I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 71

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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 71
“You’ve got the wrong person! The wrong person, I tell you! Duchess Asilonia is coming in a little while—wouldn’t it be more helpful if you kidnapped her instead?!”
Mabel cried out, but the only answer that came back was an echo.
It seemed there was no one else in this cave besides her.
“Damn it…!”
Her cheek, scraped raw against the uneven ground, throbbed with a dull ache, and her hands and feet, bound tight, had gone numb.
Mabel would have liked nothing more than to curse up a storm, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate.
‘I should have learned how to swear!’
Why was it that memories of difficult concepts came easily, but not a single proper curse?
Aluminum oxide, calcium bromide—all those hard chemical terms came readily to mind, yet not one curse word.
As Mabel huffed and fumed in frustration, she found she wasn’t actually frightened by the situation at all.
That much, at least, was a mercy.
Soon enough, Mabel thrashed about like a fish out of water.
“Ugh, ugh… hah!”
After several attempts, Mabel finally managed to sit up.
She was copying the way Kellic had lurched to his feet in the Underground Prison all those months ago.
Every experience, it seemed, had something to teach.
‘Let’s see, something that could cut through rope…’
Without tears, Mabel examined her surroundings with cold practicality.
She’d learned during her time as a ghost of a lady-in-waiting that crying solved nothing.
The only thing lighting the dim cave appeared to be a cheap candle, burned down to almost nothing.
Its flame flickered precariously, casting a weak, wavering light around her.
With each tremor of the flame, the shadows of stalactites hanging from the ceiling danced and swayed.
They looked like the sharp, curved claws of a demon reaching down toward her.
‘Ugh…’
Spooked by the sensation of something lurking at her back, she scuttled backward on her haunches.
Then, in the next moment, something cold and hard touched her spine.
“Oh, God!”
Startled, Mabel jolted upright with a loud bounce and spun around.
In the darkness beyond the candle’s reach, something was there.
‘What is that…?’
Her eyes, now accustomed to the gloom, squinted as she made out what looked like a small iron cage.
She’d seen one like it once at a market held in the Inner Castle.
‘I think they used to keep chickens in it…’
What was it doing here?
Mabel reached out her bound hands and touched the cage.
“The door’s open?”
So there was nothing inside, then?
Without thinking, Mabel extended her hand into the cage.
“SCREEEEE!”
“Eek!”
A furious animal’s roar tore through the darkness, and claws raked across her hand.
The sharp, burning pain was far worse than the scrapes on her cheek.
Mabel yanked her hand back in panic.
Blood streamed freely from the deep gouges in the back of her hand.
She’d never inflicted wounds on herself this severe.
“Wh-wh…”
Beyond the pain itself, shock sent tears spilling down her face.
“Ow, owww… God, couldn’t you have said something?! Let out a growl or two? It hurts, it hurts!”
Mabel scolded the creature huddled in the cage, tears streaming down her cheeks.
It had been so quiet she’d assumed nothing was there.
It could have hissed, growled, anything to warn her!
Mabel kept her eyes shut tight for a long moment, her heart still racing from the shock.
At least the creature’s claws had cut through the rope—that was something.
“Ow, it aches…”
Mabel shook the severed rope away and inspected the damage.
Blood was already welling up along the scratches and beginning to drip.
She was about to tear a strip from her dress to staunch the bleeding when—
Clang, clang…
“SCREEEEE…!”
From within the small iron cage came the sound of iron chains clattering against each other, and a creature whimpered.
At a cry so anguished that it pained even the listener, Mabel’s eyes flew wide open.
Forgetting to tend to her own wounds, Mabel peered into the cage again.
“Hisssss!”
Then she saw it—a kitten.
Though its gray fur was matted and filthy, the tiny creature’s eyes were a brilliant sky blue, and it was hissing with all the force it could muster.
This little beast appeared to be the culprit that had scratched the back of her hand.
Yet rather than scold the small thing, Mabel examined the kitten’s legs.
Clink, clink!
The clamorous sound that had been ringing out all this while came from an iron chain wound around the kitten’s hind leg.
Even though the cage door hung open, the chain kept the creature from escaping.
But looking more closely, the angle of the leg bound by the chain seemed wrong.
“You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
Mabel cried out, her eyelashes glistening with tears.
Was the leg broken by the chain?
Around the injury, fur was matted with blood and dust, and the same clung to the tips of its front paws.
It was clear the kitten had injured itself struggling desperately to slip free of the chain.
“Just wait a moment. I think I can help with that.”
Mabel had forgotten entirely that this creature had wounded her; now she thought only of helping it.
Scanning the floor, she quickly found the perfect stone.
Fortunately, the chain binding the kitten was very thin.
While the cat itself might not be able to break free, a child certainly could.
“There now, be good. Just stay right there…….”
Mabel slowly eased her hand into the cage so as not to startle the kitten.
“Hisssss!”
The kitten’s fur bristled up as it shrank into the corner of the cage, hissing fiercely.
“Look, look—it’s all right. This isn’t for you. See here, right here, like this…….”
Mabel tapped the chain with the stone.
Clink, clink!
But the cave amplified even the small sound into something loud and echoing.
Startled, the kitten’s tail fluffed out like a puff of smoke as it launched itself at Mabel.
“Yowwwl!”
“Ah!”
The kitten raked its claws across her hand once more.
“Ow, ow…… I was trying to help you, you know……!”
Tears pricked her eyes as the wound stung deeper than before, and a wave of heat swept across her skin.
But Mabel did not pull her hand back; she struck the chain again.
After only a few strikes, the chain showed signs of breaking.
Just a bit more, just a bit more and—
Clink, clang!
“Grrrowwwl…… Hisssss!”
The kitten, unable to bear it any longer, charged to bite her hand.
Snap!
The chain broke.
In the same instant, Mabel yanked her hand back, and the lunging kitten tumbled out of the cage.
“Phew!”
It had been a near thing.
She had very nearly been bitten by the kitten, whose fangs looked especially sharp.
Mabel quickly shuffled backward on her haunches, moving away from the cage.
Meanwhile, the kitten stood frozen, as if glued to the spot, bewildered.
“……? ……?!”
No matter what it tried, it could not return inside the cage.
The humans who had imprisoned it here seemed to mock this very thing, leaving the cage door deliberately ajar.
Ever since the kitten had twisted its leg attempting to force its way out, it had not even tried.
And yet now the kitten stood upright outside the cage.
It turned its head sharply, fixing its gaze upon the girl some distance away from it.
In the hand of the girl it had scratched, a stone still rested.
That very stone—the one that had always been thrown at it, hurting it—had just freed it from its chain.
She had done this.
This girl was different from the other humans.
“……Mew.”
A small cat limped toward Mabel, favoring one of its legs.
“Huh?”
Mabel flinched, her wound hastily wrapped with torn strips of her dress.
“Wait, I just helped you—are you trying to attack me?!”
She’d never seen such an ungrateful creature.
No wonder people said you shouldn’t take in dark-haired beasts.
Though this one did happen to have gray fur.
Betrayal flooded across Mabel’s face as she stared at the cat.
Its front paws still had claws extended, sharp and ready.
‘I’m going to get scratched again……!’
Mabel shielded her face and squeezed her eyes shut.
But no pain came, no matter how long she waited.
Instead, sensation returned to her feet—the numbness receding, blood beginning to flow again through deadened limbs.
“Ah……?”
She peeked cautiously between her fingers and saw the rope binding her ankles had come undone.
“Mew~”
The cat sat demurely at her feet, mewing softly.
It seemed the cat understood that Mabel had helped it, not harmed it.
Still crouched warily, Mabel simply watched as the cat edged closer.
The cat extended one hind leg, the one still shackled by an iron chain, toward Mabel’s hand—the one still holding the stone.
As if asking her to finish breaking the chain.

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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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