ISGJV 39

Chapter 39

I grasped the situation immediately.

‘A pickpocket?’

Before I could even be more surprised, the expression of the child whose wrist Edmund had grabbed turned vicious.

“Tch!”

It was impossible to believe this was the same child who, just moments ago, had been making babyish sounds and smiling brightly over candy.
The nanny reacted sharply.

“What a nasty little thing!”

The girl struggled in Edmund’s grip,
and the boy tried to rush at Edmund but was stopped by Willes.

“Let go! You’re rich enough that this much doesn’t even matter! How stingy!”
“Who said I was acting cute just to get candy anyway?!”

Seeing the children’s behavior, Willes clicked his tongue and spoke coldly from the side.

“Shall we call the security patrol? By law, thieves have their wrists cut off.”

At that, the children began screaming even more viciously, hurling insults.

“Let my sister go! I’ll kill you!”
“Waaah! Please spare us! Brotheeer!”

While I stood frozen for a moment at the sudden turn of events, the situation smoothly deteriorated.
As if on cue, perhaps because the patrol was already making rounds, a guard arrived even though no one had called them.

“What’s going on here?”

The children’s faces turned deathly pale.
At that, even Willes—who had brought up the patrol—looked startled.

He had clearly only meant to scare them; there was no way he truly intended to hand such young children over to the authorities.
To begin with, Willes wasn’t that kind of person.

Meanwhile, the patrolman who had approached assessed our condition and grasped the situation. He seemed to recognize the children already.

“You again? You gutter rats!”

The guard tried to grab the children with a rough gesture.

“This time I’ll teach you a real lesson!”

If things continued like this, the children would truly be dragged off by the patrol.
I couldn’t hold back any longer and stepped forward.

“What seems to be the problem?”
“Huh? Ah. Weren’t you victimized by these pickpockets?”

I shook my head.

“No.”
“But that pouch—”
“I just dropped it when I bumped into this child.”

I calmly picked up the pouch, then took out a few coins and handed them to the children.
The patrolman, Edmund, Willes, and the nanny all looked shocked.

Of course, the most surprised were the children.

“Huh?”
“What’s this?”

I smiled gently and said,

“You let me know I dropped it. Thank you.”

And after repeatedly saying it was nothing, I sent the patrolman away.
Until then, the children stood there blankly, holding the coins I had given them.

Once the patrolman was completely out of sight, the older boy hesitated, then asked first.

“What is this? Why did you lie?”

I replied coldly.

“Why? Are you disappointed that I didn’t tell the guard the truth and hand you over? Shall I call him back right now?”
“N-no! Don’t!”

At my chilling response, the boy flinched.

He probably hadn’t imagined that I—who had been acting kindly just moments ago—would answer so coldly.

‘She covered for us in front of the guard and even gave us money…’

Maintaining the same icy attitude, I continued,

“Don’t misunderstand. Did you think that just because you’re pitiful children, I should generously let it slide even after being pickpocketed?”

Struck right at the core, the boy fell silent.
Still, he didn’t try to run away, nor did he charge at us again.

The boy stepped in front of his sister and spoke to me.
Though young, the gaze he lifted toward me was surprisingly clear and strong.

Anyone could tell at a glance that the two children looked nothing alike.

“If someone has to be punished, punish me alone.”
“Brother!”

Before I realized it, a smile surfaced on my face.
And when I asked my next question, not only the children but even my companions looked puzzled.

“Are you real siblings?”
“What does it matter to you?”

The boy’s expression as he answered was fierce, his voice bristling with defensiveness.

That alone told me enough.

“So you’re not blood-related siblings.”
“What does that have to do with anything?!”
“He is my brother!”

The two children snapped angrily almost at the same time.
At that, my smile grew a little brighter.

They seemed even more flustered by that reaction.

After watching them quietly for a moment, I spoke softly.

“That’s enough. Go.”

The bony children’s eyes widened. They were so thin that they almost looked like nothing but eyes.

There hadn’t really been any damage done, and they were such young kids.
Edmund, who had stopped the pickpocketing, and Willes, who had talked about cutting wrists, probably had no real intention of legally punishing them either.

You could tell by how everyone’s tense facial muscles relaxed the moment I told them to leave.
The nanny even visibly let out a sigh of relief.

And yet, the children themselves looked up at me with eyes full of disbelief.

“Really? Why?”
“Why are you letting us go?”

I shook my head.

“I’m not forgiving you.”
“Then…?”

Lowering my voice, I said,

“If, when you were caught, you’d only tried to save yourselves, I wouldn’t have let it slide.”

But the brother had rushed forward to save his sister.
And the sister had tried to stop her brother when he said to punish only him.

At the very least, the two truly cared for and trusted each other.
Blood ties didn’t matter.

Who could look at these children and say they weren’t siblings?

“But since you didn’t, this is your reward—I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything.”
“…?”
“From now on, don’t do dangerous things like this. Go to the Delrenos Monastery.”
“What?”

In this world, orphanages were rarely well run.
The ones operated by temples or monasteries were at least somewhat better.

Among those nearby, the Delrenos Monastery had the best reputation.

The children stared blankly at me and my companions in turn, then slowly walked away.
Just before disappearing from view, the girl—who had been hiding behind her brother—bowed deeply toward me.

“Why did you do that earlier?”

“…Huh?”

When the nanny and Willes had fallen a bit behind, giving us a chance to talk alone,
Edmund suddenly asked me.

“Just because.”
“You never do things ‘just because,’ do you?”
“You think that highly of me? I’m touched.”

At that, Edmund frowned.

“Stop dodging the question.”
“I was angry too. But… they still looked out for each other like siblings. I found that admirable.”

Honestly, it wasn’t so much admirable as…

‘I was jealous.’

I hadn’t been like that.

No—more precisely… I’d never received that kind of trust.

Anyone could see the two pickpocket kids weren’t blood-related.
Yet they cared for each other more deeply than real siblings.

That young boy rushing in to save his sister.
The sister crying and wailing in worry for her brother.

A bitter sensation suddenly surged up my throat.

The words left behind by that child—the last one I’d seen, painfully nailed into my chest—resurfaced.

—You stupid idiot who pretends to be smart. Just die.

I had truly thought of that child as my little sibling.

“Big sis!”
“Hana, big sis!”
“I like you the best!”

But that wasn’t true.
I realized far too late that I was the only one who had thought of us as family.

“Let’s combine my allowance and the money you saved, and live together!”

Only when I lost all my savings and was thrown out onto the streets—the price of trusting that child—did I finally understand.

“What? The contract was canceled? What do you mean?”
“They paid the penalty and took the entire deposit?”
“Then… my money…?”

The words left behind in the note from the child who disappeared were no different from saying this:

I hated you from the start. I never once thought of you as my sister.

—That.

That had happened three days before I fell into the world of the book.