I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - 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
The confusion that had clouded his mind descended into his chest, raking through his heart like claws.
“Why… why did it have to be you……”
Aselth muttered it barely audibly.
Mabel had started to rise, but froze at the sound of his voice.
Pain from the glass shards embedded in her palm was sharp enough to draw tears, but she swallowed it down.
Right now, she wanted to hear what Aselth had to say.
Mabel leaned in, listening intently.
“I won’t accept you. I won’t ever accept you.”
His voice carried anguish.
Aselth knew all too well how grave a sin Sophia had committed against Siegmund, how much Siegmund had suffered because of it.
He could never forgive her.
So he could not accept her daughter either.
Not even if Mabel was someone who didn’t discriminate against him for his appearance or his race.
Not even if she was the person he’d waited so long for, the one who truly understood his heart.
‘As long as I keep hating Sophia, that woman, eventually things will fall apart between us.’
Better not to begin at all.
And yet……
“It’s all right if you don’t accept me. I never expected your acceptance anyway.”
“…What?”
“Well, think about it. I’m the Head’s assistant, not yours.”
Her flippant words left Aselth so utterly stunned that the ground seemed to open beneath him.
“And you know what? The truth is, I don’t like my mother either.”
This was something Mabel had never told Siegmund or Ella—a secret of her own heart.
Or rather, she’d never had the chance to tell them.
The adults had made certain never to bring up Sophia in front of her.
She understood it was out of consideration for her feelings.
But because of that, she had no way to tell them what she actually thought about Sophia.
Just as Aselth, who had been “considered” in his own way, could not.
“So it doesn’t matter to me if you hate my mother as much as you want.”
As Aselth listened to her words, laced with laughter, his hand nearly dropped.
His lips trembled uselessly before he finally managed to speak.
“Why are you……”
saying exactly what I need to hear?
He was about to force the words out through a throat that felt sealed shut—
“Miss!”
Ella and Hishin arrived in a rush of urgent footsteps.
Both of them froze at the sight of Aselth with legs turned to stone and Mabel crouched amid glass shards.
“Sister!”
At the sound of Ella’s voice, Mabel’s eyes flew open involuntarily, then snapped shut again in panic.
“I’m fine! This was—Ow!”
Eyes still closed, Mabel tried to push herself up but lost her balance, stumbling.
‘I’m falling!’
If she fell now, the glass shards would cut deeper!
Bracing for the pain, Mabel tensed her body.
But no matter how long she waited, she felt no sharp glass piercing through her clothes and skin.
“Huh…?”
Confused, Mabel cautiously blinked her eyes open, and heard Ella and Hishin scream.
“What do we do!”
“Young master!”
Mabel’s eyes widened as she saw Aselth’s face inches from her own.
“Young master…?”
“You……”
Aselth’s eyes and cheeks were streaked with blood and tears as he winced, groaning softly.
“Be careful……”
Only then did Mabel realize what had happened—that Aselth had caught her as she fell, taking the tumble with her.
“I’m sorry!”
“Ugh……”
As Aselth pushed himself up, the areas where glass shards were embedded came into stark view, stained red with blood.
His eyes suddenly went wide, fighting through the throbbing pain.
“My legs……?”
The legs that had been petrified moments before had returned to normal.
“What do I do, Ella! Ella, I—”
Mabel, who had been calling out to Ella in panic, turned her gaze downward at the sound of Aselth’s murmur.
Now that she thought about it, his legs should have been rigid as stone—incapable of holding her at all.
Aselth forgot to rise from where he sat and instead carefully tested moving his feet.
The petrification had truly lifted.
“Young Master, you could……release your ability?”
“Oh, no. This is my first time too…….”
Aselth answered Mabel’s question hesitantly.
Until now, Aselth had only ever activated his ability—he had never once deactivated it.
That was why those turned to stone had to wait hours for the transformation to wear off on its own.
The same held true for Kellik, who had been petrified multiple times before.
But there was no time to ponder how this had become possible.
“Fetch the physician at once!”
“The Young Lady and Young Master are gravely wounded!”
With Ella and Hishin’s cries, the Grand Duchy Castle—frozen as if time had stopped—came alive again in a flurry of activity.
“Wait, I still need my Eye Bandage—!”
As Aselth moved to cover his eyes in haste, Hishin, who had rushed over, caught his hand and held him back.
“Your eyes need to be examined. Look at how much blood you’ve lost!”
“But if I end up turning the physician to stone—”
“It doesn’t matter. The effect will wear off in time anyway. And besides, you’ve now learned to control your ability completely, haven’t you?”
On Hishin’s face there was only concern and remorse, and faith in Aselth.
Fear or terror were nowhere to be found.
Whether it was Hishin’s words that swayed them, or whether Aselth’s injuries were simply too grave, people rushed into the Activity Hall one after another.
“Here! We’ve brought warm water and towels!”
“And Tweezers to remove the glass shards!”
“Benson just went to fetch the physician—he should arrive soon!”
With worry etched across their faces, those tending to Aselth stood upon an Eye Bandage beneath their feet.
An Eye Bandage that had been trampled by so many and torn by Glass Shards until it could never be worn again.
* * *
Aselth awoke four days later.
Fortunately, the wound on his back required only about four stitches, but he remained unconscious for several days due to his ability’s rampage.
Upon opening his eyes, Aselth habitually reached toward the bedside table, searching for his Eye Bandage.
But the table was empty.
‘Ah, that’s right.’
The last Aselth had seen of his Eye Bandage was when it lay trampled beneath people’s feet.
This time, unlike before, his memory had not fled.
“I suppose I’ll need to have a new one fitted…….”
As Aselth murmured this while gazing at the empty table, a knock came from outside.
There was a knock at the door.
“Are you awake?”
It was Kellik.
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
As Aselth slowly pushed himself upright, Kellik entered at once.
“Sniff!”
Kellik’s face and eyes were swollen.
He must have wept day and night while Aselth lay unconscious.
Aselth rushed to the bed and, stroking Kellik’s hair as the boy collapsed into tears, let out a soft laugh.
“You’ve cried quite a lot, haven’t you?”
“Of course! Do you know how frightened I was!”
Kellik lifted his tear-streaked face and shouted accusingly.
“I heard a loud noise all of a sudden and then your scent of blood, and they told me you were badly hurt!”
Kellik had been sparring with a practice dummy in the Training Grounds when he learned the news belatedly.
He had tried to rush at once to the Activity Hall where Aselth was, but the servants had blocked him, saying it was too dangerous.
“The physicians were in such a state! And then you wouldn’t wake up, and they said you’d gone haywire, and I kept worrying whether you’d lost your memory again this time!”
Kellik burst into tears once more.
Now ten years old, Kellik differed from Aselth in both Race and Rank, yet he was as close as a true blood brother.
In fact, Kellik had been placed in Aselth’s enclosure as food when Aselth was still young.
He had never become that.
Because he’d suffered grievous wounds and couldn’t even manage to shift back into human form.
But instead of devouring Kellik, Aselth had nursed him back to health with meticulous care.
From that moment on, they were inseparable—closer than blood siblings could ever be.
“I suppose you were quite frightened.”
“Quite doesn’t even begin to cover it! I’d be lost without you, truly!”
Kellik’s voice grew thick with emotion, and he sniffled loudly, lifting his head—when a soft click sounded from somewhere nearby.
At that sound, Kellik’s expression shifted in an instant, the sentiment draining from his face entirely.
“Right, that reminds me.”
Just as quickly as the tears had come, Kellik wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and reached into his pocket.
Kellik’s emotions never lingered for long.
It was a simple quality, one of his strengths in its way, but Aselth—whose heart had been stirred just moments before—couldn’t help but feel a little deflated.
“This.”
Whether Kellik sensed Aselth’s mood or not, he pulled something from his pocket and extended it forward.
“She asked me to give it to you.”
“She?”
At Aselth’s questioning look, Kellik bobbed his head, his expression darkening slightly.
“Yeah, Sophia’s daughter. She wanted you to have this. She said it might not be necessary anymore, but she made it for you anyway.”
“For me…?”
Aselth accepted what Kellik offered, taking it with deliberate care.
It was a pair of glasses.
The only difference from ordinary spectacles was that the lenses were painted completely black.

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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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