The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 10

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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 10
“Where is she? Where’s the child?”
The Duke Ewald leaped from the carriage without a shred of decorum, his voice urgent.
Alpheus Ewald Asterian.
A man who ordinarily never forgot his composure, yet in this moment he could spare no thought for such things.
The Duke had been scheduled to dine with the Emperor that evening, but upon hearing Pardan’s words, he had dared to cancel it.
His granddaughter, whom he had believed dead all these years, was alive—he could not simply sit down to a meal as if nothing had changed.
Fortunately, the Emperor had been an intimate friend of Alpheus Ewald Asterian’s, and had readily released him from his obligation.
The Duke spoke hastily to a maid.
“First, have someone bring me that child—no, wait. First, summon Cassius.”
At his gesture, a maid departed to fetch Cassius.
The Duke remained standing in the central hall, unable to bring himself to remove his jacket or retire to his study as he waited for the maid to return.
Before long, Cassius appeared, walking toward him from across the distance.
His son’s face, which he had not seen in some time, seemed to carry a faint flush of color. The Duke questioned him urgently before Cassius could even offer a greeting.
“Where is the child, then? You’re certain, truly certain, that she is Rena’s daughter?”
“…For now, I’ve had her rest in the room where Olivier was staying. I’ve arranged for a paternity test, but…I’m nearly certain, Father. The child is a Snow Leopard, and her eyes are gold—like mine.”
Cassius gestured to his own eyes.
“Like a black leopard’s.”
At Cassius’s words, the Duke let out a breath of relief.
“I must see the child at once.”
“She’s asleep now. It would be better if you simply glimpsed her face and left.”
Cassius spoke with firm resolve.
The Duke nodded. Together with steward Pardan, he and Cassius made their way to Olivier’s room, where the child lay sleeping.
Upon reaching the door, Cassius quietly opened it. Fortunately, the child was still sleeping soundly.
“…You must look at her face and then leave.”
“Did I not say I understood? This one is really something…”
The Duke muttered in exasperation as he peeked through the door to confirm his granddaughter’s face.
A girl with hair as pure and white as snow lay curled in the center of the bed, sleeping peacefully.
The Duke cautiously stepped into the room. Pardan and Cassius waited outside, afraid of waking the child.
This was his granddaughter—a child he was meeting for the first time.
A child he had not even known existed in this world.
From deep within the Duke’s chest, a feeling that defied description suddenly welled up. His eyes began to sting.
He brought his weathered hand toward his granddaughter’s face, then withdrew it.
Instead, he whispered softly.
“…Little one.”
His throat tightened, and he could say nothing more.
Instead, worried she might be cold, he pulled her blanket up to her chin.
The Duke stepped back out of the room, leaving the sleeping child behind. Cassius and Pardan waited outside.
“How is she? What did you think…?”
Pardan asked in a trembling voice.
“What are you asking? Didn’t you see her yourself just now?”
“Of course I did! But I was in such a rush to inform you that I didn’t get a proper look. Is the young lady well?”
The Duke waved a hand dismissively at Pardan.
“I don’t know myself. I only had a hurried look…But Cassius. How did this come to pass?”
Only then did the Duke ask Cassius for the full account of events. Cassius, who had been gazing intently at Tiel’s face through the crack in the door, looked up.
“It seems she was being raised in secret in Nestian. Since she was Rena’s child, they…didn’t wish to part with her.”
Cassius related to the Duke everything he had heard from Ian, holding nothing back.
As the Duke listened to Cassius’s account to its end, his face flushed crimson with rage. He began to pace furiously.
“That wretch Chender—I should kill him at once…!”
“Hush—the child will wake.”
Cassius brought a finger to his lips and spoke quietly. The Duke reflexively fell silent.
Cassius then closed the door fully and turned to address him.
“We should move to another room to finish this conversation.”
The Duke, Cassius, and Pardan relocated to the Duke’s study.
Yet there was one thing they did not know.
There was another person who had heard this entire exchange.
***
‘Useless thing! You are a disgrace to Nestian!’
Her grandfather Chender’s voice, always so cold, echoed in her ears like a ringing in her head.
The faces of Chender, Rowen, and the other servants appeared before her eyes one after another, only to dissolve like dust.
In her dream, Tiel saw herself being scolded by her grandfather.
Herself, always punished for an Ability that would not manifest, no matter how hard she tried.
Rowen, proudly displaying his crude Ice Crystallization Ability like a taunt.
Her mother had been a master of the Ice Crystallization technique, they said. Powerful enough to be named the next Family Head of Nestian.
Since Tiel had been born by consuming her mother, she should possess an even stronger Ability, he had insisted.
‘But why…?’
Tiel would often stare at her palms, from which not even a whisper of blue light would gather, let alone ice.
Why did she have no Ability?
If only she had an Ability, perhaps she would have been loved.
Perhaps.
Beyond the glass, as her grandfather and Rowen receded into the distance and Cornelia gazed after them, Tiel stared at herself with desperate intensity.
And she yearned with all her heart.
‘I want to be loved too.’
To do that, she needed a strong Ability.
With a powerful Ability, everyone would love her…
Then, she felt something—a large hand moving toward her face.
It was a terrible sensation, as if she were about to be strangled.
In that moment,
Gasp.
Tiel’s eyes flew open as she drew in a sharp breath.
An unfamiliar ceiling came into view. Only then did Tiel realize she was in Asterian, not Nestian, and relief washed over her.
‘…Why haven’t they sent me away yet?’
She was supposed to act only in ways that wouldn’t irritate them, yet she had eaten so much cake that she had been sick.
And still, the maid had washed her, dressed her in pajamas, and put her to bed.
‘…Will they really not drive me out?’
Tiel gazed down at the two ornaments dangling at her chest as she thought.
Then she heard voices conversing softly from the open doorway.
Tiel rose from the bed and, drawn by the sound, moved toward it without thinking.
Peering through the crack in the door, she saw Cassius outside, along with a grandfather she had never seen before, and the old steward Pardan she had seen earlier.
Then the Duke spoke, his voice thick with fury.
“…I should kill him at once…!”
Stop.
Upon hearing the Duke’s words, Tiel’s eyes widened in shock, and she began to back away slowly.
Kill her?
It seemed they were speaking about her.
The way Cassius had glanced into her room made it certain.
Tiel trembled as she hid behind the door. Fortunately, Cassius closed it and left the hallway.
‘…Kill me?’
So it was true—the Asterian Family truly hated her with revulsion.
The servants had been kind only because they didn’t know what kind of child she was.
Chender’s words had been right: no one would ever love Tiel.
Her mind went blank, and she could think of nothing except those words echoing over and over—’kill her, kill her.’
‘I…I have to run away.’
I have to escape.
I came all the way to Asterian to survive—I cannot die here.
Tiel bit at her nails, then cracked the door open and spun around on her feet.
She transformed into a small Snow Leopard cub. The cub shuddered as it peered out into the hallway.
Fortunately, the hallway was empty.
It happened that this was the time when the guards were changing their watch.
The small Snow Leopard crept from the room.
And it was not long before Lia noticed that Tiel had disappeared.
***
“The young lady has vanished!”
Lia’s cry pierced the air. The mansion’s soldiers seized torches and searched every corner of the estate.
Because the sun had set while Tiel slept, the darkness that had fallen was quickly swept away, and the mansion shone as bright as day.
Cassius, Duke Ewald, Pardan, and Lia likewise took torches in hand and searched for Tiel.
“Young lady!”
“Miss! Can you hear me?”
“Young lady! Where are you!”
“Tiel!”
Despite the many people mobilized due to the size of the Asterian estate, the search proved difficult.
Duke Ewald opened his palm. From his weathered hand, flames—whoosh!—suddenly blazed forth.
In the next instant, six small lizards appeared and scattered across the floor.
“Find the child. A Snow Leopard with white hair and golden eyes.”
At the Duke’s command, the Salamanders immediately dispersed throughout the mansion.
‘Where in the world has she gone, little one?’
Cassius released his own Salamanders and wondered the same.
His Salamanders, unlike the Duke’s, had a slightly more amber hue.
‘Where could she…?’
Where could a child in such poor condition have gone?
There was no possibility that someone had taken her. The story of the youngest granddaughter of the Asterian Family being alive was known only within the family.
Then,
[Found her, the child. Basement.]
[The child. Crying… She cries.]
[Soothe her. Basement. The child with white hair.]
The Salamanders sent their signals simultaneously. Without thinking to inform the others, Cassius bolted toward the Basement.
The Basement of the Asterian estate was vast and labyrinthine, and even the servants often lost their way within it.
Yet somehow she had found her way there.
Cassius walked without hesitation where the Salamander led him. His only thought was to confirm the child’s safety.
Then.
“…Little one.”
In the deepest recesses of the Basement, where even light scarcely penetrated, he saw a girl sitting alone.
The small girl who had been weeping vacantly turned her head to look at Cassius.
Her cheeks bore the dried tracks of countless fresh tears.
At the sight of the child weeping in solitude, Cassius felt his heart shatter.
“Come here, little one.”
Cassius spoke tenderly. Yet the child only stared at him blankly.
“Little one… ah.”
Only then did Cassius perceive the child’s true condition.
She was not in her right mind.
Perhaps from having been alone in the darkness, the child kept muttering to herself as if dreaming.
“G-grandfather…? M-my Ability won’t come out, I don’t have an Ability…”
The child murmured with lifeless eyes. Cassius, jaw clenched with fury toward Nestian, knelt before her and spread his arms.
“Come to me, little one.”
“B-but grandfather…”
The girl stammered, clasping her hands together.
“B-but instead, I have this now.”
Above the girl’s palms, a bright light flickered and wavered clearly.
The light took the shape of a fish, then a leopard, then became a handful of wind, then swelled as though it might devour Tiel herself.
Cassius’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“This is…!”
A luminescence bright enough to consume all things in the world filled the room.
It was the manifestation of Tiel’s Ability.

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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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