Became the Villainess’s Guardian

The cliché of an orphan being seduced by a great magician and growing up to become the Dark Lord has taken its place among the ranks of tropes.

Moreover, I already knew that in the original story, Freugne would end up doing something similar.
While it might be one thing to witness it in a novel or film, if there was a madman bent on building an earthly paradise for a Dark Wizard in the reality I was living in, I would have to stop it somehow.

However.

“Um, well. Mister.”

“Again today?”

“…Yes.”

If I was going to worry about such a situation now, I should have pulled the trigger the moment I first laid eyes on her.

From the girl reaching out her hand asking to be held while looking around, I could not detect any intention to annihilate humanity, if nothing else.

After observing Freugne a few times, I stopped carrying a pistol in my pocket when visiting.
And after around three months of observation, one could form a general assessment of the person.

Still an innocent twelve years old.
Freugne, a proper Londinium child waking up late and engaging in predawn labor, seemed to be living a perfectly ordinary childhood.

Her relationships with her peers at the orphanage appeared amicable, and the orphanage director surely wouldn’t have beaten her up in my absence.
Apparently, the food had even improved.

If there was one notable point distinguishing her from the other children,

“You have no plans to quit?”

“No, I’ll need to find a job someday too.”

“And after that?”

“…I’ll figure it out somehow?”

While she seemed to have opened up, there was a clear sense that she drew a line at a certain point.

With printing technology not too different from the modern era, books were sufficiently disseminated.
Thus, the ability to read and write was not the exclusive domain of the nobility as in medieval times, and Freugne was not illiterate. Of course, considering her orphanage circumstances, it was not exactly common either.

So as a way to grow closer, I tried various interactions, and perhaps thanks to the malleable brains of children,
Freugne absorbed the bits of knowledge I casually imparted like a sponge.

This naturally led to a thought.

How would this child fare at a desk?

“Don’t you ever want to go to school?”

The concept of basic education existed, but it was not available to everyone.
Putting money aside, one needed enough free time to not be laboring during those hours.

And wouldn’t interacting with peers be beneficial for mental health?
Not that Freugne’s current mental state seemed poor, but just in case.

“…I suppose I do a little.”

“Then.”

“Thank you for the suggestion. But I’d like to think about it some more.”

Freugne shook her head.

Was this the so-called rebellious phase?
Children were indeed difficult to comprehend.

Although Freugne hadn’t known much about the ways of the world until recently,
After inquiring here and there, she could tell that Edan was quite an exceptional person.

Thus, it was only natural that he was busy. This was a fact she was already aware of.

“Does this mean you won’t be able to visit as often?”

“That’s right. But I’ll keep supporting you, so don’t worry.”

That was at least a relief. It meant his interest in her had not waned.
Thanks to the orphanage’s improved circumstances, her working hours had decreased, the meals became more nutritious with occasional meat portions.

‘…No, that’s not it.’

Why was she fixating on holding his interest?

Freugne was well aware that for whatever reason, Edan showed her goodwill.

At the East End orphanage, there were occasional Sundays set aside for bathing the children and dressing them in clean clothes.
While lining up and waiting in front of the orphanage, there were times when wealthy individuals who had likely visited once on a slum tour would disembark from their carriages and point at some of the children.

“These people will be taking you with them.”

The selected children would then be led away by unfamiliar hands, and the remaining children would cautiously ask the director while stealing glances,

“So… we won’t see them again?”

“Perhaps not for now, but if they grow up to have proper homes and jobs, you might be able to meet them again.”

“…..”

“Don’t worry too much about the departed children. They’ll have a warm bed, and they can even earn some money along the way.”

The director would then say they had been ‘adopted’ and would be placed in better environments than their current one.
It was a claim nobody but the most naive snotty brats would believe. In truth, everyone tacitly understood it was merely employment at other factories, but nobody openly voiced this grim reality.

The peers Freugne had been close with had scattered one by one in this manner over the past few years.
Being too busy to even exchange letters, contact naturally ceased regarding their whereabouts and activities.

Not that she could entirely blame the director either.
The orphanage wasn’t a charity surviving on land sales – funds were scarce while mouths only increased daily.

Wealthy factory owners would take children once they reached a suitable age for labor at bargain prices, leaving a small sum as compensation.
It was essentially human trafficking, but many orphanages operated this way rather than relying solely on meager charity donations.

“We raised them for over ten years. Gave them food, clothes, baths – everything.”

“Think of it as paying a small price now. They would have needed jobs eventually anyway.”

“If you still can’t feel at ease, just think of it as an early career experience.”

There was nothing more to say.
As those words implied, without any decent skills or expertise, their eventual destination was bound to be a factory or palace laborer.

Of course, on very rare occasions,
A childless gentleman might quite literally come to adopt a child.

But in such cases, they would go to the affluent West End instead of bothering to seek out the East End slums, so it was better not to get one’s hopes up.
Freugne had spent over ten years at this orphanage, and as far as she could recall, such a miraculous occurrence had never happened even once.

‘They say someone came looking for you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, an Edan, was it? Could he be a distant relative of yours?’

So such a thing would absolutely never happen.
Getting one’s hopes up would only lead to greater disappointment.

In that sense, Edan was quite an exceptional case.
Unlike other adults exploiting the donor position to take children for labor, he made no such demands.

No, upon closer observation, he had even gone a step further.

“The diet has improved significantly. Here, this is how the donation you sent last time was used.”

“I see. But I do have one question.”

“Please ask.”

“Director, how many hours do the children typically work?”

Upon hearing that Edan had come to confront the director, Freugne discreetly approached the window under the director’s office and eavesdropped.
The voices seeping through the aged walls were clear.

“To cover the orphanage’s operating costs and for the children’s career experience, we limit it to around 12 hours.”

“…This kind of thing.”

“…?”

“This is no orphanage…!”

Edan then took out a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled something on it with a pen.
Not long after, the workload for herself and the other children became significantly lighter. It was easy to deduce what he had done.

And that fact was what left Freugne most perplexed.

Edan did not have the distasteful habit of being overly kind only to betray at the critical moment, nor was he the type to keep an appropriate distance until the child grew up before making a move with an “Oh, you’ve grown up well” attitude.

If Edan had simply acted maliciously from the start,
If he had been a person with an ugly private life undeserving of even pity,

Then Freugne could have accepted reality and cleanly severed their connection years later in a duel over who drew first.

It made sense why her future self had trusted him so deeply.
The future she witnessed was merely the ‘future in case she hadn’t seen that particular future.’

“Don’t you ever want to go to school?”

And if she hadn’t seen that future, she would have surely rejoiced and accepted his offer wholeheartedly.

She did have a slight, ever so slight moment of hesitation.
But in the end, imagining Edan pulling the trigger, Freugne decided to refuse.

From the beginning, this relationship had been abnormal.
An orphan and Edan, someone who might kill her someday, someone who genuinely would have succeeded had she known nothing.

No matter how much she struggled, she would never know the reason that led to her death.
Since Edan had no immediate intentions to kill her now, all she could do was hope to glimpse a relevant future the next time they held hands.

So perhaps this degree of distance was appropriate.
A brush of life’s trajectories, neither too far nor too close – she could be satisfied with this distance.

Unless she truly intended to flee abroad and start anew,
If she did not plan to sever their connection and forfeit her life, she could only act this way.

Keeping her gaze on Edan’s retreating back without regret, Freugne muttered softly,

“…This isn’t right, is it.”

To raise such innocent expectations by treating her so kindly,
Only to betray those expectations.