Ferio could still vividly recall the top of the orphanage director’s desk.
A bottle of whiskey on a desk ant to care for children—in broad daylight.
“The kind of bastard who squandered the operating budget on his liquor and entertainnt... Why didn’t he even contact after seeing you, Leo?”
“......”
“If he had, he could’ve gotten a lot of money.”
Ferio, saying this as if it were obvious, gently nuzzled Leonia’s cheek with his nose.
Then, quietly, their eyes t.
As expected, his heartbreakingly clever daughter had finally realized it—her origins and the orphanage were deeply connected.
The warmth touching him was cold, and the fine hairs on her face were standing on end.
Her usually shimring black eyes had lost their light.
Leonia was more tense than ever before.
The little beast cub, caught revealing her shaken state, buried her face into the shoulder of the beast that was her father, as if to flee.
Ferio pretended not to notice and kept gently patting her back.
“I didn’t think at first that woman was ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ her backer either.”
“......”
“I thought she just cherished you deeply... so she showed hostility toward the one taking you away.”
“That’s enough now.”
A small hand covered Ferio’s mouth.
Leonia shook her head.
“The rest...”
The father and daughter, now standing before the annex, paused at the doorway.
Soon, the door opened slowly.
Though it hadn’t been used in a long ti, the annex, guarded by the Gladiago Knights, was spotless, not a speck of dust in sight.
And inside, Mono and leis were waiting.
“I’ll ask her myself.”
With a single criminal between them.
“Teacher Connie.”
The mont Ferio and Leonia stepped inside, the annex door shut tightly.
From then on, only those within would know what happened there.
***
Even though it was uninhabited, the annex was pristine.
Thanks to the Voreoti servants who swept, polished, and ticulously maintained it every day.
Ferio was glad he didn’t have to open the windows and let in the chilling air.
Still, just in case, he took off his jacket and carefully draped it over the child’s shoulders himself.
“Dad.”
“Yeah.”
“Um...”
As Ferio rolled up the sleeves to match her small arms, Leonia pointed sowhere with her hand.
There, standing between Mono and leis—each flanking her like guards—was a brown-haired woman.
Even at a glance, she was clearly not in a normal state.
Her clothes were torn in several places, revealing scars oozing with pus underneath.
Her hair was a stiff, tangled ss, like pig bristles, and her body reeked from not having been washed in a long ti.
And yet, Mono and leis did not so much as flinch.
“...Shall we go together?”
At Ferio’s question, Leonia nodded.
The two walked forward hand-in-hand.
The closer they got to the woman believed to be Teacher Connie, the more Leonia’s expression twisted.
Eventually, she let out a sob-like sound and hesitated mid-step.
“Teacher...!”
A resentful cry finally escaped the child’s lips.
Leonia had now completely accepted that this wrecked criminal was indeed Connie.
Through the unusually bright brown strands, the thin face was unmistakably the one Leonia rembered—Teacher Connie.
With trembling breath forced from her lungs, Leonia regained her composure.
And walked again.
“Here.”
At a certain point, Ferio stopped walking. It was just shy of the distance where Mono and leis’ swords would reach.
It was calculated. If Connie lunged, the two could cut her down before she touched Leonia.
“Teacher.”
Leonia called out the na in a trembling voice.
“Teacher Connie.”
She stared at her in disbelief.
Through the disheveled hair—like that of a drug-addled lunatic—there was a chilling glint of awareness.
Strangely, Leonia found her sadness fading.
The Connie she knew always wore a gentle smile, secretly giving her food to the children.
She had taught them to read and write, insisting literacy was essential for survival, and had willingly shared her body heat on cold days.
She wasn’t soone who glared with eyes like an axe about to fall.
Ferio’s gaze turned toward Connie, who dared to glare at Leonia with insolence.
Overwheld by the sheer pressure, Connie instinctively lowered her head.
“How’s the confession serum?”
Ferio asked Mono.
While Leonia was out, Ferio had made her drink the confession serum gifted by Marquis Ortio.
And extracted several pieces of information.
“It lasts half a day, so there’s still about an hour or two left.”
“Brutal.”
Normally, such serums only lasted an hour at most.
To last longer, the drug had to be much stronger—and those kinds often shattered the mind of the person who drank them.
In other words, the one Marquis Ortio had given was practically a poison.
“She endured that and is still like this?”
Even Ferio Voreoti, of all people, was impressed.
“So that’s what makes a trained professional different.”
“Wait, professional? Trained?”
Leonia asked what he ant.
“If you want to know, ask her yourself.”
Ferio gently stroked the hesitant child’s head.
“If you don’t want to ask, you don’t have to.”
He whispered kindly, saying he’d understand.
Leonia, still eyeing Connie, spoke softly.
“...This probably isn’t the ti to say it, but this situation is educationally a complete disaster.”
“But you’re going to ask anyway, right?”
“Dad, you better be glad I’m not a normal kid.”
With that usual grumbling tone, Leonia—having cald herself a bit—snarked.
Ferio was imnsely relieved by that defiant little retort.
Then he nodded to Mono and leis.
The gag in her mouth was removed.
At the sa ti, Leonia took a small breath.
“Hello, Teacher.”
Leonia spoke first.
She had once denied it, crying and screaming, but now her voice was calm—so calm it felt surreal, like a scene from a painting.
It felt like a dream.
That’s why her greeting lacked all warmth.
“I won’t beat around the bush.”
Suddenly, Leonia smiled faintly.
‘People who talk in circles like that are just losers trying to pretend they’ve got sothing.’
It reminded her of sothing Ferio had said last winter, when he told her about her birth mother.
She had been stunned soone could talk about a secret like that so bluntly.
“Talking in circles like that is what losers do when they try to act like they’re soone.”
The little beast cub repeated the sa words as the beastly father.
“Who are you, Teacher?”
“......”
“When did you start lying to us?”
“...Hehe.”
An eerie laugh escaped.
A smile tinged with madness glinted like a snake in the dark of night.
“Nia.”
The voice calling her na was so sweet it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
But no one responded. There was no child nad “Nia” here.
Leonia realized another thing.
Connie had never once called her “Leonia.”
Always, out of habit or preference, she had said “Nia.”
“My na isn’t Connie.”
Connie slowly lifted her head with an empty smile.
Her body was wrecked from harsh interrogation—even the simple act of raising her head ca with a groan of pain.
But she raised it nonetheless.
“It’s Saura.”
Thanks to the confession serum, she revealed it without resistance.
“And I didn’t start lying to you at so point.”
Connie—no, Saura—smiled softly.
“It was from the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“From when you were born.”
The smile on her face, as if recalling a fond mory, eerily resembled the Connie Leonia had once known.
But now, that smile was laced with madness—enough to send chills down the spine.
“I killed your birth mother.”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
***
It began like the plot of any cliché romance novel.
A noblewoman fell in love with a mysterious wandering knight and, defying her family’s opposition, fled with him in a passionate elopent.
At just the right mont, rain poured down from the heavens, and the two lovers used the flooding river to escape safely from the North.
“We stopped the carriage as it ran alongside the river and drove it straight into the water.”
Saura explained it in vivid detail, as if she had been there herself.
And that was because—
“I was the one driving that carriage.”
As though reminiscing about a fond childhood mory, Saura continued in a calm, even voice.
Standing beside her, Mono and leis shuddered.
They had already heard this story straight from her lips multiple tis, yet it never failed to crawl across their skin like a cold insect.
Is this really a human?
leis wondered, sincerely.
The way she had once cared for children with such warm smiles—it had been real. Truly real.
And yet, here she was, soone this terrifying.
It made her seem not human. leis couldn’t believe that any human could do what she had done.
It was like looking at a venomous snake, coiled beneath the leaves, fangs hidden.
The snake never stopped flicking its tongue.
“My master was such a wonderful man.”
“...Master?”
“Yes, my one and only lover.”
Nia, you know, don’t you?
Saura’s eyes wandered, unfocused, and she smiled gently.
“That man... is he my biological father?”
Leonia asked, her throat tight. She swallowed dryly as nausea began to rise.
By now, she had completely dropped the word “teacher,” as well as any formal language.
The longer this conversation went on, the more she felt like she wasn’t speaking to a person at all.
A chill ran down her spine, and she clutched Ferio’s jacket tightly around her.
“He’s Nia’s real father.”
Saura mumbled on, rambling as if talking to herself.
It was a side effect of the confession serum.
But that sa powerful serum ensured she would answer any question asked.
Still—
That didn’t an the answers made anything easier to hear.
Leonia’s nausea worsened with each word.
“What kind of person was my biological father?”
“A splendid, marvelous man.”
As if confessing a long-held first love, Saura blushed and whispered in a delicate voice.
Ah... such a splendid man.
A beautiful swan.
Saura murmured to herself in a voice so faint no one else could hear her, lost in a trance like soone bewitched.
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