The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 64

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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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A strong sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Surely, the day I first met Princess Melissa was like this.
Unable to bear the surrounding gazes, Princess Melissa had fled from the Ballroom.
Thanks to that, we had met.
‘Back then, Princess Melissa was….’
Truly a crybaby.
She coped with every situation by crying, and when a stranger comforted her, she would weep even harder.
But now Princess Melissa is different.
In a situation where she would have thrown herself into my arms and burst into tears before, she was now struggling to hold back her tears.
‘Princess Melissa has changed.’
Only the child herself remains unaware of it.
“Princess Melissa.”
I slowly bent my knees and sat down on the ground.
The rich fragrance of wild roses pricked my nostrils.
“Would you like to sit? Here?”
“….”
Princess Melissa nodded and sat down on the grass-covered ground.
Her dress would become soiled, but neither of us cared about that fact.
“Come to think of it, I didn’t even greet you properly. Have you been well?”
“….”
“Haven’t you been well?”
“At Athos Fortress… I was well.”
Princess Melissa barely answered.
“Everyone at Athos Fortress treated me well, but when I came here, everyone treats me like an idiot again….”
“I see.”
I leaned my body toward Princess Melissa.
The trembling child’s body gradually began to calm.
“So according to what those people say, are you foolish?”
“…I don’t know.”
Tears mixed into Princess Melissa’s voice once more.
“I don’t understand such things.”
My mouth had gone dry.
What on earth had the adults around her been doing, allowing her self-esteem to plummet to this degree?
If I could, I wanted to seize Achilles Cardicha by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattled.
I should have anticipated that Princess Melissa would face unwelcome gazes again.
I should have protected the child from others’ malice!
“Listen, Princess Melissa.”
I removed a fallen leaf from the child’s hair and opened my mouth.
“Think about what you accomplished at Athos Fortress.”
“….”
Princess Melissa fell silent for a moment.
Her mind was surely spinning with memories from Athos Fortress.
I decided to help Princess Melissa a little more.
“Your brother accomplished enough to publicly acknowledge your achievements. Or are you saying the Grand Duke Cardicha lied?”
“No!”
Princess Melissa cried out, her voice tinged with excitement.
“My brother didn’t lie. But…”
The child’s voice quickly lost its vigor and trailed off.
“I lied. Tessa told me I absolutely couldn’t tell anyone that she helped me…”
Ah.
A bitter taste rose all the way to the back of my throat.
“I didn’t help at all. The people who were actually saved were saved by Princess Melissa.”
“But… you told me the water was bad!”
“Yes. But just because I knew the water was bad, what could I actually do? I was stuck here in the Capital, unable to do anything at all.”
“…You helped me.”
Princess Melissa’s voice trembled slightly.
“You told me I could do it, that I would succeed. That’s why I was able to do well. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to… do anything…”
I was at a loss for words.
What I had told Princess Melissa was nothing more than the most obvious encouragement.
It was Princess Melissa herself who had actually saved the people of Athos Fortress in that difficult situation.
But no matter what I said to this struggling child now, she wouldn’t believe it.
So all I could do was hold this child tightly in my arms.
“Sister…”
Princess Melissa whimpered.
“I want to go home.”
The “home” Princess Melissa wanted to return to was neither the Cardicha Grand Duke Residence in the Capital nor the Cardicha Grand Duke Castle in the Northern Territory.
A warm home where her mother and father, and Choco, were waiting.
An ordinary household in South Korea.
One where she woke in the morning to eat warm rice and soup before rushing off to school, chatted excitedly with friends during breaks, and where the Dark Grand Duke and his younger sister were nothing more than amusing characters from a web novel. That was the life she wanted to return to.
“…I’m sorry.”
The words spilled out on their own.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Even knowing it wouldn’t help the crying child at all, I couldn’t help but say it.
“You can’t go home.”
“Can’t… go?”
Princess Melissa looked up at me blankly.
“Really… I can’t go?”
I took a deep breath.
The problem that had tormented me for so long.
When and how should I tell Princess Melissa the truth?
I could sense it instinctively.
If not now… there would be no other chance.
“Do you remember your name? Your real name. The one your mother and father gave you?”
“Ah, no.”
Princess Melissa murmured with a bewildered expression.
“My name…. My name. Now that I think about it, it was never Melissa. But I can’t remember it.”
That’s right.
I couldn’t properly recall my own name either.
Was it Kim? Lee? It seemed like a common surname, but…
Ever since I awakened as Tessa Harrington in this world.
While most of my other memories remained vivid, my own name simply wouldn’t surface clearly.
At first, like Princess Melissa, I hadn’t even been conscious of this fact.
Who deliberately tries to recall their own name?
But then.
“…Cain Inkaris had asked me once. Why did I make that reluctant expression whenever someone called me by name?”
So it seemed I had tried to tell him my real name.
“I couldn’t remember it.”
The shock I received then was something I would never forget for the rest of my life.
A confusion and pain as if the entire world were shaking to its core.
That’s why I understood Princess Melissa’s feelings all too well.
“I didn’t want to tell her this so soon. I was planning to tell her when she was older….”
But I couldn’t bring myself to lie to a child whimpering about wanting to go home, nor did I want to avoid answering and subject her to false hope.
“Princess Melissa, you see… your sister also….”
Despite trying to speak as calmly as possible, my voice trembled slightly.
“Can’t remember her name.”
“You also…?”
Princess Melissa stared at me blankly.
“So… you and I both don’t know our names, which is why we can’t go back…?”
I nodded.
How could I return when my sense of self as a “modern person” had faded away?
Even if I did return, how could I possibly live properly when I couldn’t even remember who I was or my name?
“…So you and I both have no names.”
“That’s not true.”
Princess Melissa’s eyes widened in surprise, round as a rabbit’s.
“It’s not?”
“My name is Tessa. And you are Princess Melissa. The Princess Melissa who saved everyone at Athos Fortress.”
“….”
“Whether it’s your real name or not, you accomplished all of that as ‘Princess Melissa.’ It was you who saved those people. You’re the sister who made Grand Duke Cardicha proud. And you’re the Grand Duke’s daughter who held her place with dignity at the triumph.”
My voice grew stronger with each word.
Perhaps because I myself wanted to believe in these words as well.
Entering the Academy, becoming a Finance Ministry bureaucrat, helping children as Vice Director of the Child Protection Bureau….
“None of these were done by ‘Melissa from the webtoon.’ Understand?”
All of this was done by ‘me,’ Tessa Harrington.
I’m not a fake either.

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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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