I Possessed As A Childcare Extra Chapter 5

“Clinging to me like some second male lead won’t work!”

“What? What did you just say…?”

“N-Nothing! It was nonsense!”

I blurted it out without thinking! And I even said second male lead!

Kyle, whose gentle deer-like eyes always made my mind go blank, leaned his face toward me.

“If it was nonsense… then you’re not leaving, right?”

Attacking me with that face!

“…Not right this moment.”

I muttered reluctantly, and the freshly twenty-year-old youth beamed. Seriously, this kid!

“I told you not to smile at just anyone!”

I shoved his shoulder—except, wow! He didn’t budge at all. My hand!

I thought he was in casual clothes, but is he wearing armor underneath? He could’ve told me…

“Annie isn’t just anyone.”

While I clenched my fist and endured the pain, Kyle answered with a face like some protected national treasure.

This guy… I’m curious what young lady will end up hunting him down.

Before that, he needs to get out of this squire status. I don’t know how long Aaeon plans to keep making a grown young man do chores.

“Isn’t it about time you got promoted?”

Kyle widened his eyes like he was listening to someone else’s story.

“Promoted?”

“When are they giving you your knighthood? You’re twenty now. After working you this hard, isn’t it time they gave you a proper rank?”

Here, eighteen counts as an adult. If Aaeon isn’t trying to block Kyle’s future, he should grant him knighthood soon.

“Oh, that… I guess I’m still lacking in skill.”

Ugh, so frustrating. Skill has nothing to do with it. You can even buy a knight title.

And besides, the Tricen Knight Order is the empire’s strongest, guarding the harsh North. There’s no reason they’d keep someone incompetent around for years.

“How long are you just going to wait? It’s time to demand it proudly!”

“Hmm…”

Kyle lowered his gaze, showing off his eyelashes, and smiled softly.

“I’m good at waiting.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

I waved my index finger side to side, ready to tell him he needs to take care of his own future.

“Kyle.”

“Waaah!”

A deep, heavy man’s voice came from right behind us.

I screamed loud enough to shake the world, then realized it was a Tricen knight.

“Oh—sorry…”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize for startling you.”

He bowed his head politely, his movements crisp and formal like a true knight.

Ahh, a knight in all-black armor. He looks like he could chop down a tree with his shoulder and split a boulder with his chin.

“Kyle, the captain is looking for you.”

“Yes, I’ll go right away.”

Compared to that, the somewhat unreliable squire stood up and whispered,

“See you later, Annie.”

I looked at his retreating brown curls with a sparkle of fondness.

As if he felt my gaze, he turned around and even waved.

What am I going to do with that softie? Stop grinning like that and try making a stern face like the knight.

“…Ugh”

My own situation is a mess and here I am worrying about others.

I gloomily stood up. It was about time to clean the restroom.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

“Wow…”

The moment we returned to the castle, a sigh of awe slipped out.

All thanks to the second young master expressing his stormy teenage emotions on the second-floor terrace window.

Holly, who had arrived first and was staring up with a stunned expression, muttered,

“It’s gonna be cold tonight…”

Well, the biggest window in the entire castle had been shattered. Even if it was summer, you couldn’t underestimate the climate where the Northern Grand Duke lived.

“What happened this time?”

“He was with the first young master and suddenly… you know, same as always.”

“Shh, quiet! Clean it up quickly and get back to your posts.”

The maids whispering together scattered at Ines’s sharp command.

Holly glanced around nervously, then “ventriloquized” in a tiny voice,

“It was amazing! He went pow! with his fist and it went crash!”

“Holly! Go over there. Now!”

“Okaaay…”

With her sharp ears, Ines chased even Holly far away. I silently swept up the shards of glass.

The Grand Duke’s second son, Leoni Tricen, had a serious anger-management issue.

If he had the classic “weak to the strong, strong to the weak” kind of personality, he might’ve been treatable.

But Leoni was “strong to the strong, strong to the weak.”

He even picked fights with Narkis, who was stronger than him, and with Aeon, who was practically beyond human.

The pattern was simple.

When Leoni attacked, Aeon would fling him away without even looking at him, and Narkis would smirk while doing the same.

Every time Leoni got launched, he’d spring back up shouting, “Daaamn it!” and smash whatever his hands could grab, and we would clean it up.

At this point, his anger issues weren’t even the real problem. Didn’t this medieval-fantasy world have family counselors?

With black hair and red eyes, Leoni resembled Aeon the most among the Tricen siblings.

Maybe he got his tendency to destroy things when upset from his mother.

The second Grand Duchess of Tricen. Freda Hilstern, from a marquis family—beautiful, noble, and vicious.

Young Annie never had to face the former Grand Duchess directly.

But she saw countless other maids get beaten or fired.

Freda staffed Aeon’s personal quarters only with older maids.

If a maid from another section wandered too close, Freda would beat them savagely and chase them out.

Even Beth, who had a child, was slapped simply because Aeon glanced in her direction.

Freda endured four years of Aeon’s indifference before she was finally divorced.

“Let go of me! You filthy vermin dare lay hands on me—! Let goooo…!”

Knights dragged her out as she struggled not to leave the castle.

“Aeon! Aeoooon…!”

Even when she was thrown barefoot into the snow in November, she called only for Aeon.

Her navy hair was a tangled mess in the flurry.

“Aeon Triceeen!”

Watching from a window, Annie was terrified, as if she had been cursed.

Saying Leoni resembles Freda might be too harsh? At least he only attacks objects.

Still, I’ll never forget how he went berserk as soon as he was left alone.

Anything his tiny hands could grab—plates, vases, plaster statues—shattered one after another.

Everyone pitied him, saying he acted out to get his father’s attention. I wanted to smack them. I held back so I wouldn’t get shattered instead.

Father or son, neither had any social skills. Granted, top-tier nobles didn’t need them.

The funny part was that even among themselves, they had no social skills. They hated each other. Some kind of intra-species hatred.

The only one who maintained peace in that hopeless mess of a family was, of course, Lady Edel.

When Leoni met his adorable little sister from the South, he was instantly tamed. His aggressive nature melted into nothing in front of her.

That was… until Narkis returned.

Now it had become a regular event.

“Daaamn you, Narkis! I’ll kill youuuu!”

“You say that every time, but never do it.”

Leoni seething, Narkis smiling.

“Brothers, don’t fight! If you fight, I’ll be sad!”

And the young lady throwing her whole body between them.

“I told you not to put Edel in danger. You’re restricted for two weeks. A 50-meter radius.”

Aeon declared it like some punishment.

Ordinarily, my inner K-daughter DNA would’ve roared, “Hey, you psycho and creator of this anger-monster, educate him yourself! Stop dumping everything on your daughter! Yeah?!”

But right around then—Lady Edel, who should be secretly trying to reconcile her brothers behind her father’s back, was… very humbly… peeking at me from behind a hallway pillar.

The reason?

“You don’t have to try so hard to be loved by me!”

It was a disaster of my own making. I had used the cheat code that drew all her affection toward me.

Since that day, the young lady monitored my every move.

The teddy bear I carried.

The fluttery hem of my skirt.

My chubby cheeks peeking out.

She saw everything clearly, but everyone pretended not to notice. Me included.

Ines warned me not to pull any foolish stunts that would make the young lady cry. The gazes from other servants grew colder and heavier every day.

I did not want the attention. I had no desire to become “the maid who gets poisoned instead of the young lady” or “the maid who dies during an attack meant for her” in this childcare novel.

Even if I survived as some minor side character, I had no way to confirm it.

Sure, I could ask the young lady.

“I know you’re the heroine of a childcare story! Whether it’s regression, possession, or reincarnation—am I a character you recognize? Please tell me!”

But what if she was just the youngest daughter of the Grand Duke?

The idea that this was a romance-fantasy world was only my assumption. There was no guarantee she was actually the heroine of a childcare novel. If she thought I was crazy and kicked me out, my retirement savings would vanish.

And even before that, I had no right. What maid gets to speak first to the young lady?

So I had to wait. For the young lady to talk to me, or to lose interest.

My workday was mind-numbingly boring. I did the same tasks at the same times, and saw the same faces over and over.

The young lady would soon get tired of me, and then I’d be free from the chains of childcare-novel logic. Free from Narkis and the Tricen men, too.

So I’ll do my best, my lady!

I unfocused my eyes and erased any awareness of her presence.

Perfectly.

A little too perfectly.