TCWTTL✉⋆ ˚｡ ⋆୨୧˚

CHAPTER XXlX

“You’ll need to give your testimony, but the officers won’t be too hard on a young girl, so don’t worry.”

‘A young girl…’

It seemed the man had completely misunderstood her age. Sixteen wasn’t exactly a child’s age. How old did he think she was? Fourteen? Fifteen?

Surely not thirteen?

However, the man never asked Johanna’s age. He simply conveyed the necessary information and then ignored her, showing no intention of furthermore interest in a fleeting acquaintance.

Johanna expressed her thanks for saving her, but the man only gave a perfunctory nod without much reaction.

A while later, the police arrived, and after a brief conversation with them, the man departed swiftly in his ominous black carriage.

Only after overhearing the conversation between the man and the police did Johanna learn his identity.

Leonid Neubitz Rinke Elderique

‘Marquis Neubitz and heir to the Elderique family…’

That meant he was the next Duke.

“You’ve had a tough time, haven’t you? Let me take you home. Get in the carriage.”

After listening to Johanna’s testimony, the officer who had been jotting down notes in his notebook said, “Yes, thank you.” Johanna responded mechanically and was about to board the carriage as the officer directed. At that moment, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a faint sparkle on the corner of her vision.

“…?”

Johanna bent down and picked it up. It was a very luxurious silver button. It looked exactly like the ones that adorned Marquis Neubitz’s black coat. It must have fallen from his coat.

“What are you doing? Get in already.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Johanna quickly put the button in her pocket and hurriedly climbed into the carriage.

Her heart pounded as if she had stolen something, even though she had only picked up something from the ground.

The next day, Johanna went to the police station with her mother to testify about the human traffickers. She detailed how she had been lured by them and what had happened.

She also confessed to injuring two of the traffickers with a broken bottle, but they said she wouldn’t be punished, considering she was a minor and almost a victim of human trafficking.

“Some might say it was excessive for self-defense, but don’t worry about it. Those guys were real vicious criminals.”

The human traffickers were illegal immigrants from the neighboring country Arberk, who had been kidnapping people from remote rural areas to large cities and smuggling them abroad, and they had finally been caught.

“They say over two hundred people were kidnapped… The world is truly dangerous. My heart still races thinking you almost got kidnapped. I’m so glad you’re safe… If something had happened to you, I wouldn’t have been able to live.”

On the way out of the police station, her mother hugged Johanna tightly. Johanna silently nodded and closed her eyes.

In her mother’s warm embrace, Johanna finally felt a sense of safety. The foreigners would be deported to Arberk and imprisoned there, facing life sentences, so they wouldn’t be able to seek revenge on Johanna after their release.

So the man who lost sight in one eye from the bottle she swung… she should erase him from her memory as soon as possible.

Even though he deserved it, she felt a peculiar guilt for having harmed someone. But she had no reason to feel guilty. Forget it, just forget it quickly. Johanna repeated to herself, trying to calm her anxious heart.

Two days later, an article about the human trafficking crime was prominently featured on the front page of the daily newspaper. It also detailed the past incident where the heir of the Elderique family had been kidnapped by human traffickers.

‘So that’s what happened…’

She understood why Marquis Neubitz had beaten the traffickers so mercilessly. His anger had a reason.

After thoroughly reading the article, Johanna took the silver button from her drawer and held it up to the morning sunlight. The smooth surface of the pure silver gleamed like the ripples on a river.

Should she return this? But someone as distinguished as Marquis Neubitz probably wouldn’t care about losing a single silver button…

“……”

No, the truth was that she wanted to keep this, and she was making all sorts of excuses. On the day of the incident, she hadn’t realized it due to the confusion and fear, but… the presence of that man was a huge shock to her. He was like a sudden, powerful wave that had come crashing down.