I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 27

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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 27
* * *
A week had passed since Aselt, Kellik, and Mabel became siblings.
During that time, the three of them hadn’t been apart for a moment except when sleeping.
Aselt had been granted a rest period until his stitches could be removed, but Kellik still had daily lessons to attend to.
As a result, wherever you went in the Grand Duke’s Castle, you could hear the chatter of young children.
It was a heartwarming sight, though not entirely without its complications.
“Master Kellik! Master Kellik!”
“Where on earth has he gone?”
“Did he go to Miss Mabel again?”
“No, Ella checked Miss’s room thoroughly just now and didn’t find him.”
“Then could he be with Master Aselt?”
“If he’d gone to Master, Master would have told us by now!”
Kellik’s history lesson would begin soon.
The maids were in a panic to find him before the tutor arrived.
But no matter how hard they searched, Kellik was nowhere to be found.
Where on earth could he be hiding?
It was strange—they’d combed through every corner of the castle, yet not a single red tail hair was visible.
“Wait a moment… Now that I think about it, where is Miss Mabel? Where is she?”
“Miss is in the Central Garden with Master Aselt…”
“What? No! I just came from the Central Garden and no one was there!”
“What did you say?”
That was when it happened.
“Girls, girls~!”
Aselt’s personal maid came rushing down the hallway, waving her hand.
Stopping beside her colleagues, the maid gasped for breath and asked.
“Have any of you seen Master Aselt?”
“…Huh?”
“Huh?”
“Um…?”
In that instant, a chill silence swept over the three of them.
And exactly three seconds later.
“Aaahhhhh!”
“This is terrible!”
“Emergency, emergency! The children have vanished!”
The maids scattered in all directions, shrieking as if the Grand Duke’s Castle itself were about to be swept away.
All to spread word of this dreadful calamity.
* * *
At that very moment, the children who had turned the Grand Duke’s Castle upside down were now…
“Wow…!”
“Ohhh!”
“Hmm.”
Standing side by side in the Public Square, watching a street performer’s puppet show.
“Look at that, big brother! Three of them are speaking at the same time! I guess it wasn’t Ventriloquism after all!”
Mabel, her hood pulled down low, clung to Aselt beside her, her eyes sparkling with wonder.
It was hard to believe this was the same child who had been hesitant about going out just moments before, worried that something dangerous might happen.
Aselt held her close and smiled, gently stroking Mabel’s hair as she trembled with excitement.
“That’s probably using an Artifact. It’s a pre-recorded sound that plays in sync with the timing.”
“An Artifact?”
“Yeah, the one I used to change my appearance.”
Aselt pointed to his own face.
His jet-black hair, which had gleamed like caviar, had become a dull, frizzy brown, and his pale eyes had turned a lime green.
“Wow! Look, it’s raining inside the puppet box!”
Kellik, on the other side of Aselt, gazed in amazement with his fists clenched, and his appearance too was nothing like his usual self.
His short, wiry red hair had vanished, replaced by a plain navy-blue ponytail.
His normally bright eyes, which shone yellow, were now black.
This was how the distinctly remarkable children had managed to slip out of the Grand Duke’s Castle unnoticed.
“But you said that requires a Mana Stone to use, right? So Kellik stole one and used it to disguise himself with it.”
Aselt adjusted Mabel’s hood properly again and replied.
“That’s right. But the Artifact we’re using is a premium item that needs a whole Mana Stone to function, while that recording device isn’t. With just one cheap Mana Stone, they could perform more than ten times over.”
The problem was that Artifacts themselves were relics from an age when magic thrived, making them extraordinarily difficult to obtain or modify.
“Oh, danger ahead!”
“No, no, no!”
“Watch out!”
While Mabel and Aselt were briefly chattering, the puppet show reached its climax.
The children, utterly absorbed in the performance, cheered for the hero in their own voices.
At their chorus of excitement, the street artist grinned and pressed on with the tale.
“It was when the girl in the red cloak, running an errand for her grandmother, found herself in terrible danger. ‘Help me!’ she cried out—and someone appeared before her. Someone wielding a sword with courage!”
Mabel, like the other children, was drawn back into the puppet show’s world.
Right up until the artist’s next words.
“That brave savior was none other than a young dog Demi-human, whom her father had just brought home from the market.”
“Huh……?”
Mabel blinked, suddenly surfacing from the depths of the narrative.
It was as if cold water had been dashed across her face, jolting her awake.
Kellik, who had been utterly lost in the performance, and Aselt, who had been watching with genuine interest, both stiffened at once.
But the children seated in the front rows did not.
“How did the dog know where the girl was?”
“The dog is amazing!”
“I want a Demi-human like that!”
The children marveled with childlike innocence.
Some of them even began pestering their parents standing behind them to buy them a Demi-human.
Mabel’s eyes wavered.
“Um, um—brother, let’s go now—”
It was the moment Mabel, no longer wanting to watch, reached out to take Kellik and Aselt’s hands.
The artist’s voice rang out brighter than it had all afternoon.
“And that was all thanks to the Subjugation Mark! Without the Subjugation Mark, the girl would have been grievously wounded!”
The Subjugation Mark.
For roughly ten years now, people across the Empire had been inscribing it upon Demi-humans—a form of slave branding, in essence.
Though it was far from an ordinary mark.
It was a kind of magical binding laid upon Demi-humans who possessed Mana Stones—those capable of performing minor magic.
A Demi-human bearing the Subjugation Mark obeyed their master’s every command without question, and in the worst cases, could be puppeteered entirely.
It was a mark that transformed a person into a marionette, nothing more.
And this puppet show, it seemed, had been created specifically to teach young children about the Subjugation Mark.
As the artist brought the performance to a close, he issued an instruction to his young audience.
“Children, listen well! The Subjugation Mark is not an evil thing, not at all. Rather, it is a way to grow closer to your Demi-humans. So when you purchase a Demi-human, be sure to have the Subjugation Mark inscribed. Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
The children answered in a chorus.
In their innocent smiles, there was not a shred of hesitation or doubt.
Mabel found their guilelessness chilling.
Aselt gave Mabel’s rigid hand a gentle tug.
“Mabel, shall we go?”
“Right, yeah. The show’s over anyway.”
Kellik propped his free hand against the back of his head and replied.
Both their faces were utterly composed, as if nothing at all had happened.
Mabel, unable to speak, allowed herself to be led by Aselt toward the street food vendors.
Just moments before, she’d been delighted to wander the bustling streets.
Now nothing registered in her vision.
The puppeteer’s words echoed relentlessly in her ears, refusing to fade.
“How can they act like nothing is wrong?”
As she accepted the cotton candy Aselt offered her, Mabel could no longer hold back and spoke.
“Hm? What is?”
Aselt and Kellik’s expressions remained serene as they listened to her question.
As if it were nothing unusual.
As if they’d grown accustomed to it long ago.
And that very composure broke Mabel’s heart.
“After hearing something like that, how can you just…?”
Mabel’s eyes glistened faintly as she looked up at Aselt.
Anger and sorrow flushed her cheeks with heat.
Aselt and Kellik exchanged a glance.
In that wordless exchange, their discomfort was laid bare.
What do I do?
How can I possibly…?
After a brief but intense silent exchange, it was Aselt who finally spoke.
“That’s just… the way things are.”
Aselt’s voice was so flat that Mabel’s heart sank deeper still.
Demi-humans were people too—how could buying and selling them ever be the natural order of things?
How could anyone teach a child to traffic in human bodies and mark them with subjugation brands?
Mabel couldn’t accept it.
She had so much she wanted to say, but feared that any words she spoke would wound these two demi-humans, so her mouth stayed shut.
Kellik stepped toward Mabel, whose small lips were trembling soundlessly.
He held a chicken skewer in each hand—the kind that looked delicious.
“Honestly, we’re the ones who find it strange. Our master had his reasons for opposing the Subjugation Mark and taking us as disciples, but you… you never chose that path.”
Kellik scratched his chin and let out a quiet laugh.
“If it were you, I’d accept a Subjugation Mark without hesitation.”

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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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