The Villainess in the Childcare Story Doesn’t Hide Her Personality - Chapter 75

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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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“What do you mean you can’t endure it?”
I spoke carelessly, as though the matter were of no consequence.
“Well, the lack of sleep was genuinely difficult for them. Everyone else wakes after four hours of sleep, but I need at least five hours to function properly….”
“Four hours?”
I doubted my own ears.
“That’s all the sleep they get?”
“I sleep three hours.”
Mia spoke with unmistakable pride.
It was the same tone one might use to say ‘I play piano well’ or ‘I’m fast at running’.
“Isn’t that far too little sleep? You must be drowsy all the time.”
“I have to work harder than others, so that’s why. Still, everyone envies me because sleeping less is considered a talent.”
…They envy such a thing.
The Imperial Academy was fiercely competitive, but it was far removed from this sort of madness.
“Then, what do you do while you’re awake? Could you tell me a bit about it?”
Mia, her tension visibly easing, nodded.
“To attend lectures, we have to do a lot of advance studying beforehand. The apprentices who are skilled help those who struggle. I’m one of the ones who struggles.”
I was somewhat surprised by the system, which seemed more reasonable than I’d expected.
It appeared to be a ruthlessly competitive atmosphere devoid of mercy, yet such a sensible system existed?
Of course.
‘If it were truly effective, the dropout rate wouldn’t have become so high, would it?’
I probed Mia cautiously.
“Then you must rely on each other quite a bit.”
“Rely on… Yes.”
Mia’s expression darkened.
There was something more to this.
Trusting my instinct, I pressed the girl further.
“Where do you mainly receive help?”
“That’s….”
Mia trailed off.
“The Training Chamber.”
The girl trembled at the mere thought of it, as though gripped by fear.
I tilted my head in confusion.
“The Training Chamber? You mean the one near the Lecture Hall?”
“The, the Lecture Hall?”
Mia shook her head.
“No, the Training Chamber is in the Underground.”
So the Training Chamber I’d seen was a false one after all.
I withdrew a small pocket watch from my pocket. It wasn’t particularly valuable, yet Mia’s face brightened immediately upon seeing it.
“If you don’t mind, keep this. And besides the watch, I’ll bring you some other things too—could you show me that Training Chamber?”
* * *
It took dozens of minutes just to descend to the underground level.
The considerable time wasn’t because the Training Chamber was distant—it was because Mia descended with extreme caution, trembling the entire way.
She’d even procured an apprentice’s robe from somewhere and dressed me in it.
“If we’re discovered, you might be fine, but I certainly won’t be.”
By this point, Mia seemed to have realized I wasn’t simply probing out of idle curiosity.
But then.
【Please bring me letter paper and envelopes. The kind that have been specially treated so magic doesn’t work on them at all.】
Greed conquered fear.
First a timepiece. Then letter paper.
I kept stealing glances at the girl awkwardly leading the way ahead of me.
‘…Could she possibly want to escape?’
If that were the case, she’d only need to tell me.
But Mia didn’t seem like she wanted to leave the Mage Tower.
Above all, one could quit being a Mage Tower apprentice whenever they wished.
Otherwise, the dropout rate wouldn’t be so remarkably high.
‘Enough. For now, focus on what’s in front of us.’
Getting distracted could cause me to miss solving something crucial.
Right now, I needed to concentrate on the ‘real Training Chamber.’
If it were a facility without problems, they wouldn’t have bothered constructing and showing me a fake one.
Finally, the door where Mia stopped had slogans carved into it.
‘Ability is qualification.’
‘Weakness is sin.’
…These are the phrases shown to teenagers?
‘Ugh….’
As Mia opened the door, a space reeking of acrid stench revealed itself.
Mia spoke to me with a somewhat apologetic expression.
“Someone must have been practicing endurance with sulfur and hydrochloric acid. You should probably just head back, sir.”
“What about you and the other kids? You’ll have to keep using this Training Chamber, won’t you? Are you really okay with this?”
Mia was quite spirited.
“It’s just the smell that’s unpleasant—it’s not difficult at all. We just train!”
I furrowed my brow.
“I’m curious what this endurance practice actually is.”
Just slightly.
Mia’s eyes darted away.
“There’s a type of magic called endurance magic.”
Even as she spoke those words, the child unconsciously hid her wrist behind her back.
Though the very gesture of hiding it burned the red marks on her wrist into my retinas.
“I see. Since I don’t know much about magic, your explanation must be correct.”
But I understood.
That even Fabian Beiretz wouldn’t be able to guess the truth about this ‘endurance magic.’
I exited the Training Chamber and climbed back up to the upper floor, where Mia hesitantly posed a question.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
Her silent plea—please say no—was something I lacked the audacity to ignore.
I had already uncovered everything necessary.
What remained was merely the collection of evidence.
* * *
By thoroughly combing through the Library, I managed to locate all the materials I sought.
Educational logs, apprentice evaluations, training schedules, Medical Office usage records, desertion data….
Sifting through numbers, cross-referencing dates, identifying patterns, and pinpointing anomalies from these seemingly mundane documents.
It was work I had conducted countless times over the years at the Ministry of Finance.
‘…The official training hours are complete fabrication.’
Eight in the morning to eight in the evening.
That was the entirety of the recorded official training schedule.
However.
‘The lighting and heating readings spike abnormally every dawn.’
Night training was undeniable.
Whether it constituted ordinary ‘training’ remained unclear.
Next came the deserters.
As Fabian had stated, the apprentices who abandoned their posts were predominantly young, and their academic records ranked among the lowest.
At first glance, it appeared as though lower-ranked apprentices simply failed to adapt and departed.
But after meeting Mia, I began to consider an alternative possibility.
‘Was their failure to adapt truly due solely to poor performance?’
Perhaps the inverse held true.
What if their poor performance resulted from their inability to adapt?
The apprentice evaluations themselves contained numerous irregularities.
According to Mia, the Mage Tower was undoubtedly an intensely competitive society.
Yet all the apprentices’ records showed flawless evaluations—orderly, exceptional grades without a single blemish.
I crossed my legs and chewed on my quill.
‘Fabricated.’
I had suspected from the outset how much credence could be placed in documents so readily verifiable. Fabian certainly hadn’t considered this….
‘Yet nothing here constitutes a genuine problem.’
It was highly probable that those who authored these records—the instructors—had concealed the truth.
Naturally, without Fabian’s knowledge.
But I could not condemn the instructors based on mere circumstantial suspicion alone. The gravity of that suspicion was the troubling part.
Next came the Medical Office records.
‘Hm.’
All entries were concentrated between eight and nine in the morning.
Considering the Medical Office operated from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, it was reasonable to conclude that actual ‘patients’ had sustained injuries well before eight in the morning.
The treatment reasons were uniformly identical.
Minor injuries sustained during training.
‘This is ridiculous.’
I shuddered at the memory of the crimson scars that remained on Mia’s wrist.
Sleep three hours and you’re envied; sleep four and you’re average; sleep five and you’re maladjusted—such was the reality for Mage Tower apprentices.
What in the world was happening in the Training Ground at this ungodly hour, when ordinary teenagers were still deep in slumber?

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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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