mother's hand on the day she left for the Capital to become the princess's maid.
"This, how on earth."
"She keeps crying whenever she sees you, sis."
"What......?"
"Because you're crying, sis. The ghost must be sad too. She's been crying and crying while looking at you since earlier......"
Adelin's face twisted endlessly.
She grasped Tie's small hand with trembling fingers.
The warmth of the handkerchief seeped through the child's fingers.
"Uh, hng......"
Her breath quickening, she finally bowed her body and buried her face in the handkerchief.
"Mom, Mom......"
A familiar scent wafted from the handkerchief.
It was unmistakably the smell of her mother that she remembered.
* * *
Adelin huddled for a long while.
Sobbing loudly while tightly hugging Tie.
Finally ceasing her cries, she asked in a hoarse voice.
"Is Mother, is Mom really by my side?"
Tie sniffled and nodded.
"I, I didn't know."
She had only thought it was an assassin or surveillance.
She had even found it odd at times.
That trained killers couldn't hide their presence that much. Something was off.
But now she understood.
'It wasn't that she couldn't hide.'
She had done it on purpose.
To let her know she was there.
Because it was her mother.
Adelin clutched the handkerchief Tie had given her.
Then, taking a deep breath, she asked.
"Can you hear what Mother says, by any chance?"
Astie stared behind Adelin.
But soon, she shook her head with a sullen face.
"I can't hear. Her lips are moving like this, but no voice at all."
"......I see."
"But since earlier, she's been pointing over there with her finger!"
Tie gestured diagonally.
Adelin turned her head that way, her eyes growing serious.
"It's toward the Lord's Castle."
The direction Tie pointed was where the road to the Lord's Castle lay.
Adelin's pupils calmly sank.
She steadied her short breaths.
Then, composing her emotions, she rose from her seat.
"Let's go. If we delay more, the interrogation will start."
Before entering the room.
She had overheard Agavert's conversation in the corridor roughly.
If Reginald interrogated Veil, Agavert might truly be expelled from the Capital.
"We'll rescue your comrade before the interrogation begins."
Enzo rose following her.
"Is that possible?"
"Whether possible or not, we have to try first, don't we?"
The Agavert members exchanged glances.
"......Thank you. Sincerely."
At Raoul's following words, Adelin shook her head as if it was fine.
"It's okay. I planned to help from the start."
"Pardon?"
"When your comrade punched Reginald. Honestly, it felt refreshing."
Basto let out a short sigh.
Because the image of Reginald's two teeth flying out flashed in his mind.
"First, let's check the underground prison. If your comrade isn't there, we'll have to climb the tower top......"
"No she's not!"
But then, Tie, who had been looking into the air, jumped up.
The child shook her head vigorously for some reason.
"Pretty auntie says she's not at the top or underground. She shook her head like this."
Adelin's eyes narrowed.
"Not the spire top, nor the underground prison?"
But excluding those two places, where else could someone be confined?
However, she soon let out a short exclamation.
"No way."
"Do you have some idea where?"
Adelin looked at Nordics.
"Yes. A place Reginald showed interest in when he first entered the Lord's Castle, saying it would make a good temporary prison."
It was the stable located in the Lord's Castle backyard.
The place where her father had personally raised and cared for his beloved horses in life.
"The stable. The stable in the Lord's Castle backyard."
* * *
In the darkening forest.
Basto walked with his body as low as possible.
Worried a tree branch might brush Tie's face on his back.
"The path is rougher than expected."
At Raoul's words from ahead, Adelin beside him nodded.
"This is the only back path to the castle that Reginald doesn't know about. No choice."
They were deliberately taking a long detour to avoid the soldiers' eyes.
The forest path repeated steep ups and downs endlessly.
Thus, Nordics, who had followed for the first 20 minutes, gave up midway and returned to the village.
He planned to pack their belongings and prepare the carriage while the members extracted Veil.
So they could flee the village immediately if something happened.
"We're here. That wooden fence over there."
Enzo, confirming the place Adelin pointed, nodded.
In the distance, amid dense weeds and bushes growing to an adult man's waist height.
A fence pieced together from planks was visible.
"Follow that fence, and you'll reach the backyard soon. There might be guards, but......"
"We'll handle them. Don't worry."
Adelin reluctantly nodded.
"Tie, hold tight."
Meanwhile, at Basto's voice, Tie wrapped her arms more firmly around his neck.
That was when.
"Grrrr, aaaahhh-!"
A tearing scream came from not far away.
Tie's face paled at the voice, as if under torture.
