TVPHI| Chapter 4

Episode 4

After the Duke gently pulled Lefonya closer, he put his hands under both of her arms and lifted her up high, just like before.

Whoa.

She had been carried over someone’s shoulder like luggage before, but this was the first time she had been lifted into the air like this. Startled, Lefonya instinctively grabbed Krytan Duke’s wrist tightly.

“…Oh.”

The Duke gave a short reaction and lifted Lefonya even higher into the air.

Her small body, tiny even for a five-year-old, easily went up into the air.

“Is it fun?”

Lefonya, who had been glaring at him with wary eyes the whole time, looked flustered.

“P, put me down!”

How old did he think she was to play around like this…? And there were way too many people watching.

Lefonya felt heat rush to her face and squeezed her eyes shut.

At the same time, she heard a small, breathy laugh.

Lefonya slowly opened her tightly closed eyes.

“You finally look like a proper five-year-old.”

The Duke looked at Lefonya with a satisfied expression.

A butler approached from behind the Duke.

Their eyes met.

The moment the butler saw Lefonya’s face, he seemed startled and froze in place as if he had been nailed to the floor.

Why is he acting like that?

The butler’s face turned pale as he carefully asked,

“Your Grace, this little guest is…”

“Lefonya.”

The Duke called her name while looking at Lefonya, whose hair was shining brilliantly under the sunlight.

Lefonya couldn’t tell whether he was calling her or simply telling the butler her name, so she tightly closed her lips.

Perhaps he had never expected an answer from her in the first place, because the Duke calmly continued speaking.

“Lefonya Krytan.”

At those words, both the butler and the servants who had been bowing their heads…

Even Lefonya, who was still being bounced up and down in the air…

All of them opened their eyes wide in shock.

“From today, she will be my daughter.”

His deep voice spread throughout the spacious mansion.

Does he mean I’m going to become a young lady?

A daughter?

She had thought she would be lucky if she wasn’t kidnapped or sold, and she would be grateful if she could get a job as a maid.

But a daughter?

Lefonya instinctively looked at the servants.

At the position where she should normally have been standing.

The flustered butler tried to stop the Duke.

“Your Grace. You’re letting your emotions get ahead of you and making an impulsive decision…”

“I thought about it carefully on the way here.”

“Even so, there are procedures for adoption.”

“You mean checking whether the place adopting the child has a guaranteed identity? Is there anyone in this empire whose identity is more trustworthy than mine? Financially, do I have the money to raise a child? I don’t think there’s anyone in this empire better suited than me for that either.”

“Even so, this isn’t like buying an object, so perhaps you should think about it a little more…”

The butler was right.

Even buying an object probably wouldn’t happen this quickly.

When Lefonya nodded as if she agreed with him, the Duke’s face hardened as he glared at the butler.

“If you take your time and think slowly, that’s considered careful, but if you make a quick decision, it’s impulsive? The moment I saw this child, I had a feeling. And if I send her to an orphanage while I take my time thinking about it, I know I’ll regret it.”

The butler let out a deep sigh.

“But you should hear what the little guest thinks too.”

“Then, Lefonya. I’ll give you the choice.”

The loose strands of Lefonya’s hair brushed against the Duke’s cheek.

Their eye colors were different, but their hair colors were similar, so she suddenly thought that they might really look like a family.

“As you heard earlier, you were supposed to go to an orphanage. After they check your identity and parents, if there is no guardian to take you in, you would stay at the orphanage.”

Lefonya already knew that process very well.

“And then they would look for sponsors and adoptive families. Every time a guest came, you would have to smile prettily and try your best to make a good impression.”

“But I have no intention of sending you to a place like that. None of that is necessary. I intend to adopt you myself.”

Why?

Why would he adopt a child he didn’t even know after thinking about it for only a moment, as if he were buying something?

“On the other hand, if you don’t want to stay here, I’ll send you to an orphanage right away.”

What about finding his lost youngest daughter?

The words got caught at the tip of her tongue, and she swallowed them instead of saying them.

Krytan Duke’s daughter had been attacked and disappeared twenty years ago.

If she was still alive, she would be twenty years old now.

So if the Duke really wanted to adopt someone, it would make more sense to adopt a twenty-year-old, the same age as his missing daughter.

Yet here he was, saying he wanted to adopt Lefonya, whom he had suddenly met on the street.

He didn’t even know who she was or where she came from.

Ah. Is this some kind of adoption game?

Adoption games.

It was something nobles commonly did.

If they were bored or needed a child to handle certain family matters for them, they would simply adopt some random child.

Since they could always give the child up once they got bored or no longer had a use for them, nobles didn’t have to think too deeply about it.

Or they could put the child into the marriage market and sell them to a good family.

When Lefonya was living at the orphanage, she had seen children get adopted easily, only to be abandoned later, or sold off because they were going to be married.

Now she understood.

He plans to use me as a replacement for his lost daughter.

Adopting a child of the same gender as a child they had lost or who had died young, treating that child well, and easing their guilt.

It was common in noble society.

They would raise the child until adulthood, then abandon them or send them somewhere far away where they wouldn’t attract attention.

It’s a common story.

Otherwise, there was no reason for him to suddenly want to adopt a child he had just met on the street.

If I become the young lady of the Krytan family…

It would be much easier to walk around that huge mansion and search for the family heirloom.

Lefonya swallowed nervously.

She had been thinking for quite a while without giving him an answer, but the Duke didn’t rush her.

Looks like he plans to use me in his little adoption game. I’ll tear that arrogant idea apart.

If he planned to use her as a replacement, then she could use him too.

“Okay.”

Lefonya calmed her confused feelings and smiled.

She had learned how to smile like this from a young age, so it wasn’t difficult.

“I’ll be your daughter, Your Grace.”

The people around them quietly sucked in their breath.

“Butler.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Prepare the adoption papers for the child… no, the young lady. If there is anything else she needs, prepare that as well.”

“Yes.”

He really called her a young lady.

Lefonya felt both of her cheeks heat up and buried her face in her small hands.

The Duke, who had been holding her up in the air, lowered Lefonya to the floor.

At the same time, the servants bowed in perfect unison.

“Greetings, Young Lady.”

Lefonya had pretended to be a noble under fake identities during her missions before, but this was the first time she had ever been treated like a young lady by the servants of a real noble family.

I made the right choice, didn’t I?

Lefonya rolled her eyes around, as if she still wasn’t used to receiving this kind of treatment.

It was the day she officially became the Krytan family’s young lady.

The Duke suggested that they eat first because he was hungry, but Lefonya refused.

This mansion was so grand and enormous, so clean and fragrant, that just being there made her feel intimidated.

So she wanted to at least wash herself, even though she looked so dirty and messy.

“I don’t want to eat while I smell. I’ll wash first, then eat.”

“Who told you that you smell?”

“No one. Do you really need someone to say it out loud? You can tell just by looking at me.”

“I don’t know.”

The Duke tilted his head with an emotionless expression.

He seemed to think there was nothing wrong with the way Lefonya looked.

“I also want to see where I’m going to sleep. I’m sleeping here from today, right?”

What if the Duke changed his mind during that time?

He made the decision so easily, so he could probably change his mind just as easily.

To avoid being thrown out, she first needed to secure a place of her own in this mansion.

“…I’m not?”

Lefonya swallowed nervously and looked up at the Duke with a tense expression.

When their eyes met, the Duke reached out and gently patted Lefonya’s head.

“Why are you asking so nervously about something so obvious? Of course you’re sleeping here from today.”

The Duke ordered the maids to wash Lefonya and show her to her bedroom.

Just as she had hoped, Lefonya took a long bath in a warm tub before heading to the bedroom where she would be staying.

She had planned to wash herself alone, but the maids made such a fuss about helping her that she almost died from the trouble.

Her body was five years old, but her mental age hadn’t become five too.

She tried hard to refuse them, but the maids kept putting sweet candies into her mouth to calm her down like a little child.

In the end, she gave up and washed herself while feeling completely naked and helpless.

The maids flinched when they saw the wounds and scars left on Lefonya’s body, but they didn’t show it.

Lefonya herself didn’t care about them at all.

After she finished washing, there were no children’s clothes prepared for her, so she had to put her old clothes back on.

The maids looked extremely apologetic, as if they had committed some terrible crime.

Nobles change their clothes every day, so…

Lefonya buried her nose in her clothes and sniffed them.

When she lived in the orphanage or almshouse, she had naturally worn the same outfit for more than a month at times.

Even when she stayed at the mansion the Pope had prepared for her, she only had a few outfits to rotate between, so she had to wear them for several days at a time.

She wasn’t bothered by it.

Maybe because I just washed, but my clothes don’t smell.

Lefonya took her hands away from her clothes and looked around the bedroom she had been shown to.

The maids who had guided her to the bedroom seemed bothered by Lefonya’s shabby clothes.

They said they would go check whether any clothes the young masters had worn when they were little were still left, then left the room.

Now alone, Lefonya could comfortably look around the bedroom.

This bedroom…

It was a bedroom with plenty of sunlight, filled with the warm, pleasant smell of sunlight.

Beside the huge fireplace, there was an abundance of dry firewood stacked up.

Behind it was a wooden rocking horse shaped like an animal, perfect for a five-year-old Lefonya to ride and play on.

The rocking horse looked like it had been carved by a craftsman, then smoothly polished and painted.

The carpet covering the floor was soft enough to keep a child from getting hurt even if they ran around and fell.