The Rogue, Genius, Chaebol's Daughter is a Baby Master Detective! - Chapter 14

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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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Delinquent, genius, and billionaire’s daughter—she’s a baby detective!
Episode 14
“I don’t have any.”
“I told a lie for you instead. A debt has to be repaid. That’s common sense.”
“A… debt?”
Siuu lifted his chin slightly. The morning sun cast a halo behind his back.
“There’s no such thing as debt between friends!”
“Who said we’re friends?”
“We helped each other, so we became friends!”
“I don’t need that. I don’t make friends.”
“Why not?”
Siuu didn’t answer. Instead, his expression turned cold again.
“Friendship doesn’t work here. Pay back the debt. Those are the rules.”
“Haru doesn’t know rules like that!”
“You’re five years old and you don’t know what shame is?”
Sh-shame?
Genius Haru faltered at the difficult word. She didn’t know what shame meant, but she didn’t want to admit it.
“O-okay! How can I pay you back?”
Siuu pointed sharply at Yun-a.
“When that kid comes around, you stop her.”
Haru turned her head absently, then flinched when her eyes met Teacher Kim’s directly.
Siuu was bad, but there was an old, worn villain still targeting him.
‘Siuu needs Haru’s help.’
“Got it! Haru will protect Siuu!”
Haru nodded with grim determination. Then she planted her hands on her hips.
“Everyone, listen up!”
The children clustered nearby turned to look at Haru.
“Let’s play a game now—protect Siuu.”
Siuu’s eyes widened in surprise, but it was already too late.
“Gather around!”
Children swarmed around Siuu. Siuu shot Haru a look of reproach.
“This isn’t what I asked for.”
Haru pretended not to hear and ignored him. Trapped among the other children, Siuu was no longer in Teacher Kim’s sight.
***
“Get away. Go on!”
Surrounded by children, Siuu was barely visible through the crowd. One little girl stood watching her friends with a satisfied smile.
Teacher Kim observed Haru intently through narrowed eyes.
“I’m disappointed in your lack of responsibility. I’d like to let you go, but given all the time we’ve spent together, I’ll overlook it this once. But there won’t be a next time. Do you understand?”
The Director’s irritated tone and his scrutinizing gaze caused no small amount of stress.
Part of her wanted to quit working at this kindergarten immediately and find other employment, but it wasn’t time yet. If she got fired from here, she’d become useless to Shinra Pharmaceutical as well.
She replayed her memory several times—it didn’t make sense. Falling completely asleep during work hours like that. She’d had a checkup at the hospital, but her physical condition was normal. Besides candy, she hadn’t consumed anything different from usual.
Teacher Kim’s gaze turned toward Haru’s gloves.
She’d mentioned having a severe allergy. It was strange enough for a five-year-old to tolerate such stuffy clothing, and yet she’d never taken them off even once.
Teacher Kim knew the truth: there were children in this world with special abilities. But all the children she knew were registered as observation subjects at Shinra Pharmaceutical.
Suddenly, a memory from five years ago flashed through her mind. A child whose name and face she didn’t know.
At the same time, remembering three men with obsessive dispositions, she shook her head.
‘…It couldn’t be that child. But I should observe more carefully.’
***
-Candy and snacks are prohibited from being brought into the kindergarten. We ask that you provide guidance at home as well.
“Haru.”
Kang Tae-jun set his phone down on the dinner table and called to her. Sensing the unusual atmosphere, Haru stopped eating and straightened her posture.
“Did you bring candy to kindergarten?”
Haru’s shoulders shrank. Had she gotten the teacher in trouble? But she’d defended herself perfectly!
“Just a tiny bit.”
“I received a notice. Candy is prohibited.”
Kang Tae-jun recalled a passage from the book he’d spent all night studying.
[Discipline is negotiation. The moment you lose ground in a power struggle, authority shifts to the child.]
Kang Tae-jun, the tiger of Daehan Group who controlled the board—he would never lose a negotiation with a five-year-old.
“If there’s candy left, it’s confiscated.”
Confiscated? That’s what the Detective used to say when taking away the villain’s secret weapons.
Haru isn’t a villain—she’s a detective!
“No way.”
Kang Tae-jun’s eyebrows twitched faintly. In all his years of negotiation, he’d never had a counterpart reject his opening offer outright.
Well, perhaps not never. Kang Tae-jun caught himself as an image flickered through his mind—the woman who’d left him with a small child and vanished.
He deliberately arranged his features into a stern expression.
“No means no.”
“But, but Haru candy-ey!”
“Eating too much candy isn’t good for little children. You’ll have some once a week.”
“No way! Haru candy is Haru day-ey!”
“Haru.”
Kang Tae-jun called her name in a low voice. When negotiations stalled, lower your tone by half a register—the parenting manual had been clear on that point, and he’d committed it to practice.
The effect was immediate.
Haru’s mouth clamped shut. Her large eyes began to glisten with gathering tears.
Kang Tae-jun found himself speechless. The manual had covered no such scenario.
It wasn’t his first time watching someone cry in a negotiation room. Older men and women wept often enough when their profits were on the line—wept so hard they could barely breathe. Executives weeping over lost companies. Partners weeping over broken contracts. He’d always remained composed in the face of such tears.
He’d learned that tears were simply another tool of negotiation, nothing more. But this five-year-old child…
…was desperately trying not to cry.
“No means no. First, you need to stop the tears—”
Kang Tae-jun’s voice wavered awkwardly.
Haru sniffled hard. Kang Tae-jun swallowed dryly.
“If I stop crying, you won’t take the candy-ey?”
“That’s right.”
The words tumbled out before he could stop them, and Kang Tae-jun’s shoulders jerked slightly. Haru blinked, then broke into a radiant smile.
“Haru didn’t cry! Haru didn’t shed tears! So you won’t take the candy-ey?”
“…Yes.”
“Thank you-ey!”
“…But only in amounts that won’t rot your teeth.”
“Yes!”
“Once a week, that’s it.”
“Yes!”
Kang Tae-jun’s expression darkened.
He’d lost on both the rice and the candy. If he kept giving in like this, she’d grow up spoiled and undisciplined—what would happen then?
The thought of Jang Mi glaring at him with reproachful eyes when they met again sent an involuntary groan escaping his lips.
Kang Tae-jun pressed the space between his eyebrows with his index and middle finger.
“…Let’s eat first.”
As Kang Tae-jun ladled steaming broth into a bowl, a thought occurred to him: perhaps he would need help from others after all.
***
There was only one reason A Tech’s elite artificial intelligence research team had been assembled.
[Project: Development of Haru Bot for Perfect Childcare]
Gong Dae-in pointed at the project name on the screen and opened his mouth.
“Over the past several days, I’ve modeled everything about Haru. Dietary preferences, sleep patterns, language habits, emotional cycles.”
Gong Dae-in displayed a graph.
“The prediction accuracy rate is twenty-three percent.”
Murmurs rippled through the researchers. Twenty-three percent. That was worse than flipping a coin.
One unnamed researcher thought to himself that he could predict stock prices, typhoon paths, even cat behavior with better accuracy than that.
“Look especially at this section. Every correlation coefficient collapses when she’s in front of spinach. Yesterday she said it was the best thing in the world; today she won’t even look at it. Why?”
No one answered. No researcher had the courage to say: Because she’s five years old.
“The conclusion is clear. We develop a Real-time Learning Childcare Assistance AI.”
The senior researcher carefully raised his hand.
“What about the external design? The current trend is cute—”
“A dodo bird.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s make it a dodo bird.”
Silence fell over the conference room. A dodo bird. That plump, flightless creature that trusted humans too much and went extinct?
“You know the Detective Dodo series that’s popular with kids these days, right?”
Gong Dae-in pushed his glasses up with a decisive gesture. The lenses flashed with determination.
“We’re targeting that market.”
The researcher stared silently at the robot design displayed on the screen—a hyper-realistic design that bore little resemblance to the cute dodo character.
“But it won’t actually be that dodo bird, will it…”
Isn’t it just sharing the name?
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, wouldn’t the babies be frightened? Wouldn’t it be better to go with something cuter—a baby Dodo Bird instead?”
Gong Dae-in’s glasses flashed in the light.

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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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