The Golden-Handed Baby Fixes Everything! - Chapter 4

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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 4
Stuck in the hole, my body wouldn’t budge.
Why is this happening?
It went through just a moment ago…
‘Could it be because my legs went in first?’
Belatedly, I wriggled and squirmed, trying to pull free, but my body didn’t move an inch.
‘What do I do now?’
It hurts, and I’m scared.
Of all places, my head was poking out into a pitch-black hallway, which only doubled my fear.
‘No, wait. Having my rear end sticking out would’ve been even scarier.’
After all, what you can’t see is always scarier.
Sniff.
I sniffled through the tears welling up in my eyes and agonized over my options.
‘Should I wake Ricky?’
If I wake him like this, he’ll tease me until the day we get out of prison…
But there’s no helping it.
Surviving comes first, doesn’t it?
Just as I was about to open my mouth,
Tap.
Footsteps echoed through the empty hallway.
I glanced sideways toward the sound, but all I could see was pitch-black darkness.
No way…
Ha-ha. It can’t be. Monsters or whatever, that’s not a real thing…
‘I’m scared. I’m really scared!’
What do I do, what do I do.
Even if I wanted to wake Ricky now, I was too frightened to make a sound.
Sniff, sniff.
Tears and snot running down my face, I squeezed my eyes shut tight. All the while, the footsteps kept getting closer.
Then, the moment the steps abruptly stopped,
“…What’s this?”
“Hyaaaack!”
At the voice that suddenly came from right above my head, I swallowed my scream, breath caught in my throat.
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
Exactly three seconds later, I flailed like an overturned beetle and begged.
“Pleathe thave me! I’m not tathty…!”
Sob, sob. Save me, Melloni!
* * *
After a while.
I pressed my lips together tightly.
‘I’m so embarrassed I could die.’
I didn’t have the nerve to look at the face of the person standing in front of me.
“Thankth for helping me ouwt…”
What good impression? Ha!
All I left behind was a ridiculous impression.
“Ahem, right. It certainly doesn’t taste good… pff. Looks like it, anyway.”
Opening my eyes to the amused voice, I saw Oliver’s face.
Huh. Huh-huh?
Dazed, I just blinked at him, and then he plucked me out with a pop.
My body, which hadn’t budged at all, slipped out annoyingly easily.
He pulled me out like a radish, set me upright, then covered his mouth with his hand and turned his head away.
‘Excuse me. Your eyes are smiling.’
Your eyes are smiling way too much…!
I stood there miserably, waiting for Oliver’s laughter to die down.
“Ahem. Sorry. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I bet you haven’t.
I’ve never seen anything like it either, you know.
“By the way, do you live here too?”
“Yeth, that’th right. I’m Melloni. Bramthua, fwour yearth in.”
Sullenly, I nodded, then held up four fingers.
My pronunciation is bad, so he might not understand me.
‘Hm? But your expression…’
Did his face stiffen a little just now? Or is that only my imagination?
“Right. Four years old, then.”
Muttering quietly, he added something else.
“Strange. On the surface, she looks barely three.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing. So did you come in with your parents? Is that man in that room your father?”
He jerked his thumb toward Ricky’s room.
“Nuh-uh. I don’t have parents.”
“You don’t?”
“Yeah. I was abandoned, so…”
Once the words left my mouth, I felt a little gloomy.
Just a little. Only a tiny bit.
“…Maybe my parents hated me sooo much. They locked me up the moment I was born, ’cause I couldn’t go anywhere….”
Oops. What on earth am I saying?
I lifted my head and flashed a grin. I can’t go making the mood pointlessly gloomy.
‘Besides, I really don’t mind at all.’
When I was little, there were times I missed my parents.
Funny, isn’t it?
Missing people I’ve never even met.
But now I feel nothing. The longing and the resentment have faded little by little, and I don’t feel anything at all.
Even the sudden wave of self-pity that sometimes rises up goes away after I rub my nose a few times.
That’s enough.
When it comes to living and surviving, resenting or longing for parents who don’t even exist does nothing for you.
I smiled again and puffed out my chest.
“Anyway, I’m Melloni Bramshua, your senior! If there’s anything you don’t know, just ask! And if you can’t sleep, I’ll even sing you a lullaby….”
“That’s enough. Go to bed.”
“Yeah.”
He’s got a surprisingly firm side.
‘I should back off for today.’
It wouldn’t be good to cling on from the very first day. And more than anything, I was sleepy.
A child’s body needs to sleep longer than an adult’s, you know.
Yaaawn.
I let out a small yawn and gave a quick bow.
“Night night, sleep well. See you tomorrow, Oliver.”
“Mister…?”
Without waiting to hear his dazed mumble, I wobbled off toward my room.
Oof. Better hurry up and sleep.
Tomorrow will bring its own sunrise, after all.
* * *
After the child had gone into her room.
The man, who had likewise returned to his own room, clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.
“Pfft.”
Still, he couldn’t hold back all the laughter leaking through his fingers.
“Hahaha.”
A short burst of laughter rumbled in his throat.
In his mind floated the image of a child with snow-white hair, fluffy as cotton candy.
‘What kind of kid is that?’
He had no idea how baffled he’d been when he spotted her head poking out from the room.
“Please spare me! I’m not tasty…!”
And then there was her begging, insisting that she tasted bad.
‘Skinny as a rail. Even a monster wouldn’t bother eating her, I’d guess.’
As her spindly arms and hollow cheeks came to mind, the smile vanished from Oliver’s face.
Without the smile, his face turned utterly cold.
For a moment, it even looked ruthless.
‘Four years old, abandoned the moment she was born. An orphan.’
The child had calmly stated that she’d been abandoned.
Her voice had wavered, but she hadn’t cried the way she had when she begged him not to eat her.
It was a strange thing.
Don’t children usually cry when they talk about things like that?
“…A peculiar little brat.”
Come to think of it, she’d been strange from the very start.
Just think about how she’d smiled brightly when our eyes met in the dining hall.
‘That can’t be right.’
No matter how much I wore a smile, most children burst into tears the moment they met my gaze.
Prey and predator.
A gap in strength so vast it was no contest.
The instinctive fear that came with it was to blame.
Some grown adults trembled on their feet, after all.
But the child laughed.
Far from crying or looking away, she grinned at me, a cheeky little smile.
It was a first, and it was refreshing, quite refreshing-
‘…No, wait. Come to think of it, it isn’t really the first time.’
The smile slid off the man’s face.
His dark, settled eyes groped through old memories.
‘There was someone before, too.’
Someone who, the moment our eyes first met, had given me a bright, guileless smile.
“…Ha.”
He let out a light, empty laugh and rubbed his dry hand down his face.
When his face came back into view, it had the same composure it always wore.
“Speaking of which, now I’m curious what her parents look like.”
That peculiar little brat’s parents, I mean.
I suddenly want to see what kind of faces they have, whatever sort of people they are.
Shall I look into it?
‘Well, I’ll think about that later.’
Crack.
Oliver rolled his stiff neck lightly and reached toward the wall.
“For now, let’s take care of something else.”
Behind the murmur he’d let slip with a smile, a single line sliced across the wall.
The line gradually widened into a hole.
Oliver thrust his arm inside it.
And then.
“Gah?!”
He dragged someone out from within.
Thud-crash.
The person tumbled across the floor with a racket.
The one who came rolling out was Ricky.
‘What is this? What’s going on!’
Just woken from sleep, Ricky frantically looked around at the sudden calamity.
Then he spotted Oliver standing before him and froze in alarm.
“Oops. I threw you rather politely, though.”
Politeness went out the window the moment you were thrown, didn’t it?
But instead of saying so, Ricky shut his mouth.
It wasn’t a man you could dare to say such things to.
Oliver approached Ricky, wearing a languid smile.
Each time he drew closer, Ricky’s shoulders kept jerking and trembling.
Over and over he silently pleaded for him not to come any closer-
“You, you know me, right?”
At last, a long hand settled on the shoulder that quivered and shook.

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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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