I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 17

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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 17
“If I turn to stone only when our eyes meet, then I just won’t meet your eyes! So I don’t need to wear the blindfold at all, do I?”
“Well~? Hmm, that’s true, but the young master……”
Ella’s words trailed off—a rare occurrence.
Just as I wondered if she was hiding something, she gently changed the subject.
“And~ if the young master walked about without the blindfold, the servants would often be frightened~”
“Ah…….”
But taken the other way around, it meant the boy was considerate enough of the Ducal House to endure that pain.
Aselt loved the Ducal House so dearly—and Sophia had destroyed it.
Aselt must despise her terribly, even now.
“But you’re not frightened of him, are you, Miss~? Of the young master~”
“Hm? Oh, um…… I suppose I am a bit frightened, actually.”
He’s a villain, after all.
And when I considered that oppressive presence, it didn’t seem like he liked me.
But still……
“He apologized.”
“He apologized~?”
Ella straightened, her tone full of surprise, and repeated the words back to me.
Faced with such attentive listening, Maybel found herself embarrassed, scratching her cheek as she spoke.
“Yes. Even if people were frightened, he could choose not to care—but he’s wearing the blindfold anyway.”
“……My goodness~”
Ella let out a small sound of admiration.
At the same time, her gaze grew faintly shadowed.
Separate from their worry for Aselt, everyone had come to take his sacrifice for granted.
Because he was a Basilisk, because he possessed such an ability.
So he had to be careful—and some had even turned their arrows toward him instead, as if to say he was the one at fault.
“The young master is…… truly courageous.”
“Truly~? What makes you say that, Miss~?”
“Well…… if it were me, I’d probably just stay in my room. If I had such an ability, and people were frightened of me even though I’d done nothing wrong……”
Maybel, her head bowed, fingered the warm cup of milk as she murmured.
“I could only be hurt.”
Had she not been holding the cup, she surely would have picked at her nails—the ones Ella had so carefully groomed—raw again.
“Treated like a monster…… that’s what it would be.”
The moment she spoke it aloud, she felt she and Aselt resembled each other somehow.
A phantom lady-in-waiting ignored by people, and a monstrous young master whom people feared.
‘I…… I was always so frightened of being treated as if I didn’t exist that I hid instead.’
But Aselt was different.
He stepped forward before people while wearing the blindfold so tight it left marks on his skin.
Those who have not lived through it would never understand.
How lonely and terrifying it is when people avoid you.
So that was surely an act that required tremendous courage.
And more than anything……
“His face wounds are severe because he’s been wearing the blindfold so long, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes~ that’s right~ they say the young master doesn’t even remove it when he’s alone~”
That was why the servants had panicked when Maybel reached toward the blindfold, she added.
Carefully swallowing back any mention of Rampage.
“Even though it must hurt so much~?”
“It’s something precious that he received from the Duke, so that must be why~”
Ella answered lightly, but Maybel’s thoughts were somewhat different.
It didn’t seem like that was the only reason.
Rather, if it were truly precious, wouldn’t he take care not to let blood stain it?
Maybel looked at her own hands holding the cup.
Before coming to the Ducal Residence, Maybel would sometimes deliberately wound herself, just to confirm she was truly alive.
A tear or two would escape, and still nobody cared—but even so.
Only through such pain could she feel her existence in this world, could she breathe.
‘What if Aselt’s wounds are the same~?’
Perhaps he felt the pain from those wounds as a kind of permission.
Permission to be there among people…… a permission like that.
Of course, Maybel was not Aselt, so she didn’t know his true heart.
“You’re trying to say that the young master was being considerate to the people of the Ducal House, aren’t you, Miss~?”
“Yes…”
Maybel nodded slightly and took a sip of milk.
Ella gazed at Maybel’s hands, lost in thought.
Maybel’s hands, which had been so badly cracked and left untended that the skin had even discolored, had grown soft again in just a few days.
Children’s skin bruised easily, but healed just as quickly.
Yet Aselt’s eyes were always darkened by raw, wounded skin.
Moreover, for the past several days, Aselt hadn’t even come to the Dining Hall—perhaps because of Maybel.
And yet when Ella saw him today, his eyes were inflamed.
It meant he hadn’t removed the Blindfold even when alone.
‘Perhaps… perhaps the young lady was right. Perhaps the young master truly was waiting for us to come closer.’
The thought that their consideration might have isolated the child instead struck Ella like an arrow to the heart.
In the past, Ziegmund had happened upon a black market trafficking Demi-humans within the Duchy while on a raid, and there he met two children.
Aselt, a Basilisk Demi-human of the Legendary Species.
Kellik, a red fox Demi-human of the Beast Species.
Though Ziegmund had conducted several charitable works on behalf of Demi-humans over the years, he had never adopted any until then.
But some wind must have shifted in him, for he suddenly took the two children on as disciples.
The two children Ella first encountered bore wounds far too deep to measure.
‘Both body and spirit.’
Yet what pierced Ella’s heart most wasn’t their indifference as they licked at scabbed wounds, but the desperate longing that still gleamed in their eyes as they reached toward people.
Despite the terrible wounds people had inflicted upon them, they still wanted to belong to people.
‘We’ve only made those children lonely, all in the name of consideration.’
After a moment of silence, Ella spoke in a small voice.
“Miss… perhaps I, too, have been afraid of young master Aselt.”
“What?”
Ella’s tone, which usually sang like a melody, had turned grave.
“Truth is, I knew why young master Aselt insists on wearing the Blindfold. Because of what happened before.”
Ella briefly recounted the incident involving Aselt’s Rampage—something she had swallowed down not long ago.
“Precisely because such a thing occurred, I should have reassured the young master all the more… but I didn’t. I kept my distance, telling myself I was thinking of him. Perhaps, deep down, I was relieved to stay away.”
Ella’s narrow, slit-like eyes opened slightly wider, and a troubled shimmer crossed her black irises.
“Without ever wondering what he might think, what his heart might feel, what his mood might be…”
“Um, um…”
Maybel, caught off guard by the sudden darkness of the mood, didn’t know what to do.
Then she set down her milk cup on the table and reached out to pat Ella gently.
“Miss…?”
At Maybel’s awkward comfort, Ella’s eyes widened a little more.
Maybel said nothing, simply patting her softly, again and again.
She couldn’t say things like “it’s all right”—not when she wasn’t Aselt.
Ella received Maybel’s small, tender pats for a long while, then closed her eyes.
“So, Miss, what if we~”
Ella brightened again, speaking in a melodious voice and breaking into a smile.
“Next time we see the young master, we’ll avert our eyes, and ask him to remove the Blindfold~?”
At Ella’s smile, a grin bloomed across Maybel’s slightly tense face.
Maybel answered with a wide smile, milk still clinging to her lips.
“Yes!”
* * *
There was nothing wrong with Maybel and Ella’s conversation.
Only, the place where they spoke was the Activity Room, which served as a common living space.
A room people passed through often, its door always open.
Hardly the place for secrets.
So one couldn’t say Aselt had truly eavesdropped on them.
“…”
Aselt hadn’t meant to listen in from the start.
He’d simply overheard Ella’s words as he passed by.
— But aren’t you scared, Miss~? Of young master Aselt~?
‘I told her not to speak of it, yet she worries about me enough to disobey.’
Aselt twisted one corner of his mouth and meant to continue on his way.
— Huh? Well… um. To be honest, I am a bit scared.
‘Of course she is.’
Maybel had trembled so badly at the sight of him—naturally she would answer that way.
But what came next was something he had never expected to hear.
— I’m sorry.
— You’re trying to say that the young master shows consideration for the people of the Ducal House, aren’t you~?
— Yes, well……
It was the first time.
Someone had understood what he truly thought.
The warmth that had bloomed in his fingertips faded just as quickly, and Aselt clenched his fist.
‘But why did it have to be you.’
Maybel Asilonia—the girl was Sophia Asilonia’s daughter.
That stung his pride.
Of all people, it was the daughter of the thief who had betrayed Ziegmund and fled—she alone had grasped his heart first.
‘I’m hideous, and they fear me for it.
If someone’s going to discriminate, isn’t it better to do it by species than by looks?’
Aselt twisted his mouth into a bitter line, then rose to leave.
Because of this, Aselt never did hear the truth about his own Rampage.

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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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