I Became the Male Lead’s Adopted Daughter

Reaching the living room, father and daughter settled onto a couch near the crackling fireplace.
"Where’s your storybook?"
Ferio asked as Leonia received a book from a maid. Its title: Life is Meaningless.

Despite having a full collection of the most beloved children’s books, Leonia had dismissed them as boring.
"They’re too childish."
"You’re supposed to read those at your age."

"I already finished them."
Leonia replied dismissively as °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° she opened the book.
Ferio’s brow twitched.

It was hard to believe she had read through all of them, but somehow, it seemed possible with her.
"…Where did you even get that book?"
"Your study. You said I could read anything there."

"And you chose this one?"
"Based on my experience, life really is meaningless."
Leonia let out an old-soul sigh, lamenting how no matter how hard someone tried in life, one small misstep could ruin everything.

"…Do you miss your real parents?"
Ferio asked, misinterpreting her sigh.
Leonia blinked her round eyes in surprise.

"Uncle."
Then, she said something astonishing.
"I don’t know who my real parents are."
Ferio's eyes, usually half-lidded in laziness, widened.

"I have no memory of anything before I entered the orphanage."
Ferio straightened, pulling away from the couch. The child's once-lean face had filled out in just a short time, looking much healthier than when he first met her.
"So, do you want to see them?"

"No."
She answered without hesitation.
"You're my parent now."

"…."
"And…"
Leonia pressed her lips together tightly.

She had no memories of the people who had given birth to this body. If they were alive, it might have been cruel to say, but she felt no love or pity for them.
But within the ‘secret’ she carried alone, her parents—the ones she remembered—were deeply missed.
And yet, she could never meet them again.

That, too, was a secret she could never tell Ferio.
She also felt guilty towards him in many ways.
Caught in her tangled thoughts, silence stretched longer than intended.

"…Do you need to remember them?"
Leonia glanced up at Ferio hesitantly. His gaze was steady, as lazy as ever, watching her in silence.
"It’s fine if you don’t."

Sensing her unease, Ferio pulled her onto his lap and popped a candy into her mouth from his pocket.
Her small lips pursed as she sucked on the candy.
"At least you remember that I’m your parent."

Leonia, still sucking on the candy, tilted her head up.
Ferio was bothered by the ‘And…’ she had left unfinished earlier, but he decided not to pry.
What mattered now was that he was the one responsible for her, and they were a rather decent father-daughter pair.

"I thought you forgot, since you refuse to call me ‘Dad’ even if your life depended on it."
"Th-That’s because I’m not used to it yet…!"
"Excuses, excuses."

"Ugh, you’re so annoying!"
Leonia flailed her short arms in frustration.
Of course, her tiny fists didn’t even ruffle Ferio’s clothes.

The Duke of Voreoti—who was also the commander of the Gladiago Knights—found her attacks as harmless as a pillow tap.
"Leonia."
Leonia, still huffing in frustration, narrowed her eyes at him.

"What now? If you keep teasing me, I’ll bite your chest!"
"Look at me."
"…At your face?"

She was confused by the sudden request, but she shrugged and set aside her book.
Ferio met her black eyes and added—
"Don’t look away."

He then grabbed her tiny hands and pulled them away from where they had been resting on his chest.
"And take your hands off there."
"You act like I’m the only one who’s obsessed."

"Don’t talk. Your breath smells like meat."
"You fed it to me!"
Despite the petty argument, neither of them looked away.

Leonia, deciding this was a staring contest, widened her eyes, putting effort into keeping them open.
Ferio, meanwhile, dismissed the tiny growling sounds he heard as mere imagination.
The staring continued.

…What are we even doing?
Just as Leonia furrowed her brows, questioning the entire situation—
Something changed in Ferio’s gaze.

In his dark irises, a trace of red appeared.
A mere speck at first, but then it grew, slowly spreading until it covered half of his pupils.
Leonia stared at it, mesmerized.

It wasn’t scary.
Then, suddenly—
"Ah."

Her eyes burned as if dipped in fire.
Startled, she flinched back.
At the same time, Ferio slowly leaned away, the red fading from his eyes.

"W-What was that…?"
Leonia pressed her fingers against her eyes.
The searing sensation had disappeared as if it had never existed.

She pressed her hands against her eyelids again—nothing but a faint pressure.
"Uncle?"
She turned to him for an explanation.

"Everyone, leave."
Ferio’s voice was calm but absolute.
The servants, knowing better than to delay, left the room silently, closing the door behind them.

Once they were alone, Ferio spoke.
"I hate beating around the bush."
"Huh?"

"Talking like that is something fools do to act important."
Leonia gave him an odd look.
Did he have some deep-seated trauma about indirect speech?

Ferio ran his fingers through her short black hair, smoothing it down before giving the yellow headband a light flick.
"Let’s get straight to the point."
He paused before saying—

"It seems you’re my niece."
Leonia’s jaw dropped.
***

The sudden revelation left Leonia unable to think.
…You had a niece?
Wait. No. Hold on.

Ferio, seeing her frozen expression, patiently waited.
Not out of kindness—just a sort of indifferent courtesy.
Leonia frantically tried to recall the details she knew.

The Black Beast’s Companion.
A novel she had read in another world.
The title said it all. It was a story about the Duke of Voreoti, the ruler of the North, and his fated partner, Lady Baria Erbanu.

A typical cliché romance, but well-written.
Leonia realized she was inside that very novel the moment she saw the Voreoti crest on the carriage that had picked her up from the orphanage.
A black lion—the unmistakable emblem of the Voreoti family.

At first, I really thought I’d just become a maid.
One day, she woke up as an orphan.
Desperate to escape the abusive orphanage, she gambled her life—only to end up as Ferio’s adopted daughter.

But now I’m his niece?
She replayed the novel’s plot in her mind.
Nowhere did it mention Ferio having a niece.

Wait, before that…
He was revealing this right after breakfast?!
Don’t people usually wait at least a few months to drop a family secret like this?!

It hadn’t even been a full month since she was adopted!
Leonia was more shocked by Ferio’s absolute lack of consideration than the actual news itself.
Of course, she wasn’t going to break down crying over this revelation—she wasn’t just a normal seven-year-old, after all.

"I’m an orphan. You picked me up from an orphanage."
She countered.
Accepting that she carried Voreoti blood wasn’t something she could grasp so easily.

"But you bear the mark of Voreoti on your body."
"It could be a coincidence."
"Black hair and eyes are only inherited within the Voreoti bloodline."

"T-That’s…."
Leonia knew that better than anyone.
"At first," Ferio continued, "I thought you were a mage."

"…Huh?"
What made you think that?!
The first time they met had been anything but pleasant.

A filthy orphan had boldly stood in front of the feared Duke of Voreoti, only to be crushed by his overwhelming presence.
"When you looked at me in the orphanage, your eyes shimmered."
He had bared his crimson fangs to intimidate her, and for just a brief moment, her eyes had glowed.

Back then, he assumed it was a manifestation of latent magic.
Some untrained mages instinctively released mana in self-defense.
That’s what Ferio had believed.

But he had been wrong.
"You know what fangs are, right?"
"They're the unique power that only runs in the Voreoti bloodline."

According to the book Leonia had read, when a beast’s fangs manifested, a distinct color mixed into the person’s black irises. That was why she had been so startled earlier when Ferio’s dark eyes suddenly turned red.
Why did he suddenly activate his fangs at me?
And more importantly—

Why didn’t I feel the same suffocating pressure I did back at the orphanage?
"Your eyes shimmered because they resonated with my fangs."
What Ferio had seen in the orphanage—that strange glimmer in Leonia’s eyes—hadn’t been a release of mana.

It had been her own fangs making a tiny, hesitant appearance.
Her instincts had reacted to his crimson fangs, and she had unconsciously bared hers in return.
"So, that resonance thing… I did that?"

"Fangs respond to fangs."
A beast’s fangs were a power that only passed through bloodlines. Unlike aura or mana, which varied from person to person, fangs carried a unique energy wave that remained consistent within the lineage.
Because of that, when someone with fangs encountered another of their kind, they could sometimes involuntarily awaken their own power.

What had happened earlier had been exactly that—a resonance between their fangs.
That was why she hadn’t felt any oppressive pressure. Ferio’s crimson fangs hadn’t been unleashed to intimidate, but to confirm their connection.
"So I really am a Voreoti…."

Leonia reached up with small hands and pinched her cheek.
It hurt.
But everything still felt like a dream.

Waking up one day to find herself an orphan.
Suffering from the cruel abuse of the orphanage.
Meeting Ferio and realizing she had somehow entered the world of a novel.

And now—discovering that they were actually related by blood.
"Then…."
No matter how dreamlike everything felt, there was still one thing she couldn’t comprehend.

"Who gave birth to me?"
Even as someone who had read the novel, Leonia didn’t know the answer to this.
As with many stories of this type, the novel had established that Ferio was the only member of the Voreoti family.

His parents had died early, and he had no siblings.
At that moment, Ferio’s expression darkened slightly with irritation.
"…My cousin."

He added with an exasperated sigh—
"The most infuriating woman in the world."