I Became the Male Lead’s Adopted Daughter

Kerena’s steps faltered as she finally took notice of the Voreoti estate’s servants gathered in the entrance hall.
Realizing she was being watched, she quickly masked her panic and descended the stairs gracefully, as if nothing had happened, stopping in front of Leonia.

“Countess Tedros.”
Paavo’s voice was firm, warning.
“This is as far as you go.”

The knight refused to let Kerena take another step toward Leonia.
Even Connie, though unsure of the situation, instinctively pulled Leonia behind her skirts, her entire posture brimming with caution.
“It’s nothing serious. I just believe the young lady may have misunderstood something…”

“Misunderstood?”
Leonia’s once bright, innocent gaze narrowed sharply.
“I must have… unintentionally…”

“Unintentionally?”
“…Ah, I seem to have wounded the young lady’s heart.”
“Wounded my heart?”

Leonia repeated only the words that pricked at her ears, plucking them one by one from Kerena’s trembling sentences.
Kerena was now watching the child carefully.
No… this isn’t right…

No—if she were to put it more accurately, Kerena was afraid.
And the moment she realized it, the temperature in the hall began to drop.
The golden mist slowly creeping into Leonia’s black eyes signaled a second awakening.

Damn it!
Paavo noticed the change immediately. The fangs had resurfaced.
“Miss Connie! Step back, now—!”
He tried to warn her, but it was already too late.

“A-Ah…!”
Connie collapsed as if she had been struck by a beast’s fangs, her whole body trembling violently.
And she wasn’t the only one.

The estate’s servants—those who had never encountered the presence of a beast’s fangs before—staggered, unable to move. Even the dullest among them could feel the suffocating pressure, the kind that made their very souls recoil.
But no one suffered more than Kerena.
Step. Step.

The little girl approached, her every movement slow and deliberate, her presence impossibly heavy.
Kerena, trapped in place as if being punished, had sunk to her knees.
“I told you earlier, didn’t I?”

A sweet, chilling voice whispered into her ear.
“That I would always remember your words.”
Leonia raised a single finger and pointed at Kerena’s chest.

“On the first day, you told me I had to fill my lacking insides. On the second, you said I should work even harder to repay His Grace for taking me in. And on the third, you worried that the habits stuck to my body would be difficult to shake off.”
Leonia’s finger slowly traced upward, stopping beneath Kerena’s trembling chin.
“You think I don’t know what those words really meant?”

That I am a bastard with filthy blood. That I should be grateful for my luck in being taken in. That no matter how hard I try, my lowly past will never disappear.
As Leonia recited the meanings behind those words, as if reciting poetry, Kerena’s blue eyes shrank in [N O V E L I G H T] terror.
The innocent, obedient child was gone.

Now, standing before her, was the daughter of Duke Voreoti—the one who held the power to decide her fate.
Her black eyes, turning gold, no longer looked human.
“And today, what was it you told me?”

“O-O…”
“Hmm?”
“T-That was… I-I… You misunderstood—”

“Ah, a misunderstanding.”
Leonia nodded lazily.
“Today, you told me I should know my place. That I shouldn’t burden His Grace any further. Then tell me, what exactly did you mean by that? This time, you didn’t even bother to hide your real intent.”

Leonia’s small hand brushed against Kerena’s cheek.
“To my ears, it sounded like you were saying, ‘You are nothing but a nuisance to House Voreoti.’”
Her expression fell into a disappointed pout.

“That would be very upsetting.”
Leonia tilted her head.

“In your opinion, Countess, what exactly is my position here?”

The soft warmth of her small palm scorched Kerena’s cheek like a brand, burning through her skin.
The noblewoman trembled violently, her body wracked with fear and pain, yet she couldn’t even scream. All she could do was let her tears fall, glistening as they dripped onto her bloodstained dress.
“A lowly bastard? An orphan with no mother?”

The tear that had clung to Kerena’s jaw finally fell, seeping into the red-stained fabric of her gown.
Behind them, Paavo exhaled sharply, his breath misting white in the freezing air.
This is bad…!

The beast’s fangs had lost control.
The golden energy radiating from Leonia’s back flickered, unstable, unformed.
And that was what made it dangerous.

A young beast that could not yet wield its power properly was a threat to everything around it.
The cold spreading outward from Leonia had already begun to freeze the entrance hall.
The estate, which always remained warm even in the bitter northern winter, was now coated with frost. A brittle crack splintered across the glass windows.

And with each of Kerena’s frantic excuses, jagged ice spikes erupted from the floor, encircling them, trapping them in.
It was as if the beast’s fangs themselves were materializing, responding to their owner’s fury.
One ice shard sliced past Kerena’s cheek, leaving behind a thin line of red.

Her luxurious dress, her once flawless skin—both were torn, stained in crimson.
She looked as though she would collapse into convulsions at any moment.
But Leonia would not allow it.

Crack.
A thin layer of frost spread across Kerena’s pale cheek, exactly where Leonia’s fingers had last touched her.
I need to stop this—!

Paavo knew it.
But even he was struggling under the beast’s fangs.
Unlike Kerena or the other servants—who were wholly unprepared for the experience—he had some resistance, but even so, all he could manage was the faintest twitch of his fingers.

If only His Grace were here…!
If only the one person who could completely suppress this power were here…!
Paavo clenched his teeth and prayed.

And then—
“…What a mess.”
A deep, familiar voice rang through the frozen air.

“So you really went ahead and made a scene.”
A pair of boots stepped onto the icy floor.
A crinkling paper bag rustled softly.

And there, standing at the entrance—one hand in his coat pocket, the other casually holding a pack of ‘Fluffy Cloud Cream Puffs’—was Ferio Voreoti.
This translation is the intellectual property of .
***

The knights returning from their long expedition gazed at the approaching Voreoti estate with eyes full of emotion.
Some of them even sniffled, their sleeves growing damp as they wiped away their tears.
“We’re finally back…!”

“This is home! Well, not really, but still…!”
Some muttered about wanting to soak in hot water for hours, while others dreamed of feasting on greasy food with a cold drink in hand.
A few even grumbled about wanting nothing more than to be alone.

Ferio, silently watching his overly dramatic subordinates, glanced down.
‘Something tasty on the way back…’
In his hand was a neatly packaged box containing six Fluffy Cloud Cream Puffs that he had bought earlier in the square.

It was an odd contrast—the rugged duke, still grimy from a month-long hunt, holding such an adorable little package.
“……”
Mono cast a pitying glance at the cream puffs.

“You could have just ordered one of us to get them for you.”
“She told me to buy them. So I did.”
Ferio adjusted his grip on the box carefully.

Mono thought to himself that Leonia needed to know that her uncle had personally chosen the ribbon decoration on the package as well.
‘The bakery owner is going to lose sleep tonight.’
Mono couldn’t forget the sheer terror on the shopkeeper’s face.

How could they not be frightened?
A simple, quiet bakery had suddenly been swarmed by knights, all clad in armor and armed with swords.
And thanks to a month of monster hunting and sleeping rough in the wilderness, they had unintentionally looked even more fearsome.

And leading them all—Ferio Voreoti himself.
‘Fluffy Cloud Cream Puff packaging.’
Ferio, clad in an armor dusted with dried monster blood, had picked up the cutesy package and turned with the air of a war hero carrying the severed heads of his enemies.

“……The young lady will be delighted.”
Mono approved of Ferio’s efforts to bring Leonia a gift—even if it had sent a baker into a near panic attack.
As someone who had watched Ferio’s childhood up close, the change in him was nothing short of astonishing.

“If she doesn’t complain, that’ll be a miracle.”
Despite his indifferent tone, there was an unmistakable looseness to Ferio’s expression.
“She might even be waiting at the entrance.”

“It’s her nap time right now.”
“The young lady has surely been waiting for you.”
This was something Mono was certain of.

Ferio didn’t respond, but Mono caught the barely perceptible nod of his head.
He, too, seemed to be expecting Leonia to come greet him.
Mono found himself smiling.

The impulsively adopted beast father and daughter were truly becoming a family.
‘Uncle!’
He could already picture Leonia running up to Ferio.

But what awaited them was not such a warm scene.
The knights halted mid-step as they approached the estate.
The moment they set foot in Voreoti’s domain after a month away, they sensed something was wrong.

A sinister energy coiled through the air, thick with unrefined aggression.
The overwhelming presence of something that sought to crush all life in its path sent an eerie chill through the knights.
“……Beast’s Fangs?”

Mono opened his mouth to refute it as impossible—only to go pale mid-sentence.
Because there was another black beast in Voreoti besides Ferio.
“My lord!”

Mono shouted.
Ferio was already staring at the estate, his black eyes gleaming with a flicker of red.
That red glow was a reaction to the wild, unstable power leaking from within the mansion.

“Everyone, stand down.”
“My lord! We should go with you—”
“You’ll only get in the way.”

Ferio dismissed them coldly and strode toward the estate alone.
With each step, he felt it.
Leonia’s power.

Chaotic.
Unstable.
‘She’s lost control. It’s completely out of hand.’

Leonia still hadn’t learned how to properly wield the Fangs.
A young beast, untrained, could at most bare the tips of its fangs in a fleeting show of temper.
But for a child to unleash a power strong enough to engulf the entire mansion—

There was only one possible explanation.
Rampage.
Ferio let out a low growl.

If left unchecked, not only would the people inside the estate be in danger—Leonia herself could suffer irreversible damage.
“……This is a disaster.”
As soon as he stepped into the mansion, he took in the scene of utter chaos.

Servants lay collapsed everywhere, pinned down by the crushing weight of Leonia’s unchecked power.
The raw, feral aura of her Fangs lashed out indiscriminately, attacking without care for ally or enemy.
The air had plummeted in temperature, and frost clung to every surface.

“So you really did go and make a mess.”
Ferio exhaled, a puff of white mist escaping his lips.
He strode forward without hesitation, extending his arms.

“Leonia.”
The moment he pulled her into his arms after a month apart—
She felt heavier than he remembered.

Her cheeks had plumped up a little, proof that she had been eating well.
“Your father’s home, and you’re not even saying hello?”
But—

Leonia didn’t even recognize him.
She was too far gone.