Episode 39. My child is good.
Olivia's eyes widened at the sound of a manic pounding on the door and the demonic whisper. She quickly pulled a dagger from the bedside table. In Pulder, where gun ownership was illegal, the dagger was the only weapon she could afford.
Olivia quickly tried to assess the situation before she trembled with fear.
All the windows are double-locked. Nevertheless, if a man were determined to break the door, it would inevitably break.
Olivia quietly took another key. It belonged to Mrs. McPhee's house. She had entrusted it to her, asking her to show the inside to anyone considering buying the house.
If you see any sign that the door is about to break, go out the back door and sneak into Mrs. McPhee's house.
Olivia, who knew this day would come but had no choice but to live in this house, took a deep breath and tied her shoelaces and hair tightly.
At that moment, the sound coming from the bedroom moved to the right.
“You know everything is inside, but you pretend not to know. It’s a bad thing.”
The way he spoke was quite relaxed.
And then he started pounding on the front door with something blunt.
Boom, Boom!!
The joints of the old wooden door rattled precariously with every blow.
“Come out! Olivia, come out. Olivia! Olivia!”
Boom, bang, bang, bang!!
The door seemed ready to shatter under the continuous, maddening blows.
It's a place with few people, so who would know if you hit it like that?
Olivia quickly turned and headed for the back door. She slowly unlocked the back door, careful not to make a sound, so he wouldn't know she was leaving the house.
Her heart felt like it was going to burst, and her fingertips were trembling, but her eyes were wide open and sparkling.
Even though she lived in this house expecting something like this to happen, she never thought about dying at the hands of that guy.
Before unlocking the second lock, Olivia turned her head and looked behind her. She confirmed the man was still pounding on the door, and then decided to go outside.
But that was the moment.
“Ugh! Oh my!”
Suddenly, a scream erupted.
“Stop, stop!! Do you dare think I’m someone!!!”
Olivia lowered her hand from the lock and tried to quickly assess the situation.
The one who had terrified her was now making a voice that was terrified.
She quickly approached the front door with her dagger and key in hand, then carefully opened the side window to look outside.
“I’m from the Pulder Police Department. Are you there?”
A polite voice came from beyond the door.
“Are you there?”
The voices of the police officers were heard alternately, and the cries of the assailant were mixed in.
“Let go of this!!!”
Two men in police uniforms were visible through the gap in the slightly opened window.
Her nerves, once as sensitive as a cat's fur standing on end, seemed to slowly melt away, starting from her head. Without realizing it, she leaned her head against the window and let out a long, slow breath. Only then did she hear her heart pounding, threatening to burst.
“Is there anyone here?”
Leaning her head against the window, she slowly opened her eyes, placed the dagger and key she had been holding on the window frame as if they were her last line of defense, and unlocked the front door.
Without even a groan, Olivia desperately held onto her trembling legs and opened the door.
Two men in uniforms were looking at her with businesslike expressions.
And they were secretly surprised by the rather calm expression on the woman's face as she opened the door and emerged. Her hair was tied back tightly, and her expression was so firm it almost seemed unsophisticated.
Although her hands, hidden behind her back, and her legs hidden under her skirt, were trembling like aspen trees.
Olivia desperately tried to control her expression, glaring at the culprit who had terrorized her for months. A thought crept into her mind.
Who would have called the police?
Who could have helped?
The assailant who attempted to enter Olivia's house was arrested at the scene and immediately transferred to the local police station.
Olivia wanted him to be punished according to due process, so she went to the police station with him to fill out the relevant paperwork.
Although it was past midnight, the police station was as bright as a city that never sleeps.
The man who had terrified her was sitting with his head bowed, quite different from the way he had slammed the door. Because of this, Olivia couldn't clearly see his face. But somehow, his back seemed familiar.
“Could you tell me that person’s name?”
The police officer who was handing her various documents glanced at the criminal being questioned on one side and shook his head slightly.
“Well, he claims to be a member of the McDowell family.”
“...McDowell?”
The police officer nodded with a look of exasperation and pointed to the documents absentmindedly.
"Why would that family's son feel so sorry for going into someone else's house? That must be a lie. Just fill out the paperwork and go."
“Could you tell me who reported this?”
Someone had come to the police station and reported a suspicious figure loitering around her house. Thanks to that, Olivia was saved from danger.
But the police waved their hands as if annoyed and refused her request.
"The principle is not to reveal the whistleblower's personal information. Please fill out the documents quickly."
That was when.
"Adam!!!"
A sudden shout resonated through the police station. All eyes within the station turned to one place.
A noblewoman wearing a thin summer shawl burst in with a startled expression, glancing around. She spotted a man crouching to one side and screamed his name.
"Adam!!!"
The culprit who had been keeping his head down until then finally raised his head.
“Oh, Mother...”
“Oh my god, why are you here like this?! How dare you treat my son like a criminal?!”
The noblewoman glared at the police interrogating her son, venting her anger. "How could my precious son, the apple of my eye, be treated like this?!"
Then, a middle-aged gentleman with a stern expression followed her in and stood beside his son. He glared at him with a disapproving expression, then raised his head and looked intently at the officer in charge.
“Henry McDowell. Why are you interrogating my son?”
A heavy silence fell over the anger in the soft voice.
Henry McDowell. He was a relative of Vice President Pulder and ran a prominent civil engineering firm. Needless to say, he was of noble Norfolk Continental descent.
Even when the timidly crouching criminal claimed to be a member of the McDowell family, they couldn't believe it. Then, the McDowells came to see him in person.
The officer in charge hesitated for a moment and then reluctantly opened his mouth.
“It is a crime of trespassing and destruction of property.”
"What? Trespassing, property damage?"
"Yes, that's right. And since the victim was unwilling to settle, we had no choice but to take your son away."
Mrs. McDowell, who had been listening to her husband and the policeman, suddenly slammed the table and yelled.
For a moment, the officer unconsciously looked at Olivia. Following his gaze, the McDowells' gaze also turned to Olivia.
“You tried to go into that girl’s house, my son? Adam, did you?!”
Olivia stood up and spoke firmly to the nearby police officer.
"I don't want to face them. Please arrange another meeting."
Mrs. McDowell, who had been questioning her son, glared at Olivia as soon as she finished speaking and gave her an order.
“No, just stand there for a moment.”
“I don’t want to meet you. Please make another seat for me!”
Olivia pleaded earnestly, but the officer simply took a step back with an embarrassed expression.
Olivia looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, but the officer simply turned away from her gaze.
The authorities in Pulder refused to protect her.
Meanwhile, Mrs. McDowell was quickly approaching her.
“Now I know who you are. Miss Olivia Liberty, correct?”
Olivia braced herself and turned her head to face her, her voice piercing into her ear. The lady's eyes were filled with the familiar mix of contempt and disdain.
“Yes, that’s right, Mrs. McDowell.”
A tightly shut voice leaked out.
Mrs. McDowell looked Olivia up and down, her expression elegant. Then, abruptly, she spoke.
“You're really pretty.”
At the first words that came out, all of Olivia's movements stopped.
"My child often talks about Miss Liberty. Our Adam is a student at Harrington College."
Only then did she realize why the back of the stranger looked so familiar.
Mrs. McDowell chuckled, smoothing her disheveled hair gracefully. Then she took a step closer to Olivia and whispered softly.
"Adam must have liked Miss Liberty. Not anymore, but you were Professor Herrington, right? Adam was a student."
Olivia chewed and spat out each word, suppressing her disgust.
“What would you like to say, ma’am?”
“Let’s get through it.”
“...”
“Adam is a good boy. Perhaps he liked you and wanted to talk to you...”
Olivia, unable to bear it any longer, cut her off and asked again.
“Would someone like that break down someone else’s door in the middle of the night?”
“...”
“Are you leaning against the window in the middle of the night and making me feel threatened?!”
“Look at this!!”
"I have nothing more to say, ma'am. As the officer said earlier, I want the one who terrorized me to be punished."
“What the?! This is so rude!”
Mrs. McDowell threw away her elegant mask.
“You need to know the topic. How dare you talk about punishing my son?!”
“...”
"You're a lowly person with nothing but a pretty face, and you're so arrogant about becoming a professor. A man should know his place. How dare you become a professor and teach children from noble families?"
“...”
As the verbal abuse continued, Olivia's eyes became more and more sullen. They were as calm and still as the surface of a deep, dark sea.
Mrs. McDowell glared at Olivia's dark eyes, hissing.
Suddenly, a chill ran down the back of her neck.
Because it felt like she was looking into the darkness of the deep sea.
“It seems creepy.”
“..."
"Let's settle. I'll give you a generous settlement. You're going to be fired from your professorship and have no money, right?"
"My opinion remains unchanged. Use that money to hire a lawyer."
“What the?! This is so outrageous!! Even if you say you’ll punish him, do you think I’ll let you punish my son?! You can never punish my son, absolutely not!! How dare you act so recklessly today and still sleep soundly?! Just take your money and get out of here!!”
At that time, something was causing a stir inside the police station, but Mrs. McDowell, who was furious, and Olivia, who was exhausted beyond belief, did not notice the commotion.
Olivia had neither the motivation nor the energy to continue talking to her. As she turned to finish filling out the paperwork, Mrs. McDowell, her eyes rolled back, roughly grabbed her shoulder, and turned her away.
And at the same time, she raised her hand to strike her cheek.
Oh, this is so boring.
Olivia thought slowly, watching the hand being raised.
She's sick of that constant contempt and anger, sick of her petty, insignificant struggles, sick of everything.
It just seemed like everything had taken a step away from her life.
No, her life seemed a step away from all of this.
The sound faded away, and the current scenes and situations that were forming meaninglessly on her retina felt very distant and slow.
Olivia's eyes widened at the sound of a manic pounding on the door and the demonic whisper. She quickly pulled a dagger from the bedside table. In Pulder, where gun ownership was illegal, the dagger was the only weapon she could afford.
Olivia quickly tried to assess the situation before she trembled with fear.
All the windows are double-locked. Nevertheless, if a man were determined to break the door, it would inevitably break.
Olivia quietly took another key. It belonged to Mrs. McPhee's house. She had entrusted it to her, asking her to show the inside to anyone considering buying the house.
If you see any sign that the door is about to break, go out the back door and sneak into Mrs. McPhee's house.
Olivia, who knew this day would come but had no choice but to live in this house, took a deep breath and tied her shoelaces and hair tightly.
At that moment, the sound coming from the bedroom moved to the right.
“You know everything is inside, but you pretend not to know. It’s a bad thing.”
The way he spoke was quite relaxed.
And then he started pounding on the front door with something blunt.
Boom, Boom!!
The joints of the old wooden door rattled precariously with every blow.
“Come out! Olivia, come out. Olivia! Olivia!”
Boom, bang, bang, bang!!
The door seemed ready to shatter under the continuous, maddening blows.
It's a place with few people, so who would know if you hit it like that?
Olivia quickly turned and headed for the back door. She slowly unlocked the back door, careful not to make a sound, so he wouldn't know she was leaving the house.
Her heart felt like it was going to burst, and her fingertips were trembling, but her eyes were wide open and sparkling.
Even though she lived in this house expecting something like this to happen, she never thought about dying at the hands of that guy.
Before unlocking the second lock, Olivia turned her head and looked behind her. She confirmed the man was still pounding on the door, and then decided to go outside.
But that was the moment.
“Ugh! Oh my!”
Suddenly, a scream erupted.
“Stop, stop!! Do you dare think I’m someone!!!”
Olivia lowered her hand from the lock and tried to quickly assess the situation.
The one who had terrified her was now making a voice that was terrified.
She quickly approached the front door with her dagger and key in hand, then carefully opened the side window to look outside.
“I’m from the Pulder Police Department. Are you there?”
A polite voice came from beyond the door.
“Are you there?”
The voices of the police officers were heard alternately, and the cries of the assailant were mixed in.
“Let go of this!!!”
Two men in police uniforms were visible through the gap in the slightly opened window.
Her nerves, once as sensitive as a cat's fur standing on end, seemed to slowly melt away, starting from her head. Without realizing it, she leaned her head against the window and let out a long, slow breath. Only then did she hear her heart pounding, threatening to burst.
“Is there anyone here?”
Leaning her head against the window, she slowly opened her eyes, placed the dagger and key she had been holding on the window frame as if they were her last line of defense, and unlocked the front door.
Without even a groan, Olivia desperately held onto her trembling legs and opened the door.
Two men in uniforms were looking at her with businesslike expressions.
And they were secretly surprised by the rather calm expression on the woman's face as she opened the door and emerged. Her hair was tied back tightly, and her expression was so firm it almost seemed unsophisticated.
Although her hands, hidden behind her back, and her legs hidden under her skirt, were trembling like aspen trees.
Olivia desperately tried to control her expression, glaring at the culprit who had terrorized her for months. A thought crept into her mind.
Who would have called the police?
Who could have helped?
The assailant who attempted to enter Olivia's house was arrested at the scene and immediately transferred to the local police station.
Olivia wanted him to be punished according to due process, so she went to the police station with him to fill out the relevant paperwork.
Although it was past midnight, the police station was as bright as a city that never sleeps.
The man who had terrified her was sitting with his head bowed, quite different from the way he had slammed the door. Because of this, Olivia couldn't clearly see his face. But somehow, his back seemed familiar.
“Could you tell me that person’s name?”
The police officer who was handing her various documents glanced at the criminal being questioned on one side and shook his head slightly.
“Well, he claims to be a member of the McDowell family.”
“...McDowell?”
The police officer nodded with a look of exasperation and pointed to the documents absentmindedly.
"Why would that family's son feel so sorry for going into someone else's house? That must be a lie. Just fill out the paperwork and go."
“Could you tell me who reported this?”
Someone had come to the police station and reported a suspicious figure loitering around her house. Thanks to that, Olivia was saved from danger.
But the police waved their hands as if annoyed and refused her request.
"The principle is not to reveal the whistleblower's personal information. Please fill out the documents quickly."
That was when.
"Adam!!!"
A sudden shout resonated through the police station. All eyes within the station turned to one place.
A noblewoman wearing a thin summer shawl burst in with a startled expression, glancing around. She spotted a man crouching to one side and screamed his name.
"Adam!!!"
The culprit who had been keeping his head down until then finally raised his head.
“Oh, Mother...”
“Oh my god, why are you here like this?! How dare you treat my son like a criminal?!”
The noblewoman glared at the police interrogating her son, venting her anger. "How could my precious son, the apple of my eye, be treated like this?!"
Then, a middle-aged gentleman with a stern expression followed her in and stood beside his son. He glared at him with a disapproving expression, then raised his head and looked intently at the officer in charge.
“Henry McDowell. Why are you interrogating my son?”
A heavy silence fell over the anger in the soft voice.
Henry McDowell. He was a relative of Vice President Pulder and ran a prominent civil engineering firm. Needless to say, he was of noble Norfolk Continental descent.
Even when the timidly crouching criminal claimed to be a member of the McDowell family, they couldn't believe it. Then, the McDowells came to see him in person.
The officer in charge hesitated for a moment and then reluctantly opened his mouth.
“It is a crime of trespassing and destruction of property.”
"What? Trespassing, property damage?"
"Yes, that's right. And since the victim was unwilling to settle, we had no choice but to take your son away."
Mrs. McDowell, who had been listening to her husband and the policeman, suddenly slammed the table and yelled.
"What on earth possessed our son to break into someone else's house and damage their property?! What?! Which house, exactly?!"
“You tried to go into that girl’s house, my son? Adam, did you?!”
Olivia stood up and spoke firmly to the nearby police officer.
"I don't want to face them. Please arrange another meeting."
Mrs. McDowell, who had been questioning her son, glared at Olivia as soon as she finished speaking and gave her an order.
“No, just stand there for a moment.”
“I don’t want to meet you. Please make another seat for me!”
Olivia pleaded earnestly, but the officer simply took a step back with an embarrassed expression.
Olivia looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, but the officer simply turned away from her gaze.
The authorities in Pulder refused to protect her.
Meanwhile, Mrs. McDowell was quickly approaching her.
“Now I know who you are. Miss Olivia Liberty, correct?”
Olivia braced herself and turned her head to face her, her voice piercing into her ear. The lady's eyes were filled with the familiar mix of contempt and disdain.
“Yes, that’s right, Mrs. McDowell.”
A tightly shut voice leaked out.
Mrs. McDowell looked Olivia up and down, her expression elegant. Then, abruptly, she spoke.
“You're really pretty.”
At the first words that came out, all of Olivia's movements stopped.
"My child often talks about Miss Liberty. Our Adam is a student at Harrington College."
Only then did she realize why the back of the stranger looked so familiar.
Mrs. McDowell chuckled, smoothing her disheveled hair gracefully. Then she took a step closer to Olivia and whispered softly.
"Adam must have liked Miss Liberty. Not anymore, but you were Professor Herrington, right? Adam was a student."
Olivia chewed and spat out each word, suppressing her disgust.
“What would you like to say, ma’am?”
“Let’s get through it.”
“...”
“Adam is a good boy. Perhaps he liked you and wanted to talk to you...”
Olivia, unable to bear it any longer, cut her off and asked again.
“Would someone like that break down someone else’s door in the middle of the night?”
“...”
“Are you leaning against the window in the middle of the night and making me feel threatened?!”
“Look at this!!”
"I have nothing more to say, ma'am. As the officer said earlier, I want the one who terrorized me to be punished."
“What the?! This is so rude!”
Mrs. McDowell threw away her elegant mask.
“You need to know the topic. How dare you talk about punishing my son?!”
“...”
"You're a lowly person with nothing but a pretty face, and you're so arrogant about becoming a professor. A man should know his place. How dare you become a professor and teach children from noble families?"
“...”
As the verbal abuse continued, Olivia's eyes became more and more sullen. They were as calm and still as the surface of a deep, dark sea.
Mrs. McDowell glared at Olivia's dark eyes, hissing.
Suddenly, a chill ran down the back of her neck.
Because it felt like she was looking into the darkness of the deep sea.
“It seems creepy.”
“..."
"Let's settle. I'll give you a generous settlement. You're going to be fired from your professorship and have no money, right?"
"My opinion remains unchanged. Use that money to hire a lawyer."
“What the?! This is so outrageous!! Even if you say you’ll punish him, do you think I’ll let you punish my son?! You can never punish my son, absolutely not!! How dare you act so recklessly today and still sleep soundly?! Just take your money and get out of here!!”
At that time, something was causing a stir inside the police station, but Mrs. McDowell, who was furious, and Olivia, who was exhausted beyond belief, did not notice the commotion.
Olivia had neither the motivation nor the energy to continue talking to her. As she turned to finish filling out the paperwork, Mrs. McDowell, her eyes rolled back, roughly grabbed her shoulder, and turned her away.
And at the same time, she raised her hand to strike her cheek.
Oh, this is so boring.
Olivia thought slowly, watching the hand being raised.
She's sick of that constant contempt and anger, sick of her petty, insignificant struggles, sick of everything.
It just seemed like everything had taken a step away from her life.
No, her life seemed a step away from all of this.
The sound faded away, and the current scenes and situations that were forming meaninglessly on her retina felt very distant and slow.
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