Tall Villainesses Are Obsessed

The Loving Aunt.

The brightness she thought was sunlight was actually a flickering candle flame.
The blazing flame of the candle burned low, sweeping our memories away, creating wavering shadows.
From the toys we played with to the picture books the teacher used to read us…
The huge flames engulfed the whole area and approached us.
“Whoa!!”
Friends ran away in fear.
Even I, along with my aunt, ran away.
“Find the women!! It’s fine if the men are killed!”
[Splash-!]
A voice that covered my father’s voice was heard.
‘Ah. Father..?’
Through the flames, Rita saw the chaos outside.
There, a man vastly different in appearance from my father was dragging people into the protection center.
“Just find a woman! If you leave even one alive for the barbaric savages, we’ll all die!”
A man continued towards the stairs, and with glaring eyes, shouted in a loud voice.
“Here!! Here, the children are gathered!!”
A man pointed towards us as he came closer.
“Ugh!”
The man had followed us through the stairs, but the teacher firmly stopped him using a crossbar and spoke.
“Children!! Get away!! Hurry and run away from here!!”
The teacher held tightly to the crossbar to stop the advancing man.
“This kid’s heartless!”
Such actions only provoked the man further, and he pulled out a knife and lunged towards the teacher.
“Oh.. Oh no!!”
“Die!”
The man leaned towards the teacher and put his razor blade in his pocket.
[Gasp..! Gasp…!]
A man violently confronting the teacher without letting go.
Once the man’s razor cut ended, the teacher slumped in his position.
“Tea.. Teacher..”
We cringed in our seats.
Our teacher, who used to read comics to us in a monotonous voice, slumped in his place without any movement.
The man lifted the teacher who had splattered on the floor and said.
“Hey. Why did he call you, looking so restless with that smiling face? If he had quietly stayed put, he could have escaped this.”
The man, not having any movement at all, roughly carried the fallen teacher and said these words with anger.
[Hrkkk–!]
The disheveled teacher was assembled without any movement.
The man, with a chaotic expression, gestured towards us and said.
“Well. You saw it too, didn’t you? What’s the point of resisting blindly?”

“If you want to live, don’t do anything and follow us.”
The man dragged us along, who couldn’t do anything at all.
When we came out of the security office, we saw the place where the security office once stood.
Without a place to go, and only vivid memories left behind, the security office was demolished and left barren.
The man dragged us to a large man.
Thus, we were forcibly separated from our friends.
I am not sure if it should be called fortune, but I did not part from my aunt.
“Even a magician of the highest level couldn’t solve this. It’s a work I made with special consideration.”
The man sneered at us coldly and spoke.
Thus, a large iron chain was placed around our necks, and we were loaded onto a cart on a steep mountain path where the wind howled.
“…..”
A moonlight pale in the dense clouds emerged.
The moonlight broke through the clouds. A truly large star was there.
Receiving the moonlight directly, I thought of a wish like the wish I made on the fallen stars yesterday.
A wish that wishes every day is the same as the one today.
Will my curiosity not be the one that led to such a mischief?
Should I live, just helplessly twiddling my thumbs?
Me and aunt, should we only live this way?
So foolishly, we gazed at the sky hopelessly. My aunt, who was beside me, spoke in a powerless voice.
“Why us..”
My aunt pointed towards the largest star and spoke.
The question of why us, was what Rita most wanted to express.
Why is it that we are always the ones who have to suffer?
Though it was the words Rita most wanted to say, they were words she could not utter.
“Why us!! Why are we always the ones who have to suffer!!”
Aunt’s umbrella was blown away up to the mountain ridge.
“Haha..”
Aunt let out a hearty laughter.
It was a moment when Aunt’s strong will was briefly dissolved.
Thus, the night passed and by morning we were able to step out of the lodge.
“Hurray!! Just in time for the market to open!”
A man who appeared to be an acquaintance saw us and laughed.
In this way, our lives, wrapped in fur coats, were narrowly encased in an iron box.
Plenty of people watching over us.
They were seeing Aunt and me not as people but as animals.
Amidst receiving such curious glances from others, we spotted a man looking at us strangely.
“…..”
The man with golden eyes in his dark hair.
During all this time, he and we were staring at each other.
The man summoned the staff and bought us.
Aunt and I thus ended up in the hands of this man with dark hair.
Exiting the station with us at his side.
The man who came out of the station said he would buy us, offering various proposals to the man, but the man consistently refused each offer, ultimately managing to acquire us with much effort as many people were looking at us.
With the man gripping Aunt and my hand, we hurriedly left the scene.
“So warm..”
The man’s hands were incredibly warm, reminiscent of leather gloves.
Thus, we arrived at the man’s house.
The man’s house was neat at a glance.
‘It’s tidy..’
The man’s house was tidier than our house we used to have before.
In any case, the man served us delicious food.
A variety of foods with a vivid array of colors.
The smell of the food was very fragrant and stimulating.
‘I’ll have a bite..’
I couldn’t take my eyes off such food.
No matter what I looked at, it all seemed delicious.
The man served me food that looked like a national dish.
The man watched us while having a bite of food.
Following the man’s lead, others also took a bite.
“…..!”
The aunt who put food in her mouth continued to pat her belly, and I held onto the aunt.
The aunt kept patting her belly, saying it was uncomfortable, but the same aunt ate the food and steadied her mind.
The aunt who ate the food appeared to be pondering about when this happened.
‘Will it be alright to eat this..?’
Since others ate the food, it didn’t seem a problem, so I decided to eat what the man served.
‘Wait!!’
The man shouted loudly and grabbed my wrist.
I was so surprised when the man suddenly grabbed my hand tightly, but he quickly let go and told me about something called a ‘napkin ring.’
While eating, he explained the usage of useful table accessories like the napkin ring and fork, and I ate according to how he instructed.
It was delicious.
Every dish the man prepared was equally tasty and extremely stimulating.
And so Auntie and I ate everything on the table without leaving a single piece, and I stroked my full stomach contentedly.
‘I am happy…’
My full stomach left me exceedingly content.
This man… I wondered if perhaps he was a kind person.
Thus, Auntie and I finished off all the rice.
The man took us somewhere.
‘Where are we going…’
I looked at Auntie.
She seemed at ease even after a glance.
The man was holding a shoelace that tied us.
It did not take long.
The shoelace binding Auntie’s neck came undone easily.
The man who had us tied up boasted that it was a special work of art, yet the shoelace loosened so easily that his words were somewhat ridiculous.
After removing Auntie’s shoelace, the man untied the one around my neck.
“…..”
I roughly rubbed the spot on my neck where the shoelace had been.
There were no longer any shoelaces binding us at that spot.
The man smashed a scythe in front of us.
“This is something that will never be useful to us again.”
The man said, looking at us.
The man showed a promise note as he spoke.
“I will keep this for myself. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but… this is something I think I should keep.”
The man put the promise note in his hand.
He then asked if we needed as many as a hundred heads, and as soon as he said he would like Aunt Scarlet to be with us, the man left his seat.
In the room the man had prepared for us, there was a soft piece of furniture called a couch.
The man who left after granting us a room.
Auntie and I sunk into the soft couch.
It was soft.
It wasn’t a hard floor we usually slept on, but it felt like only our bodies were sinking into the soft couch as we tried to sleep.
The man who provided us with warm food and a suitable place.
I wondered once more if perhaps the man was not a good person.
Auntie and I were preparing to sleep in the glowing bright couch.
“Auntie, are you asleep?”
“No.”

Or rather, should I say, Auntie wasn’t sleeping.
I asked Auntie about the man, but as expected, Auntie did not trust the man.
She also warned me to be cautious of the man after she turned her back on the money.
For a while, I stared at the distant figure of my aunt.
The dignified back of the aunt I had always watched.
Today, the back of my aunt seemed even more dignified.
The aunt who was always by my side, anytime.
To me, my aunt was the most precious, the most precious person when no one else was present.