I Became the Male Lead's Adopted Daughter

Chapter 20

Even though the father, who returned after a month, was now in front of her, the daughter could not answer. Leonia exhaled slowly with only her stifling breath, and was quite exhausted. It was because she couldn’t hold back and couldn’t properly control her burst of power.

The light in her unfocused black eyes had a dizzyingly gold luster.

“As expected, it’s a lot of work.”

Soon his red fangs appeared.

Pelliot looked into Leonia’s eyes. The golden light that had disturbed the black color faded as the large, mature fangs slowly wrapped around and crushed the ruthless young fangs. At the same time, the cold air around it began to warm up.

“…Puha!”

“Gasp, gasp!”

Pavo and Connie, who had been frozen, were finally able to breathe again.

“Sir Gabel, what happened?”

Pelliot asked, confirming that she had calmed down.

“…I’m sorry I couldn’t protect the Ladyship. I can’t even guess what Her Ladyship intended, but I believe that Countess Tedross had offended Her Ladyship.”

The dark red eyes turned to Cerena, who was sitting on the floor.

Trapped in the icy thorns, Cerena was completely dazed. Her current appearance as she let out a strange groan as if she had shown her true heart, made anyone question if her splendid past as the ruler of the social world was but a farce. A hideous crust had hardened over the wounds on her body.

“It seems that the Madam made an excessive remark towards Her Ladyship.”

Pavo recounted Leonia and Cerena’s conversation as he remembered.

However, when Pelliot heard of the situation, there was no response.

‘I’d rather him wield a sword…’

Pavo trembled, knowing about what Pelliot’s silence meant from years of experience. Completely different from Leonia’s fangs, which ran wildly, this sharper, eerier version of the beast’s fangs was more restrained and controlled, and it took over the hall very slowly and surely.

In fact, the beast was only looking at the young cub in his arms. Leonia, who had already calmed her fangs, began to boil in the aftermath of the sudden onslaught of power. Cold sweat formed on her round forehead, and even the listeners were suffering from the sound of her heavy breathing.

“…It’s surprising.”

Pelliot, who took care of his sick daughter more carefully, handed the box of cream puffs to Pavo. Meanwhile, the box was in good condition with no wrinkles at all.

“While I was away from the North,”

With those words, Pelliot passed by without even glancing at Cerena. In the quiet hall, only the footsteps of a black beast walking up the stairs clearly resounded.

Then, the beast stopped walking and showed his fangs.

“Did your dreams of the future suddenly become dreams of suicide?”

Cerena, who had been pierced by the fangs, crouched down. Pelliot looked down at her indifferently, and climbed the stairs as if he had no interest.

“Then you should do what you want.”

Really, go ahead. The beast, who had been muttering, walked forward again.

“……”

Pavo, who was holding the box of cream puffs he had been handed over, stared blankly at the stairs that Pelliot had climbed. He could not forget the sound of Pelliot’s footsteps, which was getting farther and farther away. It was like a substitute to the high-pitched, terrifying scream that Cerena, who had been pierced through the fangs, could not utter.

The cold entrance hall suddenly regained its original warmth.

However, no one was able to move easily even after the black beast had disappeared.

As a result, Cerena, who had collapsed in the center of the hall, was moved only after a long time later.

* * *

A dark night tinged by the moonlight greeted Leonia.

“…….”

Without realizing what had happened to her, Leonia staggered and sat up. Then, as soon as her eyes started spinning round and round, she fell backwards in sudden dizziness.

The one thing that touched her head wasn’t a fluffy pillow.

“Tsk.”

A large, firm hand supported Leonia’s head.

“You still have a fever, so lie down.”

She heard a gentle yet indifferent voice. Her head, raised halfway, soon settled slowly on the pillow. Leonia endured the headache and turned her head to the left very slightly. There was Pelliot, who had dragged his chair to the side of the bed and sat down.

“Mister…”

Pelliot grabbed her unconsciously outstretched hand. His daughter’s voice, which had sunk to the bottom, was completely different from her usual, energetic voice.

Leonia did not know when Pelliot had been here. But from his loose sleeves or his calmly setted hair, she guessed he had been by her side for quite some time.

“When did you come?”

“Two days ago.”

“Two days…”

“And you’ve been sleeping all this time.”

“…Because of the fangs?”

Beyond her sparse and broken memories, Leonia wept as she recalled what she had done. Then Leonia pulled the blanket under her eyes and apologized in an ant-sized voice.

“Sorry…”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“But, I did something wrong…”

“What did you do wrong?”

Pelliot asked, pulling the blanket back down to her chin. His black eyes looking down on her didn’t seem to really understand what Leonia was talking about.

“An accident…”

Leonia pulled back the blanket. However, Pelliot did not let go of the blanket he had grabbed.

“What accident?”

“……”

“I used the fangs?”

“Hmm…”

A dark shadow fell on the child’s face. It seemed more serious than when she first traveled through the teleportation gate and suffered severe motion sickness. At least back then, she didn’t pay attention to Pelliot as much as she did now.

“Did you use it on purpose?”

Pelliot asked, wiping Leonia’s forehead. She still had a slight fever.

“No, not really…”

Leonia’s body trembled faintly at the body temperature, which was lower than hers. The back of the large hand, cooling her forehead, felt so tender that her tears flowed. Soon, a sniffling nose rang out in a mournful way.

“…I got angry.”

Leonia, who didn’t want to be seen now, slammed her head into the pillow.

“I should know my place.”

Even though she hid her face, on the contrary, feelings of unfairness and frustration overflowed. The child’s small, fragile shoulder shook incessantly and her eyes wet with an unstoppable intensity of emotion.

“What’s your place?”

It was a stone in Leonia’s heart that Leonia could not be shaken even for a moment.

“I mean, I don’t know…”

The child was confused about everything.

When she opened her eyes one day, she saw that she had changed into a different person. As a very young and weak child. Her familiar family, the places she used to go often enough that she got tired of, and the things she always carried with her, had all disappeared.

She was afraid of the sudden change, but it was only for a short time. Soon, unexplained violence and ill-treatment struck the child.

The vague goal of returning to her original home at some point gradually faded away, and she clenched her teeth with only the will to survive here. Every time she slept, she trembled, vowing to take revenge on those people.

“Mister.”

Then she met a black beast.

“Who am I?”

Miraculously, she met the protagonist of the novel, and she was bestowed the name ‘Leonia’. While she was treated with indescribable hospitality by these kind people, she forgot an important fact for a brief moment.

That she didn’t have a complete ‘identity’ to any of them.

“An orphan with no memory? Lucky adoptee? The daughter of a foolish woman who had eloped?”

No.

‘She’ was not like that.

There were names that could never be said here, there were nostalgic people that still vividly come to her mind, and there were places that were tiringly familiar. Everything she left there was precious and affectionate.

Cerena’s sarcastic question about her ‘position’ was brutally digging through her wounds, which Leonia had been trying to ignore and avoid. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t become the daughter of the Duke,she couldn’t be Leonia Voreotti.

This was not her place.

“Sniff, hicc…”

Sobs that she could not even shout out filled the little girl’s room, which was decorated in various colors. There was a very small child, sobbing, crouching alone on the wide bed. She didn’t know where to go, and after wandering for a while, she lost her way and fell down, resembling a crying little beast.

As if contemplating the perfect stranger, Pelliot looked at the child blankly with that thought in mind.

He held his breath at the emotions rising from the depths of his chest.

“Leonia.”

His large hand, which had been hovering in the air, landed quietly next to the child.

“Leonia.”

Pelliot moved his fingers gently to touch the child’s hand, which was gripping the duvet tightly.

“Leo.”

The fingers, which were carefully caressing the back of her hand, quickly turned into a large hand and embraced her child. After crying for a while, the child whose face was red and her eyes wet with her head lowered.

Pelliot stopped laughing.

“…Uwaaaaaaahhhh!”

Leonia finally burst into tears at that sight. It was because she misunderstood that he was laughing at her feelings.

“Why, why are you laughing! Why are you laughing!”

“I didn’t laugh.”

“You laughed! You laughed at me for looking so stupid!”

“So you know what you look like right now?”

Dodging Leonia’s fist punching him into the air, Pelliot wrapped the child in a blanket and placed her on his lap. Leonia, startled, stopped crying and hiccuped.

“It’s a foolish concern.”

Pelliot wiped the child’s tears and runny nose with his sleeve.

“You look like a fool.”

“…….”

“You’re like a foolish daughter.”

After those words, Pelliot didn’t say anything. Leonia, who sniffed, also kept her mouth shut, and she looked blankly at Pelliot. Then, as she turned her gaze to the steady pat she felt, Pelliot tapped her back and pulled Leonia’s body toward his chest.

His chest touched her head, the same as before. It was the same when she first crossed the gate and got motion sickness. The unfamiliar man’s chest was a warm and strong muscle that was nowhere else in the world.

“Muscles…”

“…You’re a lost cause. Even in this situation, such words come out.”

“How can I, with something so good…!”

“There’s no one else like you.”

A laugh, a little tired of the whining, was heard from above. The two of them spent the night like that, and a faint light suddenly appeared under the curtain.

The child fell asleep in her father’s arms, and her father patted his sleeping daughter, still in his arms.