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chapter 19
In the hour when everyone was asleep, creak… creeeak… the wooden floor in the hallway pressed down slowly under someone’s steps.
‘Who would sneak around this late at night…? The teacher!’
I immediately pressed my ear against the door.
A soft click—
The sound of someone exiting another room and closing the door quietly.
Careful steps walking along the wooden floor, trying not to make noise.
And those footsteps were heading toward the front door.
‘Going out at this hour?’
Or…
running away in the middle of the night?
A man who embezzled and planned to escape wouldn’t leave empty-handed.
‘What if he’s planning to raid the director’s safe and run?’
I had to stop the orphanage from collapsing.
Of course, it was for the children here, but…
‘If the director goes broke and resigns, he’ll wander outside… and then he’ll bring Count Torto straight here!’
To get a reward for “finding his daughter”!
I absolutely couldn’t let the events of the adoption scam from before my regression repeat again.
I quietly stepped into the hallway to check where the teacher was heading and pressed myself to the window by the entrance.
└ [Stop doing dangerous stuff and just go wake an adult;;]
I’m not sure it’s a midnight escape yet.
It could just be another smoking session.
If it turns out to be nothing and I make a fuss, things might get worse.
Still, I prepared to sprint to the director’s office at any moment while observing carefully.
It was dark, but I could make out shapes.
He was carrying something heavy under his arm.
‘A bag?’
No—
It sagged weirdly, and something pale and hair-like drooped from one end…
‘…Jeff?!’
The teacher was kidnapping Jeff!
└ [OMG since he couldn’t kidnap Rose he switched targets]
No wonder Jeff kept nodding off today!
‘So he drugged him beforehand?!’
I looked around—
There was even a horse prepared a short distance away.
A premeditated crime!
Emergency!
Pweeet—!!
I quickly blew my whistle and tried to run upstairs to the director’s office.
But—
‘Ugh, these short legs!’
Before I could even climb the stairs, the front door opened again.
I panicked and hid in the gap under the stairs.
Creak… creeeeak…
The footsteps grew closer.
‘Hk.’
When the shoes reached right in front of me, I nearly gasped out loud.
Luckily, he hesitated around the first floor for a bit, then hurried back toward the door.
Clack.
└ [Now we got him for sure??]
└ [PLEASE stop raising death flags ㅠㅠ]
I waited a moment longer just in case, then lifted the whistle again.
Before the kidnapper escaped, I had to—
“Found you, little rat.”
“Mmph—!!”
└ [NOOOO ♪♩~!!]
└ [♪♬♬♩ Aaaa ♬~♪]
└ [He says rat with NO filter but we get censored?? injustice]
My whistle dropped to the floor, and the comment fairies were screaming songs inside my head.
I struggled with all my strength, but an adult’s grip couldn’t be beaten.
He dragged me to the storage shed where his bag and the drowsy Jeff were waiting, then tossed me inside.
“Agh!”
“Quiet. Haa… No one will hear you out here anyway.”
He was right—
The storage shed was a fair distance from the orphanage building.
No wonder he used it to secretly smoke.
“Damn it. What now? I can’t take two brats. But you saw my face.”
“J-Jeff…”
If I couldn’t win with strength, I had to win with words.
Even if he wasn’t someone who could be reasoned with, I needed time to think.
“Jeff didn’t do anything. I mean—neither did I—but why take a kid who has nothing to do with this?”
At this point, I had nothing to lose.
“Please let Jeff go instead. I’ll—!”
I even started thinking that maybe being kidnapped myself, with an adult mind, gave me a higher chance of escaping.
“What are you babbling about?”
“…Huh?”
“A disobedient brat like you would never get treated well if I took you.”
…Uh. Hmm?
So that means—
‘He never planned to kidnap me in the first place?!’
But everyone said I was the target!!
└ [Huh??]
└ [He said he wanted a well-behaved, pretty child;]
└ [So Jeff is… pretty??]
Apparently the comment fairy did bring spoilers from the future sometimes,
but they also made a lot of… creative interpretations.
└ [So Jeff is actually good-looking??]
DOES THAT MATTER RIGHT NOW?!
Anyway, if I wasn’t the kidnapping target—
I was just an obstacle.
“Rose, you’re smarter than I thought.”
His eyes were wild now.
The teacher—no, the embezzler-kidnapper—reached toward me.
He grabbed the back of my neck and hurled me deeper inside the shed.
“Ugh!”
“I can’t leave a kid who’ll definitely report me.”
Then he picked something up from the window frame by the door.
“If things start disappearing, they’ll suspect me immediately, so I’m erasing all the evidence.”
In his hand was a matchbox he kept for smoking.
‘So the fire accident before my regression… was also him!’
└ [He’s going to start a fire NOW?!]
└ [Kidnapper + embezzler + abuser + arsonist… I’m dizzy]
└ [The crime bundle is too much]
“Stay well, Rose. No—should I say goodbye?”
He gathered Jeff and his things, tossed a lit match into the pile of storage items, and shut the door.
Maybe he’d pre-soaked something with oil—the fire spread fast.
‘How long has it been since I died in a fire?!’
So no matter what age…
No matter what timeline…
Was I destined to die by fire??
└ [The main character won’t die.]
Why not?!
I already DID once!!
└ […Oh true]
└ [Is she gonna regress again??]
└ [Imagine restarting life 3rd time after all these chapters]
└ [If she doesn’t regress it’s a cliff death ending lol]
Maybe fairies just have a lighthearted view of death.
Their mindset is definitely different from humans.
└ [Excuse me??]
Through the small window by the door, I saw that lunatic heading toward the main building.
Just like before my regression—
He was going to set the main building on fire too.
“Cough.”
There were only two exits: the window and the door.
But both were completely engulfed in flames now.
└ [?? : I’m quitting this story.]
└ [?]
└ [They said they’d quit but came back immediately to comment ?????]
└ [Why are you scrolling the comments so hard if you’re quitting lol]
I’m trying to DIE here—
Stop ruining the mood!!
‘Come to think of it, before my regression, the “dropout fairy” was also the first to show up.’
└ [They were FIRST?]
└ [Okay they’re a REAL fan then]
Was that foreshadowing that I’d “drop out of life”??
The fire that started near the door slowly spread inward.
‘At this rate I’ll die even more pathetically than being killed by Count Torto.’
No.
I refuse to die like this.
I found a blanket among the storage items and prepared to charge.
It was a wooden door—maybe the fire weakened it.
I covered myself fully with the blanket; my vision was gone, but it didn’t matter.
I threw my whole body against the door.
‘Please. Open!’
BAM. BAM.
I hit it several times, but the door didn’t budge.
‘Please…’
Eventually my strength faded, and the thudding grew weaker…
└ [Oh no babyㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
└ [Don’t dieㅠㅠ]
└ [Author please save her]
Seeing the comment fairies so panicked—
Was this really unavoidable?
But then…
‘Why… isn’t the fire as hot as it should be?’
Even when the blanket slipped and flames touched my exposed legs—
It wasn’t that hot.
Now that I thought about it—
It was like this last time too, when I died in the noble prison.
Back then I thought it was because I died too quickly to feel heat—
But right now, I was alive.
Something was strange.
Then—
<■■…■■■….>
A voice appeared in my head again, like the time the fairies came through the flames.
But this voice wasn’t the comment fairies.
It was calmer, deeper, echoing.
└ [Huh??]
└ [Is this awakening?]
└ [Even Minjun sounds calm sometimes tho]
└ [Filtered squares… so is it a constellation or a god?]
└ [Constellation is random, so probably a god]
‘So beyond fairies… now a god?!’
└ [Once a god shows up it’s ALWAYS “plot powered by god” sigh]
└ [When gods appear the worldbuilding gets confusingㅠㅠ]
└ [As an anonymous fairy, I vote for constellations instead.]
└ [Thought this story was different but no, falling into cliché saintess path. I quit.]
<■……(bloop).>
As if hearing the fairies, the mysterious voice gurgled like drowning in water and faded away.
‘…What?’
The comment fairies were territorial.
They literally exorcised the unknown voice.
