This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 35

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 35

 

The commotion that had been even more chaotic quieted down before long.

 

“You can come up now!”

 

It was Raven’s voice.

 

I poked my head through the broken floor door and carefully looked up. I could see Raven and Kimarise, and Ben who had gotten beaten up in the scuffle and whose clothes were now tattered.

 

Everyone else had either collapsed unconscious or was groaning, roughly ten people in total.

 

Kimarise, who had been dusting off his hands, saw us and bowed politely.

 

“There weren’t many of them, so we subdued them all for now.”

 

Raven, who had left the cleanup to Kimarise and was looking around, clicked his tongue.

 

“I don’t see any children.”

 

Raven was right. Only a small, worn hairpin lay on the floor.

 

“I’ll lock them up for now.”

 

Kimarise scratched his head as if frustrated, then threw all the kidnapping gang members into a large chicken coop and locked the door.

 

Meanwhile, Ben angrily grabbed the collar of a man who was still conscious.

 

“Hey, we know everything! Where’s our kid?”

 

The man, whose face was swollen from being beaten badly, scowled.

 

“Kid? You barge in here and beat us up, then suddenly ask me that?”

 

At his denial, Kimarise roughly grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his lips into a wicked smile.

 

“We already got a full confession at the restaurant, and you don’t know?”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Then why is there a tunnel?”

 

“That’s for moving chickens.”

 

“For that purpose, there wasn’t a single chicken feather flying around?”

 

Kimarise continued the interrogation, but no matter how I looked at it, the man showed no sign of confessing willingly.

 

I fiddled with the old hairpin and recalled how this differed from the original story.

 

‘They said the organization had over a hundred members, but there were hardly any people in the passage.’

 

Looking at the numbers we’d subdued so far, it seemed like less than fifty.

 

‘Why aren’t there more people?’

 

As I thought about the reason, I came up with my own theory.

 

It would be better to directly probe the parts I knew from reading the original story. If I’m right, great; if not, so be it.

 

I casually threw a question at the man who was arguing with Ben.

 

“What do you mean you don’t know? Aren’t you trying to secretly put the kids on a ship to Baron Aer’s domain and sell them?”

 

“H-how do you know that? Hup!”

 

The man answered without thinking, then looked horrified and covered his mouth with both hands, while everyone’s attention focused on me.

 

“Nuna, how did you know that?”

 

I widened my eyes, pretending to be surprised.

 

“Huh? I was just guessing what kidnappers might do? Really? That’s actually true?”

 

Raven looked bewildered.

 

“No, how did you know?”

 

“This is a port city. Ships can carry many people, and that’s the closest place by sea route, so I mentioned it. I was planning to investigate anything that gave us a lead.”

 

“…”

 

“I’m surprised myself that the leading interrogation worked so well.”

 

Everyone looked clearly shocked by my words, but there was no time to hesitate.

 

“Um, rather than that, shouldn’t we go to the port first and stop all the ships from departing?”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Baron and I, Raven and Kimarise, Ben and Susan hurried toward the port.

 

We hadn’t run far, but I was already out of breath.

 

Why were Raven, Kimarise, and Baron running so fast? Ben and Susan were also panting beside me.

 

Unlike those two who were at least keeping up, I couldn’t follow at all. When I stopped to catch my overwhelming breath, Baron, who had been ahead, came back.

 

“Nuna, are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll follow behind, so go ahead first.”

 

But Kimarise called out loudly.

 

“Take your time! We’ll go ahead and stop all the ships preparing to depart!”

 

Baron held my hand tightly.

 

“What’s the rush for me? The adults will handle it well.”

 

I also held Baron’s hand tightly.

 

“Yeah, I hope they can find them well.”

 

* * *

 

The port filled with various types of ships was bright with lights.

 

And on the deck of a ship that had already departed and was some distance from the port, a commotion was taking place.

 

It seemed Raven and Kimarise had managed to catch up to the ship by a hair’s breadth.

 

“What’s happening?”

 

“Looks like there’s a fight?”

 

Due to the noise of the shipboard brawl, people gathered at the port and murmured.

 

The ship, which had quieted down after a while, slowly returned to the port.

 

As it approached the dock, Kimarise jumped down and tied a rope to the mooring post to secure the ship.

 

“We found the children locked in iron cages on the ship’s lowest level. They’ll be coming down soon.”

 

As soon as he finished speaking, a ladder lowered from the deck reached the dock. The ladder looked large and sturdy, but had sparse gaps between rungs. While adults would be fine, for children the width was too broad, and if they misstepped, they might fall into the sea.

 

From inside the ship, children began poking out their tiny heads one by one.

 

“Peter!”

 

“Peter! Can you hear Mommy’s voice?”

 

At Ben and Susan’s desperate calls, one child jumped up and down waving his hands.

 

“Daddy! Mommy!”

 

“Peter!”

 

Ben rushed up and hugged Peter.

 

“Waaaaaaah!”

 

Peter immediately burst into loud tears. At the same time, tears also burst from Susan’s eyes.

 

“Oh my! My baby!”

 

Ben carried Peter down from the ship in his arms. Susan hugged Peter tightly and began crying loudly.

 

“How scared you must have been!”

 

“Mommyyyy!”

 

The eyes of the surrounding people who finally understood the situation reddened, and seeing this, I also burst into tears and hugged Baron tightly.

 

“Huuu. Thank goodness we found him. Really.”

 

Baron patted my shoulder a couple of times. I gained strength from that patting and jumped up.

 

“No, this isn’t the time for this!”

 

“Huh?”

 

I wiped my streaming tears with the back of my hand and shouted.

 

“This is the ship that was carrying the guys who kidnapped children to sell them to other domains! My companions dealt with the kidnappers, but the ladder rungs are too far apart for the children to come down alone! Could some strong people please help the children get down!”

 

I didn’t wait for others to step forward and was the first to jump up onto the ladder.

 

“Ah, Nuna! It’s dangerous!”

 

Baron tried to stop me, but I quickly instructed him.

 

“Baron, Nuna will be fine, so stay there quietly and gather the children in one place when they come down!”

 

Perhaps because I spoke while looking back hurriedly, I swayed slightly as I crossed from the ladder to the deck. It wasn’t enough to fall, and Raven grabbed my hand so I could regain my balance right away.

 

“Oh my, be careful.”

 

A gentle smile spread across my face at his kind words.

 

“Thank you, Raven.”

 

“Not at all.”

 

Raven showed a gentlemanly smile.

 

Because of that, even though this was a crime scene, I felt as if I was being escorted, so I subtly avoided Raven’s gaze and examined the children’s condition.

 

Just where did they bring all these children from?

 

The gathered children appeared to be around three to thirteen years old, and there were thirty-two of them. They all looked disheveled, utterly exhausted, and terrified.

 

“Children, it’s okay. You’ll be safe now. Let’s line up and go down slowly one by one.”

 

After taking the hand of the nearest child and turning around, I saw that sturdy sailors had already positioned themselves at regular intervals on the ladder.

 

The bearded ajusshi at the front gave a thumbs up and grinned.

 

“Strong person number one that miss found is right here.”

 

It was so reassuring that I couldn’t help but smile.

 

“Good. You look wonderful.”

 

I handed the child’s hand over to the ajusshi. The ajusshi grinned and simply put his hands under the child’s armpits and lifted him up.

 

“Oh my, this little one is so small he weighs nothing. Must be because I’m so strong.”

 

The easily lifted child was passed to the next ajusshi’s hands.

 

“Why is he so small? Is this a puppy?”

 

The child was passed to the next ajusshi’s hands again.

 

“Does he even weigh 2 kilos?”

 

Each ajusshi who received the child made their own comment. But as they went down, their expressions about measuring the child’s weight kept getting lighter.

 

“2 kilos my foot, even a mackerel would be heavier than this.”

 

No matter how small the child was, that couldn’t be right.

 

Finally, the last ajusshi set the child down and said loudly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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