I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 3

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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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Episode 2
I’d been at the Orphanage just moments ago—but where is this? Where am I? Goddess, what is this place?
Tears welled up in my eyes from the shock, but I held them back as hard as I could, refusing to cry.
The landlord was the most handsome man I’d seen in my entire ten years of life.
And overwhelmingly, he looked like he had the worst personality.
Snap.
Snap.
The man snapped his fingers right in front of my eyes.
“Hey, hey. Kid. Pay attention to what I’m saying.”
I couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
Every knuckle of his fingers in front of me was covered in dark tattoos.
“Hic! Hic!”
Even Michael, who had a reputation for being terrifying in our neighborhood, didn’t have tattoos like that—so if this man was scarier than Michael, how evil could he possibly be?
‘He might eat me!’
That’s what the witch said in the fairy tale.
Young children’s flesh was softer and tasted better.
“Why are you standing in front of my house? Don’t you know children who linger in front of this place get eaten by monsters?”
“…….”
“You haven’t answered since earlier. I’m not a scary person. Don’t cry and hurry back to your home.”
Our Sunlight Wing Class Teacher always said that.
When a problem arose, we should ask adults for help before we cry.
I looked around, spotted a passerby, and screamed.
“Help! I don’t like this! Please help me!”
Patter-patter-patter!
I ran hard and clung to the passerby’s legs.
“Save me! Waaaahhh!”
As a result of desperately asking adults for help, the landlord and I ended up at the Security Station.
“No, I’m telling you—I don’t know this kid. I saw them for the first time today.”
“Listen here. Cassian, no matter how angry you are, how can you deny your own daughter like that? It’s obvious she’s yours. Anyone can see it. She looks to be about five years old. My daughter was that size, so I know ~”
“She was standing in front of my house, so I just told her to go home. She started crying on her own!”
“And another thing. Physical violence isn’t the only kind of violence. Verbal abuse is violence too. Do you want to be charged with child abuse? What kind of world are we living in now?”
“I’m an unmarried bachelor! Someone abandoned a child at my place and left—please listen to me!”
“Just because you’re not married doesn’t mean you’re not dating multiple women—we all know that. It wouldn’t be strange for you to have a five-year-old daughter with a past like yours—we all know ―”
“I’m going crazy, ugh!”
The man called Cassian pounded his chest against the security officer’s words.
“I’m not interfering in other people’s children’s education, but when a child makes a mistake, you shouldn’t suppress them so harshly—you should also comfort them, you know? And even if children pick up foreign languages quickly, the mother tongue should still be the Imperial Language. The child can listen to Imperial Language but can’t speak it—isn’t this a big problem? Your early childhood education is moving too fast~”
Since I couldn’t understand what the security officer was saying, I found myself calling out.
‘Goddess, come out here.’
Come and deal with this. You’re more than three thousand years old, a venerable elder!
But the Goddess was stingy.
She granted my birthday prayer, but ignored the prayer I offered trembling with terror.
‘Shouldn’t the security officer be arresting the bad person and throwing them in jail……?’
Far from jail, the security officer just lectured the landlord and that was it.
Even when he sent me out of the security station, he made the man hold my hand and sent us off together, telling us to reconcile.
I suddenly remembered a word that my friend’s older sister, five years my senior, had taught me.
―Yangtchi…… Yang, ya-ang…… what was it?
Oh. I remember now.
Both the security officer and Cassian are like that. Hypocrites!
Because I hated these hypocrite men, I decided I would really dislike brushing my teeth from today on.
* * *
Holding the man’s hand, I returned to the strange house from before.
His house was so messy that the Orphanage teachers would have fainted if they’d seen it.
The floor was filled with clothes that smelled sour, bottles of alcohol, cigarette ash, and black dust rolling around in the middle of it all.
‘A monster, but…… a poor monster?!’
Suddenly the frightening man seemed a little pitiful, so I looked up at him with a sympathetic heart.
I hadn’t noticed before, but now I could see the man had patchy stubble on his face.
‘B-beard hair loss!’
The monster man had a reason for his fierce temperament.
The monster man swept his foot, swish, swish, pushing things on the floor to the side to make a path.
On the living room sofa we arrived at, there were plates scattered around with moldy food in them.
I would have cleaned it up right away, but the monster man didn’t seem to care and sprawled across the sofa.
“I’m dying here. Can’t even get a proper hangover cure and now this.”
As I stood there uncertainly, the monster man turned to me with a question.
“Hey, kid. Where’s your mom? Your mom.”
My mom? She was far away in the Empire.
I’d spoken Imperial Language well until I was five, but after I went to the Orphanage I’d used a different language.
So I understood some of what the man was saying, but I couldn’t quite find my voice to answer.
My lips fumbled soundlessly before the man’s frightening expression sharpened and he asked again.
“You’ve got a mom somewhere, haven’t you? What about your dad? Where do your parents live? Where’s your home?”
My mom lived impossibly far away, and I’d never had a dad to begin with.
When I couldn’t speak, the man let out a long, audible sigh.
His handsome, frightening face radiated exhaustion so plainly that my shoulders shrank of their own accord.
The man waved his hand dismissively as he spoke.
“Fine. If your parents don’t show up by tomorrow, I’m sending you straight to a facility.”
After saying that, the monster man was asleep in seconds, snoring loudly.
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and headed for the bathroom.
The Orphanage Director had told me to wash my hands first thing after going out.
So I went to wash my hands, but…….
“Huh?”
My hands didn’t reach the sink.
I jumped down and caught a blurry glimpse of my face in the mirror, and then I understood the situation.
I’d been tenth tallest in the Sunlight Wing Class, and now I’d become a tiny child!
* * *
‘The Goddess is an idiot!’
Zero score! Pig! Monkey! Crawfish!
I’d asked for a father, but instead she’d made me into a little sister who was even smaller than I used to be, and then she’d sent me to the monster man’s house.
‘The Goddess probably scored zero on her language test.’
I was squeezing and opening my tiny fists, railing against the Goddess’s stupidity, when—
Knock, knock.
A faint knock came from the front door, and a careful voice followed as a strange man appeared.
“Brother. Are you sleeping? It’s me. Baron.”
The man who called the monster man “brother” had a crew cut and wore a gaudy shirt laden with gold chains.
I peeked just my eyes around the bathroom door and glared at the man named Baron.
“Ah. Still sleeping, I see.”
Baron began tidying up the place with practiced ease.
He shoved all the clothes from the floor into the Laundry Basket that sat in the corner of the living room and carried the bottles outside.
He swept the dust and cigarette ash gently with a broom, then mopped everything thoroughly.
Whoosh! Splash! Swish!
After quickly cleaning up the filthy apartment, the man went to rinse out the mop in the bathroom and our eyes locked with a sharp click.
We screamed simultaneously.
“Kyaaahhh!”
“A-a-a-a thief!”
Baron, startled and worked up in an instant, clenched his fists and thrust them forward with a sharp whistle-whine.
“C-c-come on then! I’m n-not scared!”
Thump-thump.
I could hear my heart pounding.
I’m not scared at all. Not scared at all.
‘No. I’m terrified…….’
If I were still ten years old, I could have escaped fast as a flying squirrel!
While I trembled in the bathroom—
“Shut up. Why can’t you stay quiet in someone else’s home?”
“Oh! Brother! You’re awake? There’s a t-thief here!”
“That’s not a thief…… Huh. Hey, kid. Get out here.”
I ignored the monster man and stayed hidden in the bathroom, but then a large hand suddenly hooked through the gap in the door and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, lifting me up.
“(Wahhh! Put me down! Let me down, I said!)”
Whip!
The monster man tossed me over to the crew-cut man like a sack.
The monster man scratched his head and spoke in a thick, drowsy voice.
“Baron.”
“Yes, brother!”
“Keep an eye on the brat for me. I’ve got something important to do today, so I’m heading out. When the kid’s mother shows up, make sure to give her a thorough talking-to—tell her never to abandon someone else’s child again.”
“Yes, sir. Wait—sir, isn’t she your daughter?”
“I don’t know about anything else, but I was careful with contraception. So by what logic would she be my daughter?”
The monster of a man who said this didn’t spare me so much as a glance before leaving the house.
I… Goddess. Why on earth is my birthday gift like this?!

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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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