Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 3

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

* * *
The situation before my eyes felt so much like a dream that I remained sluggish and bewildered until the Director’s thunderous voice jolted me back to reality.
Yet the slick, warm sensation of blood trickling between my fingers remained vividly fresh.
No matter how much I pondered it, I couldn’t fathom why my life—which I’d assumed had ended in the Elrad Duchy—was continuing in this manner.
Perhaps God took pity on me, someone who was never loved by anyone until the very end, and granted me this second chance.
‘Though I’ve returned to my helpless eight-year-old self…’
“Lia, what are you doing?”
“Hm?”
“Aren’t you going to eat your bread?”
Emily, sitting beside me, called out as I sat lost in thought, the bread still untouched in my hands.
Her voice carried an odd mixture of anxiety and anticipation.
Watching Emily’s eyes fixed on the bread I held, I couldn’t help but smile wryly.
“Emily, do you want this?”
“Huh? Oh, no! You need to eat too, Lia.”
“I’m not very hungry today. So you eat this.”
“Really? I can really have it?”
As my mood began to lighten at Emily’s delighted reaction, something unexpected happened.
“Hey! If you’re not going to eat it, give it to me. You’re all small and weak anyway, so I should eat more than you.”
I turned my head at the absurd remark to find Thomas, the largest and oldest child at the orphanage, standing there with smug confidence.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you eat mine?”
“What, what?!”
Thomas clearly hadn’t expected me—usually timid and quiet—to talk back like this. His mouth fell open, and his face flushed crimson as the other children’s eyes turned toward him.
“How dare you talk back to me? If I say I’m eating it, then I’m eating it! Do you want to get beaten?”
He then approached me with one arm raised in a threatening manner.
It looked like he was about to strike, but instead, I lifted my chin defiantly.
No matter how large he was, he was still just a malnourished child.
This ten-year-old brat was nothing compared to an adult man—he didn’t frighten me at all.
“Stop making a scene.”
At that moment, a boy with dark gray hair spoke from the corner. It was Jack, the same age as Thomas.
“Why are you butting in, you pretty-faced bastard?”
Thomas, who usually harbored jealousy toward the handsome Jack, immediately began blinking rapidly.
‘Still, Jack would be no match for him.’
I shook my head, thinking that fights weren’t decided by size alone.
“Don’t let your guard down! I’m taking this!”
Thomas suddenly darted forward, stuck out his tongue mockingly, snatched my bread, and fled with surprising speed.
“That sneaky bastard!”
I cried out and tried to chase after him, but Emily urgently grabbed my arm.
Looking around, I realized all the children were staring at me—apparently finding it strange that I was standing up to Thomas.
Even Jack was watching.
Suddenly self-conscious under all those eyes, I cleared my throat awkwardly and sat back down.
I didn’t know I would spend the entire day regretting not chasing after Thomas.
* * *
Grrrrowl, grrrrowl, grrrrrowwwl.
Crouched down and scrubbing the floor with my frozen hands, I clutched my stomach.
I was so hungry.
“I should have chased after him.”
Then I heard the click of a tongue.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have given up your bread in the first place.”
It was Jack, sitting on the windowsill and wiping the glass.
“What did you just say?”
Was he really picking a fight when I was already starving?
I threw down the rag I was holding and stood up, glaring at him. Jack flinched before continuing.
“If you hadn’t given up your bread from the start, none of this would have happened.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh!”
Strictly speaking, Jack wasn’t wrong, which only made me angrier.
It was embarrassing to be furious at a child, but whether my body had regressed or my mind had as well, I couldn’t contain my rage.
Besides, I knew exactly what kind of adult Jack would become, and I thought that if I was going to face him properly and win, this might be my only chance.
‘Should I just rush at him?’
I was genuinely considering it.
“Huh?”
I looked down at my hand in surprise.
In the hand that had been holding the rag moments before, half a loaf of black bread from this morning now rested.
“Are you… giving this to me?”
“Throw it away if you don’t want it.”
“I’m not throwing it away!”
Why would I throw away food? No matter how hard the black bread was, once it went into my stomach, it was all the same.
“Jack, you really are… a good kid, aren’t you?”
I gazed at Jack, silently chanting the eternal truth in my heart: ‘Anyone who gives you food is a good person!’
“You… seem a bit strange today.”
Jack narrowed his eyes and spoke.
That caught me completely off guard.
Jack and I were from the same orphanage, but we’d barely spoken to each other a few times.
How could he tell that I’d changed?
Feeling oddly flustered, I quickly changed the subject.
“But why are you giving me this?”
We only got one meal a day, so he must have been saving this for later, but I couldn’t understand why he was giving it to me.
“Your stomach was growling so loudly it was driving me crazy, so just be quiet about it.”
“Eek!”
I had been glaring at Jack, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when I froze in place.
Beyond the window, a burly man and a young girl were entering the orphanage courtyard, blanketed in white snow.
* * *
And so, the present moment.
After hearing the Director’s introduction and Diana’s greeting, I was completely petrified.
‘…Of all days, why today?’
The day I returned after meeting my death in the Elrad Duchy was the very day Diana, the youngest lady of the Elrad Family, arrived at Tessar Orphanage.
‘Could this possibly be dismissed as mere coincidence?’
Yet upon reflection, I realized that Diana’s arrival might very well have been the first turning point in my life.
Had Diana not appeared here in the past, Duke Elrad would never have demolished the orphanage, and I would never have become a street beggar overnight, suffering all those hardships.
So perhaps my return to this moment meant I was meant to begin a new life from this first turning point?
Captivated by such thoughts as I gazed into the blue eyes of the child clutching my sleeve, I examined her with newfound emotion.
‘Now that I look at her, she certainly does have the bearing of a noble lady.’
I hadn’t noticed it when I was younger, but now I could sense something different about her.
Setting aside her refined and beautiful features, Diana’s clothes—though soiled—were made of a fabric and design that the other orphanage children, who wore hand-me-downs from townspeople, could never possess.
“Say.”
“…Hmm?”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 3! No, I’m 4!”
Diana held up three chubby fingers, then hastily switched to four.
It seemed she wasn’t yet accustomed to her new age, having celebrated her birthday not long ago.
This matched my memory perfectly.
It was winter now, and Diana’s birthday was in autumn.
‘I really have returned to ten years ago.’
The fact that I had attended Diana’s fourteenth birthday party just a few months ago felt like a dream.
Perhaps unable to bear the piercing stares around her, Diana pouted her lips with a small whimper.
Suddenly, the past came flooding back.
In my previous life, I had been careful to keep my distance from Diana, just like the other children.
Diana was prone to whining and crying easily, and I was afraid that being around her would result in the Director scolding me as well.
‘But really, it’s only natural for a four-year-old to whine and cry.’
Especially a child who had been separated from her beloved family in an instant.
Strangely, despite appearing indifferent to the other children, Diana would stare at me intently or hover around me so often that our eyes would meet whenever I turned my head.
At the time, I found it burdensome and fled, avoiding her.
“I’m sorry… Dana, I won’t bother you.”
Then Diana had withdrawn her hand sadly and lowered her head, thinking I had rejected her because I said nothing.
Tears glistened in her large eyes, ready to spill at any moment, and my heart sank at the sight.
“No! I was just lost in thought.”
I had already turned away from this little child once in the past.
No matter how much I feared the Director, I shouldn’t have done that.
I quickly took Diana’s hand.
Diana’s eyes fluttered rapidly in surprise.
‘Oh my. She’s absolutely adorable!’
This time, my heart skipped for an entirely different reason.
I steadied my racing pulse and offered the child a gentle smile so as not to startle her.
Unlike Diana, my appearance wasn’t particularly striking, so it likely wouldn’t help much in putting her at ease.
“Shall we go wash up?”
When I spoke to her kindly, Diana blinked a few more times before responding with a bright “Mm-hmm!”
All the way to the communal bathhouse, the stares from the other children—some disapproving, others curious like Jack’s—burned intensely against my skin, yet my steps never wavered.
This was the miracle-like opportunity that would change the difficult future awaiting me and the orphanage children.
* * *
“Oh! Stop!”
I hurriedly turned off the faucet, and Diana tilted her head in confusion.
“We don’t have much water here.”
Tessar Orphanage had running water connected, but situated in the mountains as it was, the water supply was unreliable.
I skillfully scooped water from a large basin placed in the corner of the communal bathhouse, dampened a cloth made from old scraps, and wrung it out firmly.
The moment my hands touched the ice-cold water, my senses sharpened.
The harsh reality of our circumstances suddenly felt overwhelming, and my mood darkened, but I quickly shook my head.
‘Just need to hold on for a few more days.’
In my past life, Duke Elrad and his knights had arrived about a week after Diana came to the orphanage.
If I could care for Diana well during that time and uncover evidence of the Director’s corruption to expose it, the future would surely change.
“Come on, arms up!”
As I prepared to undress her and wash her, Diana obediently raised both arms high.
“That’s right,” I murmured, gently stroking Diana’s hair—a hand’s breadth shorter than my own—and began wiping her face and hands with the wrung-out cloth.
Wherever she’d rolled around, the water ran out before I’d even finished cleaning her.
As I scooped more water and began wiping her hair with the dampened cloth, I froze.
As I washed away the dust and dirt that had made her hair appear dull gray, luminous silver hair emerged, so brilliant it made my eyes sting.
When I stopped moving, Diana blinked her blue eyes.
Silver hair and blue eyes—the unmistakable hallmarks of the Elrad Family.
“He’s always calling us stupid, but the Director’s the real fool. Anyone can see she’s nobility.”
As I muttered this with a pouting lip, I suddenly stiffened, my body going rigid.
“Could it be…”

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