Chapter 03
Time passed again, and several days had gone by since I started living in the slave shop.
“There. All done. Now your bangs won’t poke your eyes, right?”
“Y-yeah… T-thank you.”
In the meantime, I had grown close enough to Cecil to help tie up her bangs. When I pulled up her long, eye-poking hair into a small apple-style ponytail, I was finally able to see her face properly.
Cecil was undeniably beautiful—almost too much so for a child.
Another child actor was added to the list.
Lizzie was already pretty enough to put professional child actors to shame, but Cecil could easily rival her.
As I stared at Cecil’s little ponytail swaying atop her head, I suddenly felt a soft weight leaning against me from the side. I turned my head.
“Mm…”
Lizzie, who had been waiting quietly while I tied Cecil’s hair, had dozed off and was now resting gently against my shoulder.
‘How cute.’
Her small head, with its golden hair, was precariously balanced against my shoulder. Wanting her to sleep more comfortably, I adjusted my position and carefully laid her down on my lap.
She stirred slightly, rubbing her head against my legs as if searching for a better spot, then clutched her stuffed rabbit tightly and found a cozy position. Soon, she was sleeping deeply.
Meanwhile, Cecil naturally settled in beside me.
“Cecil, here. Give me your hands.”
“Ah… B-but they’re not fully healed yet…”
At my sudden request, Cecil hesitated and tried to hide her hands. But I gently took hold of her wrists and carefully examined her fingernails.
Thankfully, the white spots and cracks caused by malnutrition had started to improve.
Seeing for myself that her health was slowly recovering, I finally let go of her hands and smiled in relief.
“It’s getting better. If you keep eating well, your nails won’t crack anymore, and they won’t hurt either.”
“O-okay… T-thank you…”
At some point, Cecil’s face had turned as red as her hair. She fidgeted with the tips of her fingers, clearly flustered.
She looked so cute that I couldn’t resist ruffling her hair. Then, I shifted my gaze to observe the others in the room.
‘The other kids are still the same.’
Among the four children here—each of them practically a walking disaster—Lizzie and Cecil had improved, but the remaining two were still the same as when I first saw them.
Like broken dolls, they remained curled up in a corner.
Unlike Cecil, they weren’t refusing meals, but that didn’t mean they looked much healthier either.
‘Especially that boy over there…’
I focused on the black-haired boy sitting with his back turned to the room.
His name was Abel.
His estimated age was around eight.
In the original story, Abel was the most ruthless character when it came to dealing with nobles. Here, he had already earned a reputation as a troublemaker.
It was as if he had decided not to accept anything from this place—he refused to sleep on the makeshift bed provided in the room, didn’t go outside during break time, and never completed any of the assigned lessons.
The caretakers had long since given up on him.
‘Looks like he’s been hurting himself too…’
Looking closely at his arm, I noticed scabs covering deep scratches. His skin had been torn, likely from repeatedly clawing at it with his own nails.
The sight reminded me of animals in captivity displaying repetitive, stress-induced behaviors.
‘How can I help him?’
Unlike Lizzie and Cecil, Abel was the only one whose backstory was clearly revealed in the original story.
Originally, he had lived a happy, ordinary life with his family—until slave traders broke into his home, slaughtered his family, and sold him to this shop.
‘That means the Abel sitting there right now has only recently lost his family. There’s no way he’d open up easily…’
A child with wounds that deep wouldn’t respond to a simple “Hi!” like the others.
But leaving him alone wasn’t an option either.
As I absentmindedly stroked Lizzie’s head, deep in thought about what to do—
Clack—
The locked door suddenly swung open.
“Are all five of them here?”
At the sound of the caretaker counting the children as if checking off a list, Lizzie, who had been sleeping, groggily lifted her head.
Still drowsy, she rubbed her eyes, but as soon as she spotted the caretaker who had suddenly entered, fear flashed across her face. She quickly scooted closer to me, pressing her small body against mine.
“All five are here. Who should we send for education this time?”
“Hmm…”
At the word education that slipped from the caretaker’s lips, my eyes snapped wide open.
It was a term I had come across in the novel.
This high-class slave shop trained children to become distinguished slaves for noble households. Under the guise of education, they were sent to noble patrons to practice serving them.
In the novel, these so-called educators—the nobles—began getting murdered one by one, revealing the existence of the calamities to the world. The calamity children had all undergone this so-called training at some point in the past, and the novel had gone into disturbing detail about what they had experienced.
“That one. Send him.”
One of the caretakers pointed directly at Abel, who was curled up in the corner.
“He’s been resisting too much. If we send him to the famous Marquis Drummond, who knows? Maybe he’ll realize that maintaining that damn arrogant attitude won’t do him any good.”
At his words, another caretaker followed his gaze to Abel and nodded in agreement.
“Right. If we don’t fix that damn personality, we’ll be the ones getting scolded in the end. I don’t want to hear any more talk about education issues. Damn it, I was called by the Madam just recently, and it would be troublesome if such problems occur again.”
“A~ah, yeah. I’d rather not deal with that either. Alright, then let’s send him this time. If he causes problems, we can just dispose of him later.”
With that, the caretakers concluded their discussion and, without hesitation, started to walk toward Abel, who was hiding in the corner.
Abel, who had been hunched over, instantly tensed up as they approached. His body shrank further, his stance growing more defensive.
“N-no, I d-don’t want to…! St-stay away! Don’t come near me!”
“Haah… Listen, brat. If you don’t want to get hurt, you’d better behave. Starting today, your education begins.”
At the mention of that ominous word, the color drained from Abel’s face.
The other children trembled in fear as well, their small bodies shivering. Lizzie and Cecil clung tightly to me, their grips desperate.
I watched as the caretakers grabbed Abel by the arms, forcefully dragging him toward the door.
Wait a minute…
Abel’s first educator.
Marquis Drummond.
He was a deranged cultist. He believed in a twisted doctrine that claimed drinking the blood of children would grant eternal life.
After meeting Drummond as his first educator, Abel’s descent into darkness only deepened. The horrors of that initial education shaped his cruel and brutal nature.
And once Abel finally escaped the slave shop, the very first person he hunted down and slaughtered—brutally, at that—was that very Marquis.
‘The novel revealed a key weakness about that educator.’
Now that I had reincarnated into this world, I knew exactly who these children were being sent to and what awaited them.
In other words, I knew how to handle those nobles.
“N-no…! Let go of this…! I said I don’t want to…! Let go! I said let go of this!”
“This is really! Can’t you stay still? You damn brat…! Do you want to be dragged to solitary confinement like this!”
As Abel struggled violently at the doorway, one of the caretakers, clearly out of patience, raised a hand to strike him.
Without thinking, I shot up to my feet.
“Wait a moment!”
The caretaker’s hand froze midair at the sudden outburst. He turned his head toward me, frowning.
“I’ll go instead.”
Since I already knew how to deal with Drummond, I figured it would be easier if I just took care of things myself.
A heavy silence fell over the room.
The air turned ice cold.
For some reason, everyone was staring at me with strange expressions.
…Why are they looking at me like that?
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