I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 1
Sophia’s life was perfect, and it was happy.
She had married the man she loved and finally borne the child she had longed for so desperately.
She believed she would live happily ever after, just like the heroines in fairy tales.
“You’re carrying my child? That’s impossible.”
Until she heard those words.
The husband who had been listening so attentively to her mere moments before now had betrayal, contempt, and revulsion written across his features.
“Whose child is it?”
“I—what did you say?”
“I asked whose bastard you’re carrying!”
The tragedy unfolded at a surprise party meant to celebrate her pregnancy.
The cherished duchess fell in an instant from grace to harlot, condemned for dallying with another man.
Sophia could not comprehend her husband’s reaction.
How hard she had worked to bear his child.
At last, the fruit of that effort and that love had taken root in her womb.
Why would no one bless her?
Why was her chastity being questioned?
I have loved only one man my entire life—only you.
“Darling, please talk to me. This child is truly ours!”
When Caesar returned home after a long absence, Sophia appealed to him with all her heart.
But what came back to her was…….
“Haven’t you gotten rid of it yet?”
“……What?”
Ah, foolish, stupid Sophia.
From the very beginning, Caesar had never cared for her sincerity.
“I can’t fathom what you’re so confident about, carrying another man’s seed.”
The answer was already decided.
“True to her commoner blood, she was vulgar after all.”
Caesar passed by his wife with the face of a victim who had suffered something unspeakable.
Days later, rumors spread that he had taken a second wife.
Unlike Sophia, who was born of a secondary wife, this woman was a legitimate daughter of a noble house.
Sophia collapsed entirely.
“Hah, ugh……belly, I—…….”
It was a time of agony so intense she wished she were dead.
In the savage solitude of birthing alone, without even a midwife at her side, Sophia made a desperate wish.
‘I want to undo everything, make it as though none of this ever happened.’
The childhood closeness she and Caesar had shared, bonded by their common experience of having a commoner mother.
All the schemes she had orchestrated to place Caesar on the Duke’s throne, ousting the legitimate sons.
The fact that she had loved him more than her own life.
Even bearing this child!
She wanted to unmake it all.
But in the end, God did not grant her wish.
“Wah, waaaaah……!”
A child was born in the cold, bleak chamber of the duchess.
And…….
And…….
…….
“……what was I saying?”
The child tilted its head, confused.
The novel’s contents had been streaming through her mind as if she were watching a film—and then they simply stopped.
She tried to think back further, but regrettably the rest of the story would not come.
“Well, at least I remember most of it. That’s something to be grateful for.”
The child muttered to herself as she finished tying up her disheveled hair, then looked into the Broken Mirror.
A girl with unkempt purple hair and crimson eyes stared back at her.
The child’s name was Maybel Ashilonia.
The abandoned daughter of the Runaway Female Lead Sophia, and none other than the cherished child of the Regretful Male Lead Caesar.
‘And right now, I’m the child who’s just realized this whole world is a novel!’
Approximately three hours ago.
To Maybel, who had endured eight years alone in the Attic with no one to look after her, a miracle had finally appeared.
The contents of the novel had suddenly streamed into her small mind like a rushing torrent.
Of course, beyond the contents of the novel, there wasn’t much she could think of, but the child tried anyway.
Perhaps she was a Reincarnator.
In any case, according to the novel’s progression, the Regretful Male Lead and the Runaway Female Lead would soon reconcile.
‘Right there in front of my grave.’
Did that make any sense?
Eight years. A full eight years.
‘And all that time, I’ve been treated like an Invisible Person.’
When Maybel Ashilonia took her first steps, Sophia fled, and afterward the Ashilonia Family treated Maybel as if she didn’t exist at all.
They saw without seeing, heard without hearing.
They carried on as though the child called Maybel Ashilonia had never existed in this world at all.
Maybel grew up alone in that cold expanse of time, understanding none of it.
Sometimes she would cut herself, wondering if perhaps she really was a ghost.
Only after the pain brought tears and she saw the red blood did Maybel feel reassured.
I’m a person.
I’m still a person.
Clinging to that hope, she endured, thinking that someday her parents might turn to look at her.
‘But I die, and then they stand in front of my grave saying, “It was all a misunderstanding after all!” and “I only ever loved you!” and get their happy ending?’
“Absolutely not. I won’t watch that.”
Novel or no novel, she had to survive out of sheer spite.
Though Maybel was a true Extra with no extraordinary abilities and no secret lineage to fall back on.
“So I have no parents—but don’t I have a family to exploit?”
Thank heavens the Ashilonia Duchy had so many enemies.
Of course, she had no intention of proposing deals to villains, making contracts, or winning them over with favors to use them as guardians.
She’d just remembered—there was a good Orphanage mentioned in the side stories.
‘I just need to get a little money and go to the Orphanage. That place from the side stories. There. I’ll go there. The director there is a good person.’
In any case, Maybel had no intention of attempting anything reckless.
She simply needed to survive and…….
‘And I’m going to ruin my parents’ happy ending!’
Maybel packed her small Bag carefully and opened the Attic door.
The moment she poked her head out, her eyes met those of two servants passing through the hallway.
“Oh…….”
Maybel’s body went rigid.
‘If they ask why I’ve come out, what do I say? If they try to lock me back in, can I run?’
Maybel gripped the Bag strap across her chest and held her breath.
Her heart pounded fast and hard.
“……Did you hear that story?”
“Hm? What story?”
But the servants simply continued their conversation with each other as though Maybel didn’t exist.
“Ah…….”
Maybel’s gaze fell downward.
Of course.
‘Why would they notice me?’
The phantom daughter of the Ashilonia Duchy.
A being who must never meet anyone’s eyes, never be spoken to, never be acknowledged.
That was exactly what Maybel was.
‘Caesar had that setting—publicly infertile, Azoospermia, that was it.’
That was why Maybel was never acknowledged as the Male Lead’s true daughter.
But the truth that Maybel was his real daughter would only be revealed much later.
For now, at this moment, Maybel was the illegitimate child of another man, born from the Duchess’s infidelity.
“…….”
Maybel wandered through the mansion, gripping her Bag strap.
Occasionally servants’ eyes would land on the child, but they would slide away just as quickly.
Thanks to that, no one stopped her, and she made it out of the mansion.
“Yes…… yes! Long live being treated like an Invisible Person!”
Having succeeded in her escape, Maybel cried out as if delighted.
Otherwise, the sorrow would have broken into tears.
In truth, she was already at her limit.
“Uh…… ing…….”
Her vision wavered with tears welling up hot and heavy.
‘No time to cry. There’s no time, I know there’s no time…….’
In the end, hot tears rolled down her hollow cheeks, one after another.
Remembering the novel’s plot was both medicine and poison to Maybel.
It had given her the resolve to run away, yet at the same time forced her to see how wretched her life truly was.
Why had she been forced to live like this?
Why was she an invisible person to everyone?
I’m here too.
I’m living right here…….
A terrible thought suddenly struck her.
‘But what if the antagonists don’t believe I’m Maybel Ashilonia?’
Or worse—what if they don’t even know that a person called Maybel Ashilonia exists at all?
‘Come to think of it… was there ever a single scene in the novel where anyone outside the Ashilonia Family recognized Maybel?’
Only then did she realize how recklessly she had fled.
‘Oh God, what do I do now? Should I go back? Or…….’
As despair crashed over her and the world turned black, she stood paralyzed—unable to move forward or retreat.
“……Maybel?”
At the sound of someone’s voice, Maybel startled and lifted her head.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————