The Youngest Daughter of the Snake Family - Chapter 31

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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 31
I couldn’t forget the image of Karma standing between Letra and me in that instant.
“Karma.”
“Yes, Miss.”
She seemed startled that I’d called her by that name.
“Thank you for protecting Aileen.”
“……I was merely following orders.”
“Still, thank you.”
Without her help, I would have been caught by Letra without any means of escape.
I pulled Cade close again. My startled nerves hadn’t yet settled. I could feel my heart hammering against his chest.
To calm me, Cade kept patting my back without pause.
I thought the situation would end there, but Letra called out to Cade as he turned to leave, seizing his arm.
“Family Head! Please, just this once. I won’t make such a mistake again. I’ll even pay double the toll—a hundred gold coins!”
Thump.
Letra dropped to his knees.
Just moments ago, he’d been angry that fifty gold coins was too much. He must have been truly desperate.
Though I didn’t yet understand the true value of money, I could tell from the murmurs around us how enormous a hundred gold coins was.
But Cade ignored Letra’s words and simply turned to go.
“If there are other conditions, I’ll meet them all! Family Head!”
As Letra tried to rise and approach, members of the family blocked his path.
Cade was truly cold-blooded.
“Aileen.”
“Hmm?”
“Do that thing you did before again.”
“Do what?”
Back at our original table, Cade positioned me to face him.
Sitting across his lap, I tilted my head in confusion.
That thing I did before?
The corners of Cade’s mouth lifted playfully.
“Call me Dad.”
Oh.
Heat flooded my face. As the warmth reached even my ears, I quickly covered my face with both hands.
“You had no trouble saying it before—why the shyness now?”
That was different—I was angry then!
Set and Arban pretended not to look at me, though they seemed to be hoping for something.
“……Our… papa.”
“That’s not quite it.”
“No. Aileen do it like this.”
Cade frowned, unsatisfied.
Baon, who had finished handling the remaining matters, made a show of wiping away tears of emotion.
“How deeply moving, Miss Aileen. To have personally dealt with the Letra Family in the Southern Region—I hardly know what to do with myself from sheer gratitude.”
“Of course.”
“I had wondered where I’d seen that habit of acting first and thinking later, but it seems the Family Head and you share certain similarities.”
“That sounds like an insult.”
“……I merely meant to say how very brave you are. Truly impressive.”
Baon raised his thumb and quickly shifted his tone. Cade withdrew his murderous gaze and looked down at me.
“From now on, be careful. What would you have done if I hadn’t been there? Hmm?”
He flicked my forehead—gently, not painfully.
“Ow!”
“You’ve got yourself covered in Tiger Pheromone. Explain it, Set. Arban.”
“……Tiger what?”
I’d never even seen a tiger.
I sniffed at my clothes. Tiger Pheromone?
At my reaction, Set let out a sigh.
“Seems like we warned you not to wander far.”
“Aileen didn’t go far. Only walked around familiar places.”
“She’s the type who won’t understand if you speak around the subject. You have to say it directly: there’s a tiger nearby, so be careful. Everyone else knows, but she’s the only one left in the dark.”
Surely not.
Unease crept up my spine at Arban’s words.
……Was Sage, who’d been playing with me all this time, actually a tiger?
Rawr?
So I’ve been friends with a tiger this whole time?
“Seems you didn’t know.”
So that’s why you climbed trees so well and were so strong.
The pieces were finally falling into place.
“You mean you’ve been playing with Aileen all this time……?”
“Why? Scared now that you know?”
“Uh-uh, no. Aileen’s not scared at all.”
I spoke with perfect certainty.
“Father will protect Aileen.”
I’d learned that everything happening inside the Mansion reached Cade’s ears. And by encountering Karma today, I’d come to understand it with absolute clarity.
I was safe here.
At my words, Cade’s eyes widened in surprise.
His hand, which had been rubbing my forehead, paused for a moment.
“Right?”
“……That wasn’t permission to go around carrying tigers everywhere.”
“He seemed quite sharp, yet you managed to befriend him. Impressive ability, truly.”
Because I’d grown accustomed to the pheromones of the Family, I hadn’t sensed danger from anything below a certain threshold.
Especially since Cade’s pheromone was so overwhelmingly strong, I must have failed to notice Sage’s.
Cade spoke seriously.
“We need to start your pheromone training soon. And teach you what the different clans look like.”
“That would be best. Set and Arban can already shift freely between their true form and humanization, but Miss Aileen is behind on that front.”
Again, only I’m slow.
What if I’m always this slow?
My shoulders drooped helplessly. Everyone else was growing so quickly, while I seemed stuck in childhood.
Especially among the Black Mambas, whose growth was so remarkably fast, the gap felt even wider.
Perhaps sensing my worry, Cade cupped my face in both hands and looked me in the eyes.
“What can we do about it?”
“Mm?”
“My daughter is special, so you just have to understand that.”
* * *
An interesting scene had unfolded at this banquet, the first in a decade.
Muhela, the leader of the Northern Region, chuckled as she recalled what had just transpired.
It was a rare spectacle that wouldn’t be seen again, destined to be retold for years.
“I’m glad I decided to attend this banquet. I almost missed such an entertaining sight.”
Muhela twirled her long blonde hair and tucked it behind her ear, then swirled her glass of ice water with a clink.
Her deep blue eyes gleamed with delight.
The Banquet Hall was currently in complete chaos.
The sound of scheming from those vying to fill the Letra Family’s vacant seat reached even here.
As Muhela leisurely surveyed her surroundings, she took note of several families.
They weren’t making direct moves yet, but they were watching how things developed.
Muhela reclined casually against the back of her chair.
“Sage.”
“Yes.”
“I hear you’ve become friends with the youngest of the Astrropel Family?”
Muhela pointed to Aileen, who was sitting on Cade’s lap and being fed.
With her round eyes darting about as she eagerly ate, she looked exactly like a mother bird feeding a chick.
Sage only turned his head to look at Aileen. Every time her mouth moved, her plump white cheeks moved along with it.
Aileen, pale and bright among the Astrropel Family members, reminded one of a snow hare from the Northern Region.
“Who knew the Astrropel Family treasured a child so dearly.”
“Quite so.”
The corners of Sage’s mouth lifted slightly.
When Sage, whose thoughts were ordinarily inscrutable, uncharacteristically showed emotion, Muhela’s eyes narrowed.
“That child seems to have caught your interest.”
“She looks like a snow hare.”
“The ones you tease whenever you’re bored? I see the resemblance.”
Imagining Aileen among the snow hares living in the castle, it didn’t seem incongruous at all.
Muhela’s eyes sparkled.
“What did you play with her?”
“Tag Game.”
“Aren’t the rules different in the Northern Region?”
The Tag Game in the Northern Region was designed to teach hunting methods, so it permitted rougher tactics than in other areas.
A game where one hides their presence and cuts short the prey’s breath in a single move without detection—that’s what they called the “Tag Game” up north.
“We agreed to play again next time. I got caught at the end.”
“……What?”
Muhela’s expression shifted to one of surprise, as if hearing something she couldn’t possibly have heard.
“You?”
“Is there a problem with that?”
There was nothing wrong with it, strictly speaking.
What strained belief was that Sage, of all creatures—the one with such fierce competitive drive—had yielded ground.
Sage stretched his body languidly and propped his chin in his hand.
In his true form, his tail would surely have been flicking about.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not supposed to eat my friends, am I?”
……
“My mouth kept watering, and I was so busy holding back that I ended up getting caught by the fledgling.”
In other words, he’d let himself be defeated by a chick because he was suppressing his appetite.
Muhela coughed sharply at her son’s shocking confession.
Sage, his brow furrowed in deep contemplation, flexed and relaxed the left hand Aileen had caught in the garden.
“……Sage.”
“Yes?”
“Much of this is my fault.”
“What is?”
For raising you the way I did.
Muhela couldn’t bring herself to answer and let out a low, pained groan.

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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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