LSBVF ~ 04

Chapter ~ 04

Dark blue hair.

Golden eyes that flashed as fiercely as lightning.

The head of the Cloudian family, known as a villainous ducal family, and the Butcher of the North—

Kalid Cloudian.

‘W-Why is that bastard already here?’

He stood imposingly at the end of the Dempfer family’s hallway.

“D-Duke…!”

Behind him, the servants of the count’s household stood with their heads bowed, unsure of what to do.

They had probably tried to stop the duke from coming this far, only to fail.

Count Dempfer stared at Kalid in bewilderment.

“I came to see my daughter.”

Clover’s father had appeared after four years.

Kalid Cloudian slowly asked in a voice filled with killing intent,

“Where is my daughter?”

The back of Count Dempfer’s neck grew damp with cold sweat.

How could she possibly tell him?

That his daughter was currently shut away in a cramped room, and that her diaries had all been confiscated because she had been caught writing ‘accusation letters’?

Without realizing it, Count Dempfer’s gaze drifted toward the direction of Clover’s room.

Gulp.

The sound of her swallowing echoed clearly through the quiet hallway.

‘……This won’t do.’

Count Dempfer stepped forward, first attempting to smooth over the situation.

“Your Grace, why don’t you wait in the drawing room instead of coming all the way here…?”

“Do I have to wait for you?”

Kalid’s voice sounded almost like a growl.

The oppressive tone made Count Dempfer’s body stiffen slightly.

“Tsk.”

Kalid clicked his tongue and stretched out a hand.

“I’ll find her myself.”

With those words, a handful of wind gathered at his fingertips.

The power of the storm.

A power that only the direct descendants of Cloudian could use.

‘What?!’

This was the Dempfer family’s territory.

Using divine power here was practically the same as challenging Count Dempfer herself.

Yet Kalid Cloudian used his power as though he didn’t care about such things at all.

‘No! If he sees it now—!’

But before Count Dempfer could stop him,

Shhhhhaaah.

The wind gathered at Kalid’s fingertips was sucked into Clover’s room in an instant.

It flowed as naturally as though the wind were simply returning to its master.

Watching the sight, Kalid spoke in a dry voice.

“Found her.”

Then Clover’s closed bedroom door was suddenly flung wide open.

“Ah…?”

Beyond the open door appeared a tiny child with a little head of light green hair.

The reason that had made Kalid rush all the way to the Dempfer estate.

Clover Cloudian.

The reason Duke Cloudian had entrusted his child to the Dempfer family was simple.

‘Darling, please make sure Clover stays with the Dempfers…’

Because his beloved wife had asked him to.

The Duchess of Cloudian, Elysia Dempfer.

She was the last remaining spirit in this world.

A tree spirit who had now lost almost all of her power.

And Clover, taking strongly after her mother, had been born with a faint trace of the power of trees.

On the other hand, the Cloudian family’s divine power was comparable to—or even stronger than—the power possessed by the Imperial Family.

A tremendous power capable of summoning storms.

Cloudian was the master of a massive power that could overwhelm and crush even other power users through sheer force.

And Clover—

‘W-Waaaaah!’

—was an absurdly weak ‘power user.’

The power Clover possessed was the power of sprouts.

A sprout could not withstand a massive storm.

Because of that, Clover had been in danger of dying from the moment she was born.

Because of the powers possessed by her father, older sister, and older brothers.

And because of the good intentions of the older sister who had tried to save Clover.

It would have been better if she simply hadn’t been a power user.

Then there would have been no need to worry about being overwhelmed by Cloudian’s power.

At the critical moment when Clover might die if things continued as they were—

‘I buried a branch of the World Tree in the Dempfer estate… a very long time ago…’

Elysia said weakly as she drifted toward sleep.

‘So she’ll be safe if she grows up at Dempfer. If she’s protected there…’

A branch of the World Tree.

It had protected Elysia all this time, so it would protect Clover as well.

After all, the child’s divine power was similar to Elysia’s.

Kalid Cloudian didn’t want to take his newborn daughter out of his arms.

But he had no choice.

There were only two options available to him.

Watch his daughter suffer beneath the weight of his own power until she eventually died.

Or send her to Dempfer, where the branch of the World Tree would protect her, and raise her there until she was safe.

No one but a madman would choose the former.

‘I’ll do as you say, Elysia.’

And so, Kalid Cloudian had no choice but to send Clover to her mother’s family.

He hoped that Clover, who had inherited a power similar to her mother’s, would be protected by the remnants of Elysia’s power left there and grow up safely.

However, at the same time, he feared that the greedy Dempfer family might use Clover as a political tool.

That was why he never properly explained the reason he was sending the child there.

The Cloudian family had many enemies, since they were known throughout the world as a villainous family.

The Emperor stood behind those circumstances, but few people knew that far.

So instead, Kalid sent an excessively large amount of money every month for Clover’s upbringing, making it clear that the Cloudian family cared about the child.

And yet—

“I didn’t realize you were stupid enough not to understand what that meant…”

Kalid slowly looked over his absurdly tiny daughter.

“Wh-Who are you?”

His daughter, Clover.

This was the first time Kalid had properly met her.

She was small.

Had she not been given enough food?

Or was she simply small by nature?

Clover’s older sister and brothers were all tall and well-built, so the former seemed more likely.

Her grubby cheeks.

The corners of her eyes were still damp, as though she had been crying until just moments ago.

The child looked even more miserable than Kalid had prepared himself to see when he came here.

‘Thank you for helping me.’

The image of the child he had seen through his summoned beast flashed before Kalid’s eyes.

Normally, he should never have secretly looked inside another family’s territory, especially one belonging to another power user.

But Kalid had broken that rule and secretly watched what was happening inside the Dempfer estate through his summoned beast.

Because today was his daughter Clover’s birthday.

The day Clover turned four.

Even though Kalid couldn’t spend the day with her, he wanted to at least see his child celebrating her birthday.

But—

‘You’re forbidden from going outside!’

His precious daughter had not been happily celebrating her birthday at the Dempfer estate.

Instead—

‘Huuuh….’

She had been dragged away by her aunt.

After seeing that, Kalid had rushed to the Dempfer estate without hesitation.

Once he had seen how his child was being treated, he couldn’t simply sit still.

Kalid slowly swept his gaze around Clover’s room.

The maids who had been pulling out piles of old parchment from beneath the bed were frozen in place, parchment clutched in their hands.

They appeared to be other portions of the ‘diary’ that his summoned beast had carried down from the tree.

“Give that to me.”

“D-Duke!”

“Give it to me.”

At Kalid’s threatening voice, the maid tremblingly handed ‘it’ over.

Kalid practically snatched Clover’s diary from the maid’s hands.

Then he read through the crooked handwriting.

I want Daddy to come.

Auntie got mad at me again.

She scolded me for eating too much. But I didn’t even eat that much…

The writing was a little difficult to decipher, but Kalid could still read it.

After reading a few lines, Kalid bent down and knelt before the tiny child.

Perhaps because she had been rubbing her eyes moments earlier—

The corners of the child’s eyes were red as she looked at Kalid with an expression of complete confusion.

Kalid gazed at her with a troubled expression before speaking.

“Clover. Daddy’s here.”

Clover repeated his words.

“…Daddy?”

He calmly answered.

“Yes.”

Kalid carefully lifted his daughter into his arms.

Then, in a low voice, he whispered,

“I’m sorry I’m late. Let’s go home now.”

BOOOOM—CRACK!

Behind Kalid, a massive bolt of lightning struck beyond the tiny window.

It was a fierce, terrifying, enormous bolt of lightning, as though it perfectly reflected his mood.

The faces of everyone in the Dempfer estate turned deathly pale with fear.

Daddy?

Is he really Clover’s daddy?

Held in Kalid’s arms, Clover rubbed her eyes roughly.

Then her summoned beast, Lucky, sparkled as he spoke.

[Yes! This man really does seem to be your daddy! Your wavelengths are exactly the same!]

‘Really?’

[I told you!]

Clover stopped crying and lifted her head to look at the man’s face.

He was tall, and his face was handsome.

His hands were so large that he could easily lift Clover with one hand, and his two eyes gleamed like precious jewels.

And he was holding Clover with warm, gentle hands.

At that moment—

Clover remembered the words Lucky had always told her.

[It’s okay, Clover. When you get a little bigger, your wonderful and handsome daddy will come to take you home!]

“A wonderful and handsome person…”

Clover quietly repeated Lucky’s words as she opened her mouth.

This man was wonderful and handsome.

And he had said that he was Clover’s ‘daddy.’

So…

[That’s right, little squirt! He really is the daddy you’ve been waiting for your entire four years!]

Upon hearing Lucky’s words, Clover’s large eyes filled with tears.

She clutched tightly at Kalid’s chest and blinked.

Tears welled up and spilled from her enormous eyes.

Kalid seemed flustered by the sight and kissed Clover gently on the forehead.

“Clover.”

“D-Daddy, weally Daddy?”

“Yes. I’m really your daddy.”

At Kalid’s words, Clover began to shed big, sorrowful tears.

Why…

“Why did you come now…? Waaaah…”