TOPWL 171

Yudit truly had come knowing everything. Cold sweat trickled down Pavron’s spine.

“T-That’s… a misunderstanding. I meant to write that in someone else’s diary but mixed it up. I erased it right away, but how did you…?”

Just as Yvonne said, when the back of the diary was held up to sunlight, the words, though scratched over, appeared clearly beneath the lines.

Yudit read every word and stood stunned. Then rage surged up in him.

“The moment your abuse began was when Luka confided his situation in his diary. Instead of comforting the child’s pain, you took advantage of it to molest him without shame—is that what you call human decency?”

“Like I said, it’s all a misunderstanding…”

Swish. A lock of hair near Pavron’s neck was sliced clean off.

The tip of the blade must’ve grazed his nape—blood beaded up on the spot. It had happened in the blink of an eye.

“Oops. My mistake.”

“B-Blood…!”

Pavron grabbed at his neck with a shriek.

“I have this habit… whenever someone tells me ‘it’s a misunderstanding,’ I tend to make mistakes. Now, say it again. What was that? ‘It’s all…’?”

Seeing Yudit’s cold fury, Pavron realized he couldn’t lie anymore.

He dropped to his knees in front of Yudit.

“I was wrong, Your Highness! I wasn’t in my right mind. Being locked away in that tower for so long must’ve driven me insane. I’m so sorry.”

Yudit stared down at the groveling Pavron with an icy expression.

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

“T-Then…”

“You should be apologizing to the children you molested and their guardians.”

“Y-Yes, of course…”

Pavron’s face turned pale.

“Apologize and compensate every single child you harassed, and their guardians. If I find out you left out even one or offered a half-hearted apology…”

Yudit drove his sword into the floor, right in front of Pavron’s groin.

The wooden floor sank in around the blade’s shape.

“I’ll be making a big mistake too.”

The sword embedded so close sent Pavron’s body stiff with terror—then slowly, the floor around the blade darkened.

He had wet himself.

Yudit stared down at the spreading stain with complete indifference.

“Your answer?”

Pavron squeezed his eyes shut and replied in a crawling voice under Yudit’s merciless gaze.

“I-I’ll keep it in mind…”

“…Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Yes, sir…”

Yudit rose from his seat. The old man was too busy counting money to care whether they left or not.

Yudit looked at the man’s hunched back with deep bitterness.

Pavron was truly despicable.

Aside from Luka, there were two more children he had preyed on—both were either orphans or neglected.

Yudit had taken Pavron door to door to explain the situation to their guardians, but all they wanted was compensation.

Thanks to the generous compensation for Pavron’s imprisonment in the tower, the additional compensation wasn’t even an issue.

Unlike the devastated Yudit, Pavron seemed increasingly pleased with himself as they completed the last agreement at the final home.

As they left that final house, Pavron let out a long sigh and cautiously looked at Yudit.

“Um, may I return now? I need to prepare tomorrow’s lesson…”

Yudit frowned like he’d just heard something absurd.

“You think I’ll let you keep working at the school?”

“What? But… I’ve already apologized, and the compensation was more than sufficient…”

“You committed crimes against children who had no one to protect them, and you think I’ll let you return to a place full of more children? Don’t even dream of it.”

In truth, Yudit wanted to throw Pavron into prison immediately.

But prosecuting someone for abusing young boys was harder than one might think.

If an adult man molests a young girl, punishment is a given. The same applies if the boy is an Omega.

But the ones Pavron touched were all young, pre-manifestation boys.

The empire was lenient when it came to same-sex contact. Boundaries were vague, and imperial law was designed to protect the strong more than the weak.

That Yudit had been able to force even this much apology and compensation was only possible because he was a noble and had taken initiative in the matter.

Otherwise, Pavron might’ve kept working as a teacher without facing a single consequence.

“In that case, I suppose I should say my goodbyes here.”

Though he looked slightly regretful, Pavron also seemed oddly relieved.

The man who had once trembled on the way to the first home now wore a self-satisfied smirk.

Yudit, who had been glaring coldly at Pavron, spoke.

“I’m going to assign someone to monitor you.”

“…What?”

“Wherever you go in this empire—whatever you do in another country—every single one of your actions will be under my jurisdiction.”

“T-That’s unfair! I’ve already paid the settlement and compensation. You may not realize it, Your Highness, but for a commoner like me, that was a massive sum!”

“And what you did to those children wasn’t unfair?”

Pavron clamped his mouth shut at the sharp retort. Yudit continued, staring at him with open disdain.

“And your whereabouts will be shared with those children. Where you live, what you eat, how you live—every bit of it.

I’d also strongly advise against taking another teaching job. The moment that fact comes to light, you won’t be able to live peacefully.

Consider this both a warning and a prophecy. Even if I die, it will be carried out.”

“This is… far too harsh. Why are you doing this to me? I’m a student of Aldrich. In a way, that makes us schoolmates!”

“Should I rip your mouth open with a blade so you’ll stop saying his name?”

At Yudit’s words, Pavron turned deathly pale. He muttered, as if to defend himself:

“B-But I paid the price. A very high one, at that.”

“You paid the guardians, not the children. And whether those guardians even explained it properly to the children is doubtful.”

“I-I was wrong. Please… just don’t let the children know my whereabouts…”

Pavron knelt again, his eyes welling up with tears. He dropped to his knees far too easily. Yudit looked down at him with a cold gaze.

“I can’t do that. You’re the perpetrator—they’re the victims. They have the right to know where you are and what you’re doing.”

“What if they… come for me? What if they find me?”

Pavron was clearly terrified. Yudit gave him a chilling smile.

“If you were afraid of being punished, you should never have started in the first place. Children grow up faster than you think.

As a teacher, you should know that. So go far away—far enough that they’d never even think of coming to find you.

I don’t want them to become criminals either.”

There was a bitter frost in every word Yudit spoke.

“But if they end up hurting you and becoming criminals because of it, I’ll do everything in my power to protect them.

That, too, will be made known to them.”

“Th-That’s an abuse of power! I’m a citizen of the empire too!”

“You don’t get to talk about abuse of power, not when you used the children’s trust as a weapon.”

“……”

“Go ahead. Live your whole life in fear.”

Yudit turned his back on Pavron, who remained on his knees.

A cold wind swept over Pavron’s nape. He stayed kneeling on that grassy field for a long time before finally gathering his things and leaving the village.

***

The next morning, Yudit went to the school.

Though it seemed like things had been settled, there was more left to handle than he expected.

Pavron had been a teacher Yudit himself had recommended.

He bowed his head and personally apologized to the staff and students.

The teachers were so flustered by a royal apology that they didn’t know how to react.

For the children, Yudit offered both an apology and a lesson.

The core message: even if it’s someone close to you—if you don’t like it, say no.

It would take more than one lesson for that to sink in, so repeated education would be necessary.

Yudit planned to take on the entire educational schedule himself, but also began considering bringing in a separate teacher for these lessons.

At the end of his exhausting day came a face-to-face meeting with the three children.

Yudit sat in silence, staring into the six wide, round eyes that looked back at him.

They’d talked plenty about apologies and compensation, but Yudit knew that wasn’t enough.

“Pavron left the village yesterday. He’ll never return.”

“What if he does?”

One of the children asked in a frightened voice.

“He won’t. I swear on my title as a prince.”

At that, the child let out a sigh of relief.

“Right now, you all hate and fear Pavron. But one day… he’ll be the one afraid of you.”

The children tilted their heads, not quite understanding what Yudit meant.

He considered explaining further, but decided against it.

“I hate that teacher. When I grow up and see him again, I’m going to punch him.”

Luka spoke with fire in his voice, cheeks flushed from a lingering fever.

“Me too. When I got home, my grandma and grandpa said I had to forgive him because we got money. But I don’t want to. I’m going to get revenge.”

Another boy with blazing red hair shouted angrily.

It seemed the wounds from his guardians hurt even more than the ones from Pavron.

Yudit looked at the child with guilt in his eyes, then opened his mouth to speak.