The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 3

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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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“Oh, brother….”
Princess Melissa looked up at her brother with a tear-streaked face.
“I’m sorry….”
“….”
Grand Duke Cardicha turned away.
“My sister has caused trouble. I’ll arrange compensation immediately—I’ll have one of my attendants inform you of the details.”
“There’s no need, Your Grace.”
Duchess Beiretz, who had approached with several handmaidens, spoke up.
“It was nothing of great value, so please don’t concern yourself. Rather, I’m worried whether the Princess was injured.”
“She wasn’t.”
Grand Duke Cardicha replied with obvious displeasure.
“But compensation is only proper, is it not?”
“We are hardly so impoverished as to be unable to bear the cost of a single craft. Please consider it a gift we were planning to give anyway. After all, the Princess’s birthday was just recently, was it not?”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
Grand Duke Cardicha sighed.
“When will she ever mature… Melissa, please try to behave yourself. Is it really so difficult?”
…Something was off.
On the surface, it appeared to be an ordinary situation—a guardian flustered by an accident caused by a child.
But considering Princess Melissa’s station, this was decidedly unusual.
Whether legitimate or illegitimate, children of the nobility are raised from infancy under rigorous etiquette training.
Yet judging by Princess Melissa’s accidents and her responses, she hardly seemed like a ten-year-old noble girl.
‘What on earth…is this?’
As I stood bewildered, something even stranger occurred.
“Uh, uuuaaahhh!”
Princess Melissa’s lips trembled, and with a face gone deathly pale, she burst into tears and fled through the crowd.
“…Sigh.”
Grand Duke Cardicha pressed his forehead and silently began to follow after his sister.
Now the people around us began to whisper openly about Princess Melissa and her strange behavior.
“As expected, because she’s illegitimate….”
“Are all illegitimate children like that? I’d say she was born lacking something upstairs.”
“She looks perfectly fine, though. The Grand Duke has it rough. Even with all that wealth and power in his hands, if his own blood is like that, he won’t sleep easy.”
“She’ll never find a suitable match either. I’d wager my watch that she’ll become a burden on the Grand Duke’s household.”
…That was enough.
If I listened any longer, my ears would rot off. I quickly excused myself from the gathering.
‘The balcony was… ah, this way.’
Upon discovering a small balcony, I thoughtlessly pushed the door wide open.
I should not have done that.
“Darling… more, yes, there…!”
Slam!
The moment I witnessed what I shouldn’t have, I immediately slammed the door shut.
‘What in the world is happening in someone else’s home?’
And not just any ordinary residence, but the Duke’s Residence.
I suppressed the urge to rub my eyes and turned toward another balcony.
Before I could even open the door this time, a voice so sickeningly sweet drifted out to meet me.
“Darling, isn’t the moon absolutely beautiful tonight?”
…They’re at it again.
I trudged back toward the Ballroom.
“M-Mom…. Dad….”
Beyond yet another balcony door, I heard a child’s whimpering.
Without thinking, I opened the door.
I assumed a child who had come with their parents had gotten lost, and I intended to help them find their way back.
But then.
‘…!’
A face streaked entirely with tears and mucus, eyes bloodshot and burst with capillaries, small shoulders trembling uncontrollably.
This little girl, sobbing in a panic, was none other than Princess Melissa.
Here’s the question.
In a situation where I don’t even know which story I’ve been reincarnated into, what’s the best way to handle a princess who appears to be an important character?
1. Quietly close the door and pretend I saw nothing.
2. Comfort the child and wade into this troublesome mess.
The correct answer is obviously 1.
“H-hic… w-waaah….”
But most unfortunately for me, I’m not cold-hearted enough to abandon a crying child and flee.
Especially one gasping for breath like this.
I approached the child carefully, then knelt down to meet her at eye level.
Princess Melissa seemed startled, but her sobs still wouldn’t stop.
“H-hic… s-sob….”
“Breathe,” I said.
I gently grasped the child’s shoulders and stroked her back, soothing her trembling body.
“H-hic, I c-can’t stop….”
“You can do this.”
I spoke firmly.
“Let’s try together. Breathe in… one, two, three. Breathe out… one, two, three.”
Fortunately, Melissa followed my lead well, and her sobs gradually subsided.
In the moment of relief, knowing she would have collapsed from exhaustion if she’d continued crying.
“W-who…?”
Only now did Princess Melissa become curious about who I was.
I handed the princess a handkerchief and spoke.
“I’m Tessa Harrington, Deputy Director of the Child Protection Bureau.”
The child snatched the handkerchief and blew her nose, then answered in a strained voice.
“…Don’t know you.”
“It means you have a profession where you meet many young children, like a princess would.”
I offered the most gracious smile I could muster while spouting a blatant lie.
How convenient that this hollow title proves useful in moments like these, I thought—but only briefly.
“…Like a kindergarten teacher or something? I’m not a little kid….”
…What?
For a moment, my heart seemed to skip a beat.
The word “kindergarten” does not exist in this world.
A daycare, perhaps—but not kindergarten.
Which meant that “kindergarten” signified….
I parted my lips, desperate to say something, but nothing came out.
Princess Melissa reached toward me with a panicked expression.
“I-I’m sorry. I said something strange again, didn’t I? I’m really sorry… I need to forget this. I have to forget everything.”
The child rambled incoherently, her words stumbling over themselves as she apologized repeatedly.
“I’m really, truly sorry!”
I barely managed to force out my voice.
“…You’ve been possessed too, haven’t you?”
Princess Melissa stared at me with wide, astonished eyes.
Her small mouth opened and closed like a fish….
“Waaaaaah!”
All my efforts to console her proved worthless as she burst into tears and threw herself into my arms.
I panicked and patted her back soothingly. My suspicion seemed correct, yet the princess’s behavior at the ballroom had been nothing like that of a possessed person.
Even now, looking at her, it remained true.
Shouldn’t possessed individuals naturally exchange information and promise cooperation when they meet?
Not simply burst into tears and throw themselves at each other like this.
‘Well, I suppose she’s been through enough. And it’s a common trope that when you’re possessed in a child’s body, your thought patterns become childlike too….’
I stroked the princess’s back and managed to calm her down.
If someone opened the door while her crying grew louder, it would be catastrophic.
“Please, compose yourself. Everyone outside will hear you.”
“B-but….”
Princess Melissa whimpered and muttered.
“I never thought there’d be anyone else like me. I wanted to meet someone so badly! I was so scared!”
I stared at her intently.
Regardless of her childish exterior, if she was a possessed person who had lived as a modern human—neither reincarnated nor transmigrated—then she was fundamentally an adult, or at the very least a high school student.
Among all the novels I’d read, I’d never encountered a single protagonist who was younger than a high school student before possession.
After all, I myself had been diligently attending high school when I was possessed.
No matter how much the setting allowed the mind to follow the body, acting so helplessly childish was something she needed to stop—for her own sake.
“First, calm down. Just because you’re possessed in a ten-year-old’s body doesn’t mean you have to act like a ten-year-old, does it? Since we’re on the subject, how old are you exactly? I was possessed at exactly eighteen.”
Whether she was an adult or a high school student, if she could recognize that her true mental age wasn’t that of a child, her situation would improve considerably.
But the situation unfolded nothing like I’d anticipated.
Princess Melissa stared at me, her lips trembling, as a whimpering voice escaped from her small mouth.
“I-I’m in third grade, and you’re a high school student, so….”

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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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