The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 16

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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 16

Leponya found herself cradled in Fellens’ arms as they made their way toward the Training Ground. She’d already decided there was no point asking to be put down—he wouldn’t comply—so she’d given up her token resistance cleanly.
“The knights of the Craiton Family are all exceptional. Even the trainees are on par with full-fledged knights from other houses—you’ll be amazed when you see them in action.”
She already knew that.
Years ago, while on a mission for the Pope to steal something, she’d been chased by Craiton knights. That had been genuinely difficult.
‘Protection,’ she thought.
Leponya’s mind drifted back to the boy she’d glimpsed the night before, beyond the Terrace.
Since he’d been at the Craiton Mansion, could he be part of the Craiton Family as well?
‘His air didn’t seem like a servant’s,’ she mused.
The Craiton Family’s eldest son couldn’t possibly be that young, so perhaps he was a knight?
If he’d had a guardian watching over him, she never would have met that boy wandering freely onto the Young Lady’s Terrace.
“Fellens, is there another child living at the mansion besides me?”
“Another child? Are you talking about a playmate your age?”
Leponya nodded. Fellens tilted his head, fishing through his memory.
“Well… I’ve been away at the Academy so long that I’m not up to date on the household staff. Why? Would you like to have a friend your age around?”
“Not exactly.”
“I understand the feeling. When I was small, I looked for playmates too. Something happened to our family, and after that incident, Father withdrew in grief and never came out, and my brother was too busy as heir to spare me a glance. I was three years old then. Neglected from that age onward. So around six, I suppose, I started thinking I had no family at all.”
Fellens smiled bitterly as the memory surfaced.
His earlier words suddenly came back to her.
Hadn’t he said there was no family here?
‘If he’s talking about a family incident, he must mean the accident that befell the Duchess and the Young Lady.’
And when that accident happened, Fellens would have been a child in need of family himself.
‘So that’s what he meant?’
He shifted back into his usual manner and spoke as if nothing had happened.
“If you want, I’ll bring you as many playmates as you’d like.”
Fellens chuckled at her the way one does at a child. Leponya pushed gently against his cheek with her small palm as she spoke.
“That’s not it—I’m looking for someone specific.”
“Looking for someone? What do they look like? Tell me. I’ll find them for you.”
“Well, their eyebrows arch high like this, they have black hair. And their eyes are this beautiful golden color that sparkles so brightly. And they have a lovely voice.”
“A girl with black hair and golden eyes? Is her hair long?”
“No, it’s a boy.”
Fellens, who had been walking down the corridor with a steady smile, stopped abruptly.
“A boy?”
What was this about? What did it matter if the person she was looking for was male?
“And sparkling eyes with a lovely voice, you said.”
“Yes. The boy’s eyes sparkle and his voice is nice.”
“Why are you looking for him? Did he do something to you?”
Something in his tone had shifted. His smile remained the same, but the atmosphere had changed entirely.
The moment she mentioned that he’d been spying on the Young Lady’s Terrace, he looked ready to find the boy and punish him on the spot.
‘I shouldn’t tell him that.’
Leponya made a silent decision to protect the nameless boy and shook her head.
“Why do you want to find him?”
“I just happened to see him from far away and got curious.”
“You saw him from far away but knew his voice was nice…?”
“Oh, is that the Training Ground?”
Leponya changed the subject.
Just as Fellens was about to press further, the two arrived at the Craiton Family’s Training Ground.
Fellens studied her with suspicious eyes for a moment, then let it drop and went along with the diversion.
It happened to be training time for the Knight Order, and a wave of oppressive heat washed over them from above.
Thunderous shouts rose from various corners of the yard, and dust swirled in their wake.
“Wow.”
Leponya’s eyes widened in amazement. She’d been here before while searching for the Family Heirloom, but never during actual training hours.
‘The Training Ground,’ she thought, ‘only becomes truly alive with knights.’
When she’d visited before, it had been empty and desolate, and she’d thought the Duke was wasteful for maintaining such vast empty space. Now she saw how wrong that judgment had been.
The enormous Training Ground was filled to capacity with practicing knights. The space actually looked cramped.
‘This is how the Family’s knights are trained.’
The training Leponya received was entirely different from this.
Not training to kill or threaten people—training to protect them.
‘Should I be grateful to the Pope that I haven’t been assigned to kill anyone yet?’
Leponya gazed down at her small palms. The Pope cherished her because her skills surpassed all the others. That was why he never gave her assignments to kill.
There had been times when Leponya begged through tears for him to rescind an order, reasoning that if she carelessly killed someone and got caught, she’d be executed and rendered useless to him.
‘Someday, perhaps I too would have been caught by these people’s hands and led to the scaffold.’
The thought made her feel strangely unsettled. But Leponya quickly shook her head and cast the notion away.
‘No. This is my last assignment.’
The Pope had sworn by the name of God himself.
The Pope was a man who feared the loss of Divine Power. During prayer, he would command that not even an ant be harmed in his presence—so there was no chance he would lie while swearing by Divine Power.
If she could just complete this assignment safely.
If she could just steal the Family Heirloom and leave.
‘Then I won’t have to do this anymore.’
So no more dwelling on other thoughts. Focus on this assignment, on the heirloom alone.
Having settled her mind, Leponya swept her gaze lightly across the Training Ground.
‘That child isn’t here.’
She’d secretly harbored a small hope that she might meet them if she came here. But perhaps they held a different profession, not a knight?
As Leponya tilted her head in thought, a familiar face appeared among the training knights.
“Oh? That knight there….”
At Leponya’s murmur, Fellens—who had been scanning the knights—turned to follow her gaze.
“Who? Sir Belik? Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He’s the knight who came to capture me when I was alone at home.”
So that was Sir Belik.
That knight had caught her, and she couldn’t escape—she’d nearly been dragged to the Orphanage. Of course, that was before Duke Craiton noticed her and had her adopted.
“Squirt. You said you were living alone at home before you came here, right?”
“You don’t need to know, senior.”
“This fluffy little thing.”
Fellens furrowed his brow and approached Sir Belik, who was in the midst of training.
“Sir Belik.”
“Yes? …Oh! Young Master! Young Lady!”
Sir Belik, drenched in sweat from his training, opened his eyes wide in surprise upon spotting Fellens and Leponya.
At Sir Belik’s cry, the other knights also stopped their training and turned around.
“Greetings, Young Master! Greetings, Young Lady!”
Perhaps because they were knights in the thick of training, their voices rang out far louder than when the household servants greeted them. Startled, Leponya clapped her hands over both ears in alarm.
Fellens hurriedly wrapped his arms around Leponya and tucked her against his chest, his face contorting.
“Can’t you be quiet?! You’re scaring the squirt!”
You’re being louder yourself.
“S-sorry, my apologies.”
The knights lowered their voices to whispers. Knights with muscles rippling from the intense training they’d just been doing, whispering softly to each other, was rather amusing.
The knights’ eyes turned toward the five-year-old child nestled in Fellens’s arms. Sensing their gaze, Leponya peeked her head out from his embrace.
“…Do I need to greet them too?”
Leponya asked in her puffy, cloud-like way of speaking, and the knights held their breath in surprise.
The Duke’s eldest son was quiet and a prodigy, so from an early age he’d treated everyone around him as foolish and beneath notice. By five, he’d mastered letters, mathematics, and the sciences—he read technical works and refused to speak with people who couldn’t keep up with his mind.
The second son had been a late talker, babbling even at five, and with such a willful, troublemaking nature, he’d destroyed things throughout the mansion.
So Leponya’s response could only astonish the knights.
“She’s… she’s really adorable.”
“Yeah, yeah, incredibly adorable.”
Whether Leponya was a con artist or not was a matter of the Duke’s household. The knights, who served and protected the Duke’s family, were in no position to question it.
What mattered was that the reckless second son himself had carried Leponya into the Training Ground.
“Young Master, but what brings you here…?”
“You all know there was a fire in squirt’s bedroom, right? We haven’t found the culprit, so we’re assigning someone to escort the squirt in case something like that happens again. That’s why we’re here.”
Protection for the Young Lady.
Protection for the adorable, puffy Leponya.
The knights’ eyes all gleamed as if they were eager to volunteer.
Fellens shielded Leponya from their gazes and approached Sir Belik.
“Sir Belik. There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Yes! Young Master!”
“Is it true that squirt was living alone in an empty house before you caught her?”
“Eh? Ah… yes! It was a vacant house, and we received a report that a child seemed to be living alone there, so I went to confirm it.”
Why was he asking about that again? And why was this knight reporting so thoroughly?
‘So she’s doubting me.’
Leponya glared at Fellens, but he simply nodded for her to continue.
“There were no signs of anyone living there, and the Young Lady was alone. I was preparing to hand her over to the Orphanage when I encountered the Duke, and after that—”
“So Father just adopted the little one like that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fellens gazed intently at Leponya nestled in his arms.
There’s not a trace of fraud about her, is there? Of course not. She was never meant to be adopted as a Young Lady in the first place—she was supposed to be hired as a maid!
Leponya laughed with unbridled confidence.
“Then who filed the original report?”
She remembered that part all too vividly. It was the lady from the house next door….
“The initial informant was a young boy, sir.”

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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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