I Became the Male Lead's Adopted Daughter-Chapter 112

Ferio hadn’t recognized the orphanage director right away—because the man, once rotund to the point of looking grotesque, had lost so much weight he was almost unrecognizable.

“You’ve lost quite a bit.”

He murmured as if greeting an old acquaintance.

“Looks good on you.”

Ferio said this with a calmness that could turn someone’s stomach inside out.

Mono, standing beside him, couldn’t help but think—Well, that’s a skill too. He was once again reminded of just who Leonia had inherited her shamelessness from.

Leonia had gained weight and grown healthy, while the orphanage scum had wasted away.

“Quite ideal.”

Only now did he feel like the orphanage staff were even worth glancing at.

“I-I told you everything I know!”

The orphanage director shouted desperately.

“We—we don’t know anything else now! Please, let us go! Just let us out of here!”

His withered hands stretched through the iron bars.

They were scarred with signs of torture and oozing from neglect.

“Leonia...”

Ferio’s voice was cold—void of even a single shred of warmth.

“...must have flailed like this too.”

He already knew very well how that child had survived in the orphanage—what she had endured just to stay alive.

The Black Beast moved slowly.

He lowered his body, crouching down to meet their eye level, and stared them down one by one. His pitch-black eyes were sharp and threatening.

“It’s only been a year.”

Leonia had suffered in the orphanage for two whole years.

In other words, they still had one more year to go.

“Once that’s up... even if you don’t want to, I’ll let you leave.”

Ferio had no intention of keeping these monsters locked up in the estate forever.

Not that I plan on letting them leave alive.

When he said they would “leave,” he meant they’d be leaving in death.

He had no mercy to spare for those who had abused his daughter.

After finishing that thought in silence, Ferio stood.

“U-Aaaaagh!”

“Please spare us! Please!”

“Just kill me instead!”

“Y-Yeah! Just kill us already!”

Their screams of despair echoed behind him as Ferio and Mono turned and left.

“Disgusting how loud the bugs are.”

“Shall we go for their vocal cords next time?”

Mono offered helpfully.

“No, don’t go that far.”

Ferio paused in thought, then casually offered a different idea.

“They say the Marquis Ortio’s husband is obsessed with developing new magic potions...”

Experimenting on humans was illegal—deemed inhumane even by the Empire’s standards.

Yet whispered rumors circulated that the Eastern Magic Tower purchased criminals to use in experiments.

“...Maybe we should send a few.”

And Ferio was one of the few who knew for a fact that those rumors were true.

Despite his polished appearance, Marquis Ortio’s husband was known to be deeply involved in filth and secrecy.

Ferio didn’t exactly dislike that about him.

“The Marquis really dotes on him.”

Mono agreed with a nod. “He’d probably be thrilled.”

“Reach out to them. Just see what they say.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Well, in that case...”

Ferio paused mid-sentence, stopping in front of one particular cell.

Inside was a single person, bound tightly to a chair.

Ferio tilted his head.

“...Hah.”

He let out a small laugh.

“In my entire life...”

Ferio was utterly dumbfounded.

“I’ve never been stabbed in the back this hard.”

At that moment, Ferio Voreoti—the great beast of the North—couldn’t help but feel pathetically foolish.

After letting out a few bitter laughs, he slowly dragged a hand down his face.

“I must look like a complete joke.”

And beneath that hand, what appeared on his face was pure, unfiltered murderous intent. The kind that said he wanted to kill the person before him right now.

“Wouldn’t you agree?”

Then, from Ferio’s lips, a certain name slipped out.

***

A few days after returning to the North—

“Young Lady Duke!”

Leonia flinched as she went to meet a visitor who had come looking for her.

“It’s been far too long!”

The reason she flinched was none other than the Marquis of Pardus, who stood there with open arms, welcoming her enthusiastically.

He was drinking tea as leisurely as if the Voreoti estate office were his own parlor.

And the moment Leonia entered, he greeted her as though she were a long-lost granddaughter.

“...”

Leonia calmly closed the drawing room door.

“Connie, this isn’t my guest.”

She turned and gave Connie a reproachful look.

“Dad told me the Marquis of Pardus is a real pervert and I shouldn’t meet him carelessly.”

“But the Master ordered that you host him, young miss...”

Connie hurriedly explained, clearly flustered.

“That’s right, Young Lady.”

The Marquis of Pardus appeared beside the door at some point, smiling pleasantly.

Leonia scowled.

“...It’s been a while, Grandpa Marquis.”

She offered a reluctant greeting.

The Marquis, meanwhile, beamed as if everything in the world was perfect.

“To meet the Young Lady again here in the North—how wonderful! I only arrived yesterday, you know.”

“You should’ve gotten some rest, then.”

Leonia muttered under her breath, wondering why an old man had to come all this way just to stir up trouble.

“So, my dad really told me to receive you as a guest?”

She asked again as she finally stepped into the drawing room.

On the table where the Marquis had been sitting, she saw a familiar box—plush cloud cream puffs.

“There’s not a soul in House Voreoti who would dare lie in the Duke’s name.”

The Marquis of Pardus handed the box to Connie, who took it and plated the pastries neatly.

“Well, I suppose...”

Leonia tilted her head, still suspicious.

“But aren’t you here to see my dad?”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Pardus was Voreoti’s hidden informant. Leonia knew all too well that the sly old man hadn’t come all the way to the mansion just to tease a child.

“......”

The Marquis of Pardus said nothing.

Only the corners of his lips curled up faintly as he took a sip of tea.

That attitude only made Leonia more suspicious.

“To be honest, I wanted to rest, too.”

But this time, it was Ferio himself who had summoned him—and had even ordered that he stay with Leonia.

...Considering the nature of the situation.

Behind the smiling mask, the Marquis sighed quietly.

Just imagining what must be happening in the duke’s office right now made his chest feel tight.

Which meant his job now was to keep Leonia occupied for as long as possible.

“Say...”

At that moment, Leonia spoke up.

“At the banquet, back then...”

Having acknowledged that she wouldn’t be able to pry any more out of the Marquis directly, Leonia instead brought up something that had happened during the imperial banquet a while ago.

“How did you end up behind me?”

She placed the plate with the fluffy cloud cream puff onto her lap as she spoke.

The oversized puff, glistening with golden sugar, made her mouth water.

She took a big bite, and bright yellow cream oozed out of the side like a burst gimbap roll.

“Ah, you mean back then.”

The Marquis of Pardus chuckled as he looked at Leonia, whose mouth was now smeared with cream.

“I didn’t even sense you behind me, Grandpa Marquis.”

Ever since awakening the Fangs of the Beast, Leonia had become more perceptive than anyone else when it came to sensing the presence of others.

And yet, she hadn’t even realized that the Marquis was right behind her.

Honestly, it had been terrifying.

“I’m quite good at hiding my presence, you see.”

“Liar.”

Leonia shot him a sharp look.

The little beast’s glare only made the Marquis burst into a hearty laugh.

“Well, it wasn’t anything major...”

The Marquis pulled something from inside his coat.

“Since it seems you still don’t know, allow me to enlighten you.”

“Is it some kind of magical artifact?”

“I’m not the Duke, you know.”

He laughed as if to say he wasn’t so obsessed as to hoard magical tools.

Wait a second. So Dad really does collect magical artifacts?

She had joked about that not long ago, after he gave her a hat enchanted with wind magic.

Don’t tell me that was true?

Enough for even the Marquis to joke about it?

Leonia tried her best to keep her shock in check as she looked at the item he had pulled out.

It was a fountain pen, embedded with a pitch-black jewel.

“...Huh? This is...”

Leonia widened her eyes as she examined the gem on the cap.

A black diamond—only found in the Voreoti mines.

“How do you even have something like this, Grandpa Marquis?”

She asked in genuine surprise.

“Because the Duke gave it to me.”

“D-Dad gave it to you...?”

Her mind immediately spun into chaos, all kinds of horrible scenarios crashing together. The more she imagined, the more color drained from her face.

Even an open-minded muscle freak would be horrified by the things she was picturing.

“Nooo...!”

She clutched her head and screamed in despair.

It was so horrific she dropped her beloved fluffy cream puff to the floor.

“I do understand your preferences, Young Lady.”

The Marquis, remaining entirely calm, quickly raised his teacup.

He barely managed to hide his trembling lips behind it.

“No, it’s not like that.”

Even though he admired House Voreoti, the Marquis had zero tolerance for that kind of misunderstanding and hurried to clarify.

“This isn’t just any jewel.”

It held power.

The Marquis’s words barely pulled Leonia back from the brink of her imagined horror.

“Power?”

She tilted her head.

Ferio had never told her anything about that.

“It’s only natural that you wouldn’t know, Young Lady.”

“Why?”

“Because to the Voreotis—especially to those who bear the Fangs of the Beast—it’s nothing but a black rock.”

The black diamond was, in simple terms, just a diamond that was black in color.

However, since it could only be mined in the Voreoti region, it was incredibly rare and almost never appeared on the market.

“It’s not a gem that boosts magic, nor does it enhance ora.”

Still, that rarity alone made it the most expensive jewel in the entire Empire.

The last time one had been released to the public was decades ago, when the previous Duke of Voreoti, out of boredom, had auctioned off a single one-carat stone.

Even that had broken all previous records—and those records remained unbroken to this day.

“This black diamond is only given to those whom House Voreoti truly trusts.”

“Trust...”

“Because it dampens the power of the Fangs of the Beast.”

Leonia’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

She immediately turned to look at Connie.

Is she allowed to know this?

But ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) to her surprise, Connie looked completely unbothered.

In fact, she’d seemed more distressed a moment ago when Leonia had gotten emotional over her wild assumptions.

“...You knew?”

Leonia asked with a trembling voice.

“My parents work in that mine.”

So yes, she knew—Connie offered a sheepish smile.

“It’s not really a huge secret.”

The Marquis of Pardus continued.

“In the North, anyone who bothers to look into it a little could find out easily.”

He said even kids from small towns might’ve heard it as a folk tale.

“But still...”

Leonia was a little irritated by the Marquis’s nonchalance.

It was far too valuable to be treated as some trivial bit of trivia.