Chapter 6: Kids Grow Up Fast, They Say

Ŕ​ẽãd́ ́ôn̂ ̂K̃át̃​R̈ẽäd̃ĩńĝC̃ãf̂ẽ

Two young children stood in the hallway.

Amidst the tension, they knocked on the director’s office door.

“Director, it’s Sugar.”

At the sound of “Come in,” they opened the door. Inside, the director, who had been busily packing something, was running around in a frenzy.

“I’m busy. Speak quickly.”

“Well, Director, Tommy said he wasn’t feeling well today—”

“What?”

“—so I brought another child instead. How about it?”

The director, who had thrown down her bag, walked clack-clack over to Praline. With each step, Praline’s body shrank, making her even shorter than Sugar.

“Who’s this kid?”

“Yes, this is Praline.”

Not even the director seemed to recognize her original face, as she grabbed Praline’s chin and examined her from all angles. Praline’s pupils darted around like pinballs. She didn’t know where to look, and it was all happening so suddenly. If she was afraid of making eye contact, she should have been told to look at the forehead instead.

“Hmm.”

“…”

“Umm.”

“…”

An eternity passed.

“Alright. Go upstairs, get dressed, and come back down.”

Sugar let out a sigh of relief. She had gotten away with it. She thought to herself that her aesthetic sense was truly something else.

Praline also bowed her head and let out a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the director’s office.

“…Always doing unnecessary things. Just do as the adults say.”

“I thought it would be hard for the director if I brought a sick child.”

“That’s exactly it. That’s why it’s unnecessary for kids to think like that. Anyway, I let it slide because I’m busy! Now get out!”

After scolding them, the director went back to packing. Sugar quietly stepped out of the office.

It’s a good thing everything worked out.

 

After seeing off the director and Praline, along with a few other children, things had settled down, and she had some free time.

Sugar headed straight to the backyard. She wanted to finish planning her future, which she hadn’t been able to do in the morning due to the commotion.

She settled under the shade of a tree where the children rarely went, holding a branch.

Scratch-scratch—

She scribbled notes on the ground and carefully thought things through.

‘First, how I got kidnapped.’

The cult’s kidnapping. It wasn’t specifically targeted at Sugar. She was just one of many orphans randomly kidnapped to be offered to the evil god.

Of course, the cult couldn’t have been luckier.

‘When He chose not to take the offering and instead embraced her, all who witnessed it were moved.’

The evil god, who had always devoured the offerings without a trace, had chosen to spare and keep a girl by His side. It was an unprecedented event.

Originally, He was a being whose temper couldn’t be predicted, but ever since Sugar joined the cult, He had become somewhat docile.

It was only natural that Sugar was called the ‘Saintess’ in the cult. That such a saintess had her senses and voice taken away was truly befitting of a cult, but anyway.

The important thing is that even the cult didn’t know they had kidnapped her.

The cult still doesn’t know about the existence of ‘a child who fits His taste.’ So, as long as she doesn’t get caught, she’ll be fine.

‘Not creating a situation where I get kidnapped… like not leaving the building.’

However, is that even possible?

She only knows she was kidnapped the year she turned 14, but not the exact time. She can’t stay cooped up in the orphanage all year.

Errands, sponsor meetings, and other miscellaneous tasks will inevitably take her outside. In a group living situation, it’s impossible to avoid such responsibilities.

‘Being hospitalized in a medical facility for a year… or being adopted and living in another household…’

Both options were so unrealistic that she crossed them out.

The former was impossible because she didn’t have any illness that would require hospitalization, and even if she did, she’d be dumped in a sewer, not a medical facility.

The latter was statistically improbable. Even in her previous life’s comfortable environment, adoptions were rare. In this world, which is far more backward and has even more abandoned children, the chances were practically nonexistent.

Besides, being adopted wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

So, what other options were there?

‘I need to become strong myself.’

She needed the strength to overcome things on her own.

If she could just break free and run away at the moment of kidnapping, that would be enough. Although it wouldn’t be that easy. If a girl could escape just by struggling a bit, everyone would do it.

Perhaps using her size to intimidate and prevent any kidnapping attempts altogether?

No matter how crazy the group is, they wouldn’t try to kidnap a 180 cm tall girl, right?

Having reached that conclusion, Sugar looked around cautiously. Then, she slowly moved behind the tree and pressed the back of her head against the trunk.

‘Maybe… just maybe, I’ve grown a bit?’

Her heart pounded with excitement.

It was time to check her progress.

-Scratch.

She drew a line on the trunk at the height of her crown with a stone, then stepped back. All that was left was to check the position of the line.

“…Huh?”

But what’s this?

There was no new line.

Even when she squinted, all she could see was the line she had drawn right after regaining her memories from her past life. The one she had just drawn today was deeper, almost mocking her.

In other words, she hadn’t grown at all.

“Kids grow up fast, they say!”

What a lie!

She even sold her conscience and stole her friend’s food!

Whether she even had a conscience to sell was another matter, but it had only been a week since she last measured her height. Despite that, Sugar jumped up and down in anger.

Her hair fluttered, and her chubby cheeks shook as her body moved up and down.

Each time she landed, a light thud, thud sound echoed.

What was this? It was no different from a tantrum. It was a scene commonly seen in toy stores, where children whine when things don’t go their way.

“Haa… haa…”

As the sudden anger subsided, she soon came to her senses.

Breathing in the thick air of the slum, she realized that lashing out at the world like this was immature. Sugar admitted it herself.

All that remained was emptiness and shame.

“I really…”

Startled by her own childish anger, Sugar cleared her throat and straightened her posture and what she faced was Tommy, who was standing there with a bewildered expression.

“…”

“…”

He was holding a bucket full of bugs, standing awkwardly. He must have come here to release the bugs he had caught earlier in the deserted bushes.

From the looks of it, he had witnessed Sugar jumping up and down in anger.

Sugar was also stunned at being caught.

A brief silence.

At the end of it, Sugar was the first to speak.

“Go away.”

“…”

Glancing at her, he obediently left the spot.

After confirming that he was far away, Sugar picked up the branch again and began scribbling her plans on the ground.

As if nothing had just happened.

“Hmm, what about this?”

She wrote the word “magic” on the ground and circled it.

Magic. Good. Even a small girl can have power, but how do I learn it?

In the original game, you unlock new spells through classes.

You invest skill points earned through leveling up into them.

In the game world, magic is acquired this way, but this world isn’t a game. There’s no status window or skill points.

You have to learn magic spells and even basic mana manipulation directly, but who would teach such things in this slum? Even if there were someone, she couldn’t afford to pay the price. For an 11-year-old orphan, magic was like a dream.

‘But I should have enough mana.’

She thought of the original Sugar. The reason her body remained intact even after being embraced by the evil god was due to her unique mana quality and quantity.

She had the talent, so it was just a matter of learning.

Having finished her thoughts, Sugar climbed up the tree, settled into a comfortable position, and closed her eyes.

Let’s try something. Isn’t meditation always the first step in these kinds of things?

The cliché of awakening one’s power through meditation!

She thought it was a pretty good plan, and her earlier frustration was replaced by a smug feeling.

 

‘Why was she so angry…’

As Tommy released the bugs into the bushes, he recalled what had just happened.

Sugar, who had been leaning against the tree, suddenly started jumping up and down in anger.

Her usually calm face was scrunched up as she threw a tantrum. She shouted sharply, as if something had displeased her.

It was a sight Tommy had always wanted to see, but his immediate reaction was more curiosity than joy.

What made her act like that?

He had wanted to be the one to make her react like that, so if it was caused by something else, it didn’t count.

After calmly understanding his own emotions, Tommy turned around and headed back to the tree where Sugar had been. He wanted to find out why Sugar had gotten so angry and use that as a hint to stir her emotions himself.

Since he had already been thoroughly defeated today, he decided to quietly look for clues.

Hiding in the bushes, Tommy crept closer to the tree where Sugar had been and peeked out.

But she wasn’t there.

“What the…”

She had been here just a moment ago.

He stepped out of the bushes and looked around.

Only some unknown characters were drawn on the ground, and Sugar was nowhere to be seen. Come to think of it, she had been holding a branch and scribbling something earlier. This must have been it.

“…”

Wait, unknown characters?

Tommy immediately crouched down to examine the characters.

He couldn’t make any sense of them.

He thought he knew quite a few languages, as he had automatically learned various scripts during the process of deciphering magical texts.

The side effect was that he had difficulty using the standard language, so he had even practiced getting familiar with the common language of the continent through newspapers. However what were these characters?

“…Must be meaningless scribbles.”

Shaking his head, Tommy suddenly caught sight of something white fluttering in his peripheral vision and immediately looked up at the tree.

Huh, there she was.

The earlier frustration was gone, and she was sitting comfortably, enjoying the breeze. It was absurd. This way, he couldn’t find any clues.

Why was she making that smug face?

After glaring at her for a while, he quickly turned around, afraid she might notice.