Chapter 24: 24

“It’s the same as the one I rode back then.”

Leonia wiped the soft chair with her palm. The carriage had a large, black space inside and unshakable seats engraved with the Voreoti family crest, and it was the same as the one she rode when she was adopted from the orphanage.

“Look at this. I can ride again without vomiting in the carriage.”

“Instead, an innocent tree took all your vomit.”

Pelliot also remembered the same day.

“It’s good that it was fertilized! If we go back now, wouldn’t we see that it’s all grown up?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt sorry for a tree. You have no conscience.”

“Dad and his daughter have no conscience! I’m like my Dad.”

“My conscience is like that of a mountain range. Big and spacious.”

“Yes. Dry, like Dad’s conscience.”

While the father and daughter exchanged childish banter today, the carriage entered the city without them realizing it. Leonia once again looked outside with her face sticking to the window, and Pelliot looked at the window through which his daughter’s face was clearly reflected. The child’s black eyes reflected in the window moved nonstop.

“Leo.”

“Yeah?”

“Should we get off here?”

Pelliot looked outside and measured the distance. At this point, it was a good location to walk to the orphanage. If Leonia got tired of walking, he could carry her.

Leonia’s eyes twinkled.

“Really? Can I get down and take a look?”

“I also returned to the North after three years, and I miss the town.”

Of course it was a lie. Pelliot didn’t like crowded places. However, his desire to show Leonia a tour of the square lightly overcame his dislike. Leonia couldn’t take her eyes off of the downtown area when she first came to the Voreoti estate. The skinny appearance of a child who had been muttering that she had never been to a place like this overlapped with her now healthy appearance, making her look different.

“Then let’s go down!”

The carriage stopped.

Pelliot alighted the carriage first and held out his hand. Leonia grabbed her dad’s hand and jumped out of the carriage.

“You’ll get hurt.”

Now, like a habit, words of concern came out.

“Dad worries too much.”

“Parents are originally like that.”

Pelliot stopped at the words that came out so naturally. To spew out common and clichéd expressions with sincerity. He felt awkward with his own self.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

When he looked down at the sound of her calling him, he saw Leonia looking up at him, her round eyes blinking. Pelliot unconsciously reached down and touched the child’s cheek. As Leonia tilted her head, her round cheeks fluttered.

When he saw her like this, she deserved such sincerity.

“Dad, do you want to go pick flowers?”

For a moment he was moved by fatherly love, and so, with a faint impression, Pelliot took Leonia’s hand. One wide step moved slowly, followed by three or four small steps.

“Leo. I told you that expression is weird.”

“It’s witty and nice though.”

“Where in the world are you going?”

“I feel like breaking flower stalks by peeing on the streets.”

At her words, Leonia laughed to herself and jumped. A dark cloud appeared on Pelliot’s face as he heard her answer. The faintly youthful smile vanished.

‘Probably…’

For his precious daughter, he felt the need to seriously consider Leonia’s innocence.

‘As expected, the orphanage is a problem.’

Pelliot recalled how the orphanage director and teachers were still imprisoned in the mansion’s dungeon. As Leonia said, he needed to treat them well until they would beg him for their own deaths, but only today was he convinced that his decision was right.

‘It must have been so painful.’

According to Ardea, the tutor who resides in the mansion, Leonia has a level of intelligence far superior to that of ordinary children. With a little more exaggeration, she could be at the level of an academy student.

Such a savvy, intelligent, and ambitious child, lived in such an orphanage for two years. The only things she saw and heard every day were the wretched behavior of adults, disgusting words, and heavy hands inflicting pain.

Right now, she was holding his hand and smiling so brightly, but not so long ago, she endured her lonely and hard feelings by herself.

‘First, some toys she can play with…’

It was at the moment when Pelliot was contemplating how to restore his daughter’s innocence.

“Wow!”

A bright admiration burst from below.

As he followed the child’s gaze, which had suddenly stopped, she was admiring men with good physiques carrying heavy bales on their shoulders one by one to the front of the shop. The men wore only thin tunics and trousers as if they didn’t mind the cold weather. It was because they had the natural heat from their bodies due to difficulty of moving heavy bales.

“Oh oh…!”

Suddenly Leonia threw away her father’s hand, which she was holding onto just now.

“Dad, did you see it? Their clothes are wet with sweat.”

“…Aren’t we going to the orphanage?”

“It’s not like I’ve never set foot there before.”

Leonia, who roughly replied that she could be a little late, admired them openly now.

“It’s different from the muscles of the older brother and older sister knights.”

She muttered earnestly, saying that their body building wasn’t balanced, but that it has its own charms, and that this was the true taste of muscles that was closely related to life.

“…Alright, hold my hand.”

“Yeah, here.”

Pelliot took his daughter’s hand in vain. She didn’t even look at him and just reached out without sincerity. And with his other hand, he gently grabbed her back.

The novice father deeply realized the truth that parenting would fill him more with heartbreak than with joy. For the first time in his life, he felt dizzy as blood rushed to the back of his head.

“Duke.”

Thinking about how he could restore his daughter’s innocence, Pelliot turned away.

“I didn’t expect to see you here. Oh, I’m…”

“Viscount Kerata.”

When Pelliot called him, Viscount Kerata widened his eyes in surprise. He never thought that Pelliot would call his name first.

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“…It’s an honor that Your Grace remembers me. The other day, I greeted you at the Marquis Pardus’ estate.”

“Before I went to the capital.”

“I have heard that the Master of the North has returned.”

Viscount Kerata, who greeted him with courtesy and apologized for being late in greeting him, was a person with a warm personality as much as his handsome face. And, contrary to this docile impression, he was a hereditary noble who lived in the north before the founding of the empire.

He was characteristic of a belligerent northerner, and he was usually a docile person. In addition, he did not cause any problems during the three years that Pelliot was away, and he did not speak freely of rumors related to Leonia.

“What are you doing here, Your Grace? I heard that you hate crowded places…”

“I’m out with my daughter for a while.”

“Oh, I see!”

Rumors about Leonia had already spread, and Viscount Kerata must have heard them too, but he smiled softly without showing any signs of surprise or concern. There was no pretense or deceit in that smile. Pelliot was left with a good impression of the Viscount.

“So you were looking around the square. I’m sorry for disturbing your private time.”

Leonia was still watching the men carrying the bales, so she didn’t even know that anyone else had come, and she was showing off only the back of her black head. Viscount Kerata chuckled at that.

“Actually, I’m also on my way with my daughter.”

“Daughter?”

“This is my second child.”

The Viscount patted his daughter’s shoulder, which was clinging to his leg. Pelliot met the kid’s eyes as she looked at him with frightened eyes. He was taken aback.

“Uh, uwaaaah…”

Just like any other child, Viscount Kerata’s daughter was trembling as soon as her eyes met Pelliot’s. Then the child’s hand, hidden behind the Viscount, gripped the hem of her father’s trousers.

“Flo.”

The Viscount looked into Pelliot’s eyes and patted her daughter lightly.

“Duke Voreoti is not a scary person.”

“That, but…”

Tears were already glistening in the corners of the green eyes, which had opened up like a puppy’s.

‘I forgot about it for a moment.’

Because of Leonia, who chattered on relentlessly instead of crying whenever she saw him, he remembered his natural talent that he had forgotten for a while. Until recently, most of the children he met would cry like that.

“Dad!”

At that moment, Leonia turned her head. The child who was about to burst into tears was startled.

“I’m done sightseeing.”

Leonia, who had returned from the satisfactory completion of her research on life, opened her eyes widely.

“…Who are you?”

Leonia asked, hiding her body in the hem of Pelliot’s dark-red coat. Pelliot clasped the child’s shoulder as if it was okay.

“Sorry for the late greeting.”

Viscount Kerata was polite.

“It’s nice to meet you. I am Viscount Levus Kerata.”

“Hello. I am Leonia Voreoti.”

Leonia said her name in an impeccably perfect posture. Funny enough, Leonia’s greetings were learned from Moleoca, who had been driven to the west. It was only now, but she was once called the flower of the social world, so she taught etiquette quite well.

“It is an honor to meet you, Lady Voreoti.”

“Are you my dad’s friend?”

“Haha, I’m in a position where I learn a lot from him.”

The northern black beast is the idol and pride of the northern nobles, Viscount Kerata said.

“You don’t have to compliment me just because it’s in front of your child.”

“What compliments. It’s the truth.”

“Dad, you’re being polite?”

However, Leonia was surprised by something strange.

“It’s only natural to be polite because I’m talking to a nobleman like myself.”

“You don’t do that to your knights.”

“It’s because they are my subordinates.”

On the other hand, Viscount Kerata, unlike the Knights of Gladigo, did not have a vertical relationship with Pelliot, but was respected in the northern part together in a horizontal position. In particular, he was from a hereditary noble family of the north, so Pelliot paid a little more attention.

“Of course, this does not mean ignoring the upper and lower ranks of the title.”

At that, Viscount Kerata smiled, saying that he was keeping that in mind as well.

“We talked for a while.”

The Viscount tapped the back of the child hiding behind him and brought her forward.

“This is my daughter Flomus.”

“He, hello…”

The child, still scared, squealed in her greeting towards Leonia, who was standing behind Pelliot. But she was less afraid than before. This is because the ferocious atmosphere that overflows mercilessly around Pelliot has decreased. But, no one knew. And the reason is because of Leonia’s appearance.

“I’m Flomus Kerata.”

“Hello, my name is Leonia Voreoti.”

“My daughter is seven years old this year.”

“Oh, still a baby.”

As if she was cute, Leonia looked at Flomus and smiled.

“…….”

“…….”

The fathers who watched their children’s greetings were at a loss for words.

“How, how old are you, Leonia?”

It was quite a shock to Flomus, too, to hear being called a baby from Leonia, who was smaller than her.

“Seven years old.”

Leonia, who was the same-age, readily answered.

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