‘Will I be able to keep protecting that smile……’

“What are you thinking about?”

“This and that.”

Vincent grew excited at Adele’s nonchalant answer. She looked younger than him, and yet she gave such a grown-up reply. It was quite impressive.

Unlike Vincent, who expressed his excitement by puffing out hot breaths through his nose, Adele withdrew her gaze and calmly organized her thoughts.

Since the incident involving the maidservant, which had been the beginning of his misdeeds, had been averted, the likelihood of him falling down a bad path had dropped considerably.

“Hmm, should I raise him.”

“Huh?”

Adele shook her head at Vincent, who was hanging on her every word. When he entered the academy and met Layla, he could still fall into wrongdoing out of jealousy.

Raising a child was far too difficult no matter how she looked at it. For Adele, who had never raised a child even in her previous life, the difficulty level was far too high.

Could she change the future in which Vincent fell head over heels for Lady Layla Camel at first sight and beat down her fiancé? It was worth finding out.

“You.”

“Yeah? Just say it!”

“If someone you like likes someone else, what would you do?”

Vincent tilted his head. He seemed to be thinking about what the question was getting at.

“Hmm…… I’d take them away?”

Just as she had feared. This one was rotten to the core.

Adele shook her head at the dismal answer. Watching Adele do so, Vincent’s expression crumpled into a pout.

“Why?”

“That’s not how it should be.”

“……Huh?”

“You should wish for the happiness of the person you like.”

Vincent looked as though he could not understand at all. Adele felt like giving up on everything. Whether war broke out in this country, whether Vincent died or not. She seriously contemplated whether she should just go her own way.

Just as Adele was thinking that, Vincent asked again, exactly as he had before.

“Why?”

What reason could there be for wishing happiness to the person you like? It was so obvious. The fact that she had to explain it one by one was disheartening.

Unable to find the right words, Adele gave a vague answer.

“……Because that’s the cool thing to do.”

At that, Vincent’s clear gray eyes lit up again.

“Then I’ll do that!”

“What?”

“You said that’s the cool thing to do. So I’ll do it.”

His sparkling eyes felt a little endearing. The young Vincent was completely different from the one she had known. Adele let out a small laugh at the feeling of her heart thumping. She wondered if this was what the other knights had called a protective instinct.

He might still be a decent kid at this point. And judging from her experience during the war, Vincent had tremendous talent for swordsmanship as well.

A healthy mind resides in a healthy body. Adele recalled the phrase often recited in the order of knights.

If this little brat had a good mentor, he would not grow up to be such a gloomy swordsman.

Of course, by a good mentor, she meant herself.

The goal: a gentle swordsman who, even when grown, still carried a bright and cheerful smile.

“Alright. I’ve decided.”

“Decided what?”

Still leaning against the wall, Adele turned to look at Vincent again. Her eyes landed on his soft, squishy cheeks. She lightly pinched one of them and smiled.

“I’ll make you my subordinate.”

If he grew up to be a well-mannered swordsman with a strong sense of morality, he would be able to keep his emotions in check even when he met the female lead. What was love, in the end.

Now that she had made up her mind, it was time for a mental reformation.

– – –

Several days had passed since Vincent became Adele’s subordinate.

She had been utterly drained from coaxing and soothing a whining Vincent who refused to go home. Just how rough would the road ahead be……

At least he was still young enough that his stubbornness had not fully set in, which was a relief. The adult Vincent never listened no matter what Layla said. ……Well, if he had been docile, he would not have started a war in the first place.

Now, what kind of training course should she put together.

Having never raised a child as delicate as Vincent, she had no idea how to proceed. The people she had trained up until now had all been muscular, large-framed men who looked like mountain bandits.

They could be put through all manner of hardship without any issue whatsoever.

Vincent, on the other hand, was far too soft and small, looking as though he might burst into tears at any moment. If she trained him as harshly as she always had, it would end up looking like she was tormenting a child.

Of course, to the eye, Adele looked even younger than him.

Adele, who had been lost in thought about what lay ahead, snapped back to her senses at the smell of food tickling her nose.

“I absolutely hate being lured in with food.”

“……For someone who says that, your body is pretty honest.”

The man who had brought the food right up to her smiled pleasantly. Since half of the food placed on the table just moments ago had already disappeared, it was not at all strange that new dishes were being set out.

The man with long silver hair tied back with a red cord was a remarkably handsome man. Even by Adele’s high standards, he was reasonably good-looking.

On top of that, he had the kind side of providing food and lodging to Adele, who had nowhere to go.

Of course, there was a high probability that he was being kind with ill intentions, intending to take advantage of Adele, who appeared to be an orphan.

However, this was of no concern to Adele whatsoever. If that were truly the case, there was a 100% chance this man would die at her hands.

Given the situation, Adele, who was essentially safe, had only to set aside all suspicion and eat well.

Yet she moved her fork while glaring at the man with suspicious eyes.

Because there was one very large problem concerning this man that even her strength could not resolve.

‘Why did he come here? Surely he isn’t already spying on me?’

Before the regression, this man had been Vincent’s right hand. In other words, he had been Adele’s enemy.

He had been incredibly difficult to subdue, as he used mysterious powers to kill her subordinates left and right. He had been a strange fellow she had encountered on the battlefield, one whose inner thoughts she could never read at all.

She had no idea why he was taking an interest in her. She could not understand why they had met so suddenly like this, nor why they had met in such a place of all things.

The incident in which the two had met had occurred the very day after Vincent became her subordinate.

– – –

Crash——!!

It had been a peaceful day of demolishing walls to test her strength. Adele had been moving her body to clear her head while pondering how to raise Vincent.

The power that had been unstable at first gradually became more stable the more she used it. Her body was still too young to call it complete, but at this rate, she thought that once she grew just a little more, all of her strength might return. She would be able to use aura freely, just as she had before the regression.

How could she make use of this power.

‘I suppose I must…… conquer the world. It has been my long-cherished dream.’

Adele had been in the middle of deliberating over what to do with her overflowing power.

“Oh, heavens above! This is the talent I’ve been looking for!”

A middle-aged man was approaching Adele with trembling hands. Adele instinctively clenched her fist. If he was a pervert, her fist would go straight through his stomach……

‘……That won’t do.’

Not wanting to cause a bloody scene, Adele loosened her grip slightly.

“What is the matter?”

The man flinched at her manner of speaking, which was nothing like a child’s.

After a brief pause.

He gathered his courage and opened his mouth.

“Little one, where might your parents be?”

Little one? To think he would address her with such a ridiculous title. Adele momentarily forgot that she had become younger and fixed the man who had called her that with a stern gaze, scolding him with her eyes alone.

But come to think of it……

‘Who are my parents, anyway?’

It was something she had never thought about until now.

The fact that she had gone through her entire life without even wondering whether she had parents was presumably because she was an unimportant character in this world. That said, she had no curiosity about the secret of her birth at this point. So what should she say to this man.

Adele had only fallen into serious thought, but the man turned pale as a sheet as though his life were being threatened, immediately dropped to his knees, and cried out.

“I, I misspoke! Please, I beg you to help me!”

The sight of a man who appeared to be in his forties wailing before Adele, who was by all accounts six years old, was strange no matter who looked at it.

Was he a pervert? A human trafficker? Adele completely forgot that she had been the one to intimidate him and stared at him strangely. Without releasing her clenched fist, Adele pulled her right foot back one step, readying herself to strike at any moment. At that sight, the man quickly cried out.

“I, I want to work with you!”