The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 23

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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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‘Huh?’
The crying echoed from a small door leading from the Kitchen to the Backyard.
I carefully opened the door.
“…!”
Whatever I had imagined, this was certainly not it.
‘The Backyard is… no.’
As the door swung open, a massive Warehouse came into view. And filling that Warehouse was a raging inferno of crimson flames.
The crackling roar of the fire mingled with the child’s cries, which swelled and diminished in turn.
I instinctively shielded my face.
The overwhelming heat made breathing nearly impossible.
“H-hic, hic, m-mommy….”
The small, fragile sobbing pierced my ears like a blade.
Only moments later did I realize the child was calling for me—calling me “mommy.”
The child staggered toward me, unsteady on her feet.
My heart began to race wildly.
The child’s condition….
‘She’s far too thin.’
Dangerously thin. I’d been told she was nine years old, yet judging by her frame alone, one might have believed her no more than six.
Though there were no visible wounds, her hollow, vacant eyes alone betrayed her suffering.
“Estella Collins?”
I called out the child’s name as it appeared in the report.
The child flinched as though struck.
“W-who are you?”
“I’m Tessa. I’ve come from the Imperial Court.”
“The I-Imperial Court…? The Imperial… No, no, no!”
The child let out a scream.
I stepped forward to calm her, but the flames forced me to retreat.
“Estella, can you extinguish the fire? You created it, didn’t you?”
Mages each possessed their own unique specialization. In Gary Collins’s case, it was fire.
…And it seemed Estella Collins’s was fire as well.
“I c-can’t put it out… If I do, it hurts. It hurts so much.”
As Estella spoke in halting, incoherent fragments.
A loud shout erupted from behind me.
“What is the meaning of this!?”
I slowly turned around.
Gary Collins, his face flushed crimson with rage, was advancing toward me.
“You were trying to extinguish that fire…! Are you deliberately trying to sabotage me in the evaluation? If that were your intention, you should have said so from the start!”
Ah.
An evaluation?
He still believed I had come to recruit him.
I opened my mouth coldly toward the worthless man puffed up with empty pride.
“By Imperial Law Article 493, Section 5, I hereby inform you that Estella Collins is no longer under your guardianship, but now receives protection from the Imperial Court.”
“…!”
Gary Collins’s face drained of all color. He stared at me, then stumbled backward on trembling legs.
It seemed he had believed everything I guided him toward without a single moment of doubt.
“Then… you are….”
“Vice Director of the Imperial Child Protection Bureau.”
I announced my identity in a clipped tone.
“Naturally, I’m a bureaucrat of the Imperial Court.”
Gary Collins looked flustered, but the moment I stepped toward Estella, he began pouring out excuses.
“…It may seem strange to you, Director, but this was all for Estella’s sake. To help her talent blossom…!”
“Is that so.”
I fixed him with a piercing stare.
“Starving her by not giving her a single proper meal—was that also for her talent? And forcing her to cast magic all night without sleep?”
Gary Collins began trembling like an aspen leaf.
“In fact, all the magic you’ve used this whole time wasn’t your own power, was it? It was all Estella’s magic.”
“No, that’s not true!”
“If it really isn’t, then conjure fire.”
Gary Collins’s lips quivered. He furrowed his brow and strained with effort, but not a single spark emerged.
Instead….
Trickle, trickle, trickle.
A pathetic stream of water spurted from his fingertips.
“See, you saw it, didn’t you? My magic is real!”
Gary Collins seemed to believe that merely demonstrating such a trivial spell was enough to clear his name.
“…Ha.”
I let out a hollow laugh, too astounded for words.
“You’d have more talent as a clown than a mage. Do you think I haven’t investigated your background?”
Though I’d had no budget to investigate Gary Collins separately, his desperate efforts to catch the Imperial Court’s attention had yielded considerable useful information.
For instance.
“A third-rate mage whose specialty was ‘water’ suddenly became an expert in flame magic. Exactly six years ago, no less.”
The water stream ceased.
Gary Collins’s face turned ashen, his lips trembling.
“I, I….”
I completely ignored him and turned toward Estella.
“Estella.”
The child’s large, blue eyes fixed upon me.
“Will you extinguish the fire? No one can hurt you anymore. I guarantee it.”
“Guarantee… what does that mean?”
“It means His Majesty the Emperor will protect you.”
Well, that cunning fox would never concern himself with the welfare of pitiful children, but let’s say that’s the case for now.
“His Majesty the Emperor…?”
The child’s already wide blue eyes grew even larger.
“Yes.”
“If you just put out the fire, you can come with me. Then you’ll never have to see your father again.”
“I won’t… see Father?”
Estella’s voice was terribly frail.
“Estella!”
Gary Collins raised his voice sharply.
“Estella, don’t go. That woman’s words are all lies! If you go to the Imperial Palace, everyone will covet your talents and try to exploit you. Only this father will ever care for you!”
“Estella.”
I bent down toward her.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Silence fell.
Estella looked back and forth between me and Gary Collins, then quietly lowered her head.
“I’m very hungry….”
“What do you want to eat most?”
“B-biscuits….”
At her tiny voice, I doubted my own ears.
“Biscuits?”
Merely twice-baked bread, and yet she desired biscuits.
“Yes. And milk too.”
The child drew out her words, watching my reaction carefully.
I swallowed dryly.
What kind of life had this small child been living?
Actually, I didn’t even need to wonder.
I could imagine it well enough.
The life of a child treated as a flamethrower since the age of three.
“If you come with me now, you can eat plenty of milk and biscuits. Will you?”
Estella nodded slightly, then stepped out of the inferno and took my hand.
‘….’
A small, skeletal hand—yet burning hot.
Not hot enough to harm a person, but far too intense for a young child to endure.
I squeezed my eyes shut, yet I could not stop the image of the hell this child had endured from forming in my mind.
Then.
A ringing voice erupted from Gary Collins’s mouth.
“Estella, that person is nothing but a complete stranger! Do you really think the interest that woman shows you will last more than a few days? In a week, you’ll be treated worse than a dog in the Imperial Palace!”
“I’m not sure what basis you have for saying such things.”
I cut off his words coldly.
“The Imperial Palace doesn’t lack skilled mages so desperately that it needs to exploit a nine-year-old child.”
“Ha!”
Gary Collins burst into a harsh, braying laugh.
“If that were truly the case, why do they recruit anyone with results? All my classmates from the Mage Tower became Imperial Court Mages! Did they all have real talent? No!”
He continued without pause for breath.
“Groveling to superiors, flattery, bribes… and if all else fails, stealing someone else’s ideas. Those people all became Imperial Court Mages, but I didn’t? Why? Because I used my daughter a little?”
I didn’t respond, simply lifting Estella Collins into my arms. It was effortless—she was small for her age, both in height and weight.
Gary Collins followed us all the way to the door.
“She’s my child! Mine! So why can’t I use her abilities? Would she even exist without me?”
“…Mr. Collins.”
Just before stepping outside, I decided to offer one final courtesy.
For him, losing Estella Collins meant his life would only spiral downward from here.
“Simply giving birth doesn’t make you a parent.”
I drove the final nail home, watching Gary Collins’s face crumple as though he’d been struck.
“Though in your case, you didn’t even do that much.”

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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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