I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 6

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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 5
This was the Empire.
I couldn’t speak because it had been so long since I’d used the Empire Language.
Then wouldn’t Mother be somewhere under this sky as well?
‘I can meet Mother!’
Our house was originally in the Empire.
It had been five years since I’d seen Mother, and I worried every day that I’d forget her face, but if this was the Empire, I could go home.
When I got home, Mother would see me and let out a cry of surprise, then embrace me through her tears.
“My daughter!”
“Mother!”
That’s how our tearful reunion would unfold.
So I opened my mouth, stifling my hiccups, to give the man our home address.
“O-our house address is, um, well……”
“What? What did you say?”
I stared up at the man like an idiot, still trying to explain.
If I didn’t speak quickly, something terrible seemed about to happen—but the problem was that the address wouldn’t come to me.
‘If I don’t say it fast, he’s going to scold me…….’
So the address was…….
Well…… I’d already been away from home for five years, so I’d forgotten it.
Of course, Annemare knew our house address, but I couldn’t meet her right now.
‘If I don’t know the address, I can’t meet Mother.’
The thought that I might never see Mother again because I was such a fool became unbearable.
“Hic-sniff-sniff.”
The man’s face contorted. It looked so frightening, like some grimacing demon, that I felt even more miserable.
“(I want to see Mother…… *sniffle sniffle*.)”
“Huh? Don’t cry, I said don’t cry!”
“(*WAAAHHH! Moooother! *WAAAAAHHH!*)”
As I burst into full sobs, the man grabbed his head and slammed his forehead against the wall.
“I’m going insane. I need to hit a hospital the moment I wake up tomorrow.”
Mother was in the Empire but I couldn’t see her! It was so unfair and heartbreaking.
Tears poured out. When I wiped them away, my nose started running.
If Mother were here, she would hold me now and wipe away my tears and snot, but the man neither grew angry nor comforted me or patted my back.
He simply crouched down, looking vexed, and gazed down at my crying form.
Stupid goddess!
I said I wanted a father, not that I couldn’t see Mother or wanted to stay with this monster man.
As I wept and wept, the man, looking exhausted, let out a deep sigh.
“This is why I hate kids.”
Muttering to himself, the man suddenly hoisted me up carelessly.
He must be tired of the crying child and trying to toss me out.
I missed Annemare and Michael.
Annemare would comfort me like a mother, and Michael would give me candy to soothe me in times like this.
“I need to put something in that mouth or my ears will fall off.”
Instead of being flung out the front door as I’d expected, the man set me down at the table and produced a piece of chocolate from somewhere.
“Sob-sniff…… what, what? What? Whoa!”
I stopped crying for just a moment and looked up at the chocolate.
‘It’s huge!’
It was bigger than my face! Far bigger than the man’s hand! It was an enormous piece of chocolate.
It had bite marks—it looked like he’d been eating it—but I didn’t care about that.
‘Cho, cho, chocolate!’
I opened my mouth wide, and the man spoke.
“Hey, squirt. Stop crying this instant and this chocolate is yours.”
“Sniff-sniff-sniff!”
At the word “stop,” my sobs continued on their own.
But at the same time, my hand was already reaching toward the chocolate. That was pure instinct.
Whoosh!
The man quickly dodged my hand.
I tried to track with the chocolate, but it only moved further away.
The man spoke in a firm tone.
“If you don’t stop crying, you don’t get this chocolate. Stop!”
I wanted to see Mother, but I wanted the chocolate too…… I’m sad, but I want to eat it.
Mother was always someone I longed to see, but this was the only chance I’d ever get to eat chocolate.
I forced myself to stop crying, and instead hiccups came out—hic, hic.
When I reached out my hand asking for chocolate, he broke off exactly half of a chocolate bar and pressed it into my palm.
Even cut in half, it was so enormous I had to hold it with both hands.
If my friends could see this, they’d be so jealous.
Thump-thump.
My heart was pounding.
I carefully melted the corner of the chocolate in my mouth. It was smooth milk chocolate.
‘This—this is my favorite chocolate!’
Until now, I’d resented the goddess for her poor hearing, but for the first time it didn’t seem so terrible.
* * *
Exhausted from dealing with the little child all evening, Cassian collapsed into sleep.
They say when you’re that tired you don’t dream at all, just black out—but Cassian was the exception.
As always, the woman appeared.
“Cassian. Please die for me. Just once. Please…….”
The woman pleaded through tears.
Cassian was willing to surrender his life.
This worthless life.
Compared to what she was trying to do, it meant nothing at all.
The finely honed blade pierced cleanly through Cassian’s chest.
With each heartbeat, blood sprayed from his body.
He felt death seeping away—viscerally, in every cell, unmistakably clear.
The woman whispered as she wept.
“I’m sorry. But…….”
Don’t cry. Don’t apologize.
Consciousness was slipping away; he couldn’t speak.
He wasn’t afraid of death.
There was only one thing he feared.
That her Magic would fail.
His vision darkened to black. His last breath escaped between his teeth.
The woman stole his final breath.
After that, Cassian plunged into complete oblivion.
“Gasp!”
He jolted awake, feeling his pierced heart hammering as if it would burst from his chest.
“Hah—hah—hah!”
Cold sweat drenched his entire body.
For a long while, Cassian couldn’t shake the lingering threads of the dream and thrashed on the sofa.
‘Iris…….’
A groan of anguish escaped him.
It had been years now, yet there wasn’t a single night he didn’t dream of her.
Waking or sleeping, drunk or sober, Iris filled the gaps in his thoughts.
Her golden eyes, her black hair, her delicate hands—
Swallowing a curse, Cassian thought a drink might improve his mood and weakly pushed himself up from the sofa.
“What the—”
The child was sleeping on the floor for some reason.
She must have been exhausted yesterday; after eating the chocolate, she’d nodded off at the table, so he’d thrown her onto the bed in the bedroom.
No matter how badly he lived, he wasn’t so far gone as to make a child sleep on a sofa.
“Ah…… right. You’re here.”
Drinking and everything else would have to wait—dealing with the child came first.
Cassian left the house immediately. And he arrived at a place that was, in fact—
“Could you write me a Sterility Confirmation Certificate, please?”
The hospital.
* * *
“You’re certain it was done properly? If that kid turns out to be my daughter, I’m really screwed. I’m sending her to the Orphanage.”
“I’m telling you I’m certain! Have you been conned your whole life?!”
After confirming the procedure two, three, even four more times with the doctor before leaving the hospital, Cassian held the Sterility Confirmation Certificate up to the sunlight.
This was no mere piece of paper.
It was a free pass—a certificate declaring him absolved from all responsibility, obligation, and suffering of child-rearing.
The gloomy mood from the morning evaporated, replaced by a lightness that made him feel he might float away.
“Perfect. Now this is what I’m talking about!”
Perhaps that disastrous card game from the other day had been nothing but a prelude to today’s fortune.
Once he got home and sent the brat to the Orphanage, he’d be done with childcare for good.
Cassian was in such high spirits on the way back that he stopped to buy Spicy Grilled Chicken, the kind he always got himself when he was in a good mood.
“Hey! Kid? You awake? Still sleeping?”
He arrived home in excellent humor and roused the brat, who’d been sleeping while the sun climbed to its zenith.
“Come on, kid. Let’s eat. You’re going to a nice place starting today.”
“Ugh…”
He forced the bleary-eyed child into a seat at the table.
As the saying went, even paradise tastes better after a meal—first things first, then off to the Orphanage.
It was Cassian’s own peculiar brand of kindness, born from his years as an Orphanage child himself.
* * *
It’s said a child who eats without fussing, whatever’s put before them, is a good child.
I eyed the chicken Cassian had brought home. It was drenched in bright red seasoning—it looked ferociously spicy.
‘I can’t eat spicy food.’
I sidled up next to him and studied the dish carefully.
The pungent aroma stung my nose. My shoulders trembled.
‘Is he trying to torture me with food before sending me to the Orphanage?’
When he’d given me Milk Chocolate before, I’d thought he was a fool but a good-hearted fool. Maybe he was actually a pretty underhanded person.
As I kept staring at the red chicken, Cassian pressed his finger to my forehead and nudged me back gently.
“You can’t have this. This one’s yours.”
My gaze followed the direction of his chin and landed on a dish I recognized well.
In that instant, my face scrunched up before I could help it.

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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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