Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“An orphanage in such a remote mountain region—how unexpected.”
Duke Elrad led the Lexion Knights to the entrance of Tessar Orphanage.
The moment they stepped through the gate, a desolate chill permeated the air.
Weeds sprawled haphazardly across the grounds.
A decrepit swing, rotted and groaning with an unpleasant metallic screech at the slightest breeze.
The atmosphere was so bleak and forsaken that one could scarcely imagine children dwelling in such a place.
The Duke surveyed the scene with a cold gaze before speaking.
“Bring me the Director.”
“At once, Your Grace.”
Moments later.
“Your Grace—I had no idea such an esteemed personage would visit.”
A man in tattered clothes came rushing out of the orphanage in a panic.
He could not meet the Duke’s eyes directly. At the Duke’s request to inspect the children, he hurried to gather them in the snow-swept courtyard, his movements frantic.
The children, dressed in little more than rags, stood trembling with their heads bowed.
Before the Duke could even furrow his brow, the Director hastily lifted the thin arms of the children, his eyes glistening with tears—a plea that the children were barely surviving day by day on the meager subsidies provided by the state.
At this blatant display, the Duke said nothing, instead sweeping his gaze across the children with practiced efficiency.
Diana was not among them.
Once he realized the child’s disappearance was the work of kidnappers, he had suspected she would not be in such an orphanage, yet the disappointment still weighed upon him.
Then, quite suddenly, the Duke sensed something odd about the Director.
The man bowed and trembled as if terrified, yet his blatant appeals for sponsorship and his supposed concern for the children contradicted his actions—abandoning them in this bitter cold.
“Have any of you seen a young girl with silver hair and blue eyes?”
At the Duke’s question, the children visibly flinched. One who had timidly lifted her head out of curiosity quickly averted her gaze.
“Answer him at once! Do not hesitate!”
Pressed by the Director, the oldest-looking child among them spoke.
“We’ve never seen anyone like that.”
“If you lie to me, I will show you no mercy.”
“N-no, truly, Your Grace.”
At the tremor in the child’s voice, the Duke’s expression grew colder still.
The Director felt his skin crawl at the sight, yet he forced his shameless composure back into place.
He had spent half of his earnings to purchase recognition-blocking artifacts, which he had installed in the Attic and his personal vault.
He was confident that even Duke Elrad and the Lexion Knights would find no evidence of the child and slave trafficking.
That was when it happened.
Boom!
Before a thorough search could even begin, the mana in the air surged violently, and Bianca, sensing it first, leaped forward.
“I sense a disturbance in the mana flow.”
“I see. Director, we may inspect the orphanage, yes?”
Before the Director could even nod hesitantly, the Duke’s gaze shifted, and the search party moved with perfect coordination.
In that instant, a sinister premonition struck the Director’s spine.
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“…What in the world?”
Bianca, who had arrived first by reading the flow of mana, froze entirely at the unexpected scene before her.
Seeing the child collapsed on the ground, she couldn’t move a single finger.
“Commander!”
It was one of her subordinates who had come with her that snapped her back to awareness.
“I sense mana emanating from that child.”
At his words, Bianca felt a mana so pure and powerful that she wondered how she hadn’t noticed it until now.
Uncontrolled mana was flowing from the child’s body in waves.
Yet the magical energy was twisted chaotically.
‘There are no other exits nearby, so she must have fallen from the upper floor. But for such a fall, her injuries are surprisingly minor. Did she unconsciously cast magic to protect her falling body?’
It wasn’t common, but such children did exist.
Before learning magic properly, they sometimes experienced mana runaway because they couldn’t control their own power.
The problem was that at this rate, that small body might simply burst apart.
Seized by the thought that she had to save her at all costs, Bianca rushed forward and reached out her hand to the child.
In that instant, knights surrounded the back courtyard, and simultaneously Duke Elrad arrived, followed by the Director.
The moment the Director spotted Lia lying collapsed, his face drained of all color.
He had boarded up the windows with multiple layers of planks—how was this possible!
And moreover.
“Papa!”
At the unexpected voice, Duke Elrad immediately lifted his head.
It was Diana, who had covered her mouth with her hand and held her breath watching the situation after Lia jumped, who cried out upon spotting the Duke among the unfamiliar arrivals.
The moment the Duke discovered his daughter—whom he had never dreamed he would meet in this place—he held his breath in relief.
But that relief was short-lived as his expression hardened with alarm.
Diana was peering through the dangerously shattered window frame.
Seeing Diana in such a precarious position, clearly ready to jump into his arms at any moment, the Duke’s mouth fell open at once.
“Diana, don’t move. Wait there.”
In that moment, the Director’s face, which seemed like it couldn’t possibly grow any paler, transformed into something approaching asphyxiation.
“Cough!”
Then, with Bianca’s aid, Lia—whose raging mana had been calmed—coughed.
“…!”
Lia, barely regaining consciousness and blinking her eyes open, froze upon seeing those ice-cold, brilliant blue eyes.
Though they were the exact same color as Diana’s, whom she had spent days with, her instincts screamed in primal terror and her lips moved of their own accord.
“P-please spare me.”
At those words, Duke Elrad—beautiful as a marble statue—furrowed his brow, and in that instant of dread, Lia’s heart plummeted with a sickening thud.
‘A terrifying person.’
No one in the Empire was unaware of the rumors that Duke Elrad was coldhearted, but Lia knew that rumor to be truth better than anyone—she had experienced it firsthand.
In her previous life, Duke Elrad had summarily executed the Director, then returned to his Territory with only Jack, who had protected Diana, leaving the children of Tessar Orphanage to their fate—those who had witnessed Diana’s danger but ultimately remained silent.
The orphanage children, with nowhere to go, became vagrants wandering the streets, eventually joining beggar gangs.
Lia had been no different.
Shivering in the cold, begging all day only to have her earnings stolen by the gang leader, starving constantly—such was her daily existence.
One day, she was falsely accused of stealing.
Dreading the arrival of the next day so much that her lungs burned as she gasped for breath, she had fled in terror.
‘I cannot let that happen again.’
This time, I would absolutely not displease him.
But what I needed to do right now was—
“Jack is upstairs… my friend is hurt. Please help him.”
“Did this bastard do this to her?”
As Bianca, who stood beside her, asked the question, Lia’s eyes widened.
The woman with her reddish-brown hair tied high had an impression of strength and goodness.
Lia’s heart grew considerably lighter at her appearance, and without thinking, she nodded and spoke.
“He curses at us every day and said he’d sell all of us as slaves!”
“Slaves?”
The abuse that had just been revealed was enough to leave her speechless, but slaves—
As Bianca’s expression turned aghast, the Director’s face drained of all color.
“That’s a lie!”
He desperately reached out to silence Lia.
As his large hand approached, Lia squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the pain that would come.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
At that same moment, a scream tore from the Director’s throat.
Lia stared blankly at the broad back that had shielded her.
It appeared that the Director’s wrist, caught by the Duke, was bent completely backward.
In that instant, tears that had welled up spilled down her cheeks.
Lia hastily wiped away the tears in confusion.
‘I was not startled. I was not afraid.’
The Duke’s fury was not directed at her.
Yet… she could not feel completely reassured.
“Child!”
Lia ran toward the orphanage courtyard, leaving behind Bianca’s call from behind.
Like a memory from long ago, she saw the children standing in a line, stripped bare as if being punished.
With her heart aching, Lia began to dig with her bare hands beneath the tree where she had left a mark beforehand.
“Older sister!”
Then, a beat too late, Bianca and the knights appeared, along with the bound Director and the Duke carrying Diana.
Lia felt relieved seeing Jack being carried by the knights.
And seeing the pale faces of the children, she felt a heavy sense of responsibility.
“What is this?”
“It’s the secret ledger with records of all the children the Director has trafficked!”
The Director, who had believed evidence could never be found, saw the familiar cover of the document Lia handed to the Duke and began to panic, screaming and raving. Eventually, he was even gagged by the knights.
Watching the Director, who had wielded absolute power until now, be subdued so helplessly, the children’s eyes filled with confusion.
Lia, who had already experienced such emotions deeply, cried out desperately.
“There are also records of embezzlement and corruption, not just slave trafficking! The Director never treated us as human beings. The children may have pretended not to know about Dana, but that was all because they were threatened…”
As Lia’s explanation grew longer, not only Bianca’s expression but those of everyone present grew rigid with tension.
Most notably, the Duke’s eyes turned chillingly cold and terrifying.
“So, as you say, the children told me they’ve never seen anyone like Diana before. Then you mean to say the children bear no fault? That’s what you’re trying to tell me? Regardless of the reason, those children lied to me.”
At his frigid tone, Lia felt her heart freeze with dread.
Yet she did not avert her gaze. How could she turn away when she already knew what fate awaited these children, how they would suffer and live?
“Please forgive us. We were frightened. We were wrong!”
Lia dropped to her knees without hesitation and begged for forgiveness. Tears spilled from her eyes unbidden.
As if to prove they hadn’t merely survived on scraps of attention all this time, the children one by one followed Lia’s example and knelt. They wept openly, pleading not to be killed.
Watching the gaunt, bare children weep and beg for their lives, Diana too seemed to be swept up in the emotion—her lips trembled and she began to cry.
The Duke, pressing his temples lightly, spoke in an irritated voice.
“Begging for your lives? When did I ever say I would kill you?”
“…*sob*.”
“I won’t kill you, so stop crying.”
“…*sniff*?”
“It means I forgive you.”
Only after hearing that all the children would be transferred to another orphanage did Lia finally stop weeping.
Once the worry that had consumed her was resolved, though her tears ceased, her entire body remained drained of strength.
“Big sister!”
Diana, who had climbed down from her father’s arms—pounding his chest with her soft, ineffectual fists—rushed toward Lia.
“Are you okay, big sister?”
Diana, her large eyes glistening with tears, examined Lia’s face and body with concern.
Only then did the Duke and his knights realize that Diana’s tears had been shed for this child.
And that it was this girl who had been caring for their precious young lady all along.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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