Resourceful Victoria ~Former Operative Rebuilds Her Life~

Chapter 17 Do it like this, like this, this!

Translator: Tseirp

“Vicky! Vicky!”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m sorry, what?”

“Something wrong?”

Nonna looked at me worriedly. I had been teaching her how to sew cloth until just a moment ago, but I stopped and was lost in thought.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

Actually, I found myself at a loss as to what to do with the pent up emotions in my heart since the evening party.

“Now, I’ll teach you how to sew to connect these two pieces of cloth.”

“Okay……”

Nonna dispiritedly picked up the cloth and the needle and started sewing again. I felt remorseful, after all, she’s sensitive to such changes.

“I’m sorry. I have been absent-minded.”

“Vicky, you’re just like mother.”

“Eh?”

“Mother didn’t move either.”

“Can you tell me more?”

Somehow I felt that I must pay attention to this, so I encouraged Nonna to continue. With a heavy heart, Nonna told me about her mother little by little.

After some time, I learned that Nonna’s mother would come home in the middle of the night, sleep until around noon, get up and go out again until it got dark, and Nonna was raised in that environment.

But from one point on, her mother began to think absent-mindedly as I did earlier, and her time spent in a daze gradually grew longer, and she stopped doing housework. Until the day Nonna was taken to the square.

“I’m going to do some shopping. Wait here.”

It seemed that she left and never came back.

I couldn’t help but hug Nonna tightly.

“I’m sorry. I won’t think about it anymore. Besides, I won’t abandon Nonna anywhere. Never!”

Nonna shook her head.

“No. Vicky, you’re wrong.”

“What’s wrong? I don’t want to make Nonna worry anymore.”

“Vicky, why were you in a daze? I want to know.”

Nonna looked straight at me. Her eyes were dead serious that she would know if I lied.

“You want to know. Okay, I don’t know what were Nonna’s mother’s thoughts, but I’ll be honest on what’s been bothering me. It may not be fun for Nonna, but do you still want to know?”

Nonna nodded and stared at me.

“There was a strange person at the castle’s night party. It looked like he was trying to hurt someone. The Commander tried to catch him, but he ran away. I anticipated the man’s escape route, waited and, um, knocked him unconscious with a roundhouse kick and knee kick.”

“… Amazing, you’re amazing, Vicky!”

Nonna’s eyes sparkled and her eyes overflowed with respect. I knocked the man unconsciouss for my own sake so her overflowing respect was very uncomfortable.

“So… until now, I’d defeat bad guys when they approach me, but I’ve been thinking that I should stop doing that. I should run away instead of fight. That’s the reason I’ve been absent-minded. If I fight, Nonna might be in danger.”

Nonna thought for a short while.

“You can’t fight if we are together?”

“Yes. I don’t want to expose Nonna to danger. To me, protecting Nonna is very, very much more important compared to beating up bad guys.”

After that, Nonna said nothing, staring at the cloth and the needle.

“Nonna? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want Vicky to put up with it. I feel sorry for Vicky.”

“Nonna, Nonna is the most important thing to me. Don’t feel sorry for me. You know that, right?”

“No. I don’t want Vicky to hold back.”

Even children have pride that they want to protect in their own way.

But it’s impossible for me to act like an agent while protecting Nonna, and I have no intention of being on the side of justice. It’s just that I had to take time to digest the emotions from that moment.

“Vicky will disappear if you try to hold back.”

“Why! I promised you I won’t disappear!”

“Bad people, beat them! Don’t hold back!”

Nonna burst into tears as if a dam had suddenly broken. She lets go and cries. For the first time since I took care of her, I saw her cry.

What was her mother thinking before throwing Nonna away? If I could only choose one, I would choose Nonna without hesitation, but her mother didn’t. Nonna had absolutely no responsibility for what her mother was going through.

I kept rubbing Nonna’s small back. Until now, Nonna had never cried. Maybe she couldn’t cry because she thought, ‘I was abandoned because she had to put up with me’.

Nonna was so pitiful that even I felt like crying.

When I was eight years old, I was handed over to Lancôme and they said to me, “You’re going to work at a noble’s house. Do your best.” As an eight-year-old child, I was given an explanation, so I didn’t hold a grudge against my parents even though I was lonely.

In comparison, Nonna was suddenly abandoned one day. How deep was her heart hurt?

I put Nonna on my knees.

Nonna, who was hiccupping and sobbing, is petite and slender considering her age. She has a frailness that shows a glimpse into the past of this child who had not had enough to eat and had spent her childhood quietly at home when she wanted to play.

I gently wiped Nonna’s tears before hugging her.

“I understand. When bad people come, I’ll beat them when I can. But Nonna is my priority. That will never change. So when it’s better to run away, I’ll run. And I will never let you go.”

Is she listening to me? After crying aloud, Nonna looked tired and absent-minded. She finally got her breathing down and then she rubbed her face against my chest.

“It’s okay Nonna. You don’t have to worry about me.”

As I was saying that, Nonna suddenly looked up at me on my lap.

“Hey Vicky, please.”

“Hmm? What?”

“Do the thing you did when you beat the bad guy. I want to see.”

“Now? Here?”

“Yes. I want to see.”

“Ehh…”

It’s pretty embarrassing, but I’m not strong-willed enough to refuse a request from a beautiful girl who’s tired from crying. I had no choice but to demonstrate how I defeated the man in the garden of the royal castle. I made her promise to never tell anyone.

“I did it like this, followed by this, and then this! Finish it like this!”

If someone was looking through the window, it would have seemed like a woman going crazy on her own. After all,

In response to the beautiful girl’s repeated request, “One more time! Hey, one more time!”, I reenacted the ‘Roundhouse kick, hold the shoulders and knee the stomach, and end it with a chop to the neck’ countless times.

“Nonna, promise me. Until I tell you that something like this is fine, no matter what, you absolutely must not use it against others. With you small body, even if you did it perfectly, it won’t work at all. It’s even more dangerous to yourself. Do you understand?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Nonna finally cheered up, the two of us took a bath together, ate dinner, laid down on the same bed facing each other, and she fell asleep in my arms.

Children can understand much more than adults think. At the very least, I could understand as an eight-year-old.

(From now on, I’ll have proper conversations with Nonna)

Feeling Nonna’s high body temperature, I fell asleep.