The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 26

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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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This was the third time, so I was accustomed to it.
I accepted the memories without panic, letting them flow through me completely.
Gary Collins was a man who cared about nothing except his own well-being.
Because of this, his unfortunate wife abandoned him the moment Estella was born, and Estella grew up in complete neglect and indifference.
Indifference would have been preferable.
The moment Estella’s talent began to blossom, the interest Gary Collins showed in his only child brought nothing but misfortune.
Gary Collins exploited Estella, who called him “papa” with her lisp, to achieve numerous accomplishments.
There was not a shred of consideration for the child who was forced to handle fire at an excessively young age and lived in fear.
But that wasn’t all.
Due to Gary Collins’s ever-growing greed, Estella was subjected to increasingly harsh training, and ultimately collapsed from exhaustion and died.
The day Estella died was just one day before her nineteenth birthday—the day she would have become an adult and been able to escape the house.
But that wasn’t the end, of course.
The dead Estella discovered that she had been sent back to the age of five.
Estella fled the house without hesitation, lived as a beggar for several years, and by chance encountered the Duke and Duchess.
Taking pity on the child, the Duke and Duchess showed her charity, and upon discovering her talent for fire-attribute magic, they asked their eldest son, the Mage Tower Master, to admit her as a student of the Mage Tower.
However, Estella was too young to enter the Mage Tower, so she came to live at the Duke’s Residence.
And after that?
Naturally, the Duke and Duchess became utterly captivated by Estella’s cuteness and pitifulness.
Since they had only three sons and had long harbored a secret wish for a daughter, the decision to adopt Estella came swiftly.
‘It was a typical healing-themed child-rearing story.’
The problem was….
I stared blankly at the three people before me.
It took far longer than expected for Estella to truly begin her “healing.”
Estella, who had grown up being abused by Gary Collins for so long, could not easily trust people.
Moreover, her extremely introverted and passive nature created an unfortunate synergy with the Duke and Duchess’s trial-and-error approach.
From the start, the Duke and Duchess were overly aristocratic and distant parents toward their biological children.
They changed their approach and did their best for their adopted daughter Estella, but that only triggered her wariness.
‘So she thought the Duke and Duchess were using her too.’
Their overwhelming barrage of material offerings appeared to her as nothing more than an attempt to win her favor.
It was Fabian who finally opened Estella’s guarded heart.
“Estella, if you don’t like magic, you don’t have to use it.”
“Why…? I can only stay here if I use magic.”
“Estella… have you really thought that all this time? Absolutely not. You are my sister, and you are a lady of the Beiretz Ducal Family. Even if you could never use magic again, you would still be part of our family.”
Fortunately, Fabian’s sincere words opened Estella’s heart, and from then on, she received the Duke and Duchess’s affection and gradually healed from the wounds inflicted by Gary Collins.
As my head spun and nausea threatened to overtake me, I finally sank down where I stood.
My legs lost all strength, and I could do nothing.
This was the third time the contents of the book had suddenly surfaced in my mind, but this time it was particularly intense.
It wasn’t just because physical symptoms accompanied it.
I could endure that much without difficulty.
It was simply that…
“Tessa!”
Estella screamed and rushed toward me.
“Are you hurt? Tessa!”
I shook my head and barely managed to rise. As my senses cleared, I saw the child’s ashen face.
My mouth had gone completely dry.
Estella was nine years old now.
After my regression, she had fled the house at five, so this Estella was from my first life.
The one who had lived a life filled with misery, only to die just before her nineteenth birthday.
The tragedy of her existence was so overwhelming that….
I felt as though I couldn’t breathe.
How many more times would I have to recall such memories?
How many unhappy children existed in this world?
“Fetch the Doctor. Vice Director Harrington appears to be unwell.”
“No, no. I’m fine.”
I waved my hand dismissively.
“I was just dizzy for a moment… Estella, stop!”
Unlike ordinary children, Estella didn’t cry with tears streaming freely down her face.
Instead, she stifled her sobs with hiccupping gasps, her lips pressed tightly together.
I quickly took Estella’s hand and tried to reassure her.
“I’m really fine. Too much sunlight sometimes makes me dizzy like this.”
Estella’s lips trembled.
“It’s because I made you come outside….”
“No, it’s not your fault.”
I tried earnestly to comfort Estella, but the child was on the verge of breaking down entirely.
The Duchess spoke in a dry voice.
“Come inside. We’ll have the Doctor examine you and see what’s wrong.”
“No, really, I’m fine….”
…Estella was nearly having a fit.
As I instinctively tried to soothe her, I suddenly became aware of a piercing gaze bearing down upon me from above.
Duke Beiretz and the Duchess were staring at me with cold, menacing eyes.
‘…Right, they were always like that.’
Cold sweat dripped down my spine involuntarily.
I had been acting so helplessly toward Estella that I had momentarily forgotten these were people utterly devoid of mercy or compassion.
“Estella, all right! I’ll get examined. So stop crying.”
And so I found myself undergoing an examination by the Duke’s Residence Royal Physician.
“There are no serious health concerns, but you appear to be suffering from severe fatigue due to excessive work. It would be wise to reduce your workload.”
“I’ve already reduced it considerably.”
I widened my eyes in disbelief.
Even though I had spent two weeks frantically visiting orphanages for Estella’s sake, it was nothing compared to my days at the Finance Ministry—practically leisure in comparison.
Besides, I had even taken a vacation in the interim.
Of course, work came up and I returned immediately.
“If overwork were the problem, I would have collapsed long ago. Before my department transfer, there wasn’t a single day without overtime. I spent more days away from home than in it, and I couldn’t even eat properly, yet I was fine.”
At my confident rebuttal, the Royal Physician’s brow furrowed deeply.
“How many years did you work in your previous department?”
“Three years….”
As the Royal Physician’s eyes sharpened, my words trailed off involuntarily.
“So you’ve been overworking yourself for years. Do you think the human body is made of iron? A body that’s been abused doesn’t recover like magic just because it rests a little—that would make you a monster, not human.”
The Royal Physician spoke in a tone of utter exasperation.
“If dying young is your dream, I won’t stop you.”
“N-no, no… Tessa, you can’t die!”
“Who’s dying?”
Now it was my turn to be bewildered.
I’m only twenty-three.
Isn’t it normal at my age to be sharp even after pulling all-nighters?
“Listen well, for you are capable.”
The Duke spoke curtly.
“My Royal Physician isn’t the type to frighten easily.”
“I don’t exaggerate.”
The Royal Physician made his displeasure obvious.
“If you want to hold your own funeral before you turn forty, then by all means, don’t rest.”
Well, that’s something I’d rather avoid.
Since I’ve already been reincarnated into this life, I want to enjoy it to the very end.

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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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