I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 22

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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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Chapter 22
“You don’t even carry money? How do you expect to get by in the world?”
Kasian grumbled as he yanked the ID Card from the assassin’s wallet and shoved it into his own pocket.
Truth be told, Kasian’s career in extortion ran far longer than these assassins’ entire repertoire.
“Listen here. Bring me one hundred million gold by next week. If you don’t, I’m selling this card to a loan shark.”
“Some loan shark.”
“Oh really? Let’s see if you still talk tough when they show up at your wife’s door, at your kids’ school. Want to spare yourself that sight? Then bring back every last coin you stole from me before. Got it?”
Strictly speaking, it was money the assassins had earned, not money Kasian had extorted—but to him, it amounted to the same thing.
The assassin’s blood boiled. He clenched his teeth and glared.
He wanted to call him a street thug, but he knew that opening his mouth would only earn him another blow to the back of the head, so he swallowed the words.
Kasian pushed himself up and nudged the assassins toward the door with the toe of his boot.
“If you understand, don’t ruin the mood in here—go home.”
The assassins fled, and Kasian returned to his seat with a broad, satisfied grin plastered across his face.
The child, forcibly seated at the tavern owner’s table, had finished every strip of meat set before her and was draining her juice with practiced efficiency.
“(So you’re a bad adult after all. And here I thought you were nice.)”
“I do what I do to put food on the table.”
Kasian ordered a beer with renewed enthusiasm.
There’s nothing quite like a drink after working up a sweat—it tastes like honey.
The beer went down smooth and easy.
He was in the thick of pouring and drinking when it happened.
The child suddenly started patting him repeatedly.
“What? What is it now? I’m tired. Don’t bother me.”
“(I’m sleepy. My eyes keep closing.)”
“Well, I’m drinking here. Just sleep.”
Without thinking, he pressed his finger against her tiny face and pushed gently.
The child tumbled over limply and sprawled across the seat.
He’d expected her to lie on the sofa, naturally enough.
“(Hehe.)”
He hadn’t expected her to use his knee as a pillow.
Kasian stiffened, looking down at the child gazing up at him.
Her eyes, ringed with dense lashes, had crinkled into crescents as she smiled.
Her teeth, exposed by that grin, were impossibly small.
Perhaps because of that.
Thump!
His heart raced in a way entirely different from when she’d been hurt.
“You, you, you…….”
This child, utterly fearless!
And here I am, someone truly terrifying!
‘I’m not a father, I’m telling you!’
I’m not a father, not family—just a temporary sponsor, and this is what I get.
I really need to make things clear again.
I’m not a father, not family, nothing—just an adult passing through who happens to look after her for a while.
So when her eyes started to drift shut, he reached out to wake her, but his hand wouldn’t move.
His lips wouldn’t open either.
He just wanted to let her sleep.
Absolutely not because she looked pitiful, or because she weighed almost nothing at all, or because that little laugh and her bright smile were endearing.
It was purely an act of magnanimous virtue, high moral principle, and a tender heart.
Before long, the child was fast asleep, so deeply that no one could have woken her if they’d tried to carry her away.
“Want another drink?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“The kid’s asleep. You’re just leaving her like that?”
“Why not? She looks comfortable.”
“This guy’s completely insane.”
The tavern owner was about to pour another round when it happened.
“Crackdown!”
“What?!”
An illegal card game crackdown had come down on them.
Though they hadn’t been playing cards tonight, Kasian’s past habits made him react on instinct.
He hoisted the child onto his back and leaped through the second-floor window onto the neighboring building’s roof.
Roof to roof, he fled until the alley finally forced him down to ground level.
“I’m losing it. Seriously. This is exactly why you shouldn’t live a life of crime.”
He’d just been warned that if he got caught in another Crackdown and ended up back behind bars, Genovion would fry him in hellfire instead of lightning.
When you’re the type to do something, you run when the Crackdown comes—that’s the smart move.
But as he stepped into the dark street, he heard the faint, rhythmic sound of soft snoring.
‘Ah. This is… difficult.’
With each breath the child exhaled against his back, warmth spread through him.
Without a cloud in sight, the moonlight shimmered crystalline, and the stars scattered across the night sky like scales of light.
“(Mm…)”
As the child stirred in her sleep, Kasian adjusted her grip on his back.
He’d only meant to play the role of sponsor or guardian, but it had been days since they met, and his heart kept reaching for her.
Carrying her like this, he found himself growing tender, as though she were his own blood.
Watching her eat filled his belly—was he out of his mind?
And yet…….
‘Just because I’m unhappy doesn’t mean she has to be.’
He knew this from having witnessed countless deaths on the battlefield.
Today was not guaranteed.
Even if he woke healthy tomorrow, only God knew if tomorrow would actually come.
So today, he wanted to show this child kindness.
Iris was already dead, and he would drown in loss forever.
His own misery could not disappear, but this child’s life could be different.
‘Sponsorship—what a word.’
It was called sponsorship, but inside he was already thinking of her as half his own.
What kind of sponsor empties his wallet buying clothes just so the child won’t be downhearted?
His heart was tangled, but feeling the small warmth against his back, he decided it was all right anyway.
* * *
Mama said to me.
“What’s your mama’s name?”
“Mama’s name is……!”
I answered Mama eagerly. Then she asked me again.
“What about your father’s name?”
“Father? Iris doesn’t have a father.”
“No, no. Iris has a father. Your father loves Iris so much.”
“Then where is my father? Why doesn’t he live with us? Who is Iris’s father?”
I tilted my head and asked, and Mama whispered to me.
“The truth is, Iris’s father is…….”
Whispering softly.
My ears tickled and I giggled with delight.
Then, imagining the father Mama told me about, I felt so happy that my heart seemed to bounce around above the clouds.
‘I had a father too! It wasn’t just Enrique who had a father!’
Bursting with happiness, I scrambled out to brag about it to Enrique.
Then I woke up.
“Hehe.”
I was laughing in my sleep.
Even after opening my eyes, the happiness didn’t fade, so I pulled the blanket over myself and laughed—hihihi.
‘I miss Mama.’
Still, having had this dream meant I remembered Mama’s face.
And more than that.
‘I remembered Father’s name too!’
Mama had said it.
That Father was someone everyone knew just from hearing his name.
That he was so wonderful and amazing, the most famous person in the world.
‘So I just have to find Father. Then I’ll be able to meet Mama too.’
The moment I thought that, strength surged through me.
Maybe the Goddess sent me out of the Orphanage because she wanted me to find my parents myself.
I jumped up and bolted from the house.
Anne-Marie had said greetings were important, but I only thought of Kasian a long time after leaving home.
‘I can’t help it. I’ll go say hello to him after I meet my father.’
I grabbed an old woman passing by and asked her.
“(Grandmother, do you happen to know my father?)”
* * *
“It’s clearly a foreign language, but somehow I could understand it. Then at some point it stopped making sense, and later I’d catch only fragments here and there. And it seemed different from the way Adrian’s nanny used to speak.”
By the time Iris had bolted from the house determined to find her father,
Kasian was face to face with Genovion.
He’d come to ask about the same strange phenomenon Adrian had experienced, but Genovion—hollow-eyed from sleep deprivation—exhaled sharply through his nose, barely restraining his irritation.
For someone who’d shown up this early in the morning, Kasian looked thoroughly well-rested, which only doubled Genovion’s anger.
“You come at eight in the morning and that’s all you have to say?”
“Eight o’clock is when people go to work. You?”
“Right. And you’re hardly one to talk, coming home at work hours after spending the night drowning in drink.”
Crack! Crackle!
Mana sparked and scattered around Genovion.
Kasian paid it no mind.
Today, he was in excellent form.
Truly, genuinely excellent.
From the moment he opened his eyes this morning, he’d sensed something was different.
He’d grown accustomed to dreaming every night.
She would appear, his heart would pierce and die, and he would end in despair.
But today, he’d had no dreams at all.
His body felt refreshed and his mind was clear.
Usually the moment he woke, he’d suffer through a hangover or groan under the weight of a sluggish body and dulled mind. It was the first time in years he’d felt this refreshed.
So he’d even wondered about it.
‘Did I drink bad liquor?’
Or was he receiving some karmic reward for looking after a homeless little one?
The moment Kasian rose from bed and felt the lightness in his body, he’d hurried over to see Genovion while the girl slept.
‘He looks absolutely furious.’
But between blood relatives, the angrier the other became, the more amusing it was.
Kasian asked without the slightest regard for Genovion’s mood.
“Anyway, do you know any Magic like that?”
“No. It’s not Magic.”
“You’re sure? Can you really claim you know all the infinite possibilities of the magical world? You’re not talented enough, smart enough, or impressive enough for that.”
In that moment, the patience of Genovion—one of the empire’s few 1st-class Mages—came to an end.

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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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