VDHI 12

Lephonia had never intended to make things this big. She had only needed a safe place.

Her plan had been to make the retainers and the duke keep each other in check with a healthy amount of suspicion, so the retainers’ malice would not grow any further.

If the retainers were framed for something they had not even done, their hostility toward Lephonia would only deepen.

‘No.’

Or perhaps they would discover it had all been staged, and she would be held responsible and thrown out.

Lephonia abruptly rose to her feet.

‘No matter what, I need to go to Duke Kreitan’s office right now.’

Buddy and Becky had told her to wait while they asked whether she was allowed to visit the office, but this was not the time for that.

‘They haven’t already figured out I’m the culprit, have they?’

Lephonia hurried out of the bedroom. Perhaps because everything was in chaos, there were no knights guarding the door.

‘Good. Let’s go.’

Her legs had not fully recovered yet, but she forced them forward anyway.

That was when—

“Hey.”

Grab, swoosh!

“Huh?”

Someone grabbed Lephonia by the shoulder. Her body suddenly floated upward, and her vision flipped upside down.

Her feet left the carpet, and by the time she regained her senses, she was dangling at someone’s side.

“What’s this?”

A casual voice came from above.

Lephonia turned her head and looked at the person carrying her under one arm.

Their eyes met.

The man looking down at her wore an annoyed expression.

His silver hair was unkempt, scattered wildly by the wind as he brushed it back.

The sharp rise of his brows and eyes gave him a fierce appearance.

His blue eyes were as cold as ice, and with several buttons of his shirt undone, he looked very far from neat and proper.

“Hey.”

And on top of that, he spoke rudely and carelessly to someone he had just met.

“Who are you?”

A man who clearly was not kind to outsiders in the estate.

‘The infamous second son of this house…’

It was not difficult to guess who he was.

Pellens Kreitan.

The second son of House Kreitan, the family troublemaker.

Perhaps because he was an Aura Master, he looked young like Duke Kreitan. He appeared only about the same age as the real Lephonia, who had barely become an adult herself.

“Who are you to have that face, be inside my house, and come out of my father’s bedroom?”

His tone was aggressive. Pellens questioned her with a threatening expression that looked ready to turn violent at any moment.

‘There’s no way he doesn’t know I was adopted.’

Lephonia kept her mouth shut as she stared at his face. If he had truly thought she was an intruder, he would have drawn his sword first.

He was not asking because he did not know who she was.

He already knew perfectly well.

‘If he already knows everything…’

Lephonia slowly parted her lips.

“Who are you?”

“What?”

“I’ve never seen you before. The Duke told me to be careful of outsiders. If you’re curious who I am, then you should introduce yourself first.”

There was no reason for her to meekly endure this. Pellens was not the one managing the family heirloom, nor was he the head of the house who could throw her out.

Lephonia glared at him suspiciously and smacked his arm with her fist.

“Put me down.”

She had spoken too long, and her tongue slipped slightly.

“Hah.”

Pellens let out a disbelieving laugh after suddenly being hit by a five-year-old.

He set Lephonia down onto the carpet.

“My name? You’ll be shocked if you hear it.”

“I won’t.”

“Really? Pellens Kreitan.”

Pellens introduced himself as if challenging her to react.

“Haven’t you heard the rumors about the second son of this house? The crazy bastard whose personality is so rotten people say he ought to be kept on a leash?”

Pellens bent his knees to meet eye level with five-year-old Lephonia.

“I’m that second son.”

Unlike his playful tone, his eyes were filled with suspicion, caution, contempt, and anger as he stared at her.

He was hiding his true emotions behind that joking manner because even he could not openly direct them at a five-year-old child.

The fact that he had rushed over without warning made it obvious—he must have heard about the adoption and come to oppose it.

‘Should I greet him back?’

While Lephonia hesitated, Pellens grimaced and ran a hand through his hair irritably.

“Something about this… feels strange.”

“Huh?”

“Hah. I wondered what kind of scammer Father had fallen for this time, but looks like they prepared thoroughly.”

“Huh?”

“Kid. Where did you get that face?”

Her face? Lephonia touched her cheeks.

“This is just my face.”

“Didn’t anyone teach you bad people get punished?”

Lephonia frowned. Was he insulting her appearance right now? She knew he opposed the adoption, but criticizing her face was too much.

“Hah. Looks like you really came here determined. …Kid.”

“Lephonia.”

Meeting Pellens’s cold gaze without flinching, Lephonia spoke.

“Lephonia Kreitan.”

Pellens’s face hardened murderously.

It was terrifying enough that any normal five-year-old would already be crying and running away.

But Lephonia continued in a dry tone.

“It’s not like an adoption can happen just because I alone wanted it, and you also know tha—”

…Calling him “oppa” definitely did not seem right.

She briefly closed her mouth in thought, then forced strength back into her tongue and suppressed a cough threatening to burst out.

“…You know that too.”

“You?”

That was a shocking form of address to hear from a five-year-old.

“If you don’t like my adoption, don’t take it out on me. Go talk to the Duke.”

One of Pellens’s brows crooked upward.

“It’s cowardly to come after a five-year-old like this. I don’t understand why adults keep acting so cowardly toward me.”

“Adults? Ah. You mean the retainers who were here earlier?”

“The one who can annul the adoption isn’t me. It’s the Duke. If you hate it, go tell the Duke to revoke it. My opinion doesn’t matter anyway, so if you just persuade the Duke—cough, cough!”

She had talked too much.

Lephonia scrunched up her face as dry coughs burst out of her. Her throat stung so badly tears welled in her eyes.

She roughly wiped them away with the back of her hand, took a shaky breath, and continued.

“The one who picked me up off the streets and the one who decided on the adoption was the Duke. So go talk to the Duke. Got it?”

“Hey, wait.”

“I’m busy, so I have to go. Bye.”

After giving a crisp farewell, Lephonia turned around. She needed to get to the Duke’s office quickly, yet she had wasted time for no reason.

She needed to tell him she was fine and ask him not to make this incident any bigger.

That way, she could stay safe until the day she left this place.

Lephonia moved her tiny feet as quickly as she could.

Then she suddenly frowned and spun around.

“Why are you following me?”

Pellens tilted his head while leisurely trailing behind her.

“There’s a burning smell all over the estate. Do you know why?”

“You could ask someone else.”

“Everyone else seems busy.”

“I’m busy too—cough, cough!”

“At this rate, answering me would probably take less time, kid.”

Even after she had told him her name, he still called her “kid.”

Lephonia glared at him while clutching her sore throat.

Perhaps because she currently looked like a child, Pellens was not openly displaying all the negative emotions rumored about him. That alone was fortunate.

“My bedroom caught fire.”

Ah. My tongue…

Twisting her face in frustration, Lephonia carefully enunciated her words.

“That’s why the estate smells burnt. The fire was put out safely, and they’re investigating who did it. So I need to hurry now. Understand?”

That answered all his questions, right?

Lephonia spun around again and walked away with all her might.

But once again, Pellens leisurely followed behind her with his long strides.

After only a few steps, Lephonia stopped again.

“Why are you following me again?”

“There’s still something I don’t understand. I was going to ask more, but you walked away first.”

“If you studied with that much curiosity, you would’ve graduated from the academy already.”

“You even know I never graduated from the academy?”

“The Duke told me.”

“Our father spends more time badmouthing his children than bragging about them. Anyway, you said your room caught fire?”

“Yes. So what?”

“What were you doing then?”

Pellens’s eyes sharpened.

‘What’s this? Why is he asking that? Did he figure something out from what I said?’

Lephonia answered awkwardly.

“I was sleeping.”

“In the room that caught fire?”

“Yeah.”

Pellens nodded and stepped closer to her.

Lephonia swallowed nervously.

“Kid.”

“Mhm.”

“You said you’re five years old.”

Pellens reached out his hand.

Was he going to hit her?

Lephonia instinctively shrank her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut.

“You talk really well for a five-year-old. I heard I was still babbling at that age.”

Pellens slipped his hands beneath Lephonia’s arms and lifted her up effortlessly.

Startled by the sudden height, Lephonia clenched both fists tightly.

“Kid. Do you realize you’ve been trembling this whole time?”

She had only recently regained consciousness after fainting, so her body was still shaking.

“I just woke up after passing out.”

Embarrassed, Lephonia mumbled the excuse, and Pellens began walking while carrying her dangling in the air.

“Kid. Whether you’re a scammer who tricked my father or not, that’s a separate issue. But for now, if you’ve been given the Kreitan name, then nobody is allowed to attack you.”

“Huh?”

“If someone intentionally set fire to your room, then of course the culprit deserves death for attacking a Kreitan.”

Deserves death.

Lephonia—or rather, the one who had started the fire—froze.

“You were heading to Father’s office, right? I’ll take you there.”

Pellens’s face instantly turned cold.

It was completely different from how lightly he had treated Lephonia earlier. His icy gaze was terrifying enough to make someone shiver just by looking at it.

‘Wait. That aside…’

Lephonia looked down at her suspended body and the way her legs dangled helplessly in the air.

This position was strange.

He was not even carrying her properly. He simply had his hands hooked under her armpits while she dangled there.

“Wh-What is this? Put me down!”

“It’d be weird for me to carry a scammer like you in my arms. But I’m not heartless enough to ignore a trembling five-year-old who just went through an accident.”

“Then ignore me! Please just ignore me!”

Dangling helplessly, Lephonia covered her face with both hands in embarrassment.

“You were right, kid. The one who adopted you was Father, and the one who’d have to cast you out is also Father. I took my anger out on you instead. So instead of apologizing, I’ll tell you one thing.”

Pellens muttered seriously.

“If you became this family’s daughter expecting something like a real family, give up now.”

“……”

“There’s no such thing as family in this house.”