I Am the 5-Year-Old Spy Who Kidnapped the Villain - Chapter 7

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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 7】

Why is this old man suddenly acting like this?

His loyalty is incredible, isn’t it?

“…Yes, huh?”

I glanced at him nervously and chewed my sandwich with a chomp.

“I admit he’s an impressive person, but his personality isn’t exactly likeable to anyone who sees…”

“Give me that.”

That’s when it happened. The old man, whose mouth had somehow turned sour, snatched the orange juice I was holding.

“!”

Having my daily bread stolen in an instant, I let out a shriek.

“Why are you taking a snotty kid’s juice!”

“You said you just need to fill up on carbs and protein, right? What do you need juice for?”

“Even so, what’s with giving it and then taking it back! They say even dogs aren’t bothered while eating…”

“You should be grateful I gave you the sandwich in the first place. Ungrateful children can’t enter the garden. Get out quickly.”

“Ah, mister!”

What the heck. Why is he suddenly going berserk?

“Get out.”

“I don’t want to! Waaah.”

The old man tried to grab my body.

Not to be outdone, I held onto the bench until my fists trembled, but his giant hands easily grabbed my armpits and lifted me up lightly.

“Mister!”

He walked toward the garden entrance while forcibly carrying me.

“Aah, misterrrr. Why is this old man suddenly acting like this?”

“Again, again. That mouth of yours.”

“Misterrrr.”

“Shut that sharp little mouth and go to the annex. Now.”

And the gardener put me down inside the mansion without blinking an eye. The door closed just like that.

“…Is this for real?”

Kicking me out of the garden just for saying one thing. That rational gentleman is this petty?

It wasn’t even about him. It was about the head of the house.

Don’t servants in noble castles usually badmouth their superiors behind their backs?

I thought his loyalty ran deep, but I didn’t know it was to this extent.

My thought process stopped for a moment as I stared blankly at the closed door.

But suddenly there was a thudding sound from the other side.

“?”

The door burst open and standing there was none other than the gardener.

He still looked down at me with sharp eyes and said.

“I don’t need a snotty kid’s juice either. You drink it.”

And he forcibly shoved the juice into my hands and disappeared again.

I stood there with a dumbfounded face at what happened in an instant, then suddenly came to my senses.

Naturally, I snorted.

“…In the midst of all this.”

Really now.

“He still gives me the juice…! This is flirting, old man! If you’re not planning to raise a kid, don’t give it to me!”

I shouted toward the now empty garden.

* * *

[Ariena]

The garden’s name, written carefully in cursive, was taken from his wife’s name.

This place that only direct members of the Croste family could enter was perfectly organized without a single thing out of place, but somehow felt as desolate as a desert.

Because all direct members of the Croste Ducal Family had gone missing while Callipus was at war.

‘Left alone.’

Callipus, who had ended the war, gazed at the garden that was quiet as a tomb.

And one conclusion he reached.

‘It was a pointless war.’

A long shadow fell behind him as he gazed at the garden.

The people who had cheered for him. The emperor who had praised his war achievements. The nobles who had looked at him with envious eyes.

Everything was just empty shells.

‘What I was trying to protect was my wife who was growing heavy with child.’

Sedric, the eldest, who used to hold a wooden sword saying he would help him someday.

Lucas, the second son, who knew nothing but books but had run out waving his hand to see his father off.

…Eve, the youngest daughter who was about to be born.

Though it was a war he participated in to protect the kingdom’s people, in truth, everything was for all of you.

“Haah-.”

His face looking at the empty garden contorted as if he might cry, but all he could let out was a long sigh.

Because knights waiting for orders were standing by behind him.

“…Dismissed. Everyone rest.”

“Yes!”

The cheers for the war hero disappeared after that day.

The Croste Ducal Family searched the entire Frozen Kingdom to find his wife and direct family members, but all that returned were the dark expressions of the knights.

“We’re sorry, Your Grace.”

And so on the 159th day of searching.

When the knight who had been watching his mood even before opening the door hung his head, Callipus realized.

That the knights’ expressions were gradually coming to resemble his.

‘I’ll need to wear a mask.’

From that day forward, Callipus’s daily routine began with putting on a mask as soon as he woke up.

The grief of losing his family was Callipus’s burden, not theirs.

When Callipus put on the mask, the knights who were initially confused gradually began to regard his mask as the virtue of a rational and cool-headed head of house.

He also stopped visiting the garden he used to go to every day.

“Who are you to enter the garden?”

When he occasionally tried to enter the garden.

“I’m a gardener employed by His Grace.”

He even began telling ridiculous lies while covering his face with a robe.

Because he could reveal his own grief, but not Duke Callipus’s grief.

And so the Croste Ducal Family regained its vitality.

As if nothing had happened.

As if only Callipus knew the fact that his entire family had disappeared.

Every time he fell asleep, he had to bolt upright because of his missing family’s screams.

From the shadows that followed him.

From the empty chair across from him.

From the dining room he entered alone.

Every moment he breathed, the guilt of failing to protect his family choked him.

And so time passed, and one day, Callipus no longer needed the mask.

Because he thought he should go to his family’s side.

He had never thought about how to end his life.

But he was someone who accomplished what he set his mind to.

If there was one thing he had failed to accomplish, it was protecting his family, so as an apology, he felt he should go to his family’s side as quickly as possible.

[Death Potion]

Standing in the garden for the last time, he took out a potion from his pocket. Just as he was about to open the cork stopper.

“Ex, excuse me!”

Someone had intruded into his and his family’s domain.

“Scary people are chasing me. I’m going to hide inside your robe for a moment.”

The culprit was a blonde child as small as a chestnut.

Twin pigtails rolled up in tiny bundles and sticking up like arrows.

Large eyes that looked like sapphire blue had been embedded in them.

“Phew, that’s a relief.”

Without even asking permission, she hid inside the robe, then settled in comfortably and let out a sigh of relief with complete shamelessness.

“…?”

Bewildered and forgetting to assess the situation, he looked down.

Then a small, white hand popped out from the robe, followed by a face that glared at something.

It was a maid from the Croste Household.

‘…What on earth is this,’

But he didn’t have time to wonder.

The situation was clear without asking anyone—the scary person the child mentioned was her, and the maid was looking for the child.

“Did you happen to see a young child running this way? A girl about 5 years old.”

As the maid approached, he pushed the child’s head inside his robe.

‘Probably the maid’s daughter who got caught playing pranks.’

If that was the case, it was fine. Before dying, he could gladly serve as a hiding place for the child.

However.

“That child said she knows where the Princess is.”

When he heard news of his daughter, which he had almost given up on, his senses that had been quiet as a tomb began to stir slightly.

So he sent the maid away and tried to talk with the child alone.

The little one didn’t readily reveal where the Princess was. Instead, she began smoothly listing the conditions she wanted.

“Please become my father. A father who protects me from bad people.”

She was a brazen little thing.

“What exactly is the scope of my safety?”

It was then that his face, hidden behind the mask, crumpled for the first time.

‘…Scope of safety?’

It wasn’t the typical language skills of a 5-year-old, but there was another reason his face had crumpled.

The child’s will to live was radiating from her entire body.

“…Actually, my current goal is to somehow survive and eat delicious desserts, make friends, and find a lover. How about it? You want to help, don’t you?

To think she wanted to live for such trivial reasons.

He couldn’t understand it.

Just because she wanted to eat delicious food. Because she wanted to make friends and find a lover, she wanted to live?

When she currently had no one by her side?

A street orphan with no family?

She found hope in such trivial things?

He was speechless. It was nonsensical, but he couldn’t crush the child’s dreams either.

In the end, his resolve to return to his family’s side kept getting postponed.

Partly to find his youngest daughter.

But also because the more he talked with her, the more curious he became about this child’s identity.

And.

When he happened to see the fist-sized blonde head at the laundry, Callipus inwardly let out a hollow laugh.

The laundry the child was handling was glowing blue.

That was the reaction when poison abilities were used.

Soon, seeing the writing that appeared on the fabric, he was certain. The little one was a spy sent by the Pose Duke’s Family.

‘Now I’m even being swayed by a 5-year-old. I must have gotten quite soft.’

He closed his eyes in despair.

He was angry at Pose Duke for trying to exploit the weakness of being a young child, and he laughed hollowly at his own stupidity.

He felt some resentment toward the child who had tried to deceive him, and was about to call the knights.

But then.

“Sigh- If I do this much, I should be able to survive, right? I really want to escape from the Pose Duke’s Family…”

An un-childlike sigh caught his ankle.

As if asking him to please listen to what she had to say.

The child, who had been sighing heavily, neatly folded the fabric with the writing.

It was strange.

That should have been an order document, and now that she’d confirmed it, she should hide it, but the child didn’t do that.

Instead, she was laying out the fabric so the letters were clearly visible.

As if asking someone, anyone, to see and understand.

“Who made you do the laundry?”

“…Huh?”

Callipus immediately caught on.

‘Mister, would you like to try raising a child?’

The words she’d said while following him around all day weren’t just jokes.

It was a desperate struggle.

“Sir! We, we think we’ve discovered a spy from the Pose Duke’s Family. There’s writing like this on the maid’s clothes…”

“I know.”

So it was time for an adult to help.

Callipus didn’t even look at the fabric the knight brought.

But his eyes, which had seemed dead, showed their true color for the first time in a long while, rippling with vivid crimson.

“Bring the maid named Dorothy to the study immediately.”

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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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