The Weight of Yellow Hair
“What… what the hell is this?”
The fact that the roots were yellow meant one thing: my natural hair color wasn’t black. It was blonde.
But how? In this godforsaken environment, how on earth had this kid managed to keep her hair dyed pitch black so perfectly all this time?
Had she been smearing charcoal powder or mud on it every single day? Or was there some secret magical treatment at work that I didn’t know about?
One thing was certain. Long before I’d transmigrated into this body called Vita and opened my eyes, this girl had been meticulously dyeing her real hair color jet black and deceiving everyone around her.
But why?
The question didn’t linger long. The scene I’d witnessed on the street just moments ago had already given me the answer.
This was a cruel world where people would tear a newborn baby to shreds just for having green hair.
So what if a dazzling blonde child had been walking around right in the middle of the slums?
……Yellow. Hair.
The day I first opened my eyes in this strange world. The skeleton that had been with me. And the strands of hair still clinging to its skull—yellow at the roots.
Ah… Aaaah. So that’s how it is.
Just as I’d suspected, that skeleton had to be this body’s real mother.
……I’m so glad I buried her.
My decision to dig a hole and bury the skeleton instead of tossing it on the street like garbage suddenly felt like an enormous stroke of luck. If I had simply abandoned it because it was annoying or gross, I would have committed an unforgivable sin against the true owner of this body.
Either way, I was now living and breathing in this world by borrowing the body of a girl named Vita.
Even if my soul belonged to an outsider, the bare minimum courtesy I owed this flesh and the connections it once had was to treat them with care and respect.
I tried to steady my heart and come to some kind of conclusion—
……Wait a second. What the hell am I supposed to do starting tomorrow?
Just picking up someone else’s kid without thinking had already made my future uncertain. I might literally starve to death. And now, on top of that, I had to desperately hide the secret of my yellow hair that could be exposed at any moment.
If anyone found out about my blonde hair, both me and that green-haired baby might end up skewered and burned at the stake together.
“Waaah……! Waaaaaaaah……!”
“Aaaah, aaaaaah……! I’m losing my mind. I seriously regret this…!”
I rubbed my face with both hands.
Where the hell was I supposed to get milk for a newborn? And how was I going to dye my yellow hair black again without it looking obvious?
The bleak situations kept piling up until my head felt like it would explode, but with both my stamina and mana completely drained, there was nothing I could solve right now.
“Haa…… Forget it. First, I need to calm this noisy little shit down and put her to sleep. As for everything else… tomorrow’s me can figure it out somehow.”
With a haggard expression, I picked up the damn baby who showed no signs of stopping and began awkwardly patting her back.
“Vita! Come quick! Wait, what’s that on your head? A hood?”
“I just had a reason to wear it. Don’t worry about it. Where’s Prin?”
“My brother’s inside the house. But… huh? Vita, what’s that you’re holding? Something’s squirming… Wait, a baby?! Hold on, Vita! Don’t tell me you had a baby!?”
“Haa?”
“No, no! That can’t be! You haven’t even had your coming-of-age ceremony yet, and you haven’t made the clay doll to offer to the gods! You haven’t received a blessing either, so how could you have a baby?!”
I felt a throbbing pain in my temples before I could even open my mouth. Just where was I supposed to start correcting this absurd misunderstanding?
Aaaah, this is going to be such a pain in the ass to explain….
“Stop saying stupid things and just get inside already. I’ll explain everything once we’re in.”
I let out a deep sigh and pushed France forward by the back. Before stepping into the house, I quickly scanned the surrounding alley.
Thankfully, the siblings’ house was tucked away in an extremely secluded corner of the slums where almost no one passed by.
Given how brutally indifferent the people here were to one another, not a single person was paying any attention to this direction.
“Brother! Brother! Vita brought a baby!!”
“Hey, you crazy—! That’s not what happened!!”
While I was keeping watch on our surroundings, France dashed into the house like a squirrel, her footsteps pattering wildly. Watching her lively, bouncy figure from behind, I let out a dry laugh.
Well… the kid who had been on the verge of death was now healthy enough to run around like that. Of course she’d be overjoyed. Yeah, it’s good that she’s so full of energy.
“Wha—what?! France, what the hell are you talking about?! Vita gave birth to a baby!?”
“It’s true! Come look for yourself, brother! It’s all wiggly and cute!!”
“It’s not!!!”
This is driving me insane! I hurried inside while shouting, but the damage was already done. If I left it like this, those ignorant, overly imaginative siblings were definitely going to explode with ridiculous misunderstandings. Haa…….
I swallowed a deep sigh and adjusted the bundle in my arms before stepping right up to the two of them.
“Both of you, listen carefully from now on. Whatever you see here, you can never tell anyone. Got it? This is a promise on your lives.”
“Y-yeah!! Okay! I promise! But… what is it? Why are you dragging this out so much?”
“V-Vita…. Is it true? Did you really… really get pregnant…? Haa, more importantly, who… who was it……! What kind of filthy animal would dare…! To do something so horrible to our Vita! To a child who hasn’t even grown all her teeth yet…!!”
“Aaaargh!! I told you I didn’t give birth, you idiot!!!”
I couldn’t take it anymore! The moment I screamed, I yanked the cloth off the bundle in my arms.
“Whoa……! It really is a newborn…! Huh? ……………Hm? B-Brother. This kid… why does her hair look like that? It’s not black. It’s completely different from ours…? It’s green……!”
“V-Vita… what the hell… did you pick up……?”
……Why are they looking at me like that?
The siblings’ pupils were shaking violently as they stared at me.
It was the kind of gaze you’d give a psychopath who had casually brought home dog shit from the street or was cradling a time bomb that could explode at any second.
Well, okay. They’re not entirely wrong!
But still, being looked at with such blatant contempt made a wave of resentment and indignation surge up inside me. I was pissed. Yeah, I was sulking now. I’d gone all out to save their lives, and this was the look I got in return?
In a fit of irritation, I set the baby down on the straw pile and pointed at her accusingly.
“This baby. You two are raising her from now on!”
““……Wha—what the hellllll?!?!””
“Why? Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten how I worked my ass off to feed you two all this time!? You are absolutely going to raise this child!! In return, I’ll make sure none of you three starve to death. I’ll take full responsibility for putting food on the table!”
“E-even so, Vita… this isn’t right. Haa… You know what I mean, right…? No, I guess you wouldn’t. You’re still young. France probably doesn’t know about this either…. Haa, what the hell are we supposed to do about this….”
“…What is it?”
“Huu…. Vita, listen carefully. You too, France. This happened ten years ago. You know that district about an hour’s walk east from here?”
An hour east from here….
Since that was based on Prin’s long stride, with my short legs it would probably take about an hour and a half.
Yeah, that place was at the very edge of the slums, right where the massive wall stood.
“A child was born there. And that child… had hair as red as blood. The adults in that area acted fast. They made sure no one would find out and quietly disposed of the newborn that very night.”
“B-Brother… what do you mean, ‘disposed of’? Who were they hiding it from? Why would they do that to a baby……?”
Prin hesitated for a long time, lips trembling. His expression was heartbreakingly bitter, as if he desperately wanted to cover his precious little sister’s ears so she would never have to know about the cruelty of the world. But realizing there was no other way to make us understand the gravity of the situation, he eventually continued with a resigned, pained voice.
“The people who lock us in this narrow, rotting garbage dump and trample us like insects.”
“There… there are people that terrifying……? But why? What terrible crime did we even commit…….”
“I don’t know either. Probably no one inside these slums knows the real reason. Why we’re trapped here and forced to live like this for our entire lives. But one thing is certain. Even though the adults in the eastern district hurried to hide the red-haired baby that day… for some unknown reason, those terrible people eventually found out. Remember, France? There was a huge commotion near the wall not long ago.”
“Yeah….”
“We stayed inside the house the whole time, so we don’t know exactly what happened outside. But… I overheard the adults in the neighborhood whispering. They said that ten years ago, just like the other day, the wall gates opened and those terrifying bastards came pouring in. Of course, the last time they came, we were incredibly lucky. Not a single person was hurt or killed. It was a miracle. But ten years ago, it wasn’t like that. Just because they had hidden a baby. That night, the entire eastern district was hunted down like insects—from newborns to the elderly. It was a living hell with no survivors.”