Chapter 12
“……Thank you!”
I accepted the apple with both hands, cradling it like a treasure, and felt my cheeks flush.
‘It’s just an apple, but I’m so happy.’
My heart swelled at the thought of the boy climbing the tallest tree just to give me the prettiest one he could find.
At first, we could barely even hold a conversation, and now…… to think he’s already giving me gifts.
“The gift you gave me, Sis, it’s like a treasure!”
As I beamed at him, Sislein’s ears turned bright red instantly.
“…….”
Sislein scratched the corner of his sharp eyes, pretending to be busy with something else.
Just then, amidst the warm, fuzzy atmosphere, a vigorous and confident voice rang out.
“Big Sister, look over here!”
It was Heinri’s arrival. I hugged the apple to my chest and looked around.
‘Huh? Where? I don’t see Heinri at all……?’
“Ta-da!”
At that moment, Heinri popped his head out from behind a mountain of apples.
“Look at this. I picked a ton, didn’t I?”
……My goodness, our Heinri has practically harvested the entire apple orchard!
I checked in a hurry, and the surrounding apple trees were completely stripped bare, looking like bald heads suffering from hair loss.
“How is it? I’m even good at picking apples. Pretty cool, right, Big Sister?”
“……Y-yeah!”
I am so sorry, apple trees.
Just as I was sincerely apologizing to the trees in front of the smug Heinri, Caroline came running from the mansion, her feet thudding against the ground.
“Annette! Mrs. Mimosa wants you to come to her room.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right this second!”
* * *
‘What could it be?’
In front of Mrs. Mimosa’s room, I knocked, feeling a bit nervous.
Knock, knock.
A cold voice from inside soon replied, “Come in.”
I always get nervous whenever I stand before Mrs. Mimosa.
But I smiled brightly, hiding my anxiety and acting as cheerful and diligent as a model student.
“You called for me, Mrs. Mimosa.”
Mrs. Mimosa was holding a file bound with string; looking closely, I saw it was a “Student Record.”
“I called you because I have something to ask, Annette.”
“Yes! Please, ask me anything, ma’am.”
“Did you happen to touch this ‘Student Record’ when you came into my room last time?”
The student record contained the personal details of the children.
Their age, what abilities they had Awakened, their grades, and their personalities.
And even the past traumas they had endured before coming to The Forest.
It was, quite literally, a ledger that held everything about the “Trees.”
Naturally, I had never touched it.
“No. ……Did something happen?”
Mrs. Mimosa’s cool, golden eyes pierced through me.
“Two nights ago, someone broke into my room and left traces of having rummaged through the children’s student records.”
“…….”
“It seems someone contacted Viscount Puterio.”
“……What?!”
I covered my mouth in shock.
I had been wondering how Viscount Puterio managed to track down Sislein in The Forest.
If there had been a tracking artifact or magic on him, he would have come for him immediately, but he hadn’t; he had come after a significant delay.
‘So someone deliberately gave Viscount Puterio his location?’
Who would do such a cruel thing?
“It certainly wasn’t me, ma’am. ……You know how much I cherish Sislein.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Mimosa accepted this simply and folded the student record, setting it down.
“I also don’t think it was you, Annette.”
“…….”
“But as a matter of procedure, I am asking all the children who have been in and out of my room.”
She is convinced it was one of the children.
In the original story, Mrs. Mimosa was a minor character with a brief appearance, so there wasn’t much information on her, but she was quite sharp.
If she had reached that conclusion, there must be a clear reason.
“If you happen to find out anything, come and tell me.”
“……Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Mimosa said, “You may go now,” and turned away with a cold expression once more.
I left the room with a grave look on my face.
‘Who could have done such a thing?’
Could it be related to the shadow of the child I saw at the hideout the other day?
I felt an instinctive certainty that the two were the same person.
I had no choice but to reach this conclusion at last.
In this forest,
There is a child who bullies Sislein.
And a child who bullies him viciously, with the intent to send him far, far away.
“…….”
My fists clenched of their own accord.
* * * Before the class began, I returned to the classroom and rested my chin on my hand, watching the children.
They all looked happy, kind, and gentle.
‘To think they would try to send someone away to become a slave—that’s a level of malice that doesn’t fit a child.’
……No.
Perhaps it’s precisely because they are children that they can be even more cruel.
Rather than deeply considering what life would be like after being dragged off as a slave, it was likely just a simple desire for Sislein to disappear.
“…….”
I toyed with the bright red, polished apple in my pocket.
‘I must find out.’
Because there was no telling what else they might do with that blind, obsessive heart.
If they were active enough to snitch on our location and inform the slave trader, they would surely make another move.
‘I let it slide the first two times because I didn’t know, but the third time? Not a chance.’
I racked my brain, sharp and brave like a honey badger hiding in the grass.
Now was the time to set aside my love for The Forest and unfold a cold, calculating suspicion.
The list of “suspects” I had narrowed down totaled two.
The first of them was that child right there.
“Heinri, Heinri! Do you want this brooch?”
The name of this pretty child with platinum-blonde hair and dazzling turquoise eyes was Vivian, age eleven.
Even at her young age, Vivian was a little lady who already showed signs of becoming a beauty.
She was a self-proclaimed and widely recognized “Heinri follower.”
Vivian had been there when Heinri awakened his ability, and after seeing his special Grade 1-level mana—so powerful that he had to wear a Mana Suppressor—she had fallen for him at first sight.
Since her own mana was quite weak, he must have seemed all the more magnificent to her.
Ever since then, she had been trailing after Heinri, who found her quite bothersome.
Heinri frowned as if shooing away a buzzing fly and said,
“I don’t want it. Please, stop hovering and get lost.”
Yet, Vivian was never one to be intimidated.
To Heinri, who was resting his chin on his hand and staring out the window with a look of indifference, she asked again.
“But why won’t you reply to my letters? ……Is the content not to your liking? Should I write them again?”
Heinri looked at Vivian with his slender violet eyes and said,
“I don’t know about the content. I tore them up without even reading them.”
“……!”
‘Ah, his attitude toward girls is so heartless!’
Ugh, it hurt my heart just watching.
Sure enough, Vivian took damage from the sheer coldness of the grumpy chihuahua, and only then did she back away.
Of course, it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand Heinri at all.
She followed him around so much even when he said he hated it that Heinri was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Especially the letters; she had already sent over thirty of them. Even though he ignored them every time.
‘She was a massive follower in the original work, too.’
Vivian blindly loved what Heinri loved and blindly hated what he hated.
‘That’s why she used to bully Sislein viciously, following Heinri’s lead.’
Because that was how she got Heinri’s attention.
However, in the original work, Sislein didn’t bother to take revenge on Vivian later on; it seemed he simply didn’t care about her.
In the end, she hadn’t received anyone’s attention at all.
I watched Vivian intently.
‘If it’s Vivian, it’s possible.’
Her basic nature was that of a model student, and she had a strong sense of duty to report things, so if she had discovered our hideout, she would have naturally reported it.
As for contacting Viscount Puterio…… perhaps she did it because Heinri was already making it so obvious that he hated Sislein.
‘Besides, Vivian works cleaning Mrs. Mimosa’s room.’
She was in a position where it would be easy to access the student records.
Just as I was lost in deep thought, Vivian caught my eye.
“…….”
She narrowed her eyes and glared at me as if I were unpleasant, then snapped her head away.
‘Hmm, I’m being hated.’
Vivian quite dislikes me. I can feel her dislike growing more and more the more Heinri follows me.
I was the only existence that Vivian, following Heinri’s tastes, did not blindly adore.
Well, I suppose she could hate me.
‘Being kept in check by a little kid…… but it’s not scary at all.’
I shook my head lightly.
Regardless, even if she was suspicious, it wasn’t a situation where I could easily accuse Vivian.
It was a matter that required a very careful approach, given the severity of the crime.
I could easily end up creating an innocent victim.
Still, of the two “suspects,” the first one had to be Vivian.
And the last, the second suspect is…….
Just then, Heinri appeared, snapping the thread of my thoughts.
“Big Sister, give me a reward. Because I picked the apples the best and I’m the coolest.”
I suddenly remembered when I first met Heinri.
A boy with eyes as cold as a deep winter forest, keeping his thorns raised high…….
At first, Heinri was mean to me too, but I had no choice but to accept it all.
Because I liked him so much.
Because I had cherished that boy dearly, even when he was just a protagonist in a novel.
I knew that even if his actions were mean, he was just a very lonely child, not someone with a bad heart.
But in this situation, the child with the strongest motive for the crime against Sislein was…… Heinri.
I barely managed to stay calm.
‘The second suspect is you. Heinri.’
“Big Sister.”
Heinri’s beautiful eyes, which resembled a winter night, curved softly along his sharp gaze.
“As a reward, can I sit next to you and take the class today?”
The boy rested his chin on his hand, smiling prettily. Without even guessing my state of mind.
‘It breaks my heart to pin Heinri as a suspect.’
Self-loathing surged up.
There’s no way this cute, innocent baby who is so kind he wouldn’t even hurt a hair on anyone’s head (that’s just my bias; Heinri once pulled out a handful of a baron’s hair during Socialization Training) could have done such a thing!
My affection for my favorite character and my reason fought fiercely, and I rubbed my forehead with a groan.
‘If Heinri really did it, that’s even worse.’
Heinri was a child who basically knew what kind of treatment one received if they were dragged off as a slave.
So that would mean he did it knowing everything.
If it were the usual me, I would have unconditionally defended him, saying there was no way Heinri would do such a thing.
‘But this is…… a matter concerning Sislein.’
The person in this forest who wishes the most for Sislein to be gone is likely Heinri.
I knew that the spoiled brat, who had always thought it was natural to have me all to himself, had been hating Sislein a lot lately.
Besides, think about the original work.
Everything from the character setting to the motive for his hatred is just too perfect.
“Big Sister, why aren’t you answering?”
Heinri rested his hand on the desk and leaned his pretty face on it, looking up at me.
His violet eyes twinkled mischievously.
“…….”
I steeled my gaze and spoke.
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