How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 255

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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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How to Replace Father
Chapter 255
My first encounter with Stella, Emma, and Luciano in this timeline was drawing near.
* * *
As I stepped through the Portal, I let out a groan.
The Portal from thirteen years past was far less stable than the one from the future, leaving my stomach violently unsettled.
Exhausted.
‘Less so than at the Manor, at least.’
To be precise, the exhaustion came from preparing to travel to Capenser.
The Marquise’s piercing gaze had made it an ordeal.
“What on earth have you done that Rohan would take you to Capenser?”
“That is….”
“Never mind. You couldn’t possibly be responsible—it must be your mother’s doing. She’s abandoned the Manor under the pretense of trading business, conspiring in places I know nothing of.”
As always, when something displeased her, she turned her complaints toward Mother.
Normally at such moments, I would lose heart and comply with whatever the Marquise demanded.
But this time, I packed my bags regardless.
That alone was enough to raise the Marquise’s blood pressure.
I….
“Oh, do take care of yourself. I shall return shortly!”
I spoke those words and slipped away quickly, and the Marquise soon took to her bed, or so I heard.
Inside the carriage, I swung my feet and gazed out the window.
‘I’m looking forward to meeting Luciano.’
The first time I met Luciano was when I was six years old, but that wouldn’t happen for another four months from now.
Which meant I would see him one step ahead of his own memory.
‘I’ll have to tell him when I return.’
As I was thinking this, I felt a gaze from across from me.
The Marquis, who had his arms folded, asked me a question.
“Come to think of it, this is the first time you’ve come somewhere other than the Manor or the Archipelago.”
He seemed to think I was thrilled to be in a place I’d never seen before.
Of course, I couldn’t tell him the real reason I was pleased—meeting Luciano—so I quickly agreed with him.
“Yes!”
“There’s a lake nearby. You’ll be able to see fish with five-colored scales.”
“Five-colored scales?”
“Indeed. Children seem to enjoy such things.”
It seemed Stella had been fond of them.
I nodded in agreement.
The carriage then entered a quiet neighborhood.
A Manor with a beautiful blue roof came into view.
The moment the carriage passed through the gates, I heard the rapid patter of running feet.
And as the Marquis and I stepped down from the carriage….
“Father!”
Stella clung to the Marquis’s leg.
The girl looked up at him and beamed with delight.
It seemed the Marquis had been good to her all this time.
As for myself as a child, I would never have thought to cling to his leg like that.
Following Stella, Emma came running with her skirts gathered, offering a shy smile.
“Count, it’s wonderful that you’ve come—.”
Mid-sentence, she faltered.
She had caught sight of me standing behind the Marquis.
Emma’s face went rigid.
“You… how….”
Seeing Emma’s frozen expression, Stella tilted her head in confusion.
“Who is that child?”
“….”
Emma couldn’t find an answer; her lips trembled slightly.
Then she looked toward the Marquis and offered an awkward smile.
“Count, why has this child come to Capenser….”
In the future, Emma would address the Marquis as “dear” or “my lord.”
Each time she, a mere concubine who had borne a bastard, dared use such titles, the Marquise would fly into a rage.
Yet Emma stubbornly refused to change how she addressed him.
But it seemed he still hadn’t revealed his true self by this point.
The way everyone addressed him as “Marquis” made that plain enough.
“Oh, what’s the matter?”
The Marquis turned to look at me.
“Yustea.”
“Yes, Father.”
The moment I spoke those words, Stella’s face—clinging to the Marquis’s leg—crumpled visibly.
“Why are you calling my father ‘Father’?”
Emma flinched at the sullen accusation.
She quickly glanced toward the Marquis, then gripped her daughter’s shoulder.
“This child, you see….”
She trailed off, her shoulders trembling as if at a loss.
She was playing the part of a pitiful mistress, fretting that the appearance of the legitimate daughter might wound her own child.
She gnawed at her lip, stealing glances at the Marquis.
But she failed to win his attention.
The Marquis was looking at me.
“I told you on the way here—that child, Stella, is your half-sibling.”
“Yes.”
The Marquis had given me a brief explanation of Stella and her mother during our journey to Capenser.
That I had a half-sibling.
I simply nodded, pretending not to understand much as a child would.
“Who are you? Hmm?”
Stella pressed the question relentlessly.
Count Andres merely wore his habitual mask of a smile and turned toward the manor.
I followed after him.
Emma pulled Stella into her embrace and glared at me as if she meant to tear me to shreds.
* * *
To set one thing straight: the claim that Stella was suffering from a high fever was pure fabrication.
Stella could not have been more vibrant.
“And so Jason and Thomas bring me flowers every day. They say I’m prettier than Lana!”
The chatter that erupted the moment she sat down didn’t cease for twenty minutes.
Emma brought tea and watched her chattering daughter with obvious delight.
Then she set down her cup and fixed me with a haughty gaze.
I sat quietly like a forgotten sack of grain, while Stella shone with brightness and affection—and in Emma’s eyes, this was her daughter’s victory.
I sipped the milk she had brought and shook my head slightly.
‘The Marquis is bored right now.’
Take it from me—I’ve spent my entire life reading his moods.
That smile was merely a mask; his eyes held no warmth.
“I thought you said she had a fever,” the Marquis remarked.
Emma laughed bashfully and stroked Stella’s hair.
“When she heard you were coming, the color returned to her cheeks. You see how much she adores her father….”
“I love you, Father!”
Stella threw her arms around the Marquis’s arm tightly.
Emma gazed at him with a subtle, expectant look.
As if asking: isn’t she precious?
As an authority on the art of reading Rohan Andres, I thought to myself:
‘He wants to put her down and leave as quickly as possible.’
The speed at which he drained his tea had subtly increased.
I was just reaching for a cookie from the refreshments that had been laid out.
Stella swiftly pulled the plate toward herself.
“Father should eat first. Older sister has no manners.”
Stella raised her chin with a decisive air.
From the way she called me “older sister,” it was clear Emma had explained my relation to her before serving the tea.
Stella’s eyes sparkled as she held the plate out to the Marquis.
“Look, I made these with Mother. For you, Father. Please, won’t you have some?”
The Marquis took a cookie.
Stella’s expression brightened instantly.
Emma too drew back her lips, her eyes gleaming with triumph as she looked at me.
It was written plainly across her face.
See?
Unlike you, my daughter receives so much love.
Of course, regardless of what he meant, I picked up the milk glass again.
But that was when it happened.
“You do seem to have quite the fondness for sweets.”
The Marquis extended a cookie toward me.
“…!”
“…?!”
Emma’s and Stella’s expressions froze in an instant.
I blinked.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
I rolled my eyes uncertainly before accepting the cookie.
“Thank… you.”
After I took it, the Marquis chuckled softly.
Then he brushed away the crumbs clinging to my lips.
Emma’s hands clenched the fabric of her skirt.
Stella bit her lip. Her large eyes glistened with tears.
She jumped down from her chair with a thud, stamped her feet, and burst out through the door.
“My goodness, Stella! You!”
Emma called out in alarm, but Stella didn’t return.
She was making a show of her displeasure.
I stood holding the cookie, watching her departing figure.
‘What’s this about?’
She’s showing her petulance right in front of the Marquis?
Shouldn’t the GM have stopped her?
I tilted my head in confusion.
Emma was glaring at me as if she’d like to tear me to pieces.
A vibration sounded from the Marquis.
His Communication Stone had received a signal.
He activated the transmission.
“What is it?”
[Count Becker is calling. He’s requested an urgent meeting near Capenser.]
“For what purpose?”
[He said he would explain the details in person, but judging from the information obtained, it appears to concern the subjugation of a high-risk monster that’s appeared in the south. There’s a possibility of a Mana Stone.]
If Mana Stones were involved, the Marquis had no choice but to move.
Before I performed the god’s task, Mana Stones had been extraordinarily rare.
The Marquis clicked his tongue lightly and rose to his feet.
“I must step away for a while.”
“Yes, Father.”
The timing was perfect.
I could use this moment to go meet Luciano.
After the Marquis left, I slipped out of the Manor on the pretext of taking a walk.
Emma certainly wasn’t going to stop me—she’d rather I disappeared entirely.
‘But I can’t let the knights the Marquis brought catch me. Should I climb the wall?’
Fortunately, the security here wasn’t particularly tight.
I approached the Forest by scaling the wall that bordered the Backyard.
‘Luciano’s procession wouldn’t move through the city streets.’
He had crimson eyes.
Eyes the color of crimson—once considered a symbol of calamity itself.
At that time, he was called the Cursed Prince, so he would have made efforts to avoid being seen by common folk on city streets.
For it would have amounted to advertising that the people shunned Luciano.
After walking into the Forest for some distance, I spotted a large lake.
‘Is this where the Marquis was talking about—the place with the five-colored fish?’
“Perfect.”
I murmured to myself.
If the Marquis should arrive before me and ask where I’d been, I could say I’d gone to see the five-colored fish.
To make the story convincing, I figured I should at least observe what the fish looked like, so I bent at the waist.
That was the moment.
Thump!
Someone pushed me from behind.
“Ahhh!”
I fell flat on my face.
I was lucky—if I’d stumbled just a bit differently, I would have plunged straight into the lake.
A six-year-old falling into the lake would’ve been done for.
I turned around to look.
To see who’d pushed me.
And there stood…
“Why are you taking Father away from me!”
…Stella.
She’d stormed out of the room in a huff and I hadn’t seen her since, but apparently she’d been here all along.
“What are you doing!”
When I cried out, Stella glared at me.
Behind her stood a cluster of boys, all of considerable size.
“So you’re that kid who’s been tormenting Stella!”
The boys were holding flowers.
These must be the boys who’d been bringing her flowers.
Stella kept her eyes fixed on me.
“Why are you yelling at me? You’re the bad one! You’re the one who stole my father!”
I stared at Stella with a bewildered expression.
“The Marquis—I mean, Father is my parent too.”
“Shut up!”
“Stella—”
“I know. Mother told me. A girl living with Father won’t be loved the way I am. So I’m the real one!”
“…”
I closed my mouth and studied Stella.
‘That’s strange.’
Not that her mental state was strange, exactly.
Stella had never been exactly stable to begin with.
But what was truly odd…
‘The GM didn’t intervene?’
If I got hurt, Count Andres would step in.
If word got out that Stella had done this…
She might end up unable to go near Count Andres at all.
There was no way he’d allow such a thing to pass.
‘I need to confirm this.’
“…Your friends are just going to overlook something like this?”
The question was ambiguous—it could have referred to the bulky boy or the GM.
If the GM had signaled Stella, I would certainly see a message in my status window.
But…
“My friends all said they’d punish you.”
“…!!”
All of them?
She wasn’t bragging.
Not once did she glance at empty air.
‘The GM isn’t here!’
The GM hadn’t regressed.
They were supposed to be attached to Stella.
I drew a sharp breath.
While smiling broadly.
“…What?”
“Are you insane?”
“Are you trying to act friendly or something?”
Stella’s friends looked at me with stunned faces.
But I was neither insane nor pretending.
‘The GM… they don’t exist across all timelines. They only exist in a single timeline!’
If I trapped them in a different timeline, I could eliminate the GM!
It was a colossal discovery.
‘I have to end this regression and return and share this information.’
That’s what I was thinking.
“Punish her!”
As Stella cried out, the boys began closing in.
‘Oh no.’
I lurched to my feet and bolted.
Stella knows no restraint. If they caught me, she might actually throw me into that lake.
‘What if I drown out there!’
Gasping for breath, I tore down the path like a madman, with Stella and the boys scrambling after me.
‘They’re going to catch me!’
That was when it happened.
In the distance, I spotted a carriage bearing the Imperial Palace’s crest!

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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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