IBDHD 4

Chapter 4

The monster uncle took me to an orphanage.

The Sunshine Orphanage where I used to live was as bright as a temple, and it had a huge playground. There was even a beautiful garden where birds chirped and a stream burbled along.

But the orphanage the uncle brought me to looked terribly gloomy. Instead of a playground, there was nothing but an empty lot covered in dirt, and hardly any sunlight reached the place.

Is this really an orphanage?

If I stayed somewhere like this, I’d miss Mommy and Teacher Anne-Marie, the teacher in charge of my old orphanage, so much that I’d end up bawling every day. That wouldn’t suit the dignity of a ten-year-old big girl at all!

To make matters worse, the orphanage teacher wore pointy glasses that shot upward toward the sky. She looked like the sort of person who would scold me for even the tiniest prank.

I-I’m scared.

Before I knew it, I’d hidden behind the uncle and grabbed the hem of his clothes tightly.

The orphanage teacher came outside and asked him,

“What brings you here?”

“This kid. I don’t know her, but she was abandoned in front of my house a few days ago.”

“Did you report it to the security office?”

“I did, but… they wouldn’t accept the report.”

The orphanage teacher glanced at me, hiding behind the uncle, and narrowed her eyes.

“Are things very difficult at home? If you’re having financial problems, the government can provide some assistance depending on your circumstances.”

“I eat well and live well, thank you very much.”

“And you have a job?”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, more or less.”

“Then why do you smell so strongly of alcohol this early in the morning…?”

The orphanage teacher’s eyes shot upward, just like the frames of her glasses.

“Ahem. Excuse me. Could I speak with the child alone for a moment?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

The orphanage teacher smiled brightly and led me somewhere the monster uncle couldn’t see us.

“Sweetheart, let me ask you one thing. Has your daddy been hurting you?”

My daddy didn’t look mean like that uncle over there.

Besides, the monster uncle hadn’t hurt me, either.

When I shook my head, the orphanage teacher asked again.

“Has your daddy ever hit you or said bad things to you?”

Were there really bad people in this world who hit children?

I was so shocked that I vigorously shook my head back and forth.

The orphanage teacher studied me carefully through her glasses, then nodded.

She approached the monster uncle and spoke sharply, in an extremely stern voice.

“Excuse me, sir. No matter how difficult raising a child may be, there are some things you can do in this world and some things you absolutely must never do. How can you even think of abandoning your own child?”

At those words, the monster uncle’s eyes widened in shock.

“But I’m a bachelor!”

“She’s obviously your biological daughter! Her father is alive and well, yet you’re going to make her grow up in an orphanage?”

Whoosh. Whoosh.

The orphanage teacher’s eyes swept up and down the uncle’s body.

Her gaze was full of contempt as she glared at him.

The monster uncle looked so shocked and aggrieved that he pressed a palm against his chest and took several deep breaths.

“No, how does she look anything like me…? I can’t have children! I’m telling you, she was abandoned in front of my house a few days ago. I know it sounds like a ridiculous lie when I put it that way, but it’s the truth.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“Sir.”

Hoooo.

This time, the orphanage teacher let out such a huge sigh that even her bangs seemed to float into the air.

Then she tried her best to reason with him.

“I understand that things may have ended badly with the child’s mother. But abandoning your child just because you don’t want to be a single father is against the law. Go and have a proper conversation with the child’s mother. If you truly can’t raise her, come back with the necessary legal documents. All right? Do you understand?”

Her tone grew harsher as she went on, but I hadn’t heard the Imperial language in so long that I couldn’t properly understand what she was saying.

So the idea that the uncle was being scolded must have been a misunderstanding on my part, right?

BANG!

The orphanage teacher left us standing outside the gate and went back inside.

The iron gate hid the dirt-covered ground where little stones had been scattered about.

I looked up at the monster uncle.

I was scared that I’d have to live somewhere without a playground or a garden, and my lower lip began to stick out in a pout.

Don’t leave me here…

I quietly clutched the hem of his clothes.

Then our eyes met. His fierce, golden eyes, sharp and slanted like a beast’s, glared down at me.

His gaze frightened me, and my shoulders shrank inward.

I miss Teacher Anne-Marie…

Teacher Anne-Marie was the kindest and gentlest person in the world after my mommy.

“Hey. I was just looking at you, but why’re you cowering like that? You’re gonna make me—sigh—lose my mind.”

The monster uncle let out a series of heavy sighs and wildly ruffled his hair before lifting me up with one hand.

Plop!

Once again, I was slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

“Could that quack have been wrong about something? No. Don’t even think about anything that horrifying. A child? That’s ridiculous.”

All the way home, the yellow-eyed monster uncle kept muttering to himself.

I want to go back to the orphanage…

After dangling from the uncle all the way home, I lay face-down on the sofa, sniffling.

I was exactly one second away from bursting into tears.

So I quickly clasped my hands together and prayed to the Goddess.

“(Goddess! I wanna go back home! Now that I think about it, I don’t think I need a daddy!)”

Ever since I’d become a five-year-old little girl, my pronunciation had changed, too. I sounded like a spoiled toddler.

But I’d been such a cool ten-year-old big girl…

It was so unfair. And I didn’t want to go to that orphanage the uncle had taken me to earlier, either.

There was no garden or swing set, I couldn’t see any flowers, and it didn’t look like the kind of place where they’d give me delicious candy.

“(I wanna go back to the orph’g! Waaah! I don’t like it here! And this isn’t what it’s supposed to be! That thing, that thing…!)”

What was it called again?

It was one of the common setups in the novels my friend’s older sister loved reading. It meant that time had turned backward.

“(R-regr… regression! This isn’t regression! If it were, Mommy would be right beside me!)”

Come to think of it, besides regression, there was another incredibly wicked and terrifying plot device.

The one where a ghost entered someone’s body. That was—

—It’s not possession.

Huh?

At the sound of a woman’s voice from somewhere, I turned my head and looked around.

Then the voice spoke again.

—I’m a hundred points.

Huh? Um? What? Gasp!

The voice had definitely come from inside my head.

When I opened my mouth wide, I heard laughter from somewhere.

It was an incredibly strange voice. I couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman, or whether the speaker was young or old.

G-G-Goddess?

Could it be you, Goddess?

You really are the Goddess, aren’t you?!

But there was no answer to my questions.

All I’d wished for was a daddy, and the Goddess had dumped me in the house of this strange monster uncle. The Goddess was a turnip, a freshwater fish, a pig’s eyelash, and a horse’s hoof!

I was lying face-down on the dirty sofa, sniffling, when suddenly my body floated up into the air again.

It was the monster uncle.

“Huuuh…”

I stared at his face with my mouth hanging open like an idiot.

Honestly, even though he was a penniless man around the age of my youngest uncle, he was incredibly handsome.

Much, much, much more handsome than my youngest maternal uncle, who was the most handsome person I knew.

The difference was that, unlike my youngest maternal uncle, this man looked terrifying.

Especially his eyes.

They were as frightening as the eyes of the muscular, sharp-toothed carnivores I’d seen in fairy-tale books.

On top of that, his skin was dark, and the even darker circles beneath his eyes reached all the way down to his nose. He looked like someone who did bad things every night.

The moment the uncle saw me, he scowled.

“Gasp!”

I was so scared that tears immediately welled up in my eyes.

I was a good little girl, so why was he looking at me like he was about to scold me…?

“Where’s your mom?”

His fierce eyes twisted, and wrinkles formed between his brows. He looked like a terrifying bed monster that was about to bite into a child and gulp her down whole!

“(I u-used to live at Sunshine Orphanage…)”

“I said, where’s your mom? What’s her name? Do you know your home address?”

“(I opened my eyes all of a sudden, and I was here! Please find my teacher for me! Bwaaaah!)”

“This is driving me crazy. What the hell kind of language is that? Still, at least I’m certain I’m not your father. I don’t date foreigners, you see. Of course, adults don’t need language to communicate in certain situations, but I’m still a human being, aren’t I? We need to be able to talk to each other.”

The uncle’s expression grew even more terrifying.

Hic! I was so scared that my shoulders began to tremble.

“Hic!”

I started hiccupping.

His brows were furrowed fiercely, and his bright yellow eyes stared straight through me.

“Hic! Hk! Hic!”

I clenched my fists and thought hard.

I’m a brave little girl! I always greet Uncle Michael properly, I’m super smart, I remember Mommy’s name perfectly, and also…

Oh!

At that moment, I had a genius-level revelation.