When she came to her senses, she was near Vincent, who was shrieking and threatening someone. Having been hiding among the crowd and murmuring along with the others, Adele regained her wits and looked around.

‘What is this…… right now?’

The scene before her eyes was exactly what she had seen inside the glass marble.

Vincent erupting in fury over a stain that was barely visible even when squinting. A maidservant on her knees, crying and begging. A situation where not a single person stepped forward.

‘……Is this a predetermined event? And I’m just someone passing through.’

Even amidst the chaos, Adele quietly focused on her own thoughts.

After killing Vincent Rogato, he had been on her mind with an uncanny persistence. She had read materials about his unfortunate childhood and had felt a slight pang of sympathy.

Not that it made his crimes any lighter.

‘The people who matter are elsewhere anyway, so no matter what I do, those two will fall in love on their own. Besides, I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems like I’ve entered a past that has already gone by, so perhaps it doesn’t matter what I do.’

In that case, was it not all right for her to step in right now? Even if the future she knew remained unchanged, she could not simply stand by and watch that scene unfold.

For starters, it felt like the only way to relieve the frustration she had built up all this time would be to give that little brat a good hard flick on the forehead. Since the villainous Vincent had tormented her relentlessly, the situation before her felt all the more grating.

‘Right. Let me be the one to teach him some manners! But I can’t just resort to violence against a child out of nowhere……’

He had been a child who had already suffered *buse at home. It had to be discipline, not violence, so she needed to be at least a little careful.

Adele glanced around and spotted a wall behind Vincent. It was not a decoration, nor was it the fence of some shop, so why was it just randomly standing there like that?

‘Is that some kind of strange phenomenon? The same sort of thing as the ground collapsing when the marbles shattered……?’

But what did it matter? As a form of discipline, and as a small act of revenge, that wall seemed perfectly suited for the purpose.

After all, was it not the nature of villains to be strong against the weak and weak against the strong? If she showed him an overwhelming display of power, he might come to fear the world and turn over a new leaf.

Of course, that was only possible if she could actually make an impact.

At that moment, Vincent raised his fist.

Going by what she had seen in the glass marble, that fist would strike the maidservant directly in the eye, causing her to lose her sight. Vincent had felt guilt over it at first, but as everyone continued to hush it up, his pangs of conscience gradually transformed into a sense of exhilaration.

This could be considered the event that marked the beginning of Vincent Rogato’s descent into villainy.

‘I, who know everything, have to stop this.’

There was nothing more to deliberate over.

Whether it was revenge or discipline, the opportunity was now and only now. Even if the future did not change, as long as she felt better about it, was that not enough?

Adele could not stand by and watch someone get hurt right in front of her eyes.

She still did not understand this situation that had been thr*st upon her so suddenly, but then again, her life had always been full of things she could not understand.

With firm resolve, Adele strode purposefully toward Vincent. Perhaps because of her confident stride, Vincent stopped yelling at the maidservant and turned to look at her.

It was an arrogant expression that plainly conveyed the thought, ‘And just what is this?’

Now that she was actually standing in front of him, Vincent was bigger than she had expected.

‘What? Was he always this big?’

Come to think of it, she had regained consciousness in an unfamiliar place and had not properly registered her own condition.

Looking around now, everything was large and towering. Even though Adele was certainly not short herself.

No, in the first place, there was no way she, a grown adult, could be shorter than the little brat Vincent. She swallowed hard at this absurd situation and looked down at her own hands.

‘This…… tiny thing is what?’

They were hands so small and so soft. Seeing them with her own eyes felt strange, yet the tiny fingers that wriggled in response to her thoughts were so vivid in sensation that they could only be her own body.

It seemed that Adele had been made younger as well, so as not to startle Vincent, who was a central figure. It was a world that truly did not care about Adele’s wellbeing.

Adele clenched her fists in anger.

‘With a child’s body like this…… I have no strength at all. I can’t scold him in a cool and impressive way!’

She was just beginning to wonder whether she should simply pass by and act like a random passerby, when it happened.

She felt some kind of power in her small fist. It was a very familiar sensation. It was the very same power that had led her to victory on the battlefield.

Due to her weakened body, she felt no sense of muscles tensing, yet strangely, that sensation alone came through with unmistakable clarity.

If she could just refine and hone this, knocking down that arrogant little brat in front of her would be nothing……

‘No, violence against a child is wrong. That wall will be enough.’

She cleared her mind again and focused on her fist. It was unmistakably the power she had used so often.

‘I can do this.’

Adele steadied her breathing and stared intently at Vincent. Vincent seemed flustered by her gaze, then stretched out his arm in fury and shouted.

“Who are you! Get lost!”

But the arm of a frail boy could not move Adele’s sturdy body even a single millimeter. Vincent looked at his stinging hand with an expression of complete bewilderment.

The people around them watched the two with keen interest. The only one who shook her head in alarm, gesturing for Adele not to get involved, was the maidservant. She mouthed the words telling her to run away.

But Adele had not the slightest intention of stepping aside.

‘I feel like I won’t be able to rest in peace until I give this ill-mannered brat a proper scolding.’

Though, could someone who had not truly been alive even rest in peace? Well, what did it matter.

Adele glared at Vincent with all her might and spoke.

“That’s not allowed.”

“What?”

‘How much strength can I draw out with this body.’

She raised her fist to gauge it, but found it somewhat lacking. It seemed that, being a child’s body, she was not as strong as she had been before death.

‘In that case…… I’ll give it everything I’ve got!’

She gathered her strength into her hand. As she clenched her fist, far smaller even than that little child’s hand, Vincent, who had been looking her up and down, twisted one corner of his mouth into a smirk.

Adele paid no mind to the reactions around her and continued to concentrate her power. Controlling her energy in this body felt awkward, but she was able to quickly seize the right moment to strike.

Timing her attack, Adele drove her fist forward. The punch, so fast it was nearly invisible to the eye, grazed past Vincent’s cheek and drove straight into the wall behind him.

Crash——!!

With a tremendous sound, the wall crumbled apart in a cloud of dust. The eyes of those who had thought another victim of Vincent’s was about to appear flew wide open.

“Do bad things, and I’ll punish you.”

Vincent’s eyes, which had been trembling, slowly fluttered shut and he fainted on the spot. Adele did not spare him a glance and instead examined her fist, which had not so much as a scratch on it.

The corner of Adele’s mouth lifted as she assessed her own strength, concluding that she had indeed grown considerably weaker than before.

It was thanks to the satisfaction of having taken at least a small measure of revenge against Vincent, who had tormented her in life.

“Regression isn’t so bad after all.”