City ​​of Witches 1068

Chapter 1068 – #253_Hide-And-Seek(5)

#1062

1.
“Kids! I’m here! Did my little ones behave themselves?”

Lydia, with shopping bag-like paper bags dangling from both sides, entered ‘Angel’s House’ with her arms wide open.

The children, who had been either playing the piano, lounging on the sofa reading books, or building blocks, lit up the moment they saw Lydia bursting through the door.

As if they had found Santa, the seven children rushed towards her all at once.

“Mom!”
“Lydia Unnie!”
“Lydia-nim!”

Their bright, youthful faces called out to Lydia with their favorite titles and hugged her all at once.
They looked like a pack of puppies welcoming their owner home after a long time.

“I missed you, Lydia Unnie!”
“Yeah, yeah, Charlotte. I missed you too.”
“Mom! Mom! I got first place in the midterms! Did you hear?”
“Wow, our Isabella is really amazing, isn’t she?”

Lydia smiled brightly and stroked each child’s head, showing her delight.
She kissed their foreheads and hugged them tightly, expressing her affection and closeness.

“Patricia. How long are you going to keep hesitating like that?”

After finishing her greetings, Lydia put her hands on her hips and asked a girl who seemed particularly shy.
At the playful scolding, Patricia, who looked timid, hesitantly stepped forward.

“Lydia-nim…. Would you accept this?”
“Oh my? What is it?”

It was a small doll, the kind you might use as a keychain.
Patricia was very skilled, and she had made a decent-looking doll with just a simple sewing kit.

“Oh! It has golden bobbed hair and sparkling pretty eyes? Could it be, is this me?!”
“Yes…! I made it thinking of Lydia-nim.”
“Oh my, how thoughtful!”
“Hehehe….”
“Hmm, where should I put this pretty doll to decorate?”

Lydia made a fuss, as adults do when children like it, and held the doll up in various places.

She put the doll on her dress, on her side bag, and on her head, playfully saying, ‘How’s this? How’s this? What about here?’ which made Patricia laugh as if she were ticklish.

“Damn it, Patty… She’s hogging all of Mom’s affection…”
“Calm down, Charlotte. Unnie is just being kind and taking care of Patricia, who’s usually left out.”
“Tch, tch, tch.”

The children who were complaining so much had one thing in common.

They were all girls wearing antique dresses, though their ages varied.
And each one of them had an outstanding beauty, as if God had sculpted them with great care.

“Okay, okay, you complainers, stop complaining and gather around!”
“Gather around!”

With that chant, the girls stood in front of Lydia with bright smiles.

“You guys, you didn’t miss me, you just missed the presents, didn’t you?”
“No, we didn’t!”
“We missed you, Lydia Unnie! Te amo! Te amo!”

Lydia handed out the gifts that her secretary had prepared, one by one, from the shopping bags.

“For Patricia, who made a wonderful doll, a bling-bling party dress!”
“Waaah!”
“For our haughty young lady Isabella, the marigold perfume that’s trending in high society! You’ve been nagging about wanting it for so long. It was hard to get?”
“No, way…! Really? Wow! Waaah! It has the genuine certification mark!!!”
“For the curious Charlotte, a history book!”

Every time the children received a gift, they expressed their joy with their whole bodies, and Lydia watched with a motherly smile.

Kids are the best.
It’s so healing.

Being a leader among the public, who are always busy scheming, can sometimes be tiresome.

No one knows how much comfort the pureness and transparent goodwill of children, like the first white snow, can bring at times like that.

“I don’t know, but the Chairman is completely different from the rumors.”

A witch who had been watching the scene from a distance spoke as if she were spitting out words.

With Lydia’s position and workload, it was not something an individual could handle.

Therefore, in addition to the chief secretary who was always by her side, she had several professional secretaries, and the one who had just spoken was a new recruit who had recently been assigned to the ‘orphanage’ related administration.

To the new recruit, who had just finished her orientation, Lydia was very different from the rumors.

A ruthless businesswoman who made even the most notorious public officials tremble.
A jar of desire that would spill out gold coins if you cut her open.
A perpetually hysterical boss who used performance pressure like a self-magnetism magic.

Such awe-filled bad reviews were common in the Solidus Company, but wasn’t she just a rich, free-time, and good-natured noblewoman?

“To be honest, I had the impression that she was heartless, but it’s not like that at all? All those apprentice witches follow her like she’s their own mother.”

The chief secretary (the one Lydia always keeps by her side and nags at) who was in charge of handing over the work to the new recruit, said somewhat indifferently.

“Focus. This ‘Angel’s House’ is the most important of the orphanages you will be managing from now on.”
“The name is so half-hearted. So, is Angel’s House an orphanage where apprentice witches who have lost their predecessors gather?”

It was starting to make some sense.

There were many witches who had joined the Solidus Company, and some of them had died, leaving behind apprentice witches.
Thus, the place that protected the orphaned apprentice witches was what the new recruit thought.

“I don’t dislike kids, so I think I can do well. Embracing the apprentice witches who have become like ducks out of water with love and affection. Something like that…”
“New recruit, no.”

The secretary cut off the new recruit.

“Your job is just to manage the children according to the given manual. Now, look at this.”

The new recruit flipped through the manual and made a serious face.

“This is….”
“Do you know about Harry Harlow’s attachment experiment?”
“I know the gist of it.”

It was an experiment conducted by placing two types of ‘fake mothers’ with baby monkeys.

One was a model made of wire that provided food,
and the other was a model made of soft material that did not provide food.

The result of the experiment.

Contrary to expectations, the baby monkeys did not cling to the ‘mother who provided food’ except during meal times.
They stayed close to the ‘mother who provided comfort’ who gave them nothing.

It was an experiment that showed that emotional interaction, not just material rewards, played a major role in infant development.

“New recruit, your role is the fake mother made of wire.”

The manual strictly prohibited any emotional exchange, emotional interaction, or physical contact with the children.

It wasn’t just the new recruit, but also the ‘childcare teachers’ who took turns teaching, were restricted from any unnecessary conversation.

The new recruit inadvertently looked at Lydia.
Lydia Magnus, with a bright smile, and the apprentice witches who followed her like daughters.

Now she could roughly figure it out.

“So, the Chairman is the soft, cuddly fake mother.”
“That’s right.”

Feeling uneasy, the new recruit quickly flipped through the manual, and her eyes landed on a page with a red tag, unlike the others.
It meant that this was confidential information.

If she looked further, she probably wouldn’t be able to leave the Solidus Company anymore.

“Is it okay for me to see this?”
“If you’ve decided to.”
“It’s too late to back out now.”
“That’s right.”

Only after opening the confidential page did the new recruit learn about the true purpose of ‘Angel’s House’ and the process of achieving that purpose.

The girls who were laughing so innocently were apprentice witches who had been captured by Lydia.

They were too valuable to sell off, and not suitable to be used as gold coins, so they were forced to receive and inherit prophecies.
After that, they were disposed of so that they could not commit suicide and were locked away in dark rooms.

The young apprentice witches grew up in this ‘Angel’s House’ from the time they were wrapped in swaddling clothes, and were brainwashed through classes.
They received dry education from the childcare teachers and loving affection from Lydia once a month.

When this was repeated, a faith was born, not a magical brainwashing that could be undone or disappear at any time.

You could tell just by looking at the angelic appearance of those children towards Lydia.

“I like Lydia Unnie the best!”
“Someday, I’ll work under Mom and become a proud executive of the Solidus Company!”
“I want to repay Lydia-nim’s kindness as soon as possible.”

It was a religious brainwashing that made them offer their love for a mother that could never be severed, and their respect for a teacher, to Lydia, who had imprisoned their biological mothers.

“…This is something.”

Even though she was a ‘new recruit,’ she was a witch who had built up her achievements in the Solidus Company, and at the same time, a public official.

It meant that she had seen enough of the harsh side of life.

Lydia sold off witches or made them into gold coins.
The witches made into gold coins were used as ‘sacrifices’ for Lydia’s self-magnetism magic and became her new power.

It was a method that was abhorred in Gehenna, but it was tolerated in public society.

However, the new recruit couldn’t help but feel a chill at the truth hidden behind the harmonious laughter in this orphanage.

Madness.
A cold, calculated madness that made her spine tingle.

“What happens after the inheritance?”
“The children who have finished preparing for the inheritance at Angel’s House go to the back room. They receive the mark in a sack of meat and go to ‘Las Huerfanas’ to work as her closest aides. Oh, they’re coming now. Do you see that girl with the eye patch?”

A great witch with a white eye patch walked towards Lydia.

“Mother, did you call for me?”
“Oh, you’re here?”

She gracefully stroked the children’s heads and bowed her head to Lydia.
The sight of a grown witch calling another witch ‘mother’ was bound to be abnormal.

The new recruit couldn’t hide her discomfort.

Las Huerfanas, called Lydia’s direct unit.
Las Huerfanas.

Las is a definite article that refers to the plural feminine, and Huerfanas is a feminine noun that means ‘orphans.’
To put it bluntly, the name of the organization meant ‘orphan girls.’

“Looking at it again, Angel’s House is a very carefully chosen name.”

“The ‘Huerfanas’ belonging to Las Huerfanas receive a token and take on executive positions in the Solidus Company. They are also deployed on dangerous and secret missions. They are the Chairman’s elite forces who will never betray her.”
“The witch of gold coins is worthy of leading such a large company. Honestly, she seems like a bit of a nasty person.”

The new recruit smiled wryly and joked.
She had to do this to get rid of the goosebumps that had risen on her skin.

“Is that kind of disgusting method really effective? If they find out the truth, they might even develop a sense of rebellion. If the person I thought was my mother was doing this, I’d lose all respect for her.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. The Huerfanas’ loyalty to her is absolute.”
“How do you prove that?”

The secretary pushed up her glasses that had slipped down and continued.

“Because I’m a Huerfana too.”
“…….”

The new recruit’s back became a little more damp.

“…Will what I just said be reflected in my performance review?”