I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 1

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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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PROLOGUE.
The Pig Piggy Bank, which I’d painstakingly filled with money I’d scraped together from watching my fool of a father, had grown pleasantly round.
I didn’t hesitate—I dropped it.
Thud!
Any ordinary glass piggy bank would have shattered on impact, but this one—the one Father bought me—was different.
It was meant for children, after all, so it had a special Magical Medicine coating to prevent breakage from falls. But I’m not your average child.
‘Hmph! This is nothing!’
I pulled a pair of scissors from my Bag with Cat Embroidery.
These weren’t ordinary scissors—they were Magic Scissors that only worked when I had the genuine will to cut, something Father had won at a gambling den along with money for snacks.
I drove the scissors into the piggy bank’s belly. It split open with a crack, and coins tumbled out in a glittering cascade.
Most were copper, but silver coins glinted among them here and there.
‘With this, I can go see Mother!’
Three years.
A full three years, that’s what it had been.
All that time, I’d been taking care of my idiot father.
And it wasn’t just that—because of these short legs and the family’s meager purse, I couldn’t go visit Mother even though she was somewhere under the same sky in the Empire.
But I couldn’t ask Father about it either.
If I told him I was actually Mother’s daughter first and only his daughter second, his heart would break all over again, and he might become cruel to people.
Uncle called him an idiot and a fool and worse every day, but the truth was Father had been an incredible power eight years ago—the man who saved this entire nation from destruction.
Legend had it no one could match him in Swordsmanship, and if someone of his power ever became truly angry, the kingdom would fall, and with it the whole world would end. Then I’d never see Mother again.
But that was only until today.
‘Inde—I mean, I’m going to declare my independence!’
I’d already placed a neat Declaration of Independence on my desk, addressed to Father.
I’m eight years old now. I’m grown up.
My real age is ten, true, so by that measure I’m still just a child, but I’m not an ordinary eight-year-old. Father will understand.
He might even be proud. His brilliant daughter, already claiming her independence!
Heh.
I wiped my nose and stuffed money into my Coin Purse until it bulged, then locked my bag with determination.
Biscuits? I packed a whole box with chocolate coating!
Water? I grabbed my favorite cocoa milk with extra powder!
Wallet? Heh! It’s absolutely packed!
All my preparations were complete.
I opened the door carefully so the hinges wouldn’t squeak.
Then I tiptoed down the hallway, keeping my footsteps as quiet as possible.
On a normal day, Father would be sprawled on the living room couch yawning, but I’d deliberately asked him this morning to prepare something that required lots of prep work, so right now he was probably in the kitchen wrestling with ingredients.
I didn’t forget to grab my Rabbit Doll from the drying rack as I passed through the living room.
‘Oh! I almost left without Soomsoom!’
I hugged the doll and opened the front door.
Click.
The doorknob made a sound, but I heard nothing from inside the house—Father must not have heard it.
Whew. Good.
I was about to step through the doorway.
“Daughter. Where are you going?”
Gasp!
I froze, my whole body going rigid with shock.
Creak.
The hinges squeaked as I turned to look back.
That was when I realized a dark shadow had fallen across my path.
Father was right behind me.
How did he move without any sound?! So this is what it means to be a War Hero who saved the nation!
“Why are you suddenly carrying a bag? Going to the Playground? Or visiting Lia’s house?”
“Oh, Father.”
“Hmm? What is it?”
Father was so tall I’d have to crane my neck far back to see his face, but he must have noticed my struggle, because he quickly crouched down to meet my eyes.
Now I could see his face properly.
The sun-darkened skin those pretty sisters who follow Father around kept saying looked “sexy,” and his half-wavy hair that had never seen a comb.
Deep shadows carved the hollows beneath his eyes, and when those sunken eyes combined with the fierce, gleaming gold of his irises, he looked like a carnivore—absolutely terrifying.
His expression was harsh, but Father was kind of an idiot, really.
He’d once boiled my white dress with a red ribbon together and turned it pink, and when he got a very expensive bottle of liquor as a gift, he’d sighed deeply over it before pouring it all down the drain.
Something about not being able to live the way he used to, or some such thing.
Even now, Father held a ladle in his hand instead of a newspaper.
Mary used to say that people become clever by reading a lot of books.
“Wait, aren’t you making lasagna?”
“Yeah. I was already boiling the noodles anyway.”
That’s strange. Lasagna was supposed to be time-consuming to make.
“You’ve been tiptoeing around trying to pull some prank again, and I thought you were going to crack your forehead like last time, so I came out to check.”
“But, that was because I was trying to surprise Father and it went wrong, so I ran away!”
“Oh dear. Is that so? Your father thought he got hit by a ball he’d bounced badly and tumbled head over heels into a flowerpot.”
Eek! Some things are better left unmentioned!
Just as I was pressing my lips together to keep from pouting, Father suddenly snatched the Rabbit Doll from my arms.
I could see tattoos etched across the knuckles of his fingers holding the doll.
Before I was born, Father was supposedly a complete mess.
Uncle described him like this:
“Waste Grade.”
Waste Grade was a War Hero, but he’d drunk and smoked so much that his liver and lungs rotted away until he couldn’t even fight properly.
As a Duke, he gambled constantly and took out loans until he squandered everything.
And he saw women like some octopus-armed fool, a word for trash that lived up to his appearance.
“If not for you, your father would’ve been dead and buried long ago. You turned this bastard into a real person.”
Everyone thought he’d die young anyway, but that’s when I happened to appear and saved him.
The reason I kept putting off the day I’d go find Mother was because I was worried about Father.
‘I’ve been protecting Father and keeping world peace at the same time.’
Still, he’s become less of an idiot by now, so surely he’ll be fine without me, right?
“That’s my doll! Give it back, give it back right now!”
As I stomped my feet and threw a tantrum, Father tossed the Rabbit Doll far away.
It landed with a soft thud on the clothesline and hung there limply.
“It’s not dry yet, so it needs more drying. Otherwise, mold will grow inside. Do you know what mold is? It’s really bad stuff. Your body gets all ouchy-ouchy.”
“I’m not a baby. I don’t use words like that!”
“That’s right, that’s right. You can’t even brush your own hair yet, so you’re definitely not a baby.”
Ugh…
That was just because I was so excited about going to meet Mother that I’d forgotten.
My chest bubbled with emotions I couldn’t explain.
Father combed my hair with his fingers while clicking his tongue in disapproval.
“My dear daughter. If you go out like that, the neighborhood women will curse at your father. ‘What kind of father doesn’t even brush his daughter’s hair?’ And these clothes—what are these? That skirt’s out of season. And the color combination… ugh. No matter how I look at it, my daughter simply has no talent for fashion.”
“That’s not true! I do have talent! Didn’t you see the picture I drew of you last time? The teacher recognized it was you right away!”
“You were cooking with me holding a ladle, and the teacher thought your father was playing a tuba, so she asked to have a parent-teacher conference.”
……
I puffed out my cheeks and glared at Father, but he wasn’t the least bit cowed.
It must take someone like that to cut down demons and monsters and save the world.
Tsk. Tsk.
“Anyway, let’s go inside and change your clothes first.”
Father tried to scoop me up casually, so I snapped out of it with a gasp.
“That’s not going to work.”
“Why? Not in the mood? Your father’s lived long enough to know that the world doesn’t run on mood alone.”
“That’s not it—I’m declaring my independence now! There’s a letter and the Declaration of Independence in my room, so check it out!”
“We made a promise to become independent at twenty-nine.”
“Well, that was… that time was different…”
That was then, this is now!
Here he is, thirty-one years old, and telling me to keep my promises!
I can’t let this go on with Father brushing my hair.
If I spend time with Father brushing my hair, we’ll end up playing makeup games, then it’ll be dinnertime, and after we eat I’ll get sleepy and pass out—it’s bound to happen.
Then today will be another day I miss seeing Mother.
So I quickly bolted through the door and shouted.
“Waaaaaah! Sorry, Father! I’m not your daughter anymore from today on, so don’t look for me!”
I love Father, but I miss Mother so much!
Honestly, nothing in life ever goes the way you want it to.
CHAPTER 01.
Three years before the day Iris ran away from home.
The Doctor looked over his glasses at the Capital’s greatest playboy.
“So, why are you here again?”
Kasian answered the Doctor who recognized him with perfect composure.
“Could you write me a certificate of infertility, please?”
She’d even lain down on the cold operating table of her own accord—and yet she claimed to be my daughter.
“Does that make any sense?”
He was wracking his brain over this daughter who’d appeared out of nowhere.

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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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