The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 34

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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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Thud.
I winced and rubbed my aching head where it had struck the ceiling.
The carriage rattled along an unpaved road, my body bouncing with each jolt every few seconds.
‘The state of these roads is deplorable.’
The journey to the small Port Town, several hours from the Capital, proved quite arduous.
There was only one reason I had volunteered for this assignment without travel expenses.
[I humbly beseech you, esteemed officials. Please, I implore you to help this child.]
The director of the Orphanage here had sent a desperately pleading letter requesting assistance.
“We’ve arrived.”
As I stepped down from the carriage, rubbing my stiffened legs, a small house bearing the nameplate “Sophia’s House” came into view.
When I knocked, a gaunt woman with shadows beneath her eyes and a sharp, irritable expression appeared moments later.
She appeared to be around thirty years old.
Her hair was disheveled and her apron was covered entirely in flour, as though she had just come from baking bread.
“What brings you here?”
The woman asked in a sharp voice.
“If this is about the children, I assure you I’ve done nothing wrong! I’m doing my very best. All the noise is because of that child——!”
My goodness.
‘Could this be… Joanna?’
She hardly seemed like the person who had written such a heartfelt letter pleading to save a poor child with nowhere to go.
“I am Tessa Harrington, Vice Director of the Child Protection Bureau. I came after receiving your letter, Director Joanna.”
“…V-Vice Director?”
The woman stammered in surprise and hastily stepped aside.
“I did send that letter… but I never expected the Vice Director herself to come in person. Please, do come in.”
So she really was the director after all.
As I followed her into the reception room, my thoughts grew heavy.
‘When I read the letter alone, I had imagined a passionate director who genuinely cared for the children…’
Though I couldn’t condemn her as a bad director based merely on first impressions, it was clear she was utterly exhausted.
When children’s voices echoed loudly from down the Corridor, Joanna’s eyebrows shot up involuntarily.
“I apologize. No matter what I say, they won’t listen.”
“Children making noise is only natural. I should apologize for arriving so suddenly.”
Even as I offered the customary apology, my mind raced with calculations.
‘Does she want to be rid of a difficult child because she’s exhausted? If that were the case, she could send the child to another nearby Orphanage. But she said this child has nowhere else to go.’
Joanna lowered her head.
“No, that’s not it. When I sent the letter, I truly never expected you to come… and certainly not someone of such high standing in person.”
Ordinary people far removed from the Imperial Court often mistook my title and assumed I wielded considerable power.
In reality, my department consisted of only two people, with me as the sole administrator.
Though it wasn’t an entirely unfavorable misconception—I made good use of it.
On one side of the reception room table lay several lumps of dough.
Round balls, flat flower shapes, and hastily twisted rope shapes that looked rather clumsy.
“Did the children make these?”
“Yes.”
A smile graced Joanna’s face for the first time.
“It doesn’t cost much, and the children enjoy it, so I have them make it often. We can bake it and eat it later, too.”
The flour dusting her apron clearly came not from baking, but from the children’s flour dough play.
‘…As I suspected, the finances are definitely struggling.’
With only about ten children in such a small orphanage, there couldn’t be much sponsorship coming in.
Moreover, she had them play with cheap ingredients like flour, then baked and fed them the results.
An uneasy feeling settled over me naturally.
‘Is it really all right to feed the children something like that?’
I sipped my tea without letting anything show on my face and opened my mouth.
“You mentioned there’s an unusual child.”
Joanna nodded.
“Yes. A child who drifted here after being shuffled between several other facilities. At first, I thought I could manage well enough. It wasn’t my first time caring for a traumatized child, after all.”
Joanna’s voice rose a pitch higher.
“But the condition simply isn’t improving…! Even when I try to transfer the child elsewhere, everywhere refuses. Yet if I were to cast them out….”
The knuckles gripping the teacup turned white.
“Then what would I become….”
A child abuser, that’s what.
I averted my gaze for a moment, lost in thought.
‘It’s ambiguous.’
Joanna, who had consistently shown only a defensive demeanor until now, didn’t strike me as trustworthy.
But I didn’t want to condemn her based on suspicion alone.
Clearly, she seemed to be in a difficult situation.
I leaned toward her and asked.
Without advice or comfort, only in a dry tone that sought facts alone.
“What is the child’s condition?”
“It seems… not to be human.”
“Not human?”
I doubted my ears.
“Yes. The child appears to be about six years old… but has fur all over their body, and even when we shave it, it keeps growing back. The child can’t speak a single word. Just whimpers and howls….”
My body tensed involuntarily at the gravity of the situation.
Could it be a child afflicted with a rare disease causing full-body hair growth?
If so, it would indeed be difficult for a small orphanage to manage.
But the fact that the child couldn’t speak a single word….
“Might it be some kind of illness?”
“I must have called five doctors. None of them knew.”
Joanna set down her teacup with a sharp clink.
“I even spent a fortune taking the child to a mage in another city, and they didn’t know either. All of them said they didn’t know…! That money could have covered half a year’s operating costs.”
Joanna’s entire body trembled as she finally let her pent-up emotions burst forth.
“On the way back, we were nearly kidnapped! They wanted to sell the child to a traveling circus troupe. Please, I’m already struggling so hard…!”
I waited for Joanna to calm her emotions.
With her eyes reddened, Joanna soon offered an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’ve shown you something unseemly.”
I shook my head.
“It’s understandable. Shall we see the child first?”
“I’m not entirely sure. But judging by the fact that she hasn’t screamed today, she seems to be in a good mood…”
“Does she scream often?”
Joanna exhaled heavily.
“She despises children her own age intensely. It appears she was bullied by other children at the orphanages where she stayed before.”
As if the mere thought caused her distress, Joanna pressed her fingertips repeatedly against her own forehead.
“I’ve given her a solitary room and told the other children to stay away from her vicinity…but the children simply won’t listen.”
How troublesome.
If that were the case, sending her to another orphanage would be difficult as well.
A facility with a larger population would only invite more unexpected incidents.
And it would further aggravate the child’s trauma.
“It must be a trying situation for everyone involved.”
“…Yes. Truly so. Truly…”
Joanna spoke in disjointed fragments.
“I genuinely wanted to care for her well. But she continues to behave like a beast…!”
She buried her face in both hands.
“There were moments when her condition improved, but after the kidnapping attempt, she reverted completely to her former state. Now she either screams, or sits perfectly still like a mouse. Even when I bring her food, she often won’t touch it.”
My mouth had gone dry.
It was certainly a difficult situation.
And above all else.
‘I’m worried.’
The “beast child,” the “inhuman child” that Joanna described—she seemed to me only a victim of abuse who had sealed her heart shut and carried the lingering scars of profound trauma.
“Let me see the child for now.”
“…Follow me.”
Joanna rose from her seat, having barely regained her composure.
As I followed her, my mind turned to contemplation.
‘I should ask the Imperial Court’s physician to examine her. If it’s acceptable, I could also seek Fabian’s assistance.’
Joanna had done her best, but there were far more skilled doctors and mages in the world than those she had summoned.
“Cici, may I come in?”
When no sound came in response, Joanna sighed and opened the door.
Moments later.
Upon meeting the child, I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again repeatedly.
It was not because of the shaggy fur covering her entire body.
‘This child…’
The child stared at me without any reaction, and in her golden eyes, a distinct pattern of pink flowers was clearly visible.
A Flower Mark.
It was the symbol of House of Monstina, the other ducal family that stood as an equal to the Beiretz Ducal Family.

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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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