The Villainess Builds a Department Store - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Villainess Establishes a Department Store

Chapter 3

“Antoine!”

I called my younger sibling’s name and threw the door wide open.

Then, as if startled by the loud noise, the crying suddenly stopped.

Over the crib’s railing, I met a pair of violet eyes that resembled my own.

Eyes that had been soaked with tears from his sudden older sister’s appearance widened in surprise.

Then, as if recognizing her, he began to sniffle again.

“O-Older Sister…?”

Though it was pronunciation mixed with the rapid breathing characteristic of young children, he definitely called me older sister.

In that moment, an indescribably warm emotion spread through my heart and throughout my entire body.

“Waaah, sniffle. Hic!”

“W-wait a minute Antoine! Don’t blow your nose on my clothes! Silk is difficult to wash too!”

But right now, he was nothing more than a snotty baby wiping tears, snot, and even drool all over his older sister’s pajamas while sniffling.

It was only natural.

Antoine was a whole six years younger than me.

I had become quite young myself, but at four years old, he was still a baby. A baby. Goo-goo.

“Are you okay?”

“Waaah… Hwaaang! Hic, sob…”

The child’s black hair that should have been soft and fluffy was soaked with sweat and stuck to his forehead.

Moreover, from however long he had been crying, his delicate skin and the rims of his eyes were flushed bright red, pitiful enough to make anyone watching feel sorry for him.

“Where is the nanny?”

“Nanny… Nannyyyy waaahhh!”

When I mentioned the nanny, tears that had barely stopped began flowing down again.

Fine. Rather than pressing a crying child for answers, it would be faster to go look for her myself.

The nanny used Antoine’s adjacent room so she could care for the child at any time.

But even now that I had come looking, the adjacent room’s door was tightly closed.

As if there was no one beyond it.

“Nanny! Is anyone there?”

I couldn’t sense any presence from beyond the door.

Could something have happened to the nanny?

All sorts of ominous scenes flashed before my eyes.

I shook my head vigorously to chase them away and turned the doorknob.

“It’s… unlocked…?”

Surprisingly, the door hadn’t been locked from the beginning.

“Nanny!”

But nowhere in the room could I see any sign of the nanny.

“Antoine, where did the nanny go?”

“…Sh-she said when I wake up, hic! She’d be back!”

“What?”

For a moment, I felt like someone had struck me on the head.

The nanny left her post, leaving behind a child who was only four years old?

Antoine mumbled in a hiccupping voice mixed with heavy breathing.

“Th-the nanny said so. Sniffle. Antoine is, now four years old so… he has to, hic! sleep alone.”

No, sleeping alone couldn’t have meant being left completely alone and abandoned, right?

So this was what it meant to feel dizzy.

It wasn’t that practicing sleeping separately from a young age was bad.

Especially since I clearly remembered the current nanny’s strict and demanding personality, even if I’d forgotten her name and appearance. So she would have been even more stern with Antoine.

But it was a different story if there was no guardian nearby to come running when something happened.

Why didn’t you say anything until now?

I forcibly swallowed the question that had reached the tip of my tongue.

The person I should be questioning here was the nanny who had left a young child alone, not Antoine.

‘Our parents must not know about this.’

Mother, who always lay in bed, and Father, who frequently left the estate.

Naturally, caring for the children was the nanny’s and servants’ responsibility.

Even Mother, who should have been managing them, was in no condition to fulfill that role.

Especially since the nanny directly educated the master’s children, even if she wielded a whip rather than openly using a switch, the maids couldn’t even protest.

That would have been overstepping their authority.

As a result, unlike me who had grown up enough to handle things on my own, Antoine was being completely neglected.

Why didn’t I know about this?

I could find the answer quickly.

At this age, I hadn’t cherished Antoine very much.

If anything, I thought of him as a competitor who stole away Mother’s already scarce love, and as a leech who bothered me at every turn.

So whether my younger sibling was being neglected or not, I simply hadn’t cared.

It seemed I would need to drastically revise my plans.

* * *

As Adelaide stared at the empty room with a serious expression, Antoine became frightened and watched his older sister’s mood.

‘I will be by your side when you wake up from a good sleep.’

He had believed the nanny’s words and gone to sleep, but when he woke up, he was still alone.

When he cried because that fact made him sad and scared, his older sister had come running to comfort him.

But his older sister was different from usual.

His older sister had never even cared whether he fell down or cried!

What on earth was going on? Was he dreaming?

In this unfamiliar situation he’d never experienced, Antoine’s eyes rolled around busily.

Moreover, his older sister who had been comforting him just moments ago was now glaring into empty space with wide eyes.

Could she be angry with me?

Because I didn’t act like a future baronet should… so she’s disappointed?

Antoine apologized in a voice so thin it seemed like it would scatter and disappear into the air at any moment.

“S-sorry, Older Sister…”

I did something wrong. So please don’t hate me. Okay?

Older Sister will scold me too, right? If she’s disappointed like the nanny, will she let out a deep sigh?

“Uh… uhh… hwaaang… don’t hate me…”

“…”

In an instant, his older sister’s expression crumbled miserably.

She pulled Antoine into a tight embrace so he couldn’t see what kind of face she was making.

“It’s okay. I’ll protect you from now on.”

“O-Older Sister?”

“Antoine. I’m your older sister. It’s natural for an older sister to protect her younger sibling.”

For young Antoine, his older sister’s words felt too difficult.

But even if he couldn’t understand, he could feel it.

Older Sister is on my side.

With that thought, his older sister’s embrace, which had always felt difficult and awkward, felt a little warmer.

“Antoine. Didn’t the nanny tell you where she was going?”

Since Antoine had stopped crying to some extent, I first needed to find the whereabouts of the missing nanny.

But Antoine only shook his head back and forth.

‘Well, no fool would tell a child where they’re going while leaving them alone.’

But what should I do about this?

I have a guess where you might be.

This was something that happened in my previous life.

Suddenly the nanny was dismissed and many servants including the stable keeper were replaced.

Back then, I didn’t even know the reason, but now I knew those circumstances all too well.

Adelaide looked at the desolate floor without a single carpet and smiled coldly.

“Antoine. Should we go treasure hunting with your older sister from now on?”

“…Treasure hunting?”

Treasure hunting was a game they had all played together in the garden before.

As those joyful memories came back, her body that had been heavy like wet cotton became light like fluffy cotton again.

Antoine’s eyes sparkled as if he had never been crying.

“Yeah. When you tap the floor tiles, they make this sound, right? Among them, there will be one tile that makes a different sound. There’s treasure underneath it.”

“I want to do it!”

They say crying then laughing causes major changes in the body’s extremities. Adelaide chuckled inwardly.

Still sniffling, Antoine giggled and lay flat on the floor.

“If my memory is correct… it should definitely be around here.”

“Older Sister! Only this spot sounds different. This one goes thud-thud but that one goes tap-tap.”

“As expected! Amazing, Antoine!”

When she gently patted the proud Antoine’s head, a bright smile spread across his face covered in tears and snot.

At first glance, the wooden tiles looked tightly fitted, but looking closely, there was a misaligned section as if rotten parts had been newly replaced.

When she lifted it out, a small space that looked perfect for hiding something appeared.

And the problematic ‘treasure’.

“That’s the treasure? It’s just paper?”

“Yeah. It’s a very precious treasure. Let’s take it to our parents tomorrow.”

The ‘treasure’ discovered during demolition work to sell the floor tiles had sent the Viscounty family’s already rock-bottom reputation straight to hell.

But this time, it would become a way to save Antoine.

So if it wasn’t treasure, then what else could it be?

“Mom and Dad?”

“If we say Antoine discovered it, they’ll be happy, right? And tonight, let’s sleep together with your older sister.”

“With Older Sister?”

His excited voice rose so high it seemed like it would reach the ceiling any moment.

“I want to sleep together!”

The small body that jumped into her arms no longer carried the scent of sadness and loneliness, but the cozy and sweet smell unique to babies.

Ah, he’s my younger sibling, but he’s really cute.

Children should laugh and cry like children, run around and fall down, and sometimes be stubbornly unreasonable.

And above all, they deserved to be infinitely loved by the people they love.

‘Antoine. Just trust this older sister of yours.’

* * *

The next day, the maid who came to wake Adelaide discovered an empty bed and screamed as she collapsed on the spot.

“The young lady has disappeared!”

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