Jolt—

The carriage shook violently.

Yvonne and Rozak were the first to hit the uneven road.

“Sis, are you okay?”

“What about you, Rozak?”

“I’m fine.”

Brother and sister quickly got back to their feet, dusting themselves off.

Then, holding their breath, they ran after the slowly moving carriage.

Yvonne waved toward Noah, who was still standing inside by the open door.

“Noah, run to Sis!”

But Noah only trembled as he stared down at the ground outside the carriage.

“Hic......!”

Noah had even started hiccuping, and Jeanne, standing behind him, suddenly grew serious.

“Sis, catch!”

Jeanne swiftly scooped Noah into her arms.

With Ed helping her, she pushed the boy out, and Yvonne immediately caught him.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Noah!”

Yvonne patted the frozen boy’s back.

Meanwhile, Jeanne and Ed jumped down as well.

The carriage slowly drifted farther away from the five children.

“Hmm, hmm hmm~”

A cheerful whistle drifted through the rumbling wheels from the coachman’s seat.

Yvonne quickly checked everyone with her eyes.

“Rozak, Jeanne, Ed, Noah...... Everyone’s here?”

She held Noah tightly with one arm while gripping Ed’s hand ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) firmly with the other.

“Then we leave first.”

In the direction Yvonne pointed, there was a slope overgrown with bushes.

“Well then, we’ve arrived!”

The coachman, Merkon, climbed down from the horse.

This place, hidden beneath the dense canopy of enormous trees, was quite far from the main road and its checkpoint.

With light steps, he approached the carriage window.

“That ride must’ve been rough, huh? Wait here for a bit.......”

But then he suddenly froze.

“What.”

The carriage that had been packed full only moments ago was now empty.

Only several blankets remained inside, the ones he had given the children to keep warm.

“What the...... What happened?!”

Panicked, Merkon hurried around the carriage.

He yanked the door open and looked inside, only to see empty seats.

“Where did they go? Where are they all......!”

The children were gone.

Not in the storage compartment beneath the seats.

Not among the supply crates piled in the corner.

Not even in the heap of hay in the cargo section that he checked just in case.

“No, no. If that’s true, then.......”

Merkon stood in front of the empty carriage, blinking blankly in shock.

And at that moment—

“Merkon.”

A low voice suddenly sounded behind him.

Merkon flinched violently and spun around.

A figure stood there in a pitch black hooded cloak.

“J Judge.”

At Merkon’s trembling voice, the man slowly stepped closer.

Beneath the deeply lowered hood, a white mask covering his face came into view.

“Where are the promised sacrifices?”

At the same time those words were spoken, more figures dressed exactly the same appeared behind him.

There were no fewer than twenty of them.

No, over thirty.

Merkon’s face turned pale.

“Th, they were definitely here just a moment ago......!”

“Enough excuses. You allowed the souls meant for the Absolute to escape?”

Merkon fell silent.

His ice cold hands trembled violently.

“N no! If we search the area, we’ll find them! They have to be nearby somewhere— Khak!”

But the man screaming in panic never managed to finish his sentence.

Golden power erupting from the masked man’s hand crushed Merkon’s throat.

“Merkon. Sacrifices meant for the Absolute must remain pure.”

“Kgh! Khah......! P please spare me......!”

“A foot that once stepped onto the path of escape has already been stained with sin. And you corrupted five souls at once.”

The man raised his hand toward the sky.

At once, Merkon’s body lifted into the air.

“Hgh! Khaak! Spare me! Please, please......!”

“Punish.”

The moment the word fell, the whistle of arrows sounded from behind them.

Sharp arrowheads rained into the carriage, and then—

Bang!

A series of small explosions tore the carriage apart from the inside.

Clouds of dust burst into the air.

When the man lowered his hand, Merkon’s body slammed heavily to the ground.

“Hey, Sixth Darkness.”

Another figure approached the man.

He too wore the exact same clothing.

Anxious eyes flickered behind the mask.

“We need to search the surroundings. We must find and destroy the fallen souls.”

But the man who had killed Merkon, Sixth Darkness, shook his head.

“They won’t be found. They already disappeared.”

Raising his right hand, he released a mass of power into the sky.

It rapidly spread outward like a wide curtain over the surrounding forest.

“There are no traces of their presence. They completely concealed themselves.”

Silence fell.

One of the frozen figures muttered unhappily.

“We can’t track them? The Absolute will be angered. Five sacrifices escaped at once.”

Sixth Darkness answered in a colorless voice.

“There are already countless souls in this world. We’ll find other sacrifices.”

He snapped his fingers, and white smoke spread through the surroundings.

“Tch.”

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, the other man turned away as well.

The next moment, the area they stood in was swallowed by dense fog.

And when their figures vanished, only the faint echo of their voices remained in the air.

Then, as the pale mist slowly began to disperse—

“Haa.......”

Yvonne emerged from the thick bushes nearby.

Still holding Noah tightly, she stared at the horrifying scene before her.

The dead coachman.

The shattered carriage.

The only living things left were the two horses still attached to the wagon.

“What do we do, Sis? Did Mister die?”

Jeanne tugged at Yvonne’s sleeve.

“And what if those people come back? Do we have to hide again?”

Yvonne shook her head.

“......They don’t know.”

The five children had been hiding in the bushes only a few steps away the entire time.

Everything had happened too quickly after jumping from the carriage, and they had not managed to run far.

‘I really thought we were all going to die.’

But the cloaked figures had never noticed Yvonne or the younger children.

Yvonne’s gaze sharpened.

“Wait here a moment.”

Handing Noah over to Rozak, Yvonne approached Merkon’s body.

Swallowing hard, she lifted the man’s blood soaked outer clothing.

Then she began checking his inner pockets one by one.

Soon, a bundle of papers appeared — something that looked like a transport contract folded together with an order ledger.

“Today’s date, today’s date.......”

Yvonne’s hands rapidly flipped through the pages.

Then suddenly, a small note slipped free from between the papers.

Yvonne’s eyes widened as she read it.

[Merkon, you dumb bastard.

I found us one hell of a job.

All we gotta do is sell a couple brats.

With money like this, we can finally get out of this cursed Taranta.]

The hastily scribbled handwriting made it painfully clear what had happened today.

[We only accidentally killed a few people, and we’ve already spent years on the run. This is getting ridiculous.

It’s about time we started living properly too.

We’ll get the money, buy a ship, and head to the Northern Continent.

I passed them your contact info, so they’ll come to you soon.

They call themselves “Judges,” so they’re probably some big shots from the Church.

When this is over, we should grab a drink.

— Jihaira]

Yvonne swallowed heavily.

Then quickly slipped the note into her pocket.

Afterward, she began carefully examining the area destroyed by the explosive arrows.

“Sis. What are you even doing?”

Ed had walked over and asked, but Yvonne did not answer.

She continued searching the ground thoroughly until suddenly—

“Found it!”

Yvonne picked up a very small button from the ground.

And immediately afterward, a voice sounded behind them.

“Hey, what’s going on over there? No, you kids! What happened here?!”

At that exact moment, two large wagons rolled onto the side road.

A merchant jumped down from his horse and hurried toward the children.

“Are you alright? What happened here?!”

It seemed Noah’s tension had finally broken, because he immediately burst into tears.

“Mister! The hooded people, the coachman...... Uubf.”

“They took all the supplies! They were probably bandits!”

But Yvonne quickly covered Noah’s mouth with her hand and lowered her brows pitifully.

“We managed to run away before they noticed us.......”

Glancing toward Merkon’s corpse, Yvonne pretended to wipe away tears.

“Mister. Could you please take us to the capital? Our brother is waiting for us there, and the younger kids keep crying.......”

Jeanne, who had been watching Yvonne, immediately covered her eyes with her hands as well.

Quick witted Ed and Rozak also started pretending to cry.

When you grow up constantly facing situations where you might die, you learn to understand each other without words.

“......Poor things.”

The merchant’s eyes instantly filled with pity.