I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 8

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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 8
There was a reason Dain had chosen to present the Horn Spirit Summoning Formula before Mabel, of all people.
Until now, only Siegmund had ever unpacked the Horn Spirit Summoning Formula to this degree.
In other words, if even a portion of this method of explication became known outside, it meant the knowledge had leaked from the Ducal House.
And if the culprit turned out to be a child as young as Mabel, pinpointing the source would be all the easier.
‘A chance to sweep away Achelonia in one stroke.’
Dain swallowed hard, his legs trembling as he approached Mabel.
“Ah, I’ve filled in the rest too. Oh? You’re here early?”
Mabel had just finished writing all the characters and was wiping sweat from her brow.
Her thin arms already felt tingly from writing just a few lines.
“I, well, the work wrapped up faster than expected. But more than that—”
Stammering out an excuse, Dain quickly snatched the paper from Mabel’s hands.
“Huh… Gasp…!”
As Dain examined the irregularly scrawled answers, he suddenly drew a sharp breath.
He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, tapped his head, rubbed his eyes hard again, tried his glasses upside down, and tried every conceivable thing—but the content remained unchanged.
Mabel was beginning to look at him as if he’d lost his mind.
Slide, thump.
Like a tragic heroine, Dain collapsed sideways, looking up at Mabel with tears streaming down his face.
“Oh, God…!”
His face bore more sincerity than it ever had before.
* * *
Mabel’s answers in the blanks were flawless.
There were places where she’d deliberately written incorrectly, just in case there was ever a leak!
She’d drawn two lines through those sections and corrected them using a method no one had anticipated.
A child who understood neither the basic concepts nor elementary theory—looking at only the summoning formula and grasping its meaning, filling in the blanks correctly, and even providing supplementary exposition!
This was something no prodigy, no matter how exceptional, no genius could accomplish.
Unless touched by the divine itself! Oh, merciful God!
Dain fell to his knees before Mabel, clasping his hands together.
God of Alchemy, I have always believed that you watched over the Eschlid Ducal House with divine favor!
Overcome with emotion, Dain wept as he prayed fervently.
Then he implored her to wait here, just a little while, and took off at a sprint in some direction.
That was all that had happened a moment ago.
“What in the world…?”
It felt like a whirlwind had just torn through.
Why did he suddenly come looking for the god of Alchemy right in front of me?
Mabel realized that when something bewilders a person enough, their legs lose their strength.
A strange unease gripped her, and she suddenly sat up straight.
She seemed to have passed Dain’s test, but she hadn’t expected such a reaction.
‘Something’s wrong.’
Sweat trickled down her spine.
Should she erase what she’d written now? Yes, that seemed like the right thing to do.
“What are you erasing?”
“Eek!”
A voice suddenly came from behind Mabel just as she was hastily scribbling over the characters in black.
Startled, Mabel yelped and spun around to find Siegmund standing there, his hair disheveled.
Goodness, you gave me a fright.
When did he even arrive?
She was clutching her racing heart when Dain’s voice echoed from far above.
“Your Highness! No matter how urgent, jumping from the fourth floor…!”
What? The fourth floor?!
Looking up, Mabel saw Dain leaning out the window, waving his hands.
It really was the fourth floor.
“You jumped from up there?”
“Ah, yes. Don’t worry about it. So Mabel, you solved the Horn Spirit Summoning Formula?”
How am I not supposed to worry?
Most people would break something jumping from the fourth floor… but then again, he’s not most people.
An unparalleled genius, the highest authority in alchemy—titles that suggested someone who should spend all their time at a desk—but Siegmund was actually skilled in swordplay too.
He’d become the youngest Grand Master at the age of thirteen, wielding aura.
Even so, Mabel’s heart wouldn’t settle, and she hesitated, clutching at her chest.
“I, um, the Horn Spirit? Summoning Formula? I’m not really sure about that. I just… here, I did this…”
Mabel held out the paper she’d been carrying, and Siegmund snatched it up at once to examine it.
“Huff, huff. Look, see, huff, it’s impossibly adorable, huff, the palm so soft and warm, huff, I knew from that moment, huff, I did.”
Dain came running up and was now panting heavily behind Siegmund.
It would have been nice if he’d caught his breath before speaking, but Dain showed no sign of doing so.
“The god of Alchemy, huff, has sent the Saint to us, huff!”
Though Dain was making a fuss beside him, Siegmund stared at the paper with tremendous concentration.
Soon enough, he snapped his gaze toward Mabel.
His crimson eyes gleamed like those of a predator eyeing its prey.
“Hic…….”
So piercing was that look that Mabel found herself swallowing hard without thinking.
“You really solved this yourself, Mabel?”
“Y-yes…… I, I did.”
“Is that so……?”
Had she done something she shouldn’t have after all?
Mabel’s heart clenched, and it began to pound rapidly.
“Mabel, the reason you wanted to go to the Orphanage was because you shouldn’t stay in that house, isn’t it?”
After staring at the paper for a long while, Siegmund asked the question in a tone far colder than she’d ever heard from him.
At this newly reserved manner of speaking, something she’d never heard from Siegmund before, Mabel could do nothing but nod stiffly, her voice caught in her throat.
“Then if there were a place that needed you, you wouldn’t have to go to the Orphanage, would you?”
To Mabel, who’d been turning her head anxiously in tension, Siegmund spoke with a voice that had grown somewhat softer.
“I think I might be able to introduce you to somewhere far better.”
“Really?! Such a place exists?! That’s wonderful!”
At the delightful words, Mabel’s eyes grew wide.
“That so?”
For a moment, it seemed as though Siegmund swallowed hard, though she was probably mistaken.
Siegmund pressed the toe of his boot firmly against the ground of the courtyard as he spoke.
“Here.”
“……What?”
“A place better than the Orphanage and that needs you—here. Eschlid Ducal Castle.”
His face had taken on a flushed appearance.
And Mabel knew that expression.
“Research with me.”
It was the expression of her professor when serving red bean tea.
“Please.”
The gleam in Siegmund’s eyes was not that of a predator.
It was the frenzied gaze of a professor who’d just discovered a prospective graduate student!
“Research……? Me?”
Mabel asked back, her eyes wavering.
It was clear she was holding back the words ‘But I’m only eight years old.’
Yet Siegmund was far too excited to notice.
And had he noticed, he likely would have dismissed it outright.
“Yes, until your dying breath!”
Until her dying breath? To such an extent?
“You have talent. If we combine our strength, we can surely make even greater discoveries!”
Siegmund was currently in such a state of excitement that his eyes had lost sight of everything else.
With both fists clenched, he looked ready to cry “Eureka!” at any moment.
And Dain, standing beside such a Siegmund, was now streaming with tears of emotion.
“The god of Alchemy has sent us the Saint, so creating the Philosopher’s Stone may no longer be merely a dream!”
“We’ll need to verify it, but if you’ve truly succeeded in deciphering the Horn Spirit Summoning Formula, we’ll be able to mass-produce Horn Spirits from now on.”
“Then we can distribute fertilizer far more widely, and crop yields will increase dramatically!”
Dain blew his nose vigorously into his handkerchief as he added his own agreement.
Oh, this wouldn’t do.
It looked as though she was about to become a slave—no, a graduate student—without any say in the matter.
What on earth was the Horn Spirit that it warranted all this fuss?
‘What I solved was the synthesis of ammonia…… ammonia? Wait, that’s it!’
Sophia’s fortune-making discovery!
It occurred near the end of her story.
Sophia had discovered by chance how to obtain ammonia using iron as a catalyst.
And by announcing this fact to the academic community, she’d earned a vast fortune.
‘It was a scene meant to showcase the protagonist’s abilities…… but.’
The problem was that she had stolen Siegmund’s research.
Siegmund revealed this fact, but Sophia was the heroine of this world.
Instead, when it came to light that Siegmund and Sophia had often stayed up through the night because of their research, he was blamed for taking credit for work that was entirely Sophia’s.
As a result, Caesar came to believe in Sophia, thinking, “So Mabel really is my true daughter after all!” And Siegmund lost not only his title as the highest authority in the field of Alchemy, but also the trust of the family as its head.
Thus began the sorrowful exit of the secondary male lead.
Then a strange piece of information surfaced in Mabel’s mind.
Namely, that Alchemy was the foundation of chemistry, and that the Horn Spirit was simply the Alchemical name for ammonia.
“Remarkable, Mabel. You’ve just saved countless farmers.”
“Truly, you are worthy of being a saint sent by the Goddess of Alchemy!”
Mabel squeezed her eyes shut against the excited voices of the adults around her, sounding like overjoyed five-year-olds.
‘It’s all over.’
She was about to be kidnapped and imprisoned by the secondary male lead for real!

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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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