I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 98

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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 98
I learned that I was a Mythical Beast only recently.
Precisely when Mabel was abducted into the Cave.
Even then, Winter seemed to walk alone through darkness.
Whether looking forward or back, there was nothing but darkness all around.
I couldn’t even tell if I was walking the right path.
Or perhaps there was no such thing as a right path to begin with.
If there was, where was I going?
Where should I be going?
Those were days when I had no reason at all—only following animal instinct, moment by moment.
In that place where darkness remained the same whether my eyes were open or closed, a White Hand suddenly emerged.
A door…… it’s open?
Startled beyond measure, Winter swung a front paw.
Trembling seized my entire body at the sight of something I’d never seen before.
But looking back now, that wasn’t fear at all.
It was the opposite.
Why did you take so long? It’s been forever……!
Winter, overcome with joy, seemed to sulk at this being encountered for the first time.
Aow……this is to help you……!
Even as I raked with my claws, causing pain, the White Hand continued to approach Winter.
Each time blood beaded and a metallic scent spread, Winter’s chest ached with a strange longing.
Not understanding why the chest hurt so, I only continued to growl and snap.
Unaware that this was guilt for wounding the White Hand.
In the moment when that bond—which had constrained Winter for a lifetime—shattered with a crack.
Winter’s legs stepped onto ground outside of the cage.
That was also when the vision, which had only ever shown a White Hand, opened to brilliant white.
A girl appeared—the same girl who had always wounded me with stones, now saving me.
She was different from the other humans.
And the moment her eyes properly met mine.
Reason crystallized in Winter’s pale blue eyes, and intelligence bloomed within that small head.
It was an awakening.
* * *
Mabel, who had been relaying Winter’s story, fell silent.
And with that, stillness descended upon Zigmund’s office.
“Mabel? What’s wrong? Does your head hurt?”
“Hmm?”
Both Zigmund and Winter turned to look at Mabel.
“Oh, no! It’s nothing, it doesn’t hurt.”
Mabel hurriedly waved her hand and read again the letters that floated above Winter’s head.
“It said that she naturally came to understand then—that she was a Beastman, a Mythical Beast. She could simply know it instinctively.”
As Mabel spoke, her voice carried an uncertain edge.
As though she couldn’t quite believe the story she was reading was real.
And truly, there was reason for that doubt.
It was said that Mythical Beasts vanished from the empire at the same time magic disappeared.
After all, wasn’t Winter’s kind—the white lion—itself a degenerate form of the Beneficial Lion, which was indeed a Mythical Beast?
Yet here, standing before them, was that same Mythical Beast thought long vanished.
[But. Not. Need.]
[Family. Abandoned. Me.]
Winter continued to speak.
[Hate. Mythical Beast.]
[Not. Care. Species.]
[So. Mabel. Same. Me.]
[Winter is Winter.]
Having finished speaking, Winter approached Mabel and placed a front paw on her thigh, meeting her eyes.
[Winter is Winter.]
[Not. Matter. Mythical Beast.]
[Never.]
It seemed to say that nothing would change from this point forward.
Squeak, squeak……
As Winter whimpered, Zigmund opened his mouth.
“Mabel, what is Winter trying to say?”
Before he collapsed, Zigmund could make out Winter’s words, but now he couldn’t.
At Zigmund’s question, Mabel’s lips trembled as she struggled to find an answer.
After a moment of her lower lip quivering, Mabel lifted her gaze to meet Zigmund’s.
“…It doesn’t matter, Winter says.”
“Hm?”
“That Winter is just Winter, and being a Mythical Beast doesn’t matter…”
Once the words began to flow, they poured out like a dam breaking.
“So it really shouldn’t matter, should it? If Winter just stays as is now, no one will ever know Winter is a Mythical Beast, so—so!”
Mabel pulled Winter close and bit down on her lower lip hard.
Winter was a Mythical Beast.
A Mythical Beast everyone had believed extinct had appeared again.
This was certainly a discovery that would reshape history.
But Mabel couldn’t bring herself to feel joy.
If Winter wasn’t an ordinary Beastman or animal, that meant…
“Can’t we just stay together like this? Can’t we just live together?”
The thought that she might have to part from Winter.
Mabel finally recognized the dark emotion that had been churning inside her.
Winter, suddenly pulled into Mabel’s embrace, lifted her head.
“I can’t be separated from Winter…”
Mabel pleaded to Zigmund.
Her face was filled with nothing but desperate longing, leaving no room even for tears.
And yet…
Zigmund found himself bewildered by the sight of her.
“I never said anything about not keeping Winter, though?”
“…What?”
The truth was, Zigmund hadn’t the slightest intention of spreading word of today’s events anywhere.
“Why would you think I’m sending Winter away somewhere?”
Zigmund asked, sounding more flustered than anything.
He’d somehow become the villain trying to tear Mabel and Winter apart.
“W-well, it’s just that… you love Alchemy so much, and you value invention and discovery so much… and m-most of all, discovering a Mythical Beast is a feat that will echo through history!”
Mabel offered what sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Of course, what Mabel said was true.
If the world learned that a Mythical Beast thought extinct had been found, everything would be turned upside down.
“But that’s not more important than Winter’s life.”
Zigmund was an alchemist who made an effort to prioritize the ethics of life before research.
“Besides, it’s far too dangerous right now. The Empress is leading the charge in the persecution of Beastmen.”
If word got out that Winter was a Mythical Beast, Francesca would certainly find every conceivable excuse to seize Winter.
To subdue and use for propaganda the Mythical Beast that once earned fame as a god-like being among Beastmen.
“Why would I push Winter into such danger when I understand all this?”
Zigmund’s expression darkened as he furrowed his brow sharply.
“Did you really see me as such a terrible person, Mabel?”
“W-what? Huh? Oh, n-no!”
Mabel sprang up from where she sat.
She had only now realized what an enormous misunderstanding she’d made.
And how terribly rude she’d been to Zigmund.
Her face, which had flushed crimson with shame, drained to ashen white.
“I-I’m so sorry. I just… I was only thinking that Winter and I would be separated, and that thought was overwhelming me… I absolutely didn’t mean to think of you as someone who would abuse an animal!”
Animal abuser.
At Mabel’s phrasing, Zigmund felt a deeper wound open in his chest.
Somehow, his heart ached more than his bitten forearm or the wrist he’d broken himself.
“Ahem… At any rate, I have no intention of forcibly separating you two—”
Zigmund tried to say he’d never had such thoughts, but the words caught.
Wait.
Something suddenly flashed through his mind.
If Winter really was a Mythical Beast, then that light which healed both Winter and Mabel’s wounds—could it be…?
“Winter!”
Mid-sentence, Zigmund—who had been staring blankly into empty space—suddenly called out to Winter urgently.
Winter, who had been looking only at Mabel, turned to gaze at Zigmund.
“You… you… or rather… no, that’s not it…?”
Zigmund’s mouth twisted awkwardly as he asked the question.
The Imprinting Mark of Servitude… you didn’t use it… did you?
Had he caught something unspoken in the flickering uncertainty of Zigmund’s eyes?
Winter’s wide-open eyes suddenly narrowed to slits.
As if breaking into a sly grin.
Snap.
Something snapped audibly at the back of Zigmund’s head.
In the same instant, Zigmund lunged at Winter with a roar.
“You mad beast!”
“W-what?! Master?!”
“How dare you imprint the Mark of Servitude on my daughter without permission?!”
What?
Your daughter?
Mabel’s head snapped toward Zigmund in shock.
But Zigmund seemed to have lost all reason, his sanity shattered.
He ripped Winter from Mabel’s arms and seized the creature by the scruff, shaking violently—shake, shake, shake—sending fur flying everywhere.
“Cancel it. Now. Cancel it right now, this instant!”
“Yin-yin-yiiing, yowww.”
Winter’s head swung stubbornly side to side even as fur came loose in clouds.
That stubborn refusal only sent Zigmund’s fury to new heights.
“I absolutely will not allow this. Do you hear me? This ends today. Call Dain—we’re alerting the Hermetic State right now!”
“W-what?! But you just said you wouldn’t separate us!”
Mabel, seized by panic, bounced frantically in an attempt to wrestle Winter back, but it was hopeless.
Zigmund kneaded Winter like dough, his voice thundering.
“I will never—never—approve this marriage!”

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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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