I Became the Male Lead's Adopted Daughter-Chapter 121

“......But because of that damned woman!”

Suddenly, she let out a shriek so sharp it felt like it would tear their eardrums apart.

Startled, Leonia flinched, and Ferio lowered himself immediately, wrapping both arms around her protectively.

“A filthy thing, no more than a plaything to him, dared to carry his noble seed!”

Mono and Meleis hastily drew their swords.

But Saura only thrashed in place, her eyes rolling back into their whites.

Pale foam leaked from the corners of her mouth.

She’s reaching her limit.

Ferio quietly narrowed his eyes.

The confession serum was finally driving Saura into madness.

“I stayed by his side for so long! He told me—he always said the one he trusted and relied on was me!”

Saura collapsed onto the floor with a heavy thud and writhed like a snake.

“He said he’d come back! That he’d definitely return for me! That wretched Voreoti was nothing more than a toy to be discarded after use...”

Suddenly, her body arched like a bow, and an awful cracking sound came from within her twisted frame.

“Kegh! Kghhk...!”

A greenish substance was vomited from Saura’s mouth.

“Don’t look.”

Ferio quickly covered Leonia’s eyes.

Leonia buried her face in her father’s hand and clenched her fists tightly.

I don’t want to see!

She couldn’t bring herself to look at Teacher Connie—at Saura—any longer.

“Nggh... nnghh...”

Saura, groaning in agony as she rubbed her face against the floor, no longer resembled a human being.

Even Mono and Meleis, standing guard with swords drawn, couldn’t help but grimace.

Even the finest knights who hunted monsters every winter were repulsed beyond measure.

“He said he’d come, I waited and waited...!”

Tears of blood dropped from Saura’s eyes as she mourned the one who never came. Real blood.

For a moment, the torment twisting her body seemed to pause, and she wailed with her whole throat.

Her cries and hysteria filled the vast, empty annex.

Then, suddenly, the crying stopped.

“Ehehe...”

And then laughter.

“AHAHAHA!”

Her twisted body convulsed as she cackled madly, bloodshot eyes locked on Leonia.

“So I got my revenge!”

Screaming at the top of her lungs, green vomit now mixed with red blood spilled from her mouth.

“I took revenge on the one who betrayed me—and that lowly plaything!”

“......”

“I tricked him! I tricked that trash when she got pregnant with you, and I tricked him into thinking you were never born!”

The maddened howls of rage went on and on.

Leonia couldn’t even fully comprehend what she was hearing anymore.

All she could hear was a sharp, whistling hiss in her ears, like a boiling kettle screaming on a stove.

But what she could see was clear: the face of a monster, spewing curses at her.

“I’m the one who raised you! I’m your mother!”

“Don’t call yourself that...!”

Leonia ground her teeth in fury, unable to bear it any longer.

“Why the hell did you do it?!”

She finally let out every last drop of betrayal and rage she’d been holding back.

“We all believed in you! We endured that hellish orphanage because we trusted you!”

It wasn’t just her.

Yuben, and the other children, too.

They had been able to hold on because of the one and only adult who had seemed to truly care—Teacher Connie.

But it had all been a lie.

Teacher Connie sold us out!

Saura, hiding behind the kind mask of “Connie,” had sold the children.

Yuben, who had left with a happy smile, returned to the orphanage as thin and hollow as ever.

“Why?!”

Leonia shouted until she ran out of breath.

She trembled from the unshakable fury welling inside her.

“Because that’s how we got money.”

But the answer that came was disturbingly calm.

“You lived off that money.”

Saura slowly turned her head.

“You didn’t actually believe there was real funding for that orphanage, did you? That place collapsed ages ago. It was just a front—a shop for human trafficking.”

As if she truly didn’t understand.

As if she didn’t know what was wrong.

Then her lips stretched into a wide, grotesque grin.

“You lived off your friends’ price tags.”

If not for that, you’d have died long ago.

“So really, you should be thankful to me.”

Saura leered at Leonia, whispering like a devil.

In that moment, a chill so deep and vile filled the room that even Ferio shivered.

Mono and Meleis both thought the same thing: This creature must be killed.

That wasn’t a person—it was something wearing human skin.

Even calling it a monster seemed too generous.

“...Ueurgh.”

Leonia couldn’t hold back anymore and vomited.

Ferio quickly moved her hand aside and gently patted her back.

As he did, Saura burst into laughter, watching them with delight.

Only to be silenced with a scream as Mono stomped on her.

“Hahahaha!”

But Saura couldn’t stop laughing.

“I fooled them all!”

High-pitched, rasping giggles pierced the air like a blade.

“Him! That woman! The Duke!”

“She’s insane...”

Meleis finally muttered a curse under her breath. Mono silently agreed.

To Saura, the curse sounded like a compliment.

Her laughter, like scales of cold steel clinking together, showed no signs of stopping.

“And you too, Nia—I tricked you.”

Still grinning, she spilled cruel truths at the staggering child.

“Every time you clung to me and said you loved me... not even knowing I killed your mother with my own hands... How pitiful. How revolting.”

With an expression of ecstasy, Saura looked as though she had returned to that moment in her mind.

“You should be grateful to me.”

Her eyes, soaked in blood, glinted.

“I raised you! A pathetic thing, abandoned and stupidly waiting without even knowing...”

“...Enough.”

A low, chilling voice cut through the madness.

Ferio, holding his daughter in his arms, slowly stood up.

His clothing was soaked in the child’s vomit, but he didn’t care in the slightest.

“Both of you. Out.”

Ferio ordered Mono and Meleis to leave.

Then took a sword from Mono.

“This is beyond outrageous.”

Ferio looked down at Saura with cold, emotionless eyes.

The mouth that had spewed madness just moments ago was now clamped shut, as if the confession serum had finally worn off.

“Go on, then.”

Terror stormed through her once-maniacal eyes.

“Keep talking.”

“AAAAAGH!”

Ferio stabbed the sword through both of Saura’s hands, pinned neatly on the floor.

Dark red blood gushed beneath the blade embedded through her palms.

“You really thought someone like you could fool everyone?”

“Gh... ghhh...!”

“Regina had her foolish moments, that’s true.”

Which must be why she was deceived and killed by trash like you.

Ferio muttered, almost as if conceding the point.

“But in the end, Regina was still a beast who carried Voreoti blood.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.

It was a gold chain—a necklace.

“Do you remember this?”

At the end of the chain, thin as a strand of thread, hung a small ornament.

As soon as she saw it, Saura’s eyes began to shake violently.

“N-no... no way...!”

Her pupils, dilated wide, looked like those of a snake confronted by utter darkness.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

That winter-night darkness was anything but peaceful for Saura.

Ferio slipped the necklace back into his pocket.

Then, just as he was about to draw the sword embedded in Saura’s hands—

“...Dad!”

Leonia forced out a trembling voice, shaking violently.

Her face was a mess of tears as she pleaded to be put down on the floor.

“Leo.”

Ferio let out a heavy sigh.

“I still regret bringing you here.”

“Don’t regret it.”

With a weak hiccup, Leonia finished her sentence.

“I’ll do it.”

“......”

“Put me down.”

Leonia spoke with resolve.

After a moment’s hesitation, Ferio re-embedded the sword back into Saura’s hand.

The blade pierced through the same wound again, and Saura let out a horrifying scream.

Leonia stepped closer.

Her enamel shoes squelched in the pool of blood on the floor.

“Teacher.”

Leonia looked down at the collapsed Saura with a cold, emotionless gaze.

“Want me to teach you something too?”

With a faint, powerless smile, she leaned down and whispered into Saura’s ear.

“...What?”

Saura’s eyes widened in shock.

Wider even than when Ferio had shown her the necklace.

‘I’m not that child.’

I came from another world.

Taking a step back, Leonia smiled brightly.

“Thank you, Teacher.”

In her tear-soaked black eyes, a golden gleam began to rise.

Behind her, a golden mist quietly began to spread, slowly taking form.

“Thanks to you, I completed it.”

The golden mist expanded and gradually took the shape of a beast’s face.

The beast, in the form of a cub, opened its mouth wide.

Inside, four sharp fangs gleamed.

Until now, Leonia had never once succeeded in manifesting all four fangs at once.

This was the first time.

“Goodbye, Teacher.”

The moment her small hand waved—

The beast’s fangs pierced straight through Saura.

***

“She’s alive. For now.”

Lupe continued his report, suppressing a pounding headache.

“Sir Ceres just confirmed she’s still breathing.”

Mono, who gave the report, didn’t look great either.

He looked like a man suffering from a monstrous hangover.

“It’s thanks to the black diamond we found in Saura’s coat pocket.”

“A fate worse than death.”

“Exactly.”

Ferio toyed with the black diamond in his hand.

It was a small, unpolished stone that the knights had taken from Saura after she collapsed.

Still roughly cut and irregular in shape, the diamond was tossed into a drawer.

“She’s worse off than the former Lady Kerena of House Mereoqa.”

Lupe was still fighting the lingering pain of his headache.

The cause? The manifestation of Leonia’s “Fangs of the Beast” from earlier that evening.

For the first time, her completed fangs had unleashed their full force across the entire estate.

Not only the knights outside—people inside the main mansion had been affected too.

The unrefined pressure didn’t spare anyone.

Those like Lupe and Kara, who had black diamonds, barely managed to get away with just a headache.

But the others? Many couldn’t even stand, let alone function normally. freēwēbnovel.com

Inseréa, who had never experienced the Fangs of the North before, developed a fever.

Only knights who had already developed a degree of resistance to Ferio’s own fangs could keep their composure.

“The damage is beyond measure.”

It wasn’t just the people—animals suffered as well.

The horses in the stable went into [N O V E L I G H T] fits, and even the kittens the maids secretly raised had fainted.

They had just barely opened their eyes again, but continued to cry nervously.

“You could’ve tried stopping her.”

“And how the hell was I supposed to do that?”

Ferio shot a glare at Lupe, as if asking if he was joking.

But this time, Lupe held his ground.

“I understand how the young lady feels.”

But letting her emotions take over and harming others with the Fangs of the Beast—this wouldn’t be good for Leonia either.