VPSDHN 03

Chapter 03 

“O-Oppa…”

Lady Melissa looked up at her older brother, her face completely covered in tears.

“I’m sorry…”

“…”

Grand Duke Karditza turned away.

“My sister has caused a disturbance. We will compensate for it immediately, so please inform the attendant I brought with me.”

“It is quite alright, Your Grace.”

The Duchess of Beyretz, who had approached with several maids in tow, spoke up.

“It was nothing of great value, so please do not trouble yourself. We are only concerned whether Lady Melissa was hurt.”

“She isn’t hurt,” Grand Duke Karditza replied, his tone openly displeased. “However, compensation is only proper.”

“We are hardly so destitute that we cannot handle a single piece of glassware. Please think of it as a gift we would have given anyway. After all, the young lady’s birthday was just a short while ago.”

“I suppose so.”

Grand Duke Karditza let out a heavy sigh.

“When will you ever mature…? Melissa, please just stay quiet. Is that really so difficult, hm?”

…Something was off.

At a glance, it seemed like a perfectly ordinary situation where a guardian was at a loss over a trouble-making child. However, considering Lady Melissa’s status, this was definitely unusual.

Illegitimate or not, children of nobility were raised under rigorous etiquette training from a very young age. Yet looking at the scene Lady Melissa had caused and her reaction to it, she didn’t look like a ten-year-old noble girl at all.

‘What on earth… is going on?’

Just as I was thoroughly bewildered, an even stranger thing happened.

“W-Waaaaah!”

Lady Melissa’s lips trembled violently, and with a face turned pale white, she burst into tears and ran away, pushing past the crowd.

“…Haa.”

Grand Duke Karditza pinched the bridge of his nose, then silently set off to find his younger sister.

By now, the people in the room had begun openly whispering about Lady Melissa and her bizarre behavior.

“As expected, since she’s an illegitimate child…”

“Are all illegitimate children like that? I’d say she was born a bit slow.”

“She looks perfectly fine on the outside, though. Poor Grand Duke. Even with all that wealth and power in his hands, having a relative like that must mean he never gets a peaceful night’s sleep.”

“She won’t find a decent match, either. I’d bet my pocket watch she’ll end up a burden to the Grand Ducal House.”

…That was enough.

Feeling like my ears were going to rot if I listened any longer, I briskly left the area.

‘The balcony… Ah, it was this way.’

Spotting a small balcony, I swung the door wide open without a second thought.

I really shouldn’t have done that.

“Darling… A little more, nnngh, right there…!”

BANG!

The moment I saw what no eyes should ever have to witness, I slammed the door shut immediately.

‘In someone else’s house, of all places…?’

And not just any ordinary house, but a ducal estate.

Suppressing the urge to scrub my eyes out, I directed my steps toward a different balcony.

This time, even before I could open the door, a voice so sickeningly sweet it could rot one’s ears drifted through.

“Babe, isn’t the moon so beautiful tonight?”

…Forget it. Totally hopeless.

Just as I was trudging back toward the ballroom—

“Ugh, M-Mommy… Daddy…”

Beyond the door of yet another balcony, the sound of a child sobbing reached my ears.

I opened the door without much thought. I figured a child who had come with their parents had gotten lost, and I intended to help find them.

And yet.

‘…!’

A face completely smeared with tears and snot, bloodshot eyes, and tiny shoulders trembling violently.

This young girl sobbing in utter panic was… none other than Lady Melissa.

Now, here’s a question.

In a situation where you don’t even know what work of fiction you’ve reincarnated into, what is the best way to deal with a young lady who is clearly a main character?

1. Quietly close the door and pretend you saw nothing.

2. Comfort the child and step right into a troublesome quagmire.

The correct answer was, obviously, Option 1.

“Sob, sniff… Waaaah…”

Unfortunately, I was not cold-blooded enough to abandon a crying little child and run away. Especially one who was crying so hard she was practically hyperventilating.

I carefully approached the child and knelt down to match her eye level.

Lady Melissa looked startled, but she still couldn’t stop crying.

“Sob, sniff… uuugh…”

“Take a breath.”

I gently took hold of the child’s shoulders and stroked her back to calm her trembling body.

“Sob, sniff, it won’t stop…”

“You can do it,” I said firmly. “Shall we try it together? Breathe in… huff… one, two, three. Breathe out… phew… one, two, three.”

Fortunately, Melissa followed my instructions well, and her crying gradually subsided.

Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief—since she had been on the verge of collapsing from sheer exhaustion—

“W-Who are you…?”

Melissa finally seemed curious about who I was.

I handed the young lady a handkerchief and spoke.

“My name is Tessa Harrington. I’m the Deputy Director of the Child Protection Bureau.”

The child snatched the handkerchief, blew her nose loudly, and answered with a choked voice.

“…I don’t know what that is.”

“It means my job involves meeting lots of young friends like you, Lady Melissa.”

I offered the kindest smile I could muster while telling a lie without batting an eye.

I guess a hollow title comes in handy at times like this, I thought—but only for a split second.

“…Is that like a kindergarten teacher? I’m not a little kid…”

…What?

For a moment, my heart felt like it skipped a beat.

The word kindergarten did not exist in this world. A day-care center, perhaps, but not a kindergarten.

Which meant what kindergarten implied was…

My lips parted. I wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

The young lady reached out toward me with a flustered expression.

“I-I’m sorry! Did I say something weird again? I’m so, so sorry… I need to forget it quickly. I have to forget everything.”

The child rambled frantically, even stuttering as she apologized repeatedly.

“Really, I’m really sorry!”

I barely managed to squeeze my voice out.

“…You’re a reincarnator, aren’t you? You too.”

The young lady looked at me with wide, rounded eyes. Her tiny mouth parted as if to speak—

“WAAAAAH!”

Completely rendering my efforts to calm her useless, she burst into a fresh flood of tears and threw her arms around me.

Flustered, I patted the young lady’s back. My guess seemed to be spot on, but her behavior in the ballroom hadn’t looked like that of a reincarnator at all.

Honestly, even looking at her now, it was the same.

When reincarnators meet, shouldn’t the priority be exchanging information and promising cooperation? Not bursting into tears out of nowhere and clinging to someone like this.

‘Well, maybe things have been that hard for her. And it’s a common cliché that if you reincarnate into a child’s body, your way of thinking becomes childlike too…’

I soothed her by stroking her back. If someone burst through the door because of her growing cries, it would be a disaster.

“Calm down. People outside will hear everything.”

“B-But…” Lady Melissa whimpered, sobbing softly. “I had no idea there’d be someone else besides me. I wanted to meet another one so badly! I was so scared!”

I stared at her intently.

On the outside she might be a child, but any reincarnator who lived as a modern person—neither a regressor nor a reincarnated native—and was struggling in a new world was fundamentally an adult, or at the very least a high school student.

Out of all the countless novels I had read, there wasn’t a single protagonist whose pre-reincarnation age was younger than a high schooler. Even I had reincarnated while diligently attending high school myself.

No matter how much the setting made one’s mind follow the body’s age, acting like an helpless little child was something she needed to stop doing, if only for her own sake.

“First, just calm down a bit. Just because you reincarnated into a ten-year-old doesn’t mean you have to act like one, right? Speaking of which, how old are you really? I reincarnated when I was exactly eighteen.”

Whether an adult or a high schooler, if she realized that her true mental age wasn’t that of a child, her condition would improve significantly.

However, the situation did not go according to my expectations at all.

Lady Melissa stared at me, her lips twitching, until a sobbing voice spilled from her tiny mouth:

“I-I’m in 3rd grade of elementary school, high school Unnie…”