How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 256

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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
Episode 256
Breath rushed up to the edge of my chin.
I forced my aching legs to move as I ran desperately forward.
And I screamed toward the carriage.
“Luciano…!”
In that instant.
“Got you.”
A thick hand clamped over my mouth and my body was yanked backward.
It was Stella and her friends.
My voice never reached him.
The carriage was easily three hundred meters away.
Distance aside, sound couldn’t penetrate the carriage walls anyway.
The carriage swept past before my eyes.
Behind me, I heard Stella’s group cackling with laughter.
I thrashed about and stared at the receding carriage.
I tried to scratch at something, anything, to break free, but it was hopeless.
Four boys had piled on top of me, pinning me down completely.
Dragged back into the forest, I was hurled onto the ground.
“Ugh…”
Stella and the boys advanced with sneering grins.
Their hands held sharp twigs, clubs, and stones.
Less dangerous than bladed weapons perhaps, but given that my body was only six years old, they were more than enough of a threat.
On top of that, my whole body throbbed from being thrown to the ground.
The boys closed in.
Stella stood behind them, arms crossed, watching me.
Her eyes glittered.
It wasn’t the innocent gleam of someone unaware of wrongdoing.
At the bottom of that gaze, something chilling lurked—the savagery beneath.
‘No. This girl won’t know where to stop.’
Goosebumps crawled across my skin.
‘I can’t use my Ability.’
Right after discovering I’d regressed, I’d immediately checked whether I could use my Ability, but it was impossible.
Only my soul had regressed; my body couldn’t manifest any power.
Even healing was beyond reach.
In a situation like this, taking a real beating could end badly.
I planted both hands on the ground in panic.
Just as I was about to run, a club came flying.
“Ugh…!”
A dull impact, and sharp pain shot through my calf like my bones were singing.
“Ehehe!”
“Look at that!”
Stella was laughing her head off.
I grabbed dirt in both hands and flung it at the children.
“Ow!”
A boy howled as dirt hit his eyes.
In that gap, I dragged myself up, legs burning.
‘Run… I have to run…!’
The moment I tried to bolt forward.
Someone’s foot caught my leg.
I sprawled face-first into the dirt.
When I lifted my head, I saw Stella’s beaming face.
Watching me crumple in an undignified heap, Stella snickered.
“Sister looks just like a little mouse.”
The sharp twig Stella had been holding came down like a whip.
I wrapped my hands around my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
‘My eyes… I have to protect my eyes…!’
In that moment.
Crack—!
A dull sound cut through the air.
No pain. There was no pain at all.
I opened my eyes carefully.
And what I saw was….
‘Ah….’
Silver hair as dazzling as the snowfall of the North, or perhaps the moonlight of a quiet night.
That silver hair cascading down his back was far too familiar.
Whenever I buried my face in those strands, I felt safer than at any other moment.
But the broad frame, the large body that had always held me, was not here.
I forced the words through my tightened throat.
“Luciano…!”
In that instant, the boys surrounding us and Stella were swept away like leaves in a gale.
Thud!
Crash—!
The thrown boys collided with the ground and tree trunks, tumbling across the earth.
Stella and the boys gasped, lifting their heads.
Eyes as red as blood, chilled to the bone, must have filled their vision.
Luciano, who had been shielding me from the boys, turned his head.
He strode toward me in long, purposeful steps.
He dropped to one knee and lowered himself before me.
“Is that all it takes? One call and you think that’s enough? You need to learn how to scream.”
“….”
“I thought you’d stopped breathing by the time I found you.”
“You… heard my voice…?”
As I spoke with trembling words, he reached out his hand to me.
“There’s no way I wouldn’t hear your voice.”
“….”
“Yusi.”
Yusi.
He called me Yusi.
Not as the Andres Noble Lady.
“Yusi.”
The pet name my father—the one I left behind in the future—called me by.
My eyes flew wide open.
And I remembered.
The Regression began the moment I touched the Count Andres’s Magic Stone.
That wave caught me up….
‘Luciano caught me!’
He, too, had been swept into the Regression.
Which meant this boy before me was the Luciano I knew, the Luciano I loved.
I threw my arms around his neck.
“Sob…!”
My young body, honest with its emotions, burst into tears.
Luciano patted my back.
“Where are you hurt?”
“Here!”
I quickly pointed to my calf.
My calf, struck by the club wielded by the boy Stella had brought, was bruised and mottled with color.
Luciano’s crimson eyes rippled.
He turned his head, still holding me against his chest.
Stella and the boys, frozen in terror and unable to flee, flinched.
Luciano rose to his feet.
A sickening crack—the sound of a neck breaking—echoed through the forest.
The beating had begun.
* * *
People poured from the manor where Stella and her mother lived.
Well, it couldn’t have been otherwise.
A Prince had come calling.
Limping beside me, Stella sobbing in terror, and bruised boys left scattered in his wake.
Luciano didn’t spare them a second glance as he abandoned the beaten boys where they lay.
“What on earth is the meaning of…!”
“What… what…?”
The Andres people whom the Marquis had brought were dumbfounded.
They couldn’t form a coherent sentence in the presence of a Prince.
Stella’s crying grew louder at the sight of these familiar faces.
“Waaah—!”
Her piercing wails echoed through the air.
Emma came rushing out at the sound.
“Stella!”
She dropped to her knees and examined her daughter.
Seeing the raw scrapes on her cheeks, hands, and legs, her eyes went wide.
She rounded on me with a shout.
“Explain yourself! What happened here?”
What was remarkable was that she singled me out—not the luxuriously dressed Luciano.
At my bewildered expression, sparks flew from Emma’s gaze.
She reached out to drag me toward her.
Luciano seized her wrist and twisted it slightly.
“Ow…!”
“Mother…?”
A cry escaped Emma’s lips, and Stella flinched in alarm.
Stella didn’t know what to do. She could only glance frantically at the surrounding adults, unable to stand against Luciano.
It seemed she was truly frightened by Luciano, who had pummeled those boys with lethal intent.
That was when it happened.
“What is the meaning of this?”
A low, measured voice sounded.
It was Count Andres.
The crowd packed before the manor parted like the Red Sea in an instant.
The Marquis walked through the gap and surveyed the scene surrounding me.
“Father!”
Stella burst into tears again.
He was the strongest ally I knew of, so she found reassurance in his presence.
Luciano released Emma’s wrist as though brushing it away.
Emma grasped her throbbing wrist and took her place beside the Marquis.
“I don’t understand. What on earth is going on? And look at Stella. She’s covered in wounds.”
Emma fixed me with a fierce glare once more.
Then she crouched before Stella and grasped her shoulders.
“What happened? Tell me.”
“She hit me… that girl hit me and my friends…!”
“What?”
Emma turned to Luciano with an expression of utter disbelief.
“Why would you do such a thing? Who are you, anyway?”
Of course, Emma didn’t know who Luciano was.
As a maid, she would have had no reason to see the Imperial Family up close.
Though members of the Imperial Family were broadcast into the Mirror World during certain events, Luciano had not appeared there even once during this period.
For the same reason, the other Andres people did not know him either.
With the Marquis at their side, Stella and her mother were emboldened.
Stella pointed at Luciano through her tears.
“My sister made her do it.”
“What?”
Emma clung to the Marquis, speaking urgently.
“How could such an outrageous thing happen? No matter how much she dislikes her stepsister, how could she go this far? I simply cannot fathom it….”
“….”
“Look at Stella. This poor child is covered in wounds….”
“….”
A smile flickered across Emma’s lips as she looked at me.
It was a smile of satisfaction.
This was her chance to make me fall from the Marquis’s favor.
Luciano spoke.
“The girl’s injuries aren’t my doing.”
That was true.
Luciano had beaten the boys his own age soundly, but he had never laid a hand on Stella.
He wasn’t the sort to raise a hand against a six-year-old girl, and besides, Stella had bolted in fear before he’d had the chance.
Her injuries came from her legs giving out—she’d fallen several times.
When we found her, she was caught in a mousetrap.
Stella flinched.
But Emma let out a derisive snort.
“Are you saying the youngest daughter of the Andres Estate is lying?”
She emphasized “Andres Estate” deliberately.
It was meant to pressure Luciano.
Of course, Luciano wasn’t about to be intimidated.
“I see scratches on that one, and I can plainly see this one limping. Or am I wrong?”
That one was Stella. This one was me.
Where the cudgel had struck, the pain was only growing worse—I was hobbling on one leg.
Emma stiffened.
“What….”
Stella too went rigid, her lips parting slightly.
Luciano continued without pause.
“That one attacked first. I was passing by in my carriage when I heard cries for help and intervened.”
“That’s… that’s not….”
“The youngest daughter of the Andres Estate—at her age, already capable of orchestrating assault. Quite the gift, Marquis.”
Emma’s face hardened further at Luciano’s words.
She realized something strange: when she learned who was speaking, he didn’t waver in the slightest.
Her eyes flickered with uncertainty.
“M-Marquis, sir. Who exactly is this boy…?”
“Step back, Your Highness.”
“…!”
Emma’s breath caught sharply.
Everyone froze—Andres’s people, the boys who’d been struck by Luciano, all of them.
Luciano kept no public profile, but a man of the Marquis’s standing would hardly be ignorant of him.
And above all, the Marquis was one who had undergone Regression—one who knew the future.
Of course he knew Luciano.
“Y-Your Highness…?”
Stella’s mouth fell open.
Emma had gone ashen, lost for words.
The Marquis strode toward me.
He lifted the hem of my skirt.
Along my calf bloomed a bruise the size of a child’s forearm, dark and livid.
Emma spoke.
“H-how did this happen, Stella?”
“I-it was just play… I was just playing with my sister….”
Emma and Stella rushed forward together.
Emma said hastily:
“Stella’s play can get rather rough. She’s such a spirited child, you see….”
“Play.”
The Marquis murmured the word.
Stella reached for him.
“I didn’t realize you were hurt this badly. I want to apologize to you—”
Crack!
A sharp sound cut through the air, and Stella’s hand flew away from him.
The Marquis had struck it aside.
Stella went rigid.
The Marquis seized her by the shoulders.
“Ugh—!”
His grip tightened; Stella stiffened completely, her mouth hanging open.
“F-Father….”
“….”
“It hurts….”
Stella’s voice wavered, tears threatening.
At times like this, the Marquis always held her close.
He would brush her hair back with a tender hand, pat her back gently.
The Marquis opened his mouth.
“How dare you.”
“…!”
Stella’s eyes widened.
Tears began pouring from her large eyes in torrents.
“Father…?”
Even Emma had gone deathly pale.
Her lips trembling, she quickly positioned herself between the Marquis and Stella.
It wasn’t an act of protection for Stella’s sake.
She was afraid that Stella, her greatest weapon, might fall out of favor.
“D-Darling, you see, it’s just childish folly, that’s all.”
“Folly.”
As he muttered the word, Emma nodded urgently.
“How much she must have envied living with you as her half-sister. You know how much Stella loves you. It’s my fault for not handling her better, so please….”
“I see. You bear much of the blame.”
The Marquis’s lips twisted.
I flinched.
This was his reaction when he was truly angry.
His face had gone blank.
The constant smile he wore had vanished, exposing the sinister truth beneath.
The people of the Andres Estate, the boys who called themselves Stella’s friends, froze under the suffocating weight of his presence.
Stella, seeing her father’s cold, piercing gaze for the first time, even forgot her tears in shock.
And Emma….
“…Yes?”
It was in that moment that Emma’s collar was seized.

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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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