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Chapter – 30
Ugh.
‘What else is there?’
Around this point, after spitting those out, no more advantages came to mind.
This alone feels a bit lacking.
I need to make the former Duke think I’m useful somehow.
So he doesn’t think, ‘How dare a brat like that be my son’s daughter!’
At the very least.
So he can say, ‘Well, she’s acceptable as my son’s daughter.’
So I can hear words like that.
“Make yourself useful!”
“I am being ufeful.”
“Show some worth!”
“I am showing wort.”
“If you don’t know how to do anything, then for heaven’s sake, don’t make a fuss and just be quiet!”
“I am being… quiet.”
I echoed the Headmistress’s vivid words in my head like an echo.
“So, pleathe don’t throw me out. Jutht, let me live with Abadie…!”
I smiled my most greed-free, childlike smile.
A wide, foolish grin, stretching my lips upward.
“She’th… my firft family.”
Gasp.
‘…I wasn’t going to say that.’
I clamped my hand tightly over my mouth, which had moved on its own.
What is this? Why did it come out on its own…?
I was blinking in confusion when…
“Who in the wooooorld!”
“Huep!”
I jumped, startled by the booming voice, and the former Duke cleared his throat loudly.
“Ahem! If anyone saw! They’d think I’m someone who’s dead set on throwing you out!”
“R-really?”
“What nonsense! I’ve never done such a thing!”
“B-but, you yelled at me back then…”
“……”
“You thaid I was a diobedient bathtard…”
“……”
The speechless former Duke averted his eyes slightly and repeatedly cleared his throat.
Ahem!
Ahem, ahem!
“You were so small I couldn’t see you back then! And I thought Conte was playing a nasty prank…!”
He shut his mouth mid-shout, refuting.
“What am I even making excuses for now?”
He muttered to himself and then started clearing his throat repeatedly again.
Ahem! Ahem, ahem!
…Is his throat not well? I was starting to feel a bit worried when—
“Of course! It’s true that many aspects of the situation are less than ideal. A bloodline of Pantebre suddenly popping up out of nowhere.”
“Yeth…”
As expected, I guess.
I nodded glumly.
“But! I have no intention of throwing you out right this moment! So, don’t go saying such unnecessary things!”
“Unnethethary thingth…?”
“Things like only eating two meals a day, or not overstepping your place, all that nonsense!”
Tch, it’s even annoying to say it aloud.
Spitting sound
“Traditionally, children should eat three meals a day. Three full meals, plus snacks. Eating a lot, running around and playing, then falling down and sleeping—that’s the proper daily routine for a child! Understood?!”
“…Yeth?”
Just as I was tilting my head, unable to understand the sudden turn,
“Answer!”
“Yeth, yeth!”
“And if you really intend to become a Pantebre, you must not bow your head carelessly in front of others. There’s no such thing in the Pantebre dictionary! Look at your good-for-nothing father! Does he look like the type to bow his head to anyone?”
“…That is…”
It’s true that the Duke doesn’t seem like the type to bow his head to anyone…
Before I could delay my answer, another roar followed.
“Answer!”
“Yethp!”
The answer popped out automatically, like a button had been pressed.
Satisfied with the sharp reply, the former Duke nodded.
“You look like a cotton candy, but on the inside, you’re nothing but a soaked piece of cotton. Tch. That damn bastard! If you’re going to bring home a kid the size of a booger, you should raise her properly, what kind of nonsense is this…!”
Even his muttering was loud. Grumbling discontentedly, he thumped his cane down the hallway.
“Anyway, I’ll be watching from now on. Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m throwing you out, so no need to go cowering somewhere else for no reason…!”
Nod, nod.
“Yeth, yeth!”
Watching me nod vigorously, the former Duke snorted ‘Hmph!’ and turned his back.
Then, he clicked his tongue tsk tsk and slowly—no, stomped away, striding off with large, angry steps.
Left all alone, I blankly watched the large old man disappear.
Woah.
Somehow, how should I put it…
‘…It feels like a storm just swept through.’
Wheew.
I could feel the tension that had been wound tightly in my shoulders melting away.
It felt like the anxiety I had felt facing the former Duke had been swept away by the chaotically swirling storm.
Anyway.
‘Th-this time… it didn’t seem too bad, right?’
He told me to eat three meals a day, and to have snacks too.
He even gave me advice on the mindset needed to live as a Pantebre.
…Ugh.
“…I don’t know. I thould go to my room and thleep.”
I think I should just go find Louis tomorrow.
Managing both Louis and the former Duke in one day with a child’s body seems a bit too much.
Haaam.
Fatigue washed over me instantly, and sleepiness poured down.
I rubbed my sleepy eyes vigorously and headed toward my room.
Meanwhile, at that very moment.
Carlos, who had turned the corner, watched the child while hiding himself.
The child, who had been blankly staring in the direction he disappeared, let out a big yawn, then, with sleepy eyes, started walking in the opposite direction, rubbing them.
Pitter-patter.
Her retreating back looked like it would make that sound with every step.
Carlos stared sharply at the little back of her head until she disappeared.
Soon after,
the child vanished.
“As I thought, it’s suspicious, I tell you…”
Muttering quietly, he briskly moved his steps.
The place he headed was near Conte’s office.
Hovering near the office door without entering, he snatched Hudson by the scruff of the neck the moment he burst out of the office.
“Guehp!”
Hudson, suddenly kidnapped into a dim corner of the hallway, was dumbfounded.
What in the world…
‘More importantly.’
Looking up at the former Duke, who stood blocking his path like a mountain, Hudson offered a servile smile.
“Retirement—, no, please spare me.”
“I’m not killing you.”
“What a relief. Then, about letting me go—”
“You must know something about that cotton candy kid, right?”
Hmm. Looks like he’s not letting me go!
Quickly accepting the situation, Hudson tilted his head and asked,
“Cotton candy… Are you referring to Lady Meloni?”
“Yes, that cotton candy. If you know anything, spit it out.”
“Well… I don’t know that much about her either…”
As Hudson trailed off, Carlos glared at him, eyes wide.
“However! I will answer to the best of my knowledge, sincerely and wholeheartedly! What would you like to know?”
“Hmm. That kid. I hear she can use Authority.”
Ah.
Hudson nodded.
“That’s correct. She can use an Authority.”
“Ha. That lunatic actually went and got a child from another Ducal house…!”
“No, that’s not it. I misunderstood the same thing once, but it’s absolutely not that, so you needn’t worry.”
At the denial, accompanied by waving hands, Carlos tilted his head quizzically.
Hudson explained what he knew.
About the Authority Meloni possessed.
Hearing the story, the wrinkles on Carlos’s forehead deepened.
“A new Authority, you say. You live long enough to see everything.”
“Indeed. You have no idea how surprised I was.”
Silence fell for a moment after that.
Seeing Carlos’s expression, which seemed to be pondering something deeply, Hudson was about to open his mouth to ask, ‘If you have nothing more to say, could you let me go now?’
“That cotton candy. She seems suspicious no matter how I look at it.”
“Huh? Cotton candy—, you mean the Young Lady is suspicious?”
Hudson asked again with an expression of disbelief.
Where exactly was one supposed to find suspicion in a petite 4-year-old child?
But.
“Yes. No matter how much I think about it, she’s suspicious, I tell you.”
Carlos seemed convinced.
‘What is it? Is there something I failed to notice?’
Carlos, the former Duke, might seem like a grumpy, loud-voiced old man, but he was a warrior who had gone to war in his youth and single-handedly taken down over a hundred enemies.
He was also the merchant who had achieved the most prosperous results in the history of the Pantebre Ducal House.
‘Of course, that record is about to be broken by the current Duke.’
Anyway.
His sharp instincts might have detected some kind of danger signal.
Gulp.
“What aspect… seemed suspicious to you?”
Hudson asked, his question tinged with tension…
