I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 90

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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 90
Aselt was carried to a room after fainting, and Mabel and Kellic, who had been fretting anxiously, sought out Zigmund.
“Hmm? You said you’d handle it yourselves?”
Zigmund, who had begun his duties late, looked more exhausted than usual.
Seeing him like this, Mabel recalled that she’d overslept and hadn’t been able to join him for breakfast.
‘The master must be absolutely exhausted……!’
Indeed, because the guardianship proceedings had just concluded, Zigmund’s office was in complete disarray.
There were letters asking to confirm whether he’d truly become Mabel’s guardian together with the Empress, and complaints from retainers about what would happen if he carelessly held the Empress’s hand.
Of course, to the children’s eyes, it was all just scraps of paper.
“Right! That’s what I was trying to do!”
As Mabel scanned the office, Kellic explained everything that had just transpired.
“So that’s why the maids were making such a fuss.”
Dain, likewise buried under piles of documents, lifted his head like a zombie.
Mabel, who hadn’t even known Dain was there, jumped slightly from her seat in surprise.
“Your beard is……?!”
Unlike Zigmund, Dain’s jaw was quite unkempt.
Dain hurriedly wrapped his hands around his chin and hid it.
“Ah, this is all because of my Aura. The master has an Aura, so he looks younger than his years and doesn’t grow much beard, but I don’t, you see.”
Though Mabel hadn’t said anything, Dain grumbled defensively.
He seemed embarrassed to be showing such a haggard appearance.
Wrapping his face with a muffler-like scarf lying nearby, Dain spoke.
“Still, it’s quite remarkable. Young Master Aselt fainting like that.”
“Actually, I nearly fainted too. I’m being honest—I still feel a bit off. It’s only because I’m duller than him that I didn’t…….”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. If Ella hadn’t used Dol Dol to clean Mabel’s clothes…….”
Kellic shuddered as if he didn’t want to imagine it.
Ah, Dol Dol was a lint roller that Mabel had invented just days before.
She’d overheard the maids’ gossip—or rather, their not-quite-gossip—that white lion fur was getting on their clothes and making them unwearable.
As Mabel pondered the problem, Dol Dol came to mind.
She’d coated scrap paper no longer in use with natural rubber as a makeshift solution, and it worked surprisingly well.
Of course, without terpene resin—the main component of cellophane tape—its performance was somewhat lacking.
With further development and refinement in the future, it would become a product worthy of the prototype.
In any case, thanks to Dol Dol, Kellic was able to stand beside Mabel now.
“So? What exactly would you like me to help with?”
Zigmund asked, raking his tangled hair back carelessly.
The poor relationship between his disciples and Winter was one of Zigmund’s chief worries.
He’d opposed it himself because of his cat allergies, but he didn’t understand why the children disliked Winter.
But apparently, the children had actually been afraid of Winter.
This was a new development.
“Well, there is something.”
Kellic, who had been explaining well until now, hesitated a little.
When Zigmund gestured for him to speak, Kellic laughed awkwardly.
“I’m not entirely sure either!”
“……What?”
“No, well, I and my brother don’t really understand why Winter is so frightening either.”
Conscious of Mabel standing beside him, Kellic spoke haltingly.
“I mean, somehow…… how do I put it? Like you want to run away, or you can’t even meet their eyes, or you just want to avoid them as much as possible…….”
In any case, it wasn’t that Winter was terribly disliked, Kellic added.
Mabel gave Kellic, who was watching her face, an understanding nod.
Reassured by this, Kellic explained his position again.
“You know, I just freeze up. How do I freeze? Um…… Ah! That’s right, Aselt said it. ‘Overwhelming,’ he called it.”
“Overwhelming?”
“Yes, and there’s this feeling of reverence? Respect? He said that’s what it is.”
“……Awe.”
“Right, yes! That’s exactly it!”
Hearing Zigmund’s murmur, Kellic clapped his hands and nodded enthusiastically.
As expected, his master knew everything, Kellic reflected, his eyes gleaming with admiration.
Meanwhile, Zigmund felt as though something were hovering just at the edge of understanding.
‘So for Aselt and Kellic, Winter, believed to be a white lion Beastman, is overwhelming and inspires Awe.’
Where have I read of this before.
Ever since meeting Winter, Zigmund had been conducting an exhaustive search into white lion Beastmen and the light of healing.
What Mabel had called an “incredibly bright blue light” kept gnawing at him.
Moreover, if Winter truly possessed a healing power that had gone undiscovered until now, this would be a discovery of the century.
Reading book after book voraciously in this manner, he’d traced the lineage back to the ancestor of the white lion—a Fantastical Beast itself.
And there it was, in a text that observed and described Fantastical Beasts from close quarters.
‘Fantastical Beasts are fragments of the divine, beyond mankind’s ability to categorize. Beastmen, who dwell close to nature and command magic deftly, know this and thus revere them with awe. For Beastmen, Fantastical Beasts are overwhelming sovereigns, dominators, and the closest thing to godhood itself…….’
The passage struck Zigmund suddenly, and his body went rigid.
‘……Surely not? Yet the Empress seemed perfectly at ease.’
Wait—now that he thought about it, there had been more written after that part.
But he couldn’t seem to recall what it was.
“Where did I put that book?”
Zigmund rose from his chair and swept aside his document-buried desk with one broad motion, sending papers cascading to the floor.
“Huh? Master?”
“Father?”
The children’s eyes widened at the avalanche of files tumbling across the ground.
But Zigmund, already lost in his own world, simply muttered to himself.
“Why is Master acting like that?”
Kellic flinched as though watching a madman.
Mabel, however, quieted him with a small shake of her head.
“He’s fixed on something. It happens sometimes.”
For Mabel, who had conducted research alongside Zigmund, this was a familiar sight.
And she knew that no amount of calling out to him would help in such a state.
“Dear me, he’s completely absorbed. We won’t be able to discuss anything with the Duke today.”
Dain, too, knew this well enough to click his tongue in resignation.
In the end, the children who had come seeking his counsel had no choice but to return to the activity room empty-handed.
After they left and Dain began gathering the scattered documents from the study floor, he asked, “Your Grace, what exactly are you searching for so desperately?”
“A book. One I wrote notes about Fantastical Beasts in. You know the one—written by the Holy Empire’s prophet.”
“Ah~”
Dain recalled the book Zigmund had been absorbed in not long after adopting Winter, and feigned knowledge.
“If it’s that one, I believe young master Aselt borrowed it not long ago.”
* * *
At that very moment, Aselt, who had fainted, opened his eyes in his bedchamber.
‘Good heavens…… I really did pass out.’
To be honest, Aselt feared Winter far more than Kellic did.
He didn’t quite know why.
But his best guess was that as a Legendary Species, Aselt was more sensitive to auras than Kellic, who was merely a Beast Species.
‘Auras…….’
Yes, from Winter emanated a wild, untouchable aura—an overwhelming presence that left him breathless.
What was peculiar was that this aura bore no will whatsoever.
Neither benevolence nor malice—it simply existed.
Yet that mere existence of aura alone left Aselt trembling.
“It’s a ridiculous thought, but perhaps…….”
Muttering, Aselt turned his head toward the desk.
There lay a single book, borrowed from Zigmund’s study.
[Fantastical Beasts, Their Beautiful and Eerie Masters.]
It was written by a prophet from the Holy Empire’s past who had once been a Fantastical Beast’s companion.
The book stated that Fantastical Beasts were overwhelming sovereigns and the closest thing to godhood for Beastmen.
But even rulers who lorded over all Beastmen had their exceptions.
Those were one’s direct bloodline.
Though auras conflicted between Fantastical Beasts of the same kind, they did not clash between parent and child.
Was it for survival’s sake, or love’s?
Before one’s own kin, the overwhelming aura of a Fantastical Beast became powerless.
One instinctively suppressed one’s aura in the presence of family.
‘To suppress one’s aura…….’
Lost in thought as he gazed at the closed book’s cover, he heard voices approaching.
“Your brother probably hasn’t woken yet, has he?”
“Maybe not. But still… shouldn’t I stay away?”
“Come on, if Dol Dol did it, surely it’s fine?”
It was Kellic and Mabel drawing near.

Aselt quickly flipped open the book and tore out the section he needed.
Then he pocketed only the torn pages and hurled the book beneath the bed, hiding it away.
‘If—just supposing—Winter were a Fantastical Beast, Mabel could be in danger.’
To prevent that, it would be better if he alone harbored the suspicion that Winter might be a Fantastical Beast.
Yet he needed to determine whether Winter truly was a Fantastical Beast or not.
‘Whether my plan unfolds as I intend remains to be seen…….’
Aselt turned to greet Kellic and Mabel with a smile as they knocked and entered.
In his grip lay the page describing how Fantastical Beasts concealed their Aura.

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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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