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Chapter 7
I shouted back without backing down.
“The forest on the left!”
“…Ha!”
Anna let out a breath of disbelief.
Bill hid behind me, trembling.
“Bill, go.”
I tried to push the frightened child away, but for some reason he refused to budge.
Why is he acting like this?
Eventually giving up on separating him from me, I continued speaking.
“Wouldn’t it be better to check just once? It could be dangerous.”
“Do you really think there’d be a stray dog without a leash this close to the busy district?”
“But there really—”
“Lopez, are you just saying this because you don’t want to play treasure hunt?”
“Huh?”
“If there’s a dangerous dog around, then I suppose we’ll have to cancel treasure hunt today!”
Anna deliberately raised her voice.
The children who had been watching us immediately began glaring at me resentfully.
“What’s wrong with Lopez?”
“We only get to do treasure hunt twice a year!”
“Why are you ruining everything? Lopez is so weird!”
“Teacher, can’t we just do it without Lopez? We’re fine!”
“Did you hear a dog?”
“No. Lopez is causing trouble again!”
Voices blaming me rose from all sides.
But instead, I asked Anna with a small spark of hope,
“If there really is a dog, then we won’t do treasure hunt today?”
“If it’s dangerous, then of course not.”
As Anna smiled smugly, a boy named Champ walked up and shoved me.
My body staggered.
Bill was standing behind me, so I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stay upright.
“Hey! Why should all of us suffer because of you?!”
“Bill, are you okay?”
“Mm…”
“You shouldn’t push your friends like that.”
When I sharply scolded Champ, he glanced up at the teacher.
Anna had stepped back and was simply watching.
Quickly catching onto what she wanted, Champ crossed his arms and shot back,
“Since when were you my friend?”
“Well… honestly, I don’t really like you either…”
I understood.
If people didn’t get along, they couldn’t be friends.
Champ let out a scoff at my answer.
“Treasure hunt is the game we look forward to the most! If you don’t want to do it, then you should leave!”
“Yeah!”
“What dog barking?!”
The children all raised their voices one after another.
But it couldn’t be helped.
I truly hoped the treasure hunt wouldn’t happen.
At least not today.
Because during this treasure hunt, Medina and Klein would be seriously injured.
Klein had cynophobia—a severe fear of dogs.
And this was something only Klein himself knew.
To create a crisis in the novel’s plot, the author had chosen to release a mad dog into the orphanage grounds.
And not just any dog—a large one.
The moment Klein encountered the dog, he collapsed in terror, and Medina got hurt trying to save him.
In the end, both of them were badly injured together.
Later, the wounds became scars that remained even into adulthood.
For noblewomen, scars were considered shameful, so Medina suffered greatly because of them.
Klein suffered because of it too.
‘I don’t necessarily have to step in, but…’
Still, knowing all this and simply watching children get hurt was impossible.
‘I don’t know if this setting was really necessary for the story, but if possible, it’s better if no one gets hurt.’
Even if it changed the original plot, I wanted to prevent the children from getting injured in front of me.
‘At least until I escape this orphanage.’
Since we were still at the beginning of the story, saving the children from the upcoming incidents probably wouldn’t be difficult.
Of course, the sooner I returned home, the better—but it wasn’t like I was pressed for time.
‘It’s not as though my will or inheritance will disappear just because I’m gone for a little while.’
Unlike other novels, I hadn’t died after getting hit by some reincarnation truck.
I had simply gone to sleep and woken up in this world.
And since I was supposedly the only heir, I wasn’t worried about my assets.
‘Though there’s a chance my real body died…’
I’d think about that after doing everything I could here. That hypothesis was useless to me right now.
I glanced sideways at Klein.
Standing behind Medina, he was biting his lip while nervously scanning his surroundings.
Even merely hearing the word “dog” must’ve terrified him because of his trauma.
Still, since I’d pointed out the direction, he probably wouldn’t go into the left forest himself.
A little disappointing, but judging by the atmosphere, the treasure hunt would continue anyway.
After leisurely watching me get verbally attacked, Anna finally stepped in.
“Alright, that’s enough. You shouldn’t gang up on a friend like that.”
Even though she’d done it on purpose.
Clicking my tongue inwardly at Anna, I thought:
A teacher in charge of manners acting like that?
This orphanage was doomed.
‘Well, it was ruined in the original story too.’
Anna looked down at me with one corner of her lips raised.
“This is one of the children’s favorite events, so I hope Lopez understands. I’ll personally check for the dog.”
I hated the way Anna suddenly pretended to be a kind teacher.
My tolerance only extended to children.
“Yes, teacher. I understand. It’s the forest on the left!”
I deliberately emphasized left forest one more time.
At this point, Klein should understand.
“Now then, be careful not to wander into town while searching for the notes. Ready, start!”
“Waaah!”
The moment she finished speaking, the children scattered in every direction.
Only after seeing Klein hesitate before heading right did I finally start moving leisurely myself.
“Bill, you should hurry and go search too.”
“Huuing…”
Why did this kid cry every time I said something…?
“Alright then, tell me what you want.”
“Help me find notes together!”
“…Fine.”
Lopez is stupid!
A total idiot…!
‘But cute!’
Bill’s eyes sparkled.
At some point, even the fact that she didn’t notice he’d started calling her “noona” became adorable to him.
‘I’ve never seen someone this cute before.’
Bill smiled brighter than ever.
I got separated from Bill.
Not because I wanted to.
The children saw Bill with me and dragged him away like they were rescuing a princess from a villain.
Honestly, being with the other kids was probably better for him than staying with me.
After nodding to myself in agreement, I glanced at Anna.
Even after the treasure hunt started, she hadn’t moved from her spot once.
As expected, checking for the dog had been a lie.
‘Honestly, it wouldn’t be good for Anna either if the Class 1 kids got hurt.’
The Class 1 children were exactly the sort the director valued most—the ones fit to “raise the orphanage’s prestige.”
Meaning they absolutely couldn’t be damaged.
Even during punishment sessions, Anna carefully beat them in ways that wouldn’t leave scars, so the director allowed it.
But if they ended up with major scars like in the original story, things would be different.
‘In the novel, Anna got severely scolded, but she wasn’t fired.’
Instead, Medina and Klein suffered.
Because of their scars, both were demoted to Class 2.
Chester followed them there as well.
The director had a terrible headache after the orphanage’s three most valuable children all got demoted together.
Eventually, all three safely returned to Class 1, but still…
‘She’ll keep causing problems. Even having someone in charge of discipline is irritating.’
Maybe this incident could be used to drive Anna out completely, unlike in the novel.
Suddenly, a certain teacher came to mind.
‘I should use that person.’
I couldn’t keep watching children get beaten.
Anything was better than letting kids get hurt.
Just in case, I secretly stopped by the cafeteria before heading into the left forest.
Fortunately, thanks to how loudly I’d shouted about the mad dog, there weren’t any children there.
“Medina’s probably going to win first place again today.”
Klein smiled proudly while looking at the pile of notes he’d gathered.
He was just about to secretly scatter them near Medina when—
Grrrrr…
At the sound of an animal growling nearby, Klein’s body stiffened.
Rustle.
A gaunt large dog emerged from the bushes.
Its ribs jutted out sharply, and its teeth looked viciously pointed.
As though starved for days, the dog drooled madly while staring at Klein.
“Uh… ah…”
Klein instantly turned pale with fear.
“I-it came… for me…”
Trembling violently, he even began hallucinating countless dogs charging toward him with dripping jaws.
“Wh-why…?”
I-I definitely hid well…
As he stumbled backward, strength left his legs and he collapsed onto the ground.
The notes he had worked so hard to gather fluttered through the air above him.
At that, the dog began barking ferociously at Klein.
His face turned deathly white.
“Th-there really… is a d-dog…!”
Tears instantly welled in his eyes.
Klein was terrified of dogs.
Because people who coveted his powers had once released tracking dogs to hunt him down.
He had spent his life being chased by dogs, and now even the sight of one made his body freeze in terror.
“S-save me…”
His breathing quickened, and his body trembled uncontrollably.
Then a child’s flat, even voice rang out.
“Why are you in Class 1 if you can’t even tell left from right?”
“Lo-Lopez…?”
Lopez appeared, leaves tangled throughout her hair while carrying something in her hands.
