CH 151

“Rolando, falsely accused.”

Translated by Dawn

“Rolando, falsely accused.”

“Boy over there, don’t move!”

A dignified voice called out to me as I was surrounded by soldiers. A female knight in armor with long hair appeared. Her appearance was exactly what “Kukkoro” looked like, and she was more like Kukkoro than Kukkoro who was Fahren’s knight.

“Is it true what they say about you being the boss of the bandits that got away?”

“Huh? Of course not. I just happened to pass them by.”

“That’s what suspicious people usually say.”

It was true that there were times when a guilty person would tell a variety of transparent lies to cover himself up, but in this case, it was the truth.

“Anyway, you are suspected of being one of the escaped bandits. You’re coming with us.”

“Well, that’s all right.”

Geez, really? I sighed inwardly, thinking that I had been falsely accused. But I was confident that if I told them I was falsely accused, they would understand, and I was taken away without a fight. Yes, that was what I thought until this moment…

***

“Stop lying!”

This exchange had been going on for about 30 minutes since then. I was taken to the guardroom where the knights were stationed for questioning, but this female knight was a real handful.

I told her the details of the incident without concealment. However, the female knight who was in charge of the interrogation started saying that it was a lie, and the situation had been in a stalemate ever since. The knights under her command, perhaps understanding her temperament, looked at me apologetically, giving off an air of wanting to help, but being unable to.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not lying? That was the first time I met the bandits. If I was really one of them, why didn’t I run away with them?”

“It was probably a decoy to get the other bandits to flee. You may fool the others, but you can’t fool me!”

“You know, even if it was a decoy, where would I be stupid enough to get caught when I could be hanged if I got caught?”

“Aren’t you right here right now?”

This kind of exchange had been going on for a long time. As expected, there was no physical interrogation such as torture because of my appearance as a minor, but being locked up in the same place for a long time and being blamed for something I did not do, was, to say the least, a tiresome experience.

However, the female knight, seeing my obstinate attitude, had her mind made up, and she finally stopped questioning me. I thought she understood that I was falsely accused, but it was for a completely different reason.

“Captain Balm.”

“Yes!”

“Put this boy in jail while I go get some lunch.”

“……”

After saying that, the female knight simply left the packing house. Hmmm…this seems to be a…pretty poor situation~ (grin).

As soon as the female knight disappeared, a middle-aged man called Balm approached me. By the way, he was the soldier who looked apologetic when I was being interrogated by the female knight.

“Sorry boy.”

“I don’t mind, but that woman’s a bit of a problem.”

“That’s what I think, too, but she’s the daughter of the lord who rules this town.”

“Tell me more.”

According to Balm’s story, the female knight was the daughter of the lord who governed this border town, and she had taken advantage of her father’s prowess in martial arts to help guard the town. If that were all, it would be a beautiful story, but since she was raised as a daughter in a box and had been brought up with a slightly twisted sense of justice that her actions were always right and never wrong, she mistakenly believed that her actions were always in the right.

At times like this, it was her mother’s role to tell her off, but her mother died of an epidemic when she was very young, and her father doted on his daughter, who was his wife’s last surviving child, creating a vicious cycle in which he could not speak up.

The people of the town, knowing the background of the lord and his daughter, had never complained about the situation, and this had only served to fuel her misguided sense of justice.

“I see.”

“I don’t think the lord and the young lady are bad people. However, when I think of them, I think it is important that we, the people, speak our minds, but I can’t speak out strongly enough considering the circumstances they have been in.”

But that would not solve anything. Moreover, if you grew up with the wrong sense of values, you would act according to those values, and in some cases, you might do something irreversible.

After all, to say nothing for the sake of the other person was not kindness, but rather just pampering. Even if the other person was acting incorrectly, you were not doing him or her any favors by postponing the problem and leaving it as it is instead of pointing it out.

I believe that people should be able to say what was wrong and be told that it was wrong. Otherwise, they could not move forward any further.

“But then, if something were to happen, wouldn’t the young lady be the one who would be in trouble?”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Well, I don’t belong here, and I don’t care what happens to her, but you people do, don’t you? If there is anything you can do for her, it is to correct her mistakes, to tell her off in place of her dead mother. Isn’t that what real kindness is all about?”

“……”

Balm turns his head and shut down at my words. Perhaps he knew it himself. He knew that the situation would eventually become irreversible if the mistake was left as a mistake…

I had nothing more to say to him, and he led me to the jail, and I went into the jail like an adult. But I would tell you one thing. Don’t expect me to sit quietly in jail…