Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Seven: Traditional Trial
“—It says, ‘I’ll do my best to hold them back, so please stop everyone.’”
Karen looked up from Mark’s note. Harald and Ottilie instantly bowed their heads with solemn expressions.
Harald’s bow had grown more refined in the time since Karen had last seen him do it. He was probably receiving etiquette instruction when Karen wasn’t around. Being within the earl’s residence, there would be no shortage of opportunities for that.
“I should have anticipated that Teresa would cause trouble and taken precautions. This is my responsibility as a supervisor.”
“Lady Karen, please allow me to apologize as well… my brother has acted without permission. I am deeply sorry.”
Harald and Ottilie hung their heads. Behind them, Lily was desperately fighting back tears, her eyes already red.
“Were you not in the annex, Mrs. Lily?”
“I had gone to feed Cyril… I knew I shouldn’t take my eyes off Lena, and I’m so sorry.”
“There just wasn’t enough time yet for your love to reach her.”
Karen nodded and looked back down at the letter.
When Karen had found the note on Mark’s bed, she had immediately called Harald and Lily to the alchemy workshop manor. Harald had apparently been in the annex and hadn’t noticed, and Lily had been absent.
“Little Karen, we have to go get them quickly…! Even for a normal child, the outside world is dangerous—a child without magical power wouldn’t last a moment!”
“Normal children and children without magical power, is it?”
Karen paused briefly at Lily’s frantic words, then let her in on the truth:
“The children will be fine. I actually heard the whole thing, so I’ve been handling it. They were discussing it at quite a volume, after all.”
Having a large amount of magical power enhanced the senses. Karen had been able to hear the escaped children’s conversation. It had also been Teresa’s very first lesson since she’d come, saying she wanted to learn to read and write, so if anything, Karen had been keeping her attention directed that way from the start. She had been fairly sure Teresa would cause trouble.
And sure enough, Teresa had made her move, pulling Michael and Mark in with her. The triggering incident was Lena, to be sure—Karen had missed patches of the conversation here and there, but Teresa’s clear voice had carried throughout the entire conversation.
Karen’s discovery of Mark’s letter hadn’t been a coincidence either. Realizing that Mark was actually writing a note when he said he needed time to get ready, she went to retrieve it.
Lily spoke with visible relief:
“So someone has already gone to fetch them?”
“Well, actually—I haven’t sent anyone.”
“So you deliberately let them leave, Lady Karen? Indeed, children who will not follow your guidance are unnecessary. If someone chooses to leave of their own accord, there is no reason to stop them.”
Harald’s face lit up with a pleasant smile. Lily’s face went the color of ash. Karen looked at Harald with tired eyes.
“I’m not going to abandon her. If I abandoned Lena, the children who are following my lead right now would feel anxious too. If even Lena isn’t cast out, then they won’t be either—I’m sure there are quite a few children who draw comfort from that.”
“If even Lena receives such favorable treatment, some children may think there’s no need for them to make an effort either… It sets a bad example.”
“The children losing faith in me would be a bigger problem, so I won’t abandon Lena. Still, I can’t ignore the negative influence you mentioned, so I’ll think about it.”
“…Indeed, to lose the faith would be unacceptable.”
Karen had the distinct feeling something had gotten lost in translation, but let it pass and looked back down at the letter.
“I wanted to see what the children would do, so I let them go without stopping them. And then Mark left a letter for me. Still, putting Harald aside, they couldn’t even ask anyone from the estate for help, huh? I suppose approaching servants from a noble household would be intimidating…”
“What do you mean, ‘putting me aside’?”
“Because they assumed you’d just smile and tell them, exactly as you said earlier, that if they wanted to leave, you wouldn’t stop them.”
Even if Mark had gone to Harald asking him to stop everyone—would Harald have actually stopped them? He might have stopped Michael for Ottilie’s sake, but there was every chance he’d have taken the opportunity to talk things around and send Lena away on her own.
Harald made a sheepish face. He was clearly well aware of it himself.
Karen gave him a flat look, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to be angry about it. Harald’s views, extreme as they were, leaned toward the general thinking of this world—and it was Karen and Lily who were the unusual ones.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door.
“Lady Karen, the situation has progressed.”
“Come in, Sara.”
Sara entered the reception room of the alchemy workshop manor, gave a bow, and spoke:
“A short while ago, the children left the estate.”
Harald, Lily, and Ottilie all blinked in surprise.
Karen had picked up Mark’s letter almost immediately after he had put it down. Which meant that, until just now, the children had not even left the grounds. Unaware that Karen had been watching over them all along, the children had only now, at this very moment, stepped outside the gates of the earl’s residence.
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