Chapter 2
I had been at the orphanage just a moment ago… Where was I now?
Goddess, where is this place?
I was so startled that tears welled up in my eyes, but I stubbornly held them back because I didn’t want to cry.
The man who owned this house was the most handsome person I had ever seen in my entire ten-year life.
And he looked overwhelmingly mean.
Snap.
Snap.
The man snapped his fingers right in front of my eyes.
“Hey, hey. Little girl. Pay attention when I’m talking to you.”
I couldn’t hear a single word he was saying.
That was because every single knuckle of the fingers in front of me was covered in pitch-black tattoos.
“Hic! Hic!”
Even Uncle Michael, who was famous for being the scariest man in our neighborhood, didn’t have tattoos like those… If this man was even scarier than Uncle Michael, just how evil could he be?
H-He might eat me!
That was what the witch in my fairy-tale book had said.
Children tasted better because their flesh was soft and tender.
“Why are you hanging around in front of my house? Don’t you know that children who loiter around here get eaten by monsters?”
“…”
“You haven’t been able to answer me this whole time. Listen, mister isn’t a scary person. Stop crying and hurry back to your own home.”
The teacher in our Sunshine Wing class always said that when we ran into trouble, we should ask adults for help before bursting into tears.
I looked around and spotted someone passing by. Then I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“(N-Nooo! I don’t wanna! Help meee!)”
Patapatapat!
I ran as fast as I could and clung to the passerby’s leg.
“(Save meee! Waaahhh!)”
After desperately begging the adults for help, the man who owned the house and I ended up at the security office.
“No, seriously! I don’t know this kid! I’m telling you, I’m seeing her for the first time today!”
“Look, Mr. Cassian. No matter how angry you are, how can you deny your own daughter like that? She’s obviously your child. Anyone can see how much she takes after you. She must be around five years old, too. I know because my own daughter was that size once~”
“She was standing in front of my house, so I simply advised her to go home! She started crying all by herself!”
“And another thing. Physical violence isn’t the only kind of abuse. Verbal abuse is abuse, too. Do you want us to file a child-abuse report against you? What kind of world do you think we live in these days?”
“I’m an unmarried bachelor! Someone abandoned this kid in front of my house and ran away! Please, just listen to me!”
“You may not be married, but we all know you’ve had more than a few women in your life. It’s not like it would be surprising if you’d gotten someone pregnant a long time ago and ended up with a daughter this age. We all knooow that much.”
“I’m going crazy! Aaaargh!”
The man named Cassian thumped his chest repeatedly as he listened to the security officer.
“I know it’s not our place to interfere with how someone raises their child, but when kids make mistakes, you shouldn’t just yell at them until they’re too scared to speak. Sometimes, you need to comfort them, too. And even if children learn foreign languages quickly, their mother tongue should still be the imperial language. The fact that she can understand imperial speech but can’t speak it is a serious problem, you know? You’re starting her foreign-language education way too early~”
I couldn’t understand what the security officer was saying, so I instinctively looked for someone who could explain things to me.
Goddess, come out here for a moment.
Come out and clean up this mess, please! You’re over three thousand years old! You’re a very, very important grown-up!
But the Goddess was petty.
She had granted my birthday wish, yet she ignored the prayers I offered while trembling in terror.
Isn’t the security officer supposed to catch bad people and put them in prison…?
Instead of putting anyone in prison, he simply lectured the man who owned the house.
And when he finally let us leave the security office, he even insisted that we make peace and sent us off after firmly clasping the man’s hand.
I remembered a word that the older sister of my best friend had taught me some time ago. She was five years older than us.
—Jerk… Jer… What was it again?
Oh! I remembered!
Both the security officers and Uncle Cassian were jerks!
I hated those jerks so much that, starting today, I was going to hate brushing my teeth, too!
Holding the man’s hand, I returned to the unfamiliar house where I had been earlier.
The man’s house was such a mess that the teachers at the orphanage would probably faint if they saw it.
The floor was covered with sour-smelling clothes, liquor bottles, and cigarette ash. Even clumps of black dust were rolling around in the middle of it all.
A monster…? A beggar monster?!
Suddenly, I felt a little sorry for the man who had seemed so terrifying earlier. I looked up at him with sympathy.
I hadn’t noticed before, but now that I looked closely, he even had patchy facial hair.
H-He has beard baldness!
So the monster man had a reason to be angry all the time.
The monster man casually swept the objects on the floor aside with his foot, clearing a path.
When we finally reached the living room sofa, I saw plates of moldy food scattered across it.
If it had been me, I would have cleaned them up right away. But the monster man didn’t seem to care at all. He simply flopped down onto the sofa.
“I’m dying. I haven’t even had anything to cure my hangover, and now this crap happens.”
As I stood there nervously, the monster man asked me a question.
“Hey, little brat. Where’s your mom? Your mom.”
Mom? My mom is in the empire.
I had spoken the imperial language fluently until I was five, but after I went to the orphanage, I started speaking another language.
That was why I could understand a little of what the man was saying, but when it came to answering him, the words wouldn’t come out easily.
As I fumbled with my lips, the man asked again, his expression growing frightening.
“You have a mother, don’t you? What about your dad? Where do your parents live? Where’s your house?”
My mom lives very far away, and I never had a dad in the first place.
When I couldn’t say anything, the man let out an exaggerated sigh right in front of me.
He had such a frighteningly handsome face, and he looked so visibly exhausted that my shoulders instinctively hunched inward.
Waving his hand dismissively, he said,
“Fine. If your parents don’t show up by tomorrow, I’ll send you to a facility.”
After saying that, the monster man promptly began snoring loudly.
I wiped the corners of my eyes with my sleeve and went to the bathroom.
The director of the orphanage had taught us that the first thing we should do after going outside was wash our hands.
But when I tried to wash them…
“Huhhh?”
My hands couldn’t reach the sink.
I hopped in place and caught a vague glimpse of my face. That was when I finally understood what was happening.
I had been the tenth-tallest child in Sunshine Wing class!
And now I had turned into a tiny baby!
Goddess, you idiot!
Zero points! Pig! Monkey! Crayfish!
I had asked for a dad, but instead, the Goddess had turned me into a little sibling who was much shorter than my original self and sent me to the house of a monster man!
The Goddess must have gotten zero points in language arts.
I was clenching and unclenching my tiny hands while insulting the Goddess for being an idiot when—
Knock, knock.
A faint knocking sound came from the front door. Then a man appeared, speaking in a cautious voice.
“Boss. Are you asleep? It’s me, Baron.”
The man who called the monster man Boss had a buzz cut and wore a flashy shirt, with several gold necklaces hanging around his neck.
I peeked out from behind the bathroom door, showing only my eyes, and glared at the man named Baron.
“Oh. He’s still asleep.”
Baron seemed familiar with the place, because he immediately began cleaning the house.
He shoved all the clothes on the floor into the laundry basket in one corner of the living room and carried the liquor bottles outside.
He even swept the dust and cigarette ash off the floor with a broom before wiping everything down thoroughly with a rag.
Whoosh! Scrub! Wham!
After quickly cleaning up the filthy house, the man headed toward the bathroom to wash the rag. That was when his eyes suddenly met mine.
We both screamed at the same time.
“Eeeeeek!”
“A-A-A-A ROBBER!”
Startled and agitated, Baron thrust his tightly clenched fists forward, swinging them wildly as he shouted.
“C-Come at me! I-I’m not scared!”
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I could hear my heart pounding.
I’m not scared at all. Not even a little.
No! I’m scared! I’m scaaared!
If I had still been ten years old, I could have escaped as quickly as a flying squirrel!
I was trembling inside the bathroom when—
“Shut up. Why can’t you sit still for five minutes in someone else’s house?”
“Ah! Boss! You’re awake? A-A robber broke in!”
“She’s not a robber… Haah. Hey, little brat. Get out here. Now.”
I ignored the monster man and stayed hidden inside the bathroom.
A moment later, a huge hand suddenly shot through the gap in the door and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, lifting me up so that I dangled in the air.
“(Waaaaah! Put me down! I said put me doooown!)”
Whoosh!
The monster man practically tossed me over to the buzz-cut man.
Scratching his head roughly, the monster man spoke in a hoarse, sleepy voice.
“Baron.”
“Yes, Boss!”
“Keep an eye on that little brat. I have an important appointment today, so I need to go out. If her mother shows up, make sure you tell her firmly never to abandon her child at someone else’s house again.”
“Yes, sir! Whaaat? Boss, isn’t she your daughter?”
“Whatever else I might have done, I was always meticulous about contraception. How the hell does she look like my daughter to you?”
After saying that, the monster man left the house without even sparing me a single glance.
Grrrr… Goddess! Why on earth is this my birthday present?!
