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Chapter 3
“O-oppa……”
Lady Melissa looked up at her brother with a tear-covered face.
“I’m sorry……”
“……”
Grand Duke Kardicha turned away.
“My younger sister caused trouble. I will provide compensation immediately, so inform the servant I brought with me.”
“It’s quite alright, Your Grace.”
The Duchess of Beiretz approached with several maids following behind her.
“It was not something especially valuable, so please do not worry. I’m more concerned about whether the young lady was hurt.”
“She isn’t injured.”
Grand Duke Kardicha answered in an openly displeased tone.
“But compensation should naturally still be given.”
“Our family is not so poor that we cannot handle a single glass artwork. Please think of it as a gift we would have given anyway. Lady Melissa’s birthday was not long ago, after all.”
“That’s true.”
The Grand Duke let out a sigh.
“When will you finally grow up…… Melissa, please stay quiet for once. Is that really so difficult?”
……Something felt strange.
At first glance, it simply looked like a guardian struggling to deal with a child who caused trouble.
But considering Lady Melissa’s status, the situation was definitely unusual.
Whether illegitimate or not, noble children normally receive strict etiquette training from a very young age.
Yet looking at the trouble Lady Melissa caused—and the way she reacted—it was impossible to see her as a ten-year-old noble girl.
‘What exactly…… is going on?’
Just as confusion filled my mind, something even stranger happened.
“U-uaaaah!”
Lady Melissa’s lips trembled, and then she suddenly burst into tears, her face turning pale as she pushed through the crowd and ran away.
“……Haa.”
The Grand Duke pressed a hand to his forehead before silently going after his younger sister.
Now the people around openly began whispering about Lady Melissa and her strange behavior.
“As expected, since she’s illegitimate……”
“Are all illegitimate children like that? I think she was simply born lacking something.”
“She looks perfectly normal, though. I almost feel bad for the Grand Duke. Even with all that wealth and power, if your own family is like that, you’ll never sleep peacefully.”
“She probably won’t even find a marriage partner. I’d bet my watch she’ll become a burden on the Grand Duke’s family.”
……That was enough.
If I listened any longer, my ears would rot.
I quickly left the area.
‘The balcony was…… ah, this way.’
After finding a small balcony, I casually opened the door wide.
I really shouldn’t have.
“Darling…… a little more, mm, right there……!”
Bang!
The moment I witnessed something I absolutely shouldn’t have seen, I immediately slammed the door shut.
‘What the hell are they doing in someone else’s house……?’
And not just any house, but a ducal residence.
Suppressing the urge to wash my eyes, I headed toward another balcony.
Before I could even open the door this time, I heard a sickeningly sweet voice from inside.
“Honey, isn’t the moon beautiful tonight?”
……Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.
Just as I dragged myself back toward the ballroom—
“M-mommy……. Daddy……”
I heard the sound of a child sobbing from behind another balcony door.
Without thinking, I opened it.
I assumed a child who came with their parents had gotten lost, and I intended to help find them.
But then—
‘……!’
A face completely soaked with tears and mucus, blood vessels burst red in her eyes, tiny shoulders trembling violently.
The young girl crying in full panic was none other than Lady Melissa.
Now then.
In a situation where I didn’t even know which novel I had transmigrated into, what was the best way to deal with a young lady who was obviously an important character?
- Quietly close the door and pretend I saw nothing.
- Comfort the child and step directly into a troublesome swamp.
The obvious answer was number one.
“Hiic…… hngh…… waaah……”
But unfortunately, I wasn’t cold-hearted enough to abandon a crying child and run away.
Especially not one crying so hard she could barely breathe.
I carefully approached the child and knelt down to meet her eye level.
Lady Melissa looked startled, but she still couldn’t stop crying.
“Hic…… uugh……”
“Breathe.”
I gently held her shoulders and rubbed her back, trying to calm her trembling body.
“Hic, ngh…… I can’t stop……”
“You can.”
I spoke firmly.
“Let’s do it together, okay? Breathe in…… one, two, three. Breathe out…… one, two, three.”
Thankfully, Melissa followed my instructions well, and her crying gradually calmed down.
She had been crying so hard that she looked ready to collapse from exhaustion, so I sighed in relief—
“Wh-who……?”
Only now did Melissa finally seem curious about who I was.
I handed her a handkerchief and spoke.
“My name is Tessa Harrington. I’m the Vice Director of the Child Protection Bureau.”
The child quickly snatched the handkerchief and loudly blew her nose before answering in a stuffed-up voice.
“……Don’t know it.”
“It means I work with lots of children around your age.”
I lied smoothly while forcing the kindest smile I could manage.
For a moment, I even thought this fake title was finally useful.
Then—
“Is it like being a kindergarten teacher? I’m not a little kid……”
……What?
For a split second, it felt like my heart stopped beating.
The word kindergarten did not exist in this world.
Daycare centers, maybe.
Which meant the meaning behind “kindergarten” was……
My lips parted slightly. I wanted to say something, but no words came out.
The young lady reached toward me with a panicked face.
“S-sorry. I said something weird again, didn’t I? I’m really sorry…… I need to forget faster. I have to forget everything.”
The child rambled incoherently and eventually even started stuttering while apologizing over and over again.
“I’m really, really sorry!”
I barely managed to force out my voice.
“……You transmigrated too, didn’t you?”
The young lady stared at me with wide eyes.
Her small mouth opened and closed silently for a moment—
“Waaaah!”
The moment I finally calmed her down, all that effort became meaningless as she burst into tears again and threw herself into my arms.
Flustered, I patted her back awkwardly.
It seemed my guess was correct, but the way the young lady acted at the ballroom was nothing like a typical transmigrator.
Actually, even looking at her now felt strange.
If two transmigrators met, shouldn’t the first thing they do be exchange information and promise cooperation?
Not burst into tears and cling to each other like this.
‘Well, I guess she’s been having a really hard time. And possessing a child’s body usually affects the mind too—that’s a common cliché…….’
I gently rubbed her back until she finally calmed down.
If someone suddenly opened the door because her crying kept getting louder, things would become disastrous.
“Please calm down. People outside will hear us.”
“B-but……”
Melissa muttered tearfully.
“I never thought there would be someone else besides me. I really wanted to meet someone so badly! I was so scared!”
I stared at her quietly.
No matter how young her body looked, if she was a transmigrator who had lived as a modern person before suddenly ending up here, then mentally she should still be an adult—or at the very least a high school student.
Out of all the novels I had read, not a single transmigrated protagonist had been younger than a high schooler before transmigrating.
I myself had transmigrated while attending high school.
Even if the mind gradually adapted to the body, acting this helplessly childlike was something she needed to stop for her own sake.
“First, calm down a little. Just because you transmigrated into a ten-year-old body doesn’t mean you have to act like you’re ten, right? Since we’re talking about it, how old are you really? I transmigrated when I was exactly eighteen.”
Whether she was an adult or a high school student, realizing that her true mental age was not that of a child would probably help her situation greatly.
But things did not go the way I expected at all.
Melissa stared at me blankly, her lips trembling slightly, before a sobbing voice escaped from her small mouth.
“I-I’m in…… third grade elementary school, high school unnie……”
