The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 1

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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 1
Tiel was a hybrid.
A hybrid born between the Setpyo Clan and the Heukpyo Clan, the two most noble of the Leopard Clan.
Unlike Rowen, who was born with silver fur—the symbol of nobility—or the other branch families, Tiel’s fur was matted and faded to a dull white.
“This worthless thing!”
This was the phrase Tiel heard most since birth.
Tiel was a “hybrid” who could not use a Supernatural Ability.
The Setpyo of the House, Nestian.
The Setpyo of the Nestian house had been born generation after generation with the Ice Freezing Ability.
Rena, Tiel’s mother, was likewise a powerful wielder of the Ice Freezing Ability.
She was meant to inherit the position of Family Head of House Nestian from Chender, Tiel’s grandfather and the current Family Head.
……If only Tiel had never been born.
Rena fell in love with Cassius, the Family Head of the rival Asterian House.
She defied the house’s objections and bore Cassius’s child, losing her life in the process.
And so Tiel came into the world.
In a single moment, Chender lost both his strongest heir and his most beloved daughter.
All because of Tiel, that hybrid!
How wonderful it would have been if a child with a strong Supernatural Ability had been born.
Contrary to Chender’s hopes that the ability might yet manifest, even by the time Tiel turned seven, no Supernatural Ability had awakened.
Considering that ordinary children manifested their abilities within a year of birth, it was safe to assume Tiel never would.
So Chender abandoned Tiel in the attic.
Without the occasional visits of the servants, Tiel surely would have died.
Chender abused the child brutally, and everyone in House Nestian turned a blind eye.
Yet somehow, the child survived.
But Chender never ceased his cruelty toward Tiel. The fact that Tiel bore golden eyes—the mark of the Heukpyo—was itself another reason for his abuse.
That day was no different.
“You know what you did wrong, don’t you? You stupid thing!”
Chender shouted. Tiel flinched and crawled backward on bended knees, trembling.
The small child huddled in fear, head bobbing in a desperate nod.
Tiel’s only crime was stealing a single piece of hard bread out of hunger.
The bread the child had taken was hard and black—so stale that it couldn’t be bitten without softening it in broth first.
It was something someone had discarded, which Tiel had found and eaten.
To survive.
But even that was denied to Tiel, and when Chender discovered the theft, he drove the child into a corner.
Old scars marked every patch of skin where the threadbare clothes had torn apart.
They were the traces of sharp ice shards. Yet the child gave no sign of pain, only pressing their lips together in silence.
At Chender’s feet lay the black bread Tiel had been chewing moments before.
Gulp.
Tiel’s eyes followed the bread and swallowed hard.
The child’s throat bobbed visibly.
The stomach growled ceaselessly, and from prolonged starvation, the insides burned.
Tiel could no longer remember when they last had a proper meal.
As Tiel’s gaze lingered on the bread, Chender’s fury erupted again.
“Still no sense knocked into you!”
At the sound of Chender’s rage, Tiel’s head snapped down. The child trembled violently as they crawled toward the corner.
“I’m sorry…….”
To Chender, Tiel was nothing more than a troublesome hybrid. Nothing less, nothing more.
He regarded his granddaughter with cold indifference for a moment, then seized her and dragged her roughly to the balcony adjoining his office.
Outside, a blizzard raged. Tiel was cast out wearing nothing but a tattered old nightgown and no shoes.
“You are a stain on House Nestian.”
Tiel’s breath caught at the glacial look in Chender’s eyes.
The small child fell to their knees and prostrated themselves, begging forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Grandfather, please…….”
It’s so cold here.
Please, I beg you, forgive me.
The words Tiel could not bring themselves to speak aloud scattered across lips, dry as kindling.
Tiel pounded desperately at the locked door. But the door would not budge.
The small hands swelled crimson from the cold, and snow continued to pile upon the child’s body.
Yet Chender turned away entirely from his granddaughter.
Tiel was left alone in the brutal cold, able only to shiver and shake.
More painful than the swollen, reddened feet was Chender’s gaze, sharp and relentless.
But the deepest pain of all came when——
The office door swung open.
Cornelia Nestian, Tiel’s aunt and the current heir to House Nestian, strode in.
She had lustrous silver hair and bright blue eyes—so different from Tiel’s faded features, a beautiful woman.
“A-Aunt…….”
Tiel called out in a trembling voice. But Cornelia made no move to restrain Chender; instead, she snapped sharply.
“Be quiet! Who is your aunt?”
Tiel shrank back, shoulders shaking. Cornelia hated the child even more than Chender did, if that were possible. Tiel knew this well.
Yet despite it all, Tiel had called out, clinging to a thread of hope—that perhaps Cornelia would pull them from this balcony.
Cornelia wrinkled her nose at the pitiful sight of Tiel, who looked like a mangy stray, and clicked her tongue.
“Please, stop this. You promised Rowen you’d go out today to have her dress fitted, didn’t you? The child’s so excited. Are you really going to stay here? Last time you promised to go out, but you didn’t because of this hybrid.”
Rowen was Cornelia’s daughter and Chender’s granddaughter. And……, Tiel’s cousin.
Though she was treated entirely differently in this Nestian manor.
“Enough. I remember, so you drop it too, Cornelia.”
Chender regarded Tiel once more with an irritated gaze. Tiel could only gape soundlessly.
“Tell Rowen we’re leaving now……, Rowen!”
Just then, a small girl who bore a striking resemblance to both Chender and Cornelia glided through the half-open door.
She had the same lustrous silver hair and, unlike Tiel, the same bright blue eyes.
The blue eyes—the mark of the Setpyo.
“Mother! Grandfather!”
The girl came bounding toward them. Chender’s attention left Tiel entirely as he scooped Rowen into his arms.
“Rowen! I was just about to come find you.”
“Grandfather was taking so long, so I came to fetch you myself. Come on, let’s go, Grandfather!”
Rowen laughed merrily and tugged at Chender’s hand. Cornelia watched the scene with an air of affectionate helplessness.
And Tiel watched silently.
Tiel was utterly foreign to this place.
Between Chender, Cornelia, Rowen, and Tiel lay an invisible wall.
A great, unbreakable barrier that nothing could shatter, nothing could cross.
Chender, cradling Rowen, looked happy like any grandfather.
Tiel had never once in their life received such a look.
Because everyone despised Tiel.
‘If Mother were alive…….’
Would things have been different then?
Plink.
A tear traced down the child’s cheek. Once started, the tears would not stop.
Tiel placed a palm against the glass and wept endlessly.
The two of them left the office without so much as a glance toward Tiel.
Now only Cornelia remained in Chender’s office. She walked quietly to the balcony’s edge and looked down.
Perhaps hoping that Cornelia might release them from this place, Tiel called out with a quavering voice.
“A-Aunt. Or…… Cornelia.”
“Tsk, how distasteful. The spitting image of your mother…….”
“Please, it’s so cold here, so very cold, Cornelia……!”
“Hmph! You’re a hybrid with Heukpyo blood—have you forgotten what you are? You’re Setpyo. What’s a little cold to you? Honestly…….”
Cornelia regarded Tiel with contempt before leaving the office.
The child was left alone on the balcony.
‘So cold…….’
Tiel hugged themselves with skeletal arms, trembling violently.
As a hybrid of Setpyo and Heukpyo, Tiel lacked the thick fur-coat the other Setpyo possessed.
The piercing cold seemed ready to swallow Tiel whole at any moment.
Tiel pounded at the window repeatedly, but no one came.
To make matters worse, the balcony was three stories high, making it impossible to jump.
The child stared blankly into the office.
The candlelight from the candelabra burned faintly, as though it might go out at any moment.
How much time had passed?
Snow had accumulated gently on Tiel’s head. Sensation had long since fled from hands and feet.
‘You will never be loved anywhere.’
‘Useless thing.’
‘You killed your own mother by being born!’
‘Why did something like you ever come into the world…… tsk, tsk.’
Chender’s words echoed in Tiel’s ears like a ringing bell.
The child’s eyes closed slowly as consciousness dimmed.
Vision blurred.
‘……I just wanted to be loved too.’
There had been hope once.
That someday Chender would come to love Tiel as he loved Rowen, as he loved the other children.
That Cornelia would one day acknowledge them as……, as a niece…….
No matter what anyone said, Tiel was Nestian blood. A hybrid, yes, but half-Setpyo for certain.
But now Tiel understood how utterly hollow that dream had been.
Tiel realized it at last.
That the warmth of Grandfather’s embrace and the love of family would never be Tiel’s.
“……Just once.”
I wish I could be loved.
Even once would be enough. Please.
Tiel whispered fervently. Breath escaped from the child’s lips in slow, pale wisps.
The laughter of Chender and Rowen seemed to echo in Tiel’s ears.
……Was it a phantom sound?
Yet one thing was certain: that laughter was telling Tiel the truth.
You have no place in this world.
There was never a place for you here to begin with.
Tiel’s eyes closed slowly.
Soon the trembling body went still, and the shallow breath ceased.
The candle in the office flickered out.
Tiel died.
***
Or so it should have been.
Tiel’s trembling fingers reached up to touch their own face.
A faint warmth brushed against the fingertips.
‘This makes no sense.’

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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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