Let’s Make Saving a Habit - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 8
“Cough! W-what are you?!”
Ron flailed like a fish freshly pulled from water, struggling to sit up.
It seemed he’d finally decided to engage with me. I smiled brightly and answered his question.
“Yes. I’m Tania.”
Ron thrashed about on the sofa, trying to escape.
Like a wary alley cat maintaining distance, he exclaimed in a frenzy of agitation.
“That’s not what I was asking about!”
I tilted my head slightly and answered as calmly as before.
“Then what were you asking?”
“Why you sat on me!”
“Oh, that. Since you were being rude on our first meeting, I thought we should be comfortable with each other.”
Ron then ruffled his hair frantically as if bewildered.
“Good heavens, Father brought home a lunatic?”
“Haha, the way you get all huffy and angry with that rough mouth of yours is adorable.”
He seemed to have been raised with abundant affection from the Merchant Leader.
Spoiled rotten, in other words.
“Who’s calling whom adorable? You’re at least a head shorter than me!”
Ron glared at me with a flushed face, huffing indignantly.
Ah. So he’s weak to compliments?
Seeing his cute reaction, my lips curved upward involuntarily.
He’s just a child after all.
Unable to hold back any longer, I let my laughter spill out without restraint.
“Pfahahaha, so what do you want if not to be called adorable?”
“That’s enough—get away from me!”
His response was predictably harsh, but I maintained my smile and tilted my head.
“But I like you, Ron, so I want to stay by your side.”
“W-what…?”
It seemed he’d rarely heard such an expression of affection from someone his own age, for his face showed genuine bewilderment.
With that personality, it made sense that any girls who’d liked him before had left in tears.
I narrowed my eyes into crescents and replied.
“Well, of course. You’re very adorable.”
“Ugh! I told you not to say I’m adorable!”
“Even your sulking is adorable.”
“You really…!”
Seeing how much Ron seemed to dislike it, I thought of offering a different compliment.
“Hmm. If you don’t like adorable, how about pretty?”
“I’m not talking to you!”
Having lost his temper, Ron ultimately fled.
I rose from the sofa, ready to follow after him.
“Come on, play with me a little.”
As I engaged with Ron at a leisurely pace, the staff members who had been watching us the entire time whispered in amazement.
“Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a child smile so brightly while dealing with Ron.”
“I’ve never seen that foul-tempered bastard get pushed around like this either.”
Just then, as if their conversation had concluded, the Merchant Leader and Aiden descended the second-floor staircase one after the other.
Before both of them had even finished coming down, I scurried toward the stairs and asked.
“So, have you reached a conclusion?”
The Merchant Leader opened his lips with an expression of displeasure.
“I checked the mercenary badge he carries, and he belongs to the Golden Silver Mercenary Company.”
The Golden Silver Mercenary Company.
This was the organization where the legendary Mercenary King of old had belonged, a place where only those with proven abilities could enter.
With an exceptionally high success rate on commissions and, unlike other mercenaries who frequently caused trouble, they had never caused any problems, earning them high trustworthiness as well.
I smiled brightly.
“See? They’re trustworthy, aren’t they? I have an impeccable eye for judging people, you know.”
At that, the Merchant Leader gently pushed my forehead back with his index finger and spoke firmly.
“Still, your action of recklessly entrusting yourself to a stranger’s home was wrong.”
“Yes, yes, I was wrong.”
I raised both hands in a posture of reflection, and he let out a small sigh.
“It seems you have your own thoughts on this, so I won’t stop you. However, if you ever see a bad future through your foresight ability, come here anytime.”
“Um, if you speak so loudly like that, Aiden will hear everything.”
“Let him hear it.”
I glanced at Aiden, and his expression didn’t seem displeased. Rather, he appeared to think it was only natural.
“By the way, Tania.”
“Yes, Merchant Leader.”
“Everything’s fine, but why is he like that?”
At the end of his gaze sat Ron on the sofa, his body curled up like a cat, glaring at me.
I shrugged lightly and answered.
“He said he hates cute things, so I called him Pretty, and now he’s like that.”

✦ ✦ ✦
That night.
I lay in bed for a moment before stirring awake, struggling to sit up.
“Yesterday I was so exhausted that I didn’t have time to think about anything else before taking the Old Gentleman’s bed….”
Now that I thought about it, if I slept in the only bed in this place, where on earth had he slept?
As expected.
When I carefully opened the door and stepped out, I found Aiden sleeping while leaning against a chair.
Right. This house didn’t even have a sofa.
So had he really spent last night sleeping in such an uncomfortable chair?
I exhaled a small sigh, clutched a pillow to my chest, and pouted like a sleepless child.
“Aiden.”
When I called out to him in a small voice, he slowly lifted his eyelids as if he’d been awake all along.
“…What is it?”
“I’m scared of sleeping alone.”
“Yet you slept just fine by yourself yesterday.”
He’d struck a nerve.
But I still had a trump card to appeal to his emotions.
I drew circles on the floor with my toes and spoke dejectedly.
“…What if I said I was jealous of children who sleep with their parents?”
As expected, Aiden’s expression immediately twisted.
He’d already suspected that the absence of parents weighed heavily on me, but hearing it directly from the child’s lips was something else entirely.
An indescribable guilt spread rapidly through Aiden’s spine and consumed his entire body.
He forcibly suppressed the emotions threatening to burst forth like a breaking dam and spoke in a low voice.
“…I’ll stay with you.”
As Aiden rose from his seat, I broke into a bright smile and eagerly entered the room.
Then I went to the foot of the bed and patted the empty space beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Over here!”
Aiden, who had brought the wooden chair he’d been sitting on, raised his eyebrows as he looked at the vacant side of the bed.
“I said I’d stay beside you, not that I’d lie down in the bed with you.”
But I paid no attention to his words and gazed at him with sparkling eyes.
I already knew that getting him into the room was half the battle.
“No matter how much you look at me with those bright, clever eyes….”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not going to——.”
“Hmmmm?”
It was going to happen.
Aiden squeezed his eyes shut.
Looking at him with such a cute face was utterly cunning. How could he possibly refuse when she looked at him like that?
In the end, it was he who raised the white flag first, just as Tania had anticipated.
“…Fine.”
Aiden slowly positioned himself at the far edge of the bed, desperate to maintain distance between us.
Tania gazed at him intently, her lips curving into an amused smile.
“Hehe.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Just… everything.”
The man who had died was breathing before my eyes, alive and present.
Our first meeting differed from the previous timeline, yet his demeanor toward me remained unchanged.
I felt a relief so profound it was almost overwhelming.
Meanwhile, Aiden found it increasingly difficult to watch Tania, who appeared genuinely happy, and closed his eyes.
“Stop with the sentimental talk and go to sleep.”
“Yes. Sleep well, Old Gentleman!”
“…All right.”
The sight of a child finding such happiness merely from lying beside her guardian on a bed was unbearably painful.
With every moment spent alongside Tania, he became a man drowning in guilt.
How much time had passed since he closed his eyes?
Believing Aiden had fallen asleep by his steady breathing, Tania quietly parted her lips.
“Old Gentleman, you know…”
“…”
“The more you try to forget painful memories, the more they resurface. So instead of forcing yourself to forget, it’s better to create many good memories to bury them beneath.”
Just as my past self had managed to escape those terrible nightmares.
“So… I’ll become that kind of presence for you.”
Someone you can laugh about like a failed first love.
With those words, Tania seemed to have poured out everything she wished to say, and without hesitation, she surrendered to sleep.
Noticing the child’s breathing had become even and steady, Aiden clutched at his chest as it constricted with anguish.
From the moment I first held you as a newborn, you were my everything.
You need not strive to become that—you already are, and always have been.
I simply thank the heavens that you are alive.
I wanted to tell you this countless times while holding you close enough to crush you.
Yet I could not bring myself to act on it, and instead I gazed down at Tania’s small, round forehead, my teeth clenched.
Tania.
How can I possibly protect you?

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