Mad Rosetta - Chapter 22

—————

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

—————

Rosetta Gone Mad

Episode 22

Even Seedlings Require Careful Watering (5)

Marmint startled, her head snapping up.

Her face, seen up close, appeared far too young—young enough to leave an unsettling impression.

‘…So the old man really had lost his mind. Swindling someone this young?’

The moment the thought crossed my mind, the child’s eyes filled with suspicion as she regarded me.

Since this little one was practically my savior, I spoke to her again with renewed gentleness.

“I startled you with my sudden greeting, didn’t I?”

It was the best I could manage—neither raised around children nor someone who had taken a particular interest in learning how to get along with them, unlike a certain princess.

“I was an acquaintance of the late Dr. Drabe Beaumont. My name is Rosetta Coco.”

“…Ah, I see.”

…This insolent little brat.

Did she notice the tendon bulging sharply at my temple?

Penny anxiously suggested we move to a different location.

Sing laughed, saying the child was the opponent and that fighting would be pointless.

I endured once more, exhaled a few deep breaths, then narrowed my eyes and forced a foolish smile.

“May I ask what you’re doing here instead of attending the ceremony? Today is the last day to bid the Doctor farewell.”

“What business is it of yours? Go on your way.”

“…”

I’ve endured enough, haven’t I? That’s right?

I’m a pitiful patient whose patience might run out at any moment because of the poison, aren’t I?

I realized that Marmint’s sharp retorts wouldn’t be swayed by me playing meek and gentle.

I straightened my posture, which I had lowered to match the child’s eye level, and cast my gaze downward.

“You’re the one who researched Panilnia Flower.”

Marmint’s eyes widened in surprise.

Simultaneously, she showed even greater wariness than before, but I had no intention of backing down.

“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Rosetta Coco of the Benitra Ducal House. I’ve come seeking to conduct business with you, Marmint.”

“….”

“I would prefer if we could speak somewhere more private.”

【Somewhere quiet, darling….】

Either way, it amounted to the same thing.

As I urged her with an entirely different expression and tone than before, unfiltered confusion clouded Marmint’s eyes.

A child was still a child, after all.

I examined Marmint carefully, noting how gaunt she appeared compared to other children her age, and released a quiet sigh.

“It seems filling your belly would be wise. Do you know of a nearby Dining Hall?”

Unwilling to lower her guard, the child pointed out the shabby Dining Hall closest to the Monastery, and I readily agreed.

Having once rolled in the dirt while vomiting bile and spent time in a dusty, cramped room, I felt no particular revulsion.

Fortunately, the most secluded table in the Dining Hall was arranged as a curtained room.

After instructing Penny to keep watch outside for a more candid conversation, I stood before the menu display with the child.

A gulp sounded from Marmint’s throat.

“I’m not familiar with this place, so pick whatever you’d like to eat.”

“….”

“Proprietor! Bring us all of your most popular dishes!”

Why did she keep her lips sealed so tightly?

Even after we sat down, even as the menu items filled the table one by one, Marmint refused to open her mouth.

Once all the food arrived, she stared down at it as though suspecting I’d poisoned it, so I had to speak with exasperation.

“You said you had a request for me. If you don’t want to eat, then don’t.”

“…I, I don’t have any money.”

“Ha! Didn’t you see me pay the bill just now?”

I never imagined I’d come across as the type to ask a child, “How about we split the cost?”

I was even beginning to feel ashamed.

‘…So the moment has come when I have to explain my financial situation.’

I found myself regretting that I hadn’t read a few books beforehand—something like 【Want to Raise Your Intimacy with Children? Open This Book!】—if I’d known it would come to this.

Marmint, who had been reading the atmosphere to some degree, mercifully picked up her fork.

The child, who had been bristling like a wary cat just moments before, touched the food to her lips a few times, then began ruthlessly emptying her plate.

The sight of her made it clear to anyone what kind of circumstances the child was living in—as though she were someone who’d gone days without food during wartime.

“Hey, no one’s going to steal it from you. Eat slowly.”

I even pushed my own water glass toward her.

When her bowl emptied quickly and she licked her lips, I asked if she wanted more, but she declined and instead gulped down the water in a way that seemed almost innocent.

A child was a child, after all.

* * *

“Now that we’ve finished eating, I thought we might have a conversation.”

Marmint observed Rosetta sitting with perfect posture before her.

At first glance, one could tell she was the child of a noble household.

Her hands were smooth as silk, unmarred by a single blister, and the delicate fragrance that emanated from her carefully brushed hair spoke volumes.

Most of all, her strikingly beautiful appearance and the evident wealth displayed in her dress—clearly tailored to perfection for her alone—grated on Marmint’s nerves.

‘How infuriating.’

Anyone could easily imagine the life that followed after an infant, barely weaned, was abandoned at the gates of the Orphanage.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately.

The Orphanage, situated at the edge of the Capital City, was surrounded entirely by mountains.

Since daily life at the Orphanage was tedious and monotonous, I spent my time playing with all manner of plants.

The Orphanage Director noticed this, and that was the beginning.

Not only did she bring me various botanical encyclopedias—the Director even borrowed difficult academic texts through the public library to nurture my interests.

– “Goodness, Marmint! This is an extraordinary discovery. You’re surely a genius.”

When a four-year-old child at the Orphanage suffered from a skin rash.

I prepared a mixture of plants and soothed the condition. The Director praised me without reservation.

Thus, the Director went straight to the Arcanis Academy in the Capital City and introduced me to Dr. Dravu Beaumont.

How many times had I been refused a single meeting?

Even the stubborn old man, after witnessing firsthand the efficacy of my plant mixture, had a change of heart.

“It is highly likely that people will distrust a treatment method that the child happened to discover by chance.”

Though the Grandfather speaking was admittedly rather tactless.

Doctor Beaumont had no doubt that this was an excellent treatment for the colorful rash, but he persuaded me that if it became known the method was devised by a child, many would hesitate to use it.

He expressed his intention to file a patent under his own name while adopting Marmint as his granddaughter.

At the Doctor’s suggestion that such talent should not be wasted, the Orphanage Director ceded the decision to Marmint.

The child bounced with joy at the prospect of having both her beloved studies and a family.

“How dare you look down on my son just because you’re a bit clever!”

Her new family proved far bleaker than imagined, and the discrimination between her and his biological children was severe.

“I told you to develop medicinal materials that the nobility would take notice of—when did I ask you to find something for commoners to use!”

The Grandfather who had been so benevolent at the time of adoption gradually transformed into a demanding old man, starving her when results were lacking and constantly pressing her for more.

Yet despite it all, Marmint endured, unwilling to feel abandoned again.

The joy of studying had long since faded, replaced by hunger and sleepless nights that drained all pleasure from it.

As Marmint’s light dimmed, Dr. Beaumont’s grew ever brighter.

Recently, with his face beaming, he asked me to investigate whether there might be any problems arising from the Panilnia Flower.

“If you discover issues in its composition, try developing a treatment for it as well. You can do it, can’t you, Marmint?”

He promised to send funding to the Orphanage if this task succeeded.

The Panilnia Flower was cultivated in very limited places and was not commonly used as a medicinal material, making it extraordinarily difficult to obtain.

With the Doctor’s investment, I barely managed to procure it, and after grinding, crushing, and steeping it, I completed my analysis.

I had determined that it possessed a toxin that induced violent tendencies.

“The sorrow of those left behind cannot be restrained… for the departed one who has gone…”

The Doctor had passed away.

They said he hanged himself. How peculiar.

Just until he left the Research Lab, he was patting my head with joy at how swiftly the research was progressing.

A little longer, and he could have provided funding to the Orphanage Director. Grandfather would have ascended the podium once more, satisfied with being called a genius of the ages.

– “Damn it, Grandfather! *Sob, sob*… You’re leaving me alone. *Sniff*… How could you just go like this…?”

Marmint, consumed by anxiety, wept like a child.

The family members squabbling over Dr. Beaumont’s sudden inheritance, their eyes endlessly measuring her as if searching for further use—it was all horrifying.

They watched her carefully, fearful that some foolish child might expose secrets and ruin the reputation the Doctor had built over all these years.

She no longer wished to be used by anyone, nor to place her life’s thread in another’s hands.

“She ate like someone who hadn’t eaten in three days. But that’s not what matters.”

Thus, Marmint found Rosetta before her deeply unsettling.

She despised that rigid, upright head of hers—one that had never bowed, never needed to.

Most who possessed what Marmint could never have made her deeply uncomfortable.

The Princess before her would surely be no exception.

—————

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

—————