The Golden-Handed Baby Fixes Everything! - Chapter 9

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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 9
Not long after lunchtime that day.
“I’m going to check on Jeanne unnie for a moment.”
“Mm.”
Left alone, I pulled out my sketchbook and started doodling.
‘Let’s not get gloomy for no reason. I’ll just draw.’
I was completely absorbed in my drawing when it happened.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
A furious voice rang out, echoing through the hallway.
My eyes went wide, and I turned toward the direction of the sound.
‘That voice…?’
* * *
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
I dashed over and arrived in front of Ricky’s room.
A crowd had gathered outside his door.
“Oh no.”
“What on earth happened?”
Judging by the expressions on the people murmuring one after another, something had gone seriously wrong.
‘What could possibly have happened…?’
But no matter how hard I stood on tiptoe, I couldn’t see a thing.
Oh, this stubby little body of four years old, so sad.
Hmpf.
‘Well, there’s no choice!’
I squeezed my face right between the people’s legs.
“Ex-excuse me. Melloni coming through.”
I was told that if your head gets through, the rest of you follows!
Thankfully, the theory turned out to be true.
Wriggling my way between the legs, before I knew it, I had made it all the way to the front.
And there, the scene that met my eyes was…
“When did you steal it? I hid it where no one could find it.”
“Steal? I just picked it up, I’m telling you.”
Dominic was smirking with a sneer, and Ricky’s face was twisted with rage.
‘Steal? Dominic stole Ricky’s things?’
Looking closer, I saw a small glass bottle in Dominic’s hand.
Ricky, his face fierce, shouted roughly.
“Do you really expect me to believe that?! I wrapped it up tight in a handkerchief and put it behind the bookshelf. How in the world could you have picked it up?!”
“Let me think. Was it in the bathroom? I don’t quite remember.”
“…Cut the games and hand it over. That thing means a lot to me.”
“Oh, does it? So this thing matters that much to you.”
The moment I thought the way he murmured sounded somehow ominous.
Crash!
“No, no-!”
It happened in an instant.
Dominic flung the bottle, and the glass shattered into pieces on the floor.
And then.
“Oops, my bad. An accident.”
Dominic’s foot stomped down on something that had slipped out from the broken bottle, grinding it into the floor.
“Oh, sorry about that, huh?”
With a mocking remark, he lifted his foot, and beneath it lay something crushed beyond recognition.
“No. This can’t be happening….”
Ricky muttered in utter shock, then dropped heavily to the floor.
“Lina’s medicine….”
Thud, thud, thud.
My heart began to pound fast.
‘Lina’s medicine?’
Now that I thought about it.
“I don’t mind being locked up in here for the rest of my life. It’s just that I worry about my little sister outside. I wish I could have at least gotten her medicine to her. But I was dragged in here on the very day I finally got it….”
That was what he often used to say.
‘So that was the medicine.’
Lina’s medicine, the one he never managed to deliver.
I clenched both fists and glared at Dominic.
‘How could he do something like this…’
In a cramped place like this, there was no way Dominic hadn’t heard my brother’s words.
So he knew everything and still did this anyway.
Rage made my whole body tremble.
“How, how could you…”
How could a person do that!
Just pick on me like you always do.
Just smack my head a few times and be done with it.
“…I won’t forgive you. You wicked, wicked devil! I’ll never forgive you!”
I shrieked with all my might and bolted forward.
Then I sank my teeth into Dominic’s leg as hard as I could.
“Wh-what the, ow!”
“Ung-mm, nee-eh! (I won’t forgive you!)”
The ultimate finishing move a four-year-old can manage.
Known far and wide as the Calf Bite Attack!
‘What if all my baby teeth fall out from this?’
Ah, forget it. Baby teeth, be gone.
I gave up my baby teeth and chose justice.
“This crazy little brat… ow!”
Dominic let out a yelp and seized the scruff of my neck roughly, but I wasn’t about to let go easily.
Don’t underestimate Melloni, who’s willing to go all in!
But I couldn’t hold out against an adult’s strength to the very end.
“Get off me, already!”
Dominic’s hand violently flung me away.
‘Ouch, my bottom’s going to split in two!’
Ah, wait, weren’t bottoms already in two pieces to begin with?
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the pain that was about to come.
But.
‘Huh…?’
No pain came.
Someone had swiftly snatched me up as I fell.
The big hand supporting my back felt strangely familiar.
“You really do go flying everywhere, Marshmallow.”
The voice from above was familiar too.
Somehow my nose began to sting. A hot sensation welled up behind my eyes.
Sniff, sniff-sniff.
No matter how hard I sniffled, there was no stopping the tears that kept rising.
For some reason, I suddenly remembered a little child I’d seen while I was begging.
A kid who had fallen while running at full speed.
The child bravely got back to its feet, but the moment its parents came near, it burst out crying, “Waaah!”
I wonder why that child is coming to mind now.
Tears streaming down my face, I turned around.
“…Oh, hng. Oliver, Ajeossi.”
“Marshmallow’s gone all soggy. You’re nothing but a grimy little Marshmallow.”
The blue eyes meeting mine curved narrowly. His voice, brimming with amusement, was just as it always was.
I bawled and buried my head against the man’s chest.
And then.
“Ch-choo good Ajeossi scold bad Ajeossi, sniff, scold him. Scold him instead of Melloni!”
I eagerly tattled on Dominic.
Investigator! That guy is the bad guy!
* * *
Conti was dumbfounded.
With the disposal procedures for Brambshua finished, he had just returned from the Duke’s Residence to wrap up everything.
He’d only been gone a few days, and yet this kind of commotion had broken out.
A chilling gaze, disguised as a smile, swept over the surroundings.
There was no need to figure out the situation in detail.
“My, my. So you ignored my warning.”
Beneath that brightly smiling face, Dominic’s complexion drained to a ghastly white.
“I clearly told you to keep your mouth shut and live quietly, didn’t I?”
Muttering darkly, Conti patted the back of the child in his arms and moved on.
Sniff, sniff.
Each time the sniffling reached his ears, the neat, painted smile cracked a little.
“…”
“…”
The strong, oppressive aura that hung in the air kept anyone from daring to speak.
Thud, thud.
“I hate things that won’t learn. They’re irritating and a pain to deal with.”
“P-please, I was wrong. From now on I’ll keep quiet and behave myself. I mean it, I really do!”
At the sight of Conti coming toward him, Dominic dropped to the ground with a plop and began to beg.
It was not the same ferocity he had shown last time, yet every instinct was screaming at him to obey.
This was someone you must not touch.
The killing intent pressing down on him was so thick he could barely draw breath.
Conti’s footsteps stopped right in front of Dominic.
“S-spare me. Please, please spare me.”
“Anyone would think I was about to kill you.”
Conti shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“How unfair. I’m a pacifist, you know. I try my best not to take lives without a reason.”
Ah, does what I just did count as having a reason?
He murmured it as though joking, then kicked Dominic under the chin with the toe of his shoe.
Ugh.
Dominic flew back, slammed into the wall, and dropped limply to the floor.
His unconscious body twitched violently, then went slack.
“Ha, now it’s finally quiet.”
His voice, as he said it, sounded wonderfully refreshed.
By then the sniffling from her chest had stopped.
The child lifted her head from the damp patch on Conti’s shirt.
Three small, round marks stained the shirt where her face had been pressed.
Two for the eyes, and one for the nose, is that it?
‘Honestly…’
The corner of Conti’s lips twitched uncontrollably.
“You’re just like a grubby little Marshmallow.”
“…Grubby?”
“Yes, grubby.”
With a playful reply, Conti’s shoe struck the unconscious Dominic once more.
Crack.
At the brutal sound, the child’s eyes went wide as he looked down.
“Don’t look at that. It’s dangerous.”
Conti blocked the child’s view before his gaze could land, but—
the child glanced back and forth between Dominic’s sprawled limbs and Conti, then quietly nodded.
“Dangerous, no like.”
“Right. Good boy.”
As he ruffled the child’s hair lightly, the child’s expression turned strange.

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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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