"From now on, this is your room."
Those were the words the person behind the Undead Society said to Mianmian on the first day she was brought here.
"This one is nothing like the other children. She doesn't cry or make a fuss. That gloomy look in her eyes when she sees me makes my skin crawl..."
"I heard she's a wild child the President picked up from a garbage heap. No wonder she stinks..."
"I've never heard her speak. Is she a mute, too?"
"I'm not looking after a kid like that. Whoever wants to can do it..."
"Whatever. The ones with personality problems like her are just cannon fodder anyway..."
Several attendants huddled nearby, muttering among themselves, all looking at the girl with contempt and disgust.
The girl wore filthy, tattered clothes, and her face was dirty too. The only memorable thing about her was her pair of eyes, gleaming like rubies.
Holding a ragged doll, the girl turned a deaf ear to their insults. She merely looked up at the building before her, firmly committing the doorplate marked "Number 14" to memory.
She knew this would be her home for a long time to come.
Unlike the other children who had been abducted or snatched away, she was the only child who had approached these people of her own accord. She had even pretended to escape so they would catch her again and bring her here without a hitch.
Of course she knew this was a terrible place, and that entering it would probably end badly. But she also understood that this was the only place in the Cook Islands where she could eat her fill and sleep well, without going hungry and cold every day.
Whatever she might face in the future, staying here would