Baby Landlord Shall Retire

 

Chapter 1

1.

 

A sudden, ridiculous force of pressure propelled me forward. Then, I exploded into space with a great cry.

 

I already knew what was going on. I wasn’t born yesterday. Well, technically, I was born just now. But , but this wasn’t my first time. Third time’s the charm, I thought to myself. I remembered wishing the last time would be the last time because I was getting so sick of it all.

 

Where’s my mother, anyway? Don’t they usually let the mom hold the newborn?

 

I wanted to look for her, but my newly awoken senses were of no use. All I could pick up were whispers and scurrying footsteps.

 

“No, your grace! You must keep your eyes open!” a woman suddenly screamed. Everyone else started to bustle about as if her scream were their cue.

 

“Is the priest here yet?” shouted someone.

 

“She’s not going to make it. I don’t see how she will,” said another voice. Something was up.

 

“Call for a messenger!” barked another.

 

“Beasts have taken over the road to the castle, sir. No one’s getting in or out,” a voice hurriedly whispered.

 

“Then contact the Magicians’ Tower, at least!” the other voice ordered.

 

“It’s too late,” the pessimistic voice from earlier said.

 

“What?” said the other.

 

“Her grace has passed,” pronounced the pessimistic voice.

 

…Life, no, lives were never easy for me, but I had a really bad feeling about this one.

 

***

 

Previous Prior to this life, I’d lived two lives.

 

In the first one, I was born in Korea in the 90s and was a real one-percent-inspiration-and-one-hundred-and-ten-percent-perspiration kind of personhard worker.

 

I had to be.

 

After getting a divorcethey divorced, my parents cut me off completely and abandoned me at my grandma’s. Having taken me on against her will, all grandma tried to do was get me to drop me out of school and send me off togo work in some factory.

 

All I could do to get out of that situation was studying. So, I studied and got accepted to one of the nation’s top undergraduate architecture programs with a full ride.

 

I didn’t stop once I got in, either. I received multiple awards both in and out of school while managing to maintain that 4.0 all throughout college. And as a reward to all those years of hard work, I was recruited by the country’s largest construction company as soon as I got out of school.

 

And then, I died in a car accident on my very first morning to work.

 

Then came the second life. In that second life, I was born into a poor peasant family in a different universe. There were many days that I starved with and I received occasional beatings from my alcoholic father.

 

As soon as I turned fourteen, my mother forcefully urged me to marry the butcher, who was twenty years my senior. As his second wife, FYII would have been his second wife.

 

Unable to refuse her anymore, I ran away from home when I was sixteen. Longing to be back where I was the happiest, I became an apprentice to an architect.

 

But before I could even hammer a single nail, before I could even become a legal adult, death came knocking at my door again.

 

The tyrant monarch had ordered to execute every single architect in the country. His reasoning was that since his fiancé ran away through a secret passage in his palace, the architects who’d created such treacherous things had, in a way, committed treason.

 

The present my family sent me the day before I died was quite something. All they’d sent me was a moldy piece of stale bread and a note that read:

 

see if yoo would of gotten marreed to the bucher yoo would of kept yor neck and yor family fed yoo idiot

 

How charming.

 

And thatThat was the most distinct memory I had of that life. I ripped that note to pieces the second I read it and gave the stale piece of bread to a hungry pregnant lady before I died.

 

Now that I think about it, the lady had given me a ring in return…

 

Huh. Why do I still have the ring on my finger?

 

Something about my third life seemed… off.

 

***

 

A fair bit of time had passed since my third life had come to its startbegan.

 

“Pwease…!” I grunted as I struggled to reach the piece of bread on the table. The bread was just out of reach for my poorly fed and therefore extremely small body.

 

“Noooo…” I desperately wiggled my fingers at the piece of bread.

 

I hadn’t eaten a thing since last yesterday afternoon. My poor tummy had been rumbling all day in protest. I was so, so, so hungry. The, the world was starting to spin. I needed this piece of bread.

 

Determined to get this piece of bread in my hands, I jumped as high as I could. As soon as I did, I snatched the bread off the table.

 

“Finally!” I exclaimed triumphantly. The fact that the woman had left this piece of bread on the table uneaten only because she’d dropped it on the floor had long stopped bothering me. I took a big bite of the food in utter bliss.

 

“Ugh,” I grumbled as I chewed. It was as bad as I’d expected, even though I was ridiculously hungry. All the moisture had evaporated overnight, making the bread dry, stale, and almost dusty, even. But the woman had proclaimed that she wasn’t going to feed me till tomorrow evening, so I had to make do.

 

To be honest, I couldn’t think of any reason I deserved this.

 

The woman was extremely capricious and was prone to take out all her stress on me whether I gave her a reason or not.

 

“I’m hungwy,” I rubbed my tummy after swallowing the last bite. That small piece of bread was not nearly enough. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find single other edible thing in this room. Tears welled up in my eyes, then trickled down my cheeks.

 

I’d been locked up in this room ever since that first day, given truly the bare minimum to survive. I had no idea who I was, how old I was, how many days or months or years it’s been since I was born, or even who that woman was that I was in contact with since once I became more aware of my surroundings. I really knew nothing.

 

At first, I cried and cried for help, but no one came. The woman who looked after me never fed me or changed me. Many days, she just peeped in to see if I was still alive and left. She sometimes didn’t even give me anything to drink.

 

One day, I opened the window after hours of struggling just to drink the rainwater and when she found out the next day, all hell broke loose because I “wet the floor.”

One consoling thing I knew was that she, at the very least, was not my mother. I remembered her screaming one day, “I never would have had to look after such an ungrateful kid like you if I hadn’t owed Lady Audrey! Dammit!”

 

Ever since then I wondered who Lady Audrey was. Was she my mother? Had I been abandoned by my parents again? Why do I always end up being abandoned by my family?

 

“You little rat!” a sudden screech came from behind, making me curl up into a ball. “What have you stolen this time?”

 

I hurriedly shook my head, but the woman already had her hand cocked. “You really think you could can fool me? How dumb do you think I am?”

 

“N-n-no, I just…!” I tried to protest but instead decided to clamp my eyes shut in anticipation of what was about to happen.

 

“You little lying rat!” With that, she started screaming at me.

 

My heart ached and I couldn’t stop myself from wailing. What on earth had I done to deserve this? I was tired, much too tired to bear it anymore. Tears streamed down as I continued to weep.

In emotional situations like this, memories from the past lives were no help. Even if I remembered being an adult in my past life, it didn’t change the fact that I was a mere toddler right now. And as it did the past two times, my mind was gradually regressing to an appropriate state to fit my age.

 

So all I could think right now was that I was just so sad, tired, and miserable.

“Stop screaming, you…!” the woman glared at me with eyes that could kill. I instinctively curled up into a ball to protect myself.

 

Then, all of a sudden, a new voice came from the opened door, “What is going on here?” I looked up with my teary eyes to see who it was.

 

“Y-your grace!” The woman jumped and took a step back. I could finally see the stranger in full.

 

Your grace? I thought to myself as I craned my neck to study the tall man from head to toe. He had broad shoulders and a slim but toned build. His tousled, shiny silver hair caught my eye. It seemed quite similar to mine, although mine was all greasy and matted because I rarely was bathed.

 

Why is here? Can he maybe save me from this place? I thought as I studied him. The man stared at me for a moment with his ruby red eyes, then turned his gaze back to the woman. There was something extremely threatening about the way he was glaring at her.

 

“…Have you lost your mind?” he uttered quietly.

 

“I, I understand how this may seem, your grace. But, p-please, let me explain,” she nervously stuttered.

 

“Before that,” he stopped her. “She’s dressed in mere rags.”

 

“I, I can explain that, your grace!” She quickly glanced at me, then continued, trembling, “Children’s clothes don’t last long, your grace, because they play outside all day. I gave her new clothes this morning, and look what happened!”

 

The man scoffed and questioned again, “And why is she so skinny?”

 

“She’s… a very active young lady, your grace. No matter how much I feed her, she remains thin,” the woman mumbled.

 

That didn’t seem to have gone so well for her. The man glared at her even more intensely for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

 

I felt a sudden pressure on my throat as if an invisible hand was lightly wrapped around it. It didn’t seem like I was the only one feeling that.

 

The woman grabbed her throat with both hands and kneeled, crying out, “Y-your grace! Please, I am innocent.” It seemed like she was feeling a more intense pressure than I was. I watched the woman who always towered over me and ruled me with fear collapse on the floor and beg, “Mercy! Please! My lady is not well, so yes, I did slip up at times, but I cherished her, I loved her like my own!”

 

“Loved her like your own…” the man muttered. The pressure around my throat disappeared at once. And as soon as it did, my brain finally came out of shock and started working. The man had silver hair like mine, he was questioning the woman after seeing how I was treated, and he was called, “your grace.”

 

He’s someone who can help me, I concluded. I had no idea how we were related, but it certainly seemed like he’d be willing to help me. And, and I was not about to let this chance slip away from me.

 

“She, she’s lying,” I said. Both the woman and the man stared at me as I continued, “She, she always hits me. She bullies me evewy day and never gives me any food.”

 

I was trying to explain the reason I shouldn’t be left here. I wanted to express how desperately I needed him to take me with him because he seemed like someone who could help me. But, but I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.

 

“I n-never get to go outside. I’m always stuck in this woom. I-I know I look ugly and I’m weawing wags… but if you wash me and feed me I’ll look much better,” I pleaded. “I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything you want, so pwease…”

 

I couldn’t form words anymore. Only hiccups and cries came out of my throat. Letting the tears roll, I clung onto his legs and cried, “Pwease, pwease take me with you…”

 

I tried and tried to stop crying so I could keep talking, but to no avail. I even held my breath, but it was no use. I slowly realized that this was my body releasing all the sorrow I’d been forced to keep to myself for so long. This was the way my body was screaming, “I can’t take it anymore.”

Suddenly, the woman crawled towards me and covered my mouth with her hand, saying, “She’s talking about her dreams, your grace. She’s too young to know what happened in real life and what didn’t, liket. Like all children her age.”

 

No. No! I’m not lying! She’s lying! I tried to get her hands off of me and scream, but I didn’t have any energy to do so. So I just looked up at the man, pleading with my eyes to believe me. But the man just stood there looking at me instead of saying or doing anything.

 

Do you really think I’m lying? I thought in despair. I’d tried so hard, for so long, and I was starting to think maybe it was all going to get better, but…

 

“How dare you…” he began to speak as I was about to let out more tears of sorrow. “Touch her with your filthy hands,” he finished.

 

“Y-your grace? Surely you’re not believing a child’s lie…” The woman’s voice trailed off as she watched him step towards me. After what seemed like ages, he reached me at last. I felt his hands pick me up, and was soon I was looking at him at eye-level.

 

“She’s light,” he mumbled to himself. “She needs to eat.”

 

I just stared at him with teary eyes, hopelessly hiccupping. He then ordered to the knights standing by, “…Take care of that.”

 

Watching the knights approach her in utter fear, she stuttered, “Y-your grace, p-please, mercy…!”

 

The man covered my eyes as her screech filled the room. As soon as felt his hand on me, I fell into deep sleep.