I Became the Male Lead’s Adopted Daughter

“Leo’s been learning a lot from Viscount Kerata’s daughter.”

Ferio held an immense fondness for Flomus.
She was a precious presence—someone who, even if only briefly, made his prematurely wise daughter seem like a child her own age.
Whatever that girl chose to do in the future, he intended to sponsor her.

“They’ve been exchanging letters too.”
He vividly recalled the day Leonia returned from an outing to town with her maid and escort knights, proudly showing off the stationery she had chosen.
So he had gifted her sealing wax and a stamp engraved with the family crest. Leonia had been far more delighted by that than when she bought the stationery.

“...I-I truly apologize, but…”
Ferio, caught in the warm memory, shifted his gaze.
“The letter, the one that came to my daughter…”

Viscount Kerata pulled out yet another soaked handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
Ferio tilted his head slightly.
“The letter?”

“Well, how should I put this…”
The letter Leonia had written, as recited by Flomus the previous day, was filled with content entirely unfitting for a seven-year-old.
Flomus had been thrilled by what she considered mature and impressive writing, but Viscount Kerata couldn’t share the sentiment.

Techniques for knocking someone out with a teacup.
Pulling out a faucet like a storybook character.
Suspicious men lingering around her father.

“It’s just... too adult? Or too advanced, perhaps…”
To be honest, it felt like something written by a jaded, emotionally barren adult.
But he couldn’t bring himself to say that in front of the letter’s author’s father—especially not the Black Beast.
At that point, he’d rather be gored by a reindeer antler and say he’d lived a full life.

“…What exactly did it say?”
Ferio, sensing something, closed his eyes tight.
“Well…”

Viscount Kerata braced himself and finally spoke up.
***
“Leonia Voreoti.”

That evening.
Ferio called for Leonia, who had been reading a book in the parlor.
“What is it, Daddy?”

Leonia looked up at him with an innocent expression as he summoned her to the study.
“Leonia Voreoti.”
For the first time since giving her that name, Ferio called her by her full name.

And he said it twice.
That alone made it clear how thoroughly rattled Ferio’s mood was at the moment.
“It’s been a long time since I gave up on your childhood innocence.”

As if to ask, You know that too, don’t you? Leonia nodded.
“Yeah. We gave it up by mutual agreement.”
That had been after the scandal involving Regina and her teenage pregnancy, discovered after she’d spent too long living in a fantasy land of childhood dreams.

“But that didn’t mean you should go around destroying other children’s innocence.”
“I didn’t do that!”
“Viscount Kerata says he read the letter you sent to Flomus.”

“Ugh, why do adults these days have no respect for kids’ privacy?”
Leonia clucked her tongue like a grumpy elder at the end of the world.
Ferio, unable to take it anymore, flicked her forehead.

“Ow!”
“You’re the problem.”
“Ugh, what now?!”

“Put your hand on your heart and think.”
Ferio asked whether the letter’s content was really problem-free.
Though grumbling, Leonia put a hand on her chest and closed her eyes tightly. Then she recalled the letter.

“…Yeah, okay, maybe it was a bit unfiltered.”
Clearly stung by the question, she opened her eyes and lowered her gaze sheepishly.
“But I did try to soften it.”

“Like saying you were learning how to knock people out with a teacup?”
“I was just writing about what I’ve been learning!”
“I brought Countess Bosgruni to teach you etiquette, not assassination techniques.”

“That wasn’t assassination—it was self-defense!”
Leonia had seen Countess Bosgruni subdue Ardea with a teacup firsthand. A teacup was a stronger weapon than a thick dictionary.
And honestly, it was her dad’s fault for assigning someone like that as her etiquette tutor, she argued.

“Besides, it’s good to learn a bit of self-defense, right?”
“What do you need that for? Just pierce them with the Beast’s Fangs.”
“Don’t you think that’s more brutal?”

The Fangs of the Beast meant immediate and merciless death.
“If anyone messes with you, they should die. What else are they going to do—live?”
Ferio said it as though that was the obvious conclusion.

“…Sheesh.”
Leonia’s irritation dissolved just like that.
“Well, anyway, I’ll be more careful.”

She huffed through her nose and shrugged her shoulders.
Ferio let out a short sigh and pulled her into his arms.
“Viscount Kerata didn’t snoop on your letter.”

On the way to the dining room, Ferio explained what had happened.
“His daughter was so happy about exchanging letters with you that she read it to him.”
“I see.”

Leonia’s fondness for the Viscount was restored.
“But she’s got some quirky tastes, too.”
Leonia tried to defend herself, insisting she wasn’t the only weirdo.

“You should talk.”
Ferio thought someone known across the estate as a certified muscle-freak wasn’t really in a position to talk.
Annoyed, Leonia gently bonked her head against his.

It was a harmless little headbutt.
“Do you know what she taught me?”
Leonia cupped her hands around Ferio’s rounded ear and whispered,

“Actually, reindeer…”
The long legs that had been striding forward suddenly halted.
Ferio’s face hardened into an indescribable expression.

And Leonia remained perfectly cheerful.
“…I see.”
Nodding as if something finally made sense, Ferio resumed walking.

“The Kerata family is pure Northern stock.”
“Eh? That’s it?”
You’re not more surprised?

This time, it was Leonia’s face that stiffened.
This translation is the intellectual property of .
“You really underestimated the Northerners to the core.”

At the dining hall, Ferio seated Leonia at the table.
“Pureblood Northerners are all at least half mad.”
“That’s just you insulting yourself, you know.”

He was, after all, the head of one of those pureblood houses.
So he did know he wasn’t in his right mind.
Leonia, realizing her verbal jab hadn’t landed nearly as hard as she’d hoped, sulked. She thought she’d scored a critical hit, but he looked completely unfazed.
While the father and daughter bickered, a splendid dinner was laid out before them.

Leonia let out a cheer at the sight of the slow-simmered chicken dish in cream sauce.
“Leo.”
Just as she was about to take a big bite of her cut-up portion, Ferio spoke, stabbing his fork into the salad.

“…Why exactly does a fairytale character need to yank out a faucet?”
The attending servants nearly popped their eyes out of their sockets.
“Oh, that?”

Leonia chewed her chicken ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ thoughtfully and then swallowed.
“Flo said she read The Angel and the Hunter.”
The Angel and the Hunter. Ferio knew that story well.

Even the fearsome Black Beast had once been a child clutching fairy tale books in his arms.
“In it, the hunter steals the angel’s clothes while she’s bathing and makes her his wife, right?”
“Right.”

“Then later, the angel finds her clothes and returns to the heavens with her children.”
“Exactly.”
“Flo said she felt sorry for the hunter.”

So Leonia wrote in her letter that the hunter was actually a terrible criminal.
To Leonia, the story was nearly identical to The Woodcutter and the Fairy from the world she remembered.
While the storybook tried to make the hunter seem pitiful, Leonia never once felt sorry for him.

“The hunter’s a sex offender.”
Leonia clenched her little fist.
Ferio nodded. Indeed, that wasn’t the sort of thing anyone should be doing in this day and age.

He began seriously contemplating how to have all copies of The Angel and the Hunter destroyed in the North.
“You did well.”
“Right?”

“But that doesn’t mean you should write profanity in a letter.”
Viscount Kerata hadn’t been concerned about the content of Leonia’s letter, but rather about her word choice.
“Who writes that the faucet should be pulled out, shoved in someone’s mouth, and chewed?”

The two servants standing behind them discreetly pressed their knees together.
“Where did you even learn something like that?”
“…The orphanage?”

Leonia pinned the blame on the most convenient targets—the orphanage teachers.
Ferio’s eyes narrowed.
Thanks to that, the orphanage staff who were currently housed in the mansion’s underground prison had just earned themselves another lively round of hospitality.

“Leo.”
After dinner, dessert and wine were served.
The servants moving around the room were visibly more careful than usual.

“In a few days, we’ll have a guest at the mansion.”
“A guest?”
Leonia asked while poking her red velvet cake with a fork.

“Who? That old Marquis Grandpa?”
“Why would that geezer be a guest?”
Ferio looked genuinely disgusted.

“I’d rather you just insulted him.”
“Can’t believe a dad’s telling his daughter to curse…”
The upbringing in this house is rotten to the core. Leonia thought to herself as the creamy cheese and soft sponge cake melted delightfully in her mouth.

“Then who is it?”
There weren’t many people who would come to this mansion as guests in the first place.
Most visitors were either Ferio Voreoti’s vassals or merchants delivering household goods.

“A friend of mine.”
Ferio added, “For now.”
“Pfft.”

Leonia had been just about to throw in a fast jab like a knee reflex test—what kind of friend could her dad possibly have?—but her hand froze mid-air.
The fork, smeared with cream, slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.
There was only one.

Only one person in the empire known as Duke Voreoti’s acknowledged friend.
The man who drove Ferio to make an impulsive decision to adopt.
The one responsible for the miracle that brought father and daughter together at that orphanage.

To Leonia, he was a benefactor beyond compare.
“…Count Rinne?”