TBDS 03

Chapter 3

The Villainess Builds a Department Store

“Antoine!”

I called my brother’s name as I flung open the door.

The loud noise seemed to startle him, and his crying abruptly stopped.

Over the railing of the crib, I met a pair of purple eyes that looked just like mine.

His tear-dampened eyes grew wide at the sudden appearance of his older sister.

Then, as if he finally recognized me, his lips began to tremble and he started crying again.

“S-Sis…?”

His words were mixed with the breathless sounds of a young child, but there was no mistaking it.

He had called me Sis.

At that moment, a hot, indescribable emotion spread from my heart throughout my entire body.

“Uuuh, sniff. Hng!”

“W-Wait, Antoine! Don’t wipe your nose on my clothes! Silk is so difficult to wash!”

But right now, he was nothing more than a little four-year-old with tears, snot, and even drool running down his face as he sniffled into his sister’s nightgown.

Of course.

Antoine was six years younger than me.

I had become considerably younger myself, but four years old was still a baby.

A baby. Goo goo, gaa gaa.

“Are you all right?”

“Waaah… Waaaah! Sniff…”

His soft black hair, which should have been fluffy and dry, was soaked with sweat and stuck to his forehead.

His delicate skin and the area around his eyes were bright red from all the crying, making him look so pitiful that it hurt to see him like that.

“Where’s your nanny?”

“N-Nanny… Nanny! Waaah!”

The moment I mentioned his nanny, the tears that had barely stopped began falling again.

Forget it.

Instead of pressing a crying child for an answer, it would be faster to look for her myself.

The nanny had been using the room next to Antoine’s so she could take care of him at any time.

But even now, the door to that room was firmly shut.

As though there were no one behind it.

“Nanny! Is anyone in there?”

There wasn’t a sound from inside.

Could something have happened to the nanny?

All sorts of ominous possibilities flashed before my eyes.

I shook my head hard to chase them away and turned the doorknob.

“It’s… unlocked?”

Surprisingly, the door hadn’t been locked in the first place.

“Nanny!”

But there was no sign of her anywhere in the room.

“Antoine, where did the nanny go?”

“S-She said… when I wake up… sniff! She’d come.”

“What?”

For a moment, it felt as if someone had struck me over the head.

The nanny had left a four-year-old child alone?

Antoine mumbled in a hiccupping voice filled with the sounds of his ragged breathing.

“N-Nanny said… sniff… Antoine is four years old now… so I have to… sniff… sleep by myself.”

No.

Surely learning to sleep alone didn’t mean leaving a child completely alone and going somewhere else?

So this was what it meant for your vision to go dark with disbelief.

There was nothing wrong with teaching a child to sleep separately from a young age.

Especially since, although I couldn’t remember the nanny’s name or appearance anymore, I remembered her strict and difficult personality perfectly.

She must have been especially harsh with Antoine.

But it was a different matter if there was no one nearby who could come running if something happened.

Why hadn’t anyone said anything about this until now?

The question reached the tip of my tongue, but I forced it back down.

The person I needed to question was the nanny who had left a young child alone, not Antoine.

Mother and Father don’t know about this…

Mother was always confined to her bed, while Father was frequently away from the estate.

Naturally, taking care of the children was left to the nanny and the servants.

Even Mother, who was supposed to supervise them, was in no condition to do so.

In particular, the nanny was responsible for directly educating the master’s children.

So the servants couldn’t even protest when she openly used a whip instead of merely disciplining them with a switch.

That would have been considered an abuse of authority.

As a result, unlike me, who had grown old enough to take care of myself, Antoine was being completely neglected.

Why hadn’t I known about this?

The answer came quickly.

At this age, I hadn’t been particularly attached to Antoine.

If anything, I had seen him as a rival who took away what little affection Mother had left to give, and as a clingy nuisance who bothered me at every turn.

So I simply hadn’t cared whether my younger brother was being neglected or not.

I was going to have to make some major changes to my plan.

As Adelaïde stared seriously at the empty room, Antoine suddenly became frightened and nervously watched his sister.

I’ll be beside you when you wake up after a good night’s sleep.

He had believed the nanny’s words and gone to sleep.

But when he woke up, he was still alone.

The loneliness and fear had made him cry, and his sister had come running to comfort him.

But his sister was acting differently from usual.

His sister had never cared even when he fell down or cried!

What had happened?

Was he dreaming?

Faced with a situation he had never experienced before, Antoine’s eyes darted around anxiously.

Even more strangely, the sister who had just been comforting him was now staring into empty space with her eyes wide open.

Is she angry with me?

Is it because I didn’t act like the future Viscount? Is she disappointed in me?

With a voice so faint it seemed as though it might scatter into the air and disappear, Antoine apologized.

“S-Sorry, Sis….”

I did something wrong. So don’t hate me, okay?

You’re going to scold me too, aren’t you? Will you sigh like the nanny and say you’re disappointed in me?

“U-Uh… waaah… Don’t hate me…”

“……”

For a moment, his sister’s expression completely crumbled.

She quickly pulled Antoine into a tight embrace so he wouldn’t be able to see her face.

“It’s okay. I’ll protect you from now on.”

“S-Sis?”

“Antoine. I’m your sister. It’s only natural for an older sister to protect her younger brother.”

The words were too difficult for young Antoine to fully understand.

But even if he couldn’t understand them, he could feel them.

My sister is on my side.

Once he thought that, his sister’s arms, which had always felt unfamiliar and awkward, suddenly seemed a little warmer.

“Antoine. Didn’t the nanny tell you where she went?”

Now that Antoine had calmed down somewhat, I needed to find the missing nanny.

But Antoine only shook his head.

Well, of course. What idiot would tell a child where they’re going when they’re leaving them alone?

But what was I supposed to do?

I had a pretty good idea where she was.

It was something that had happened in my previous life.

The nanny was suddenly fired, and a large number of servants, including the stablemaster, were replaced.

Back then, I hadn’t even known why.

Now, however, I knew the circumstances all too well.

Adelaïde looked at the barren floor, which had not a single carpet covering it, and grinned.

“Antoine. How about we go on a treasure hunt?”

“…A treasure hunt?”

A treasure hunt was a game they had played together in the garden before.

The moment he remembered those happy times, his body, which had felt heavy like wet cotton, became light and fluffy again.

Antoine’s eyes sparkled as if he had never cried at all.

“Yes. If you tap the floor tiles, they make sounds like this, right? There should be one tile that makes a different sound. There’s a treasure underneath it.”

“I wanna do it!”

They say a person changes completely after going from crying to laughing.

Adelaïde couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly.

Despite still sniffling, Antoine grinned and flattened himself against the floor.

“If I remember correctly… it should be around here.”

“Sis! This one sounds different. This one goes knock knock, but that one goes thud thud.”

“Exactly! You’re amazing, Antoine!”

I gently ruffled Antoine’s hair.

A huge smile spread across his face, which was still covered in tears and snot.

The wooden floor tiles looked tightly fitted at first glance, but upon closer inspection, there were places where the pieces didn’t quite line up, as if parts of the rotten flooring had been replaced.

When we lifted one of them, a small space appeared underneath, perfect for hiding something.

And inside was the so-called “treasure.”

“That’s the treasure? But it’s just paper.”

“Yes. It’s a very precious treasure. Let’s take it to Mother and Father tomorrow.”

The “treasure” discovered during the removal work to sell the floor tiles would have completely ruined the already fallen reputation of the Viscount’s family.

And now, it had become the means to save Antoine.

If that wasn’t a treasure, then what was?

“Mommy and Daddy?”

“They’ll be happy if you tell them you found it. And tonight, let’s sleep together.”

“With Sis?”

His excited voice rose so high it seemed ready to reach the ceiling.

“I wanna sleep with you!”

The small body that jumped into my arms no longer smelled of sadness and loneliness.

Instead, it carried the warm, sweet scent unique to a baby.

Ah.

Even though he’s my little brother, he’s really cute.

A child should laugh, cry, run around and play, fall down, and sometimes throw completely unreasonable tantrums.

Most of all, they deserved to be loved endlessly by the people they loved.

Antoine. Trust your big sister.

The next morning, the maid who came to wake Adelaïde found the bed completely empty.

She screamed and collapsed right where she stood.

“The young lady has disappeared!”