The Golden-Handed Baby Fixes Everything! - Chapter 2

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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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Episode 2
Chapter 1
“Sis, I’m going to check the other room for a sec.”
“Mm. Come back soon, Sis.”
“If you start feeling sick, you have to call me, okay?”
“Don’t worry. Melloni’s all better now.”
I thumped my chest and answered, and Sis smiled brightly and stepped out of the room.
Left alone, I rubbed my runny nose hard and looked around.
‘It really is Brambshua…’
My hometown.
My tiny paradise.
This was the one place where I’d been truly happy in a life that had never been easy.
‘That’s kind of funny.’
That an illegal prison could be my hometown and my paradise.
In truth, Brambshua was a prison, and yet it wasn’t one.
It was where the wealthy locked away anyone who got in their way, after pinning a false charge on them.
Every now and then, they’d slip in a real criminal to throw off suspicion, but most of the people here were wronged and good-hearted.
Maybe that’s why they stuck together so well.
Everyone was kind and warm.
Even to me, who had been in here since I was a newborn with no one knowing whose child I was, they were incredibly good.
So of course this place was my paradise.
‘…I’m so glad I came back to Brambshua.’
What if I’d regressed to the days when I was living in the orphanage….
Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.
‘Still, how did I regress, anyway?’
Three days had already passed since I’d regressed.
I’d racked my brain over it all this time, but I hadn’t come up with a single clue.
I never imagined regression was possible to begin with.
The only thing that seems likely is the man who saved me….
Could he have had this kind of power, and been held captive like I was, as some sort of experiment…?
‘No. That isn’t certain either.’
How common is it for people to have mutant powers like mine?
‘Besides, I don’t even know who that man was, or why he tried to save me.’
After thinking it over for a moment, I decided to stop.
‘Let’s stop thinking about this now.’
What does it matter how I regressed?
What matters now is that I’ve been given a chance!
A chance to escape a meaningless death.
A chance to live a long, quiet life.
‘So this time, I’m going to survive no matter what.’
I clenched my two fists, each as small as a chestnut, and made a vow.
‘First, let’s make a life plan!’
I pulled out a bundle of faded paper.
There were no toys in Brambshua, since I was the only child there.
Not that I could expect much from a prison anyway.
Still, the kind older sisters and brothers had gathered old scraps of paper and bound them together for me.
In other words, it was a makeshift sketchbook.
I stared blankly at the sketchbook, then quietly pinched my thigh.
‘Ow.’
Thank goodness, it’s still not a dream.
Once I’d finished that little ritual, I focused on planning again.
‘If I write the plan out in words, it’ll look strange, so I’ll draw it instead.’
Hmm, I really am thorough.
A meticulous four-year-old. Stylish Melloni!
I started scribbling a picture with my one and only crayon.
The first thing I drew was a small child.
‘I’m four years old now, and Brambshua closed when I was four, so….’
Soon, Brambshua will shut its doors.
Because the Panteibe Ducal Family is going to uncover the secrets of this place.
That Brambshua was a prison that held innocent people.
‘Phew. My goal for this life is simple.’
Live a long, quiet, ordinary life, and just survive.
I’m on my second life, after all, and I didn’t want to live it the way I did last time.
‘And to do that, the most important things are…’
First. Hide my Power.
Second. Don’t let the orphanage director take my compensation money.
My eyes fluttered nervously as I scanned my surroundings.
‘Hey, no one’s here, right?’
And then, after a moment.
I channeled a faint bit of energy, and a bluish glow shimmered around my hand as a sigil surfaced.
“Gah.”
I quickly pulled the energy back in and looked around again. Thankfully, no one was watching.
Phew.
I let out a sigh of relief and rubbed the back of my hand, troubled.
‘Yeah, I really can use the Power.’
I’d checked every time I was alone these past few days, and the result was always the same.
‘Why can I already use the Power?’
Before the regression, I could only use it after turning eighteen…
‘Whatever the reason, I have to hide the Power no matter what.’
I have to conceal it so thoroughly that it’s as if it never existed. I refuse to get trapped by this cursed Power ever again.
‘But what about the orphanage?’
Sure, I can just not use the Power, but the orphanage…
‘If I end up in the same place, they’ll definitely take my money again.’
Ugh.
I drew a monstrous-looking director in my sketchbook, then slashed angry X marks across it.
In the past, after Brambshua shut its doors.
All the older kids I’d lived with got their compensation money and were given separate housing.
That was possible only because Panteibe, the wealthiest house in the Empire, handled Brambshua’s aftermath.
But since I was a young child with no guardian, I was sent to a Temple-affiliated orphanage with a hefty compensation sum in hand, and then…
‘Mistreated, starved, beaten.’
On top of that, the director and the staff took all of my compensation money. They must have gambled it away.
Do the priests really let them get away with that?
That was when it started.
When I began to distrust the Temple.
‘Hmph. My money, as precious as my own blood…’
I slashed the X marks even more furiously.
Then, my strength drained away, and I stopped and pouted.
‘…I want to go to a different orphanage.’
A decent place.
A place that won’t steal my compensation money.
Three meals a day, or even just two would be fine, and a place where we share a blanket between two people instead of three.
‘But that’s probably impossible…?’
Who am I to pick an orphanage, anyway?
Sniff.
Somehow it felt like I might cry, so I just sniffled with a dry nose.
“Okay. Steady your heart, Melloni!”
Smack, smack.
I slapped my chubby cheeks to pull myself together.
There’s got to be some way out.
They say that even if you go into a dragon’s den, you’ll survive as long as you keep your wits about you.
Let’s make this second life count!
…Ugh.
‘Though I think I hit myself too hard.’
Next time, I’ll go easy on myself.
And then, a few days later.
I found a solution to the orphanage problem sooner than I expected.
It was thanks to someone I’d almost forgotten about showing up.
* * *
An ordinary, unremarkable lunchtime, just like any other.
Dong, dong, dong, dong-!
A loud clanging of bells rang out.
“Eh?”
I had been shoveling food with great enthusiasm, but at that, I blinked and turned toward the direction the sound had come from.
What on earth was that?
Unlike me, though, the others around the table looked completely unbothered.
“Looks like we’ve got a newcomer.”
“Mm. I wonder what kind of person it’ll be this time.”
Jeanne and Ricky, seated on either side of me, clicked their tongues and muttered under their breath.
‘A newcomer?’
Ah, right.
Every time someone new arrived at Brambshua, they rang that bell.
‘But the timing’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’
Brambshua was going to shut its doors soon.
Had newcomers come around this time, too?
I scrunched up my face and wracked my brain, trying to follow the thread.
Digging up the past was never easy.
‘A newcomer, a newcomer…’
Ah.
Fortune favors those who try, they say.
In the end, I managed to recall the newcomer.
‘That’s right. A newcomer arrived just before Brambshua closed its doors.’
And that person was, without a doubt…
While I stared blankly into space, the guard appeared.
“Hey, newbie! Come out and introduce yourself.”
At the guard’s lazy drawl, a man stepped out behind him.
At the same time.
“Haah.”
“Hup.”
“Hhaaah.”
Here and there, gasps rippled through the room.
The reason was simple.
“…He’s gorgeous.”
Exactly.
The man was the owner of a face so stunning it took your breath away.

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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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