Taming The Villainesses novel Chapter 437

I closed my eyes quietly.

Let’s recall memories from high school. If I do, countless memories will bubble up and decorate my mind.

Then what about memories from middle school?

And memories from elementary school?

No—let’s go even further back. Try to recall the memories from early childhood. Memories that could be called the very first memories of my life.

However, compared to the relatively vivid memories from my school days...

The memories up until about when I was around six years old remained blurry. Not only for me; most people, it was said, experienced the same.

Infantile amnesia.

Or, in another term, early childhood forgetting.

It was said that these two phrases described such phenomena. That most people shared a tendency to forget memories from around before the age of eight.

Yes.

It’s not that they’re lost, but that they’re forgotten. It looks as if they’ve been completely erased, but even childhood memories seem to be sleeping deep somewhere inside the mind.

If a certain event occurs later in life, triggering it like a switch, you never know when or where those childhood memories might suddenly rise to the surface.

Just like what was happening to me now.

“......”

I quietly tried recalling the very distant past. Most of my memories from before entering elementary school were concentrated around the time when I first entered the orphanage.

Around six years old.

Yes, because the next year and the year after that, I entered elementary school—six years old sounds about right.

Meaning, it was around the age of six that I first became aware of something called age in my life.

As for the period even further back, from five years old down to one year old, it was all jumbled together like a child mashing different colored clay into one lump, twisted and blended beyond recognition.

Though a few memories floated up now and then, if someone asked when exactly they happened or how old I was at the time, I wouldn’t be able to answer clearly. They were memories like these:

The memory of someone’s cool hand touching my forehead when I was burning up with a high fever.

Or the memory of playing hide-and-seek inside a cramped one-room house with a woman I presumed to be my mother.

“......”

Now that I thought about it, aside from those two, there wasn’t really anything else I could call a memory from my early childhood. Why were only those memories left?

Was it because they were too intense to be forgotten?

No, if that were the case, then being surrounded by unfamiliar older girls and having my cheeks pinched should also have remained a vivid memory. I was sure it must still exist somewhere deep in my mind.

But no matter how hard I tried, no such memories surfaced.

Was it that I simply couldn’t remember?

Or was it that the place itself was so special that it didn’t end up influencing the formation of my future personality?

...Or maybe it wasn’t even me in the first place.

At that moment, someone poked my side.

It °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° was Elga.

"Why aren’t you saying anything? I’m asking if you remember seeing us when you were little. Anything coming to mind or not?"

Seeing me stay silent without answering, Elga must have felt frustrated.

─Shaking my head.

When I shook my head, Elga looked slightly surprised and also a little disappointed. It was then that Stella proposed a theory.

"Most childhood memories get diluted over the long span of time. Only the ones that left a strong impression tend to remain. Maybe meeting us just wasn’t that impressive?"

Stella’s opinion was similar to the theory I had just been thinking about by myself. People’s thoughts really did end up running along the same lines, huh.

However, Ayra objected to Stella’s idea.

"If you met me, there's no way you’d forget. I am a beautiful and perfect queen. Once you see me, it’s utterly impossible to forget."

Ayra’s pride in herself was extraordinary. At this level, her narcissism could probably be considered a kind of religious conviction. Yet the frustrating thing was that Ayra wasn’t wrong.

I remembered almost every moment I had spent with Ayra. Her actions and appearance were so remarkable that even her smallest gestures left an intense impression.

In that case, the same should have applied when I was a young half-fairy.

At that moment, we saw a nymph carrying a child coming back from afar, parting through the colorful flowers.

Seeing that, all of us stopped what we were about to say and exchanged glances.

Though none of us said it out loud...

It felt like our gazes were conveying the same silent agreement: Let’s keep what we just talked about a secret from them.

***

"Hey, little one, want big sister to brush your hair? Hm?"

"Lady of Leones, you’re scaring the child...!"

"It’s not fear, it’s embarrassment. And you should stop that fanning already. Can’t you see the child’s coughing?"

"I-I’m fanning to cool them down because they have a fever!"

Elga and Mirna were quarreling with the small half-fairy between them. I couldn’t tell exactly why they were acting like that, but it seemed clear that both wanted to leave a deep impression on the little half-fairy.

Swoosh.

At that moment, Ayra extended a finger and brought it in front of the child's blue eyes. Then she began spinning it round and round—.

"Who is the most beautiful queen in the world? Who should you take as your rightful wife? That’s right—"

Seeing that, Narmee cried out.

"Queen Tarantella is using hypnosis!"

What a madhouse. If I had experienced something like this as a child, it would have definitely left a scar in my mind like a lightning strike—and yet, nothing was coming to me.

At that moment, the little half-fairy coughed, hacking. Seeing that, all the noble ladies who had been making a fuss fell silent, only staring at the child’s face, now red like a tomato.

"......."

Perhaps embarrassed, the little one ran over and buried their face into the stomach of the big nymph, Trish. It was exactly the kind of behavior I would have shown at that age.

Cough, cough.

Even in the midst of that, the coughing didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon. Somehow, it made my own throat feel ticklish. While the mood grew briefly solemn, Mirna asked,

"The child is trying to cross that door because they’re sick, right?"

The door.

It was only then that we recalled the existence of the massive door in this great temple. We had come to this strange fracture because of that door. No doubt, this bizarre hat was tied to it as well.

The nymph Trish, now cradling the sleeping child, nodded.

"Yeah. They say there’s a place beyond that door that you couldn’t even imagine. My husband told me... well, that’s not what’s important..."

Trish hesitated mid-sentence, fumbling awkwardly. As if there were words caught in her throat that she couldn’t either swallow or spit out.

Finally, she said in a small voice,