I’m a Sheep, But Don’t Call Me Soft - Chapter 4

But in this world, there was no God, no messenger of God, no prince on a white horse. A month passed, and two months passed, but the convent remained the same. Nothing changed. Perhaps that young lord, returning to his palace in the carriage, had thrown away my note without even reading it.

That boy dismissed my accusation.

Afterward, they still visited the convent. And repeated the same behavior as before. I glared at them. While reading the Bible and singing hymns. Did that boy see me doing that? Well, I don’t know. In any case, to me, they were now accomplices.

‘I can’t forgive this.’

After that, every night, I clasped my hands, pricked and bloody from needles, and prayed. To a God who might, for all I knew, only listen to those with excellent traits.

‘If there is a God, let them all fall into hell, the people of this convent and every person of House Leopardi. Please, roast all of them in the flames of hell.’

May you all fall into hell.

As the sheep horns on my head grew thicker, I tried to escape this convent. But running away from the convent only got me as far as within the village, and there were truly many eyes in the village. After my escape attempts exceeded three, the nuns realized that my stubbornness couldn’t be broken by a bundle of switches and sent me to the laundry.

‘Demons in human skin…’

They meant to kill me. Because even the hardiest child, once sent there, would waste away and die within a few years. Yet, apparently finding it a waste to let my hand skills rot, they also woke me late at night and made me sew.

But even amidst that cruel labor like torture… I survived.

I survived in the end.

When I finally came of age and the time came to leave this orphanage, the nun in charge of me spoke solemnly.

“Out in the world, you’ll surely get into big trouble because of that stubbornness of yours. Stubbornness and an unrepentant heart heap up the Lord’s wrath. So please, once you go out, mend your ways and live while suppressing that stubbornness a bit.”

At those words, I straightened both horns and snorted.

‘Hah. Hardships that don’t kill me only make me stronger.’

* * *

The convent arranged jobs for orphans who had come of age and could no longer stay. Of course, it was more accurate to say that rather than worrying about the orphans’ situations, they doubled as an employment agency and engaged in commission business. The convent placed me as an apprentice dressmaker at a large-scale dress shop in a city not far from this village.

“This child’s trait is only a sheep, but she’s as sturdy and strong as an ox. She’ll do well at whatever work you give her.”

Of course, they took money from the shop owners. The shopkeeper couple seemed to look at me and worry, “Can such a scrawny thing work well?” So the nun praised me as if selling a product and pushed me off on them.

“You know how docile sheep are? On top of that, Sophie handles both sewing and embroidery without a hitch, it’s such a shame to send her away!”

The convent where I had lived was very close to the capital, and the city where the shop was located was virtually attached to it, so during the social season, requests for ball gowns from noble ladies that the dress shops within the capital couldn’t absorb poured into the shop.

In addition, nobles changed clothes for all sorts of roles and occasions, so custom dress work was abundant year-round. This was because there were many nobles who had villas in this city with beautiful scenery located in the suburbs not far from the capital.

And so the dress shop where I got hired suffered from chronic labor shortages. The village children entrusted by their parents knew how to sew, but most soon ran away crying.

In contrast, the children brought from the convent for some money obeyed without complaint and worked as if they had no tears.

For that reason, the black antelope couple running the city’s largest general store and dress shop, “Sable Antelope”, would take children from the convent from time to time, also calling it charity. And this year, I was sent to them. The Mother Superior laid down a threat as she sent me off.

“Bear in mind that if you show improper conduct, the way you did at the convent, and run away, the convent’s reputation will fall and the children after you won’t be able to work here.”

But the Mother Superior didn’t need to threaten me. Because dress shop worker life was much, much better than convent life!

“Now, this is where you’ll be staying from now on.”

The antelope couple, with long horns rising high on both sides of their heads as if to pierce the sky, gave me a private room, though it was an attic piled with dust-covered fabric and miscellaneous goods.