How to Replace Dad 11
The members who heard Marina’s words about me from the castle came running in a group.
“What? You’re glaring at the little teacher?”
“Claiming to have an item that’s like a bomb?”
“The little teacher was about to explode?”
“Now she’s not the little teacher, she’s a young lady.”
Charie was the owner of a gorgeous tongue that couldn’t say a single word to good people.
She didn’t stop anyone.
Marina, who had committed countless sins, was to be sent to the mines.
It was good to get used to it before that.
What kind of mine makes tearing off ears and crowns a familiar process?
I didn’t know, but Marina must be in big trouble.
The viscount eventually admitted to his crimes.
I looked at Marina as she left, tearing out a handful of Charie’s hair.
This is only the second time I’ve come close to murder, so there’s no hope for redemption.
And I was about to head back to the room when…
“Where are you going?”
The vice-leader, who had been discussing the disposal of subordinates and Marina, looked at me.
“I’m going to my room.”
“The Duke is waiting for you.”
“…!”
The Duke.
Since I came to San Miguel Castle, I hadn’t met him.
From what Antonio told me, he was in the secret base of San Miguel.
Only a few who were permitted to know, and we couldn’t approach.
Finally meeting.
I followed the vice-leader with a tense expression.
But it was strange.
The more I walked, the more puzzled I became.
The path the vice-leader was walking was completely different from what I expected.
I thought the secret base was inside the castle, but it wasn’t.
We had to walk a long way past the abandoned garden where Marina had attacked.
And towards the towers on the outskirts of the castle.
Clock tower, guard tower, beacon tower for emergencies.
The vice-leader was heading to the most remote tower among them.
A tower with no windows, filled only with spiral stairs, no value beyond the decorations visible from outside.
Is the Duke in a place like this? No room, how…
Just as I was thinking that.
Kaak-!
A whirl-like monster flew into the tower.
A giant monster at least three meters tall.
Full of spiky teeth like mane hair in its mouth, claws thick like spears.
The monster flew straight at me like an arrow.
I’m going to get hit…!
Instinctively, my eyes squeezed shut from fear.
But at that moment.
“Don’t worry.”
Instead of pain, the indifferent vice-leader’s voice fell from above.
I slowly opened my eyes.
“Ah…”
The giant monster that had been blocking my view just a moment ago was now dust flying from its feet.
The vice-leader, who turned to look at me, said.
“Nothing in the Duke’s sight can harm us.”
The Duke’s sight?
I lifted my head in surprise.
The night was pitch black.
The outline of a man facing the full moon shattered in the moonlight.
The man froze everything like the darkness that has existed since the beginning of time.
Yes, that man.
Aslan.
The vice-leader, with his hand on his chest, bent his waist.
“I greet the Duke.”
Finally, a reunion.
* * *
It was smaller inside than what it seemed from outside, so there was a hidden room.
The vice-leader felt the wall, and a passage appeared.
We entered the room through that passage.
A room with red curtains.
When the Duke sat down, the vice-leader reported on the recent events.
“The Duke sent the young lady along with the cousin who attacked her to the mines. Therefore, within a few days, we will request the Duke’s succession to the Esgard family.”
I, listening quietly, flinched.
Is the Duke going to take the succession himself?
Isn’t there a problem with the status?
That’s why he brought in the viscount to make him a dummy duke.
Suddenly, my eyes fell on the document on the table.
When I saw it, I was startled.
...Inherits all recorded assets and rights to Aslan.
August 25, 3rd month
Stephen San Miguel
He stole the viscount’s everything!
He even took the status cleverly.
I thought he had signed it skillfully, but soon shook my head.
There must have been a huge incident in the underground prison.
In the game, Irregulars were often given harsh judgments and their stories modified.
The viscount wasn’t particularly pitiful.
A lowlife who blackmailed children and tried to kill them as a suicide bomber at the end.
More importantly, the Duke is a person with clear rewards and punishments.
Harsh to enemies, gives growth opportunities to allies.
Protects his subordinates and gives the best boss who also provides jobs.
So it should be visible, but…
The Duke had no interest in me at all.
Even the vice-leader, after finishing the report, glanced at me with a troubled expression.
It seemed like he was about to give a formal greeting since I had become a sugar daughter, but the Duke was only looking at the documents.
After a long time, the vice-leader had no choice but to speak.
“...Duke, do you have any words for Yustea-nim?”
The Duke fixed his gaze on the documents and said.
“Go to the Esgard Main Castle for the prince’s successor selection. If you bring the Duke and my secret away, I will reward you.”
“...”
“...”
That was it.
Since I had observed it since coming to San Miguel Castle, the Duke really only spoke the necessary words.
The vice-leader swallowed a sigh.
“The gist is that.”
“...Neng.”
When I answered with a blink, the vice-leader seemed a bit embarrassed.
“This is an important mission with the Irregular’s fate on the line. If you succeed, you will be able to serve your mother without working in the future.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Yes. Then shall we go?”
The vice-leader looked at the Duke with a disgusted expression and said to me.
Um, the vice-leader is a pitiful administrative worker being squeezed from above and below.
The cold appearance was because he was in the position of tightening the reins of reason.
I felt sorry for him and stood up.
It’s a pity, but if I stick around, I’ll just get scratched and make a rash.
With the next one in mind, I bowed deeply to the Duke.
“I will work hard from now on... right?”
After the greeting, when I lifted my head, I stopped.
Because something strange was on the Duke’s wrist as he turned the document.
The vice-leader asked what was wrong.
“Young lady?”
“...Does the Duke sleep well?”
“Eh?”
“Your body doesn’t tingle? Even in the wind, it doesn’t hurt? I want to see your eyes more closely.”
When I reached out my hand, the vice-leader quickly blocked me.
“Touching the Duke’s body is out of the question.”
“Sorry. But I have to check.”
“Why are you doing this!”
“You’ve been cursed!”
“...!”
The vice-leader flinched.
Even the Duke’s gaze, which had been fixed on the documents until then, turned to me.
I said with a stern face.
“I know that mark. That’s a curse mark. It starts from the heart and spreads throughout the body. If it has spread to the wrist, it’s a very serious situation...”
As I was speaking, I stopped.
The vice-leader was frozen, but it wasn’t surprise at the situation.
Rather, it was an expression close to “how did you know that?”
Moreover, the Duke....
“Has a good eye.”
It was that he knew about the curse.
But how calm is he?
No, the body that received that curse destroyed a sect in the empire and sent a whip to break the golden chain?
People called the Irregular’s elite monsters.
But my thought was different.
The Duke was really a person who transcended human limits.
“That is the Curse of the Dark Mirror. An ancient spell that activates by mediating the lives of 100 corpses of heavenly demons, 100 human corpses, and the caster’s life.”
It seals the opponent’s mana and causes excruciating pain just by breathing. It was said that at night, you couldn’t sleep at all because of various nightmares.
The vice-leader closed his eyes tightly.
Since I had found out about the curse, it was impossible to hide.
“It’s a curse that started three years ago. After that, I searched all over the place for a way to break the curse and barely found a clue to the curse.”
The vice-leader took something out from a drawer on one side of the room.
It was a thing wrapped in a cloth.
And I had seen that cloth before.
When I first joined the Irregular, Antonio, the Duke, and I went to the shopping district.
The Duke and Antonio found something there, which was exactly that cloth-wrapped item.
So the thing I found was the clue to the curse.
“Necklace stone. It says in an ancient book that it’s the only thing to break the Curse of the Dark Mirror, but I never found out the usage. Damn it...”
“...”
“So, we have to enter the Esgard family as soon as possible. If the Esgard is a magician, they might know the method—”
“...I know that?”
Suddenly the room became quiet.
And.
“Yes─?!”
The vice-leader looked at me with eyes about to pop out.
He opened his mouth with difficulty.
“Eh, eh, how...?”
But nothing proper came out.
The rational vice-leader was like Antonio.
He was incredibly surprised.
Because I saw it in the game.
But I couldn’t say that.
So, I rolled my eyes and said.
“I was the eldest daughter of the Andres family? I could enter the secret archive room... um, the Andres family is a family that has been with the empire since the beginning, so there are various archives...?”
“Really...!”
The excuse was accepted, and the vice-leader was very happy.
“What should I do?”
“The necklace stone can’t be used because of the barrier. There’s a barrier set. Please leave it to me to break it. And...”
I looked at the Duke.
“The Duke should prepare for the curse breaking.”
“What preparation? Tell me anything.”
I answered while holding up my index finger.
“Enough rest, balanced meals. And the meals should include necklestone grass.”
I have to build up stamina before the curse breaking.
And I have to be ready to accept the necklace stone with necklestone grass.
The vice-leader flinched.
“...”
“...?”
The vice-leader frowned and looked at the Duke.
The Duke started turning the documents again.
I tilted my head and asked.
“Why?”
“The Duke is not a difficult person to take care of. He has lived a life with death by his side, so he learns quickly, doesn’t distinguish between food and sleep.”
Why did he suddenly make the sentence long?
“But anyone who is human has something physiologically hard to accept. Like worms to me. The young lady doesn’t either, does she?”
“I catch worms well.”
“Some might be high places, some might be locked in a room, some might be death.”
“...?”
“And the Duke... is necklestone grass.”
It was saying picky.
* * *
A few days later. I groaned while looking at the tray Antonio brought from the tower.
He really doesn’t eat.
Only necklestone grass remained.
The Duke really didn’t eat necklestone grass.
The vice-leader, who had lifted the Duke’s side by talking long in the tower last time, now had an expression as if he was about to have a fit.
No, the fit might have already come.
The clean face that everyone expresses as pure and ascetic was all distorted.
“Did you persuade him?”
“I did.”
“What did you say.”
“‘The vice-leader said he wants to die.’”
“...Then?”
“The vice-leader went to the tower.”
Antonio got kicked in the shin by the vice-leader.
I groaned.
It’s not that the process of adapting the body with necklestone grass is necessary.
But if not, the curse breaker will suffer tremendous pain.
A normal human would definitely suffer shock.
The Duke doesn’t care about the pain, so he doesn’t eat, but from the vice-leader’s and my perspective, it was worrying.
The taste of necklestone grass is going to be horrific.
Neck lestone grass is a mysterious herb that grows in the air with mana.
And it has the property of protecting itself like rose thorns or thistle flowers.
That’s why the person who eats it feels the worst taste.
“Still, I can’t let him not eat...”
As I muttered, the vice-leader, who was about to break Antonio’s neck, looked at me.
I said.
“What if I take care of the Duke’s meals by his side?”
“It would be troublesome, and Antonio is doing it...”
As the vice-leader was saying, he stopped.
I just smiled kindly.
Neither of us thought that Antonio could find out the Duke’s food preferences by taking care of meals and making eye contact.
What Antonio says after eating is usually two things.
“X is delicious!”
“X is not delicious...”
And the vice-leader is busy, so he doesn’t have the time to take care of the Duke’s every meal.
Even now, he was working without time to sleep because of the Duke’s succession.
“Um. I think it’s better if I do it.”
“...I’m sorry to burden you, but please do me a favor.”
It was not bad for me either.
If I get close to the Duke this time, even if the young lady role ends, I might be able to be the Duke’s cooking manager.
Let’s work hard.
I clenched my fist.
* * *
Outside, the Irregular’s secret base, called the spiral tower.
Aslan, the Duke, wearing a robe, sat on the chair with his eyes gently closed.
Through the robe without tying the front, the flesh tightened by muscles was visible.
The curse pattern that spread to the wrist looked like it was carrying chains.
Lorenzo, the vice-leader, said in a low voice.
“It’s getting more dangerous.”
The extreme pain would be tormenting the body.
When stepping, it would feel like being cut by a sharpened blade, and when breathing, like being pierced by a red-hot iron skewer in the lungs.
It was fortunate that he had been maintaining his life so far.
“The herb medicine is no longer effective. You can’t even sleep, so why are you being stubborn.”
One of the four people in the magic circle spoke sarcastically.
[Then you should receive treatment from the girl from the Andres family. Eating food you don’t know what’s in it, and using the necklace stone without knowing if it’s properly cursed.]
“It’s not a child who would harm the Duke.”
When the vice-leader said coldly, the sarcastic person laughed.
[What a great girl. How did you get so much trust from Lorenzo Worth?]
“Cesar!”
The vice-leader shouted.
The magic circle showed the elite of Irregular except Antonio.
Monsters that far exceeded the human category gathered under the Duke.
Today was the usual regular meeting, and the main agenda was none other than Yustea.
The beautiful face of the elite Cesar distorted fiercely.
[If you don’t want to see a dog-like appearance, throw away useless thoughts.]
[Not wrong. When did we start trusting people?]
One of the elites agreed, and others added words.
[The Duke’s life is on the line. I also agree that we should be more cautious, haha....]
[What a great atmosphere. So, is there another way?]
At the moment the last person’s words ended, the room became quiet.
For years, the Irregular had turned this continent upside down.
But they couldn’t find any sharp solution.
Then.
Knock knock. With a knock sound, a small voice came.
“I’m Yustea. I brought the meal prepared.”
One of the elites said.
[If there’s a book with the curse breaking method, we can get it... Duke?]
The elite who was speaking stopped.
The Duke had opened the door.
[...!]
[...?!]
Even the vice-leader opened his eyes wide with an unconcerned attitude.
The Duke asked.
“Is it galbi-jjim?”
“No, it’s not?”
“...”
He became quiet.