Chapter 2
Inside the carriage bound for the Calix ducal estate, the man in the black cloak asked,
“Well, I’ve got urgent business, so I’m taking you along for convenience… but aren’t you afraid of me? What if I were a kidnapper?”
Penelope replied lightly, almost cheerfully,
“Hmm. If that emblem’s fake, shouldn’t you be more worried about your life instead of mine?”
A short while ago, the man had pulled something from his coat and shown it to her—
the emblem of House Calix.
Noble family emblems can’t be forged easily. So he’s not lying.
Penelope recalled something from before she returned in time—
when she was fifteen, someone had tried to impersonate a noble by forging their emblem.
They’d been punished very severely.
That was the first time she’d learned that noble crests carried a magical aura,
making them impossible to counterfeit.
And if it’s the emblem of the Calix dukedom, it’s all the more impossible.
In other words, this man really was a retainer of House Calix.
If he’s someone who carries the duke’s emblem, he must hold a fairly high position.
She almost hummed to herself in satisfaction.
With such a respectable patron backing her, the future could only be bright.
After some time, the carriage finally rolled into a vast estate.
Amazing… so this is where nobles live.
Gone was her earlier show of bravado—
overwhelmed by the sheer grandeur of the mansion, Penelope swallowed hard.
The man chuckled at the sight.
“Kid, you should consider yourself lucky. I don’t expect you to be her, but… this is a decent place to work. The duke’s temper is a bit nasty, though.”
His sudden lowering of voice was suspicious, but surely they wouldn’t throw out a child like her on the spot.
“You won’t regret it,” Penelope said with forced cheer.
“I really can do a good job.”
A little later…
“Ugh… where am I?”
Penelope was wandering through an unfamiliar corridor.
That awful man! No sense of chivalry toward a lady!
The man had legs as long as he was tall.
…In other words, he walked like someone who’d never in his life matched his pace to a child’s.
Like he was being chased by something!
Her short legs couldn’t keep up at all.
And so, she’d inevitably gotten lost inside the enormous mansion.
Not even anyone around to ask for directions. How is this possible?
The dim corridor, heavy with dark tapestries depicting aggressive scenes, felt eerily oppressive.
And as if that weren’t enough, here and there hung stuffed beasts—enough to make an ordinary child burst into tears.
But Penelope was no ordinary child.
Huh. The Calix household might be lazier than I thought. Those bronze statues aren’t polished—if they were cleaned daily, they wouldn’t be that color.
And is that… a stain on the carpet? The dark color hides it well, but… see, if you catch it in the light, you can tell.
Good grief. There’s dust on the window frames! That’s cleaning 101. I just want to wipe it myself.
To a veteran former worker like Penelope, the mansion’s lax cleaning stood out more than anything else.
This was clearly poor maintenance.
“The entrance was fine… but what’s going on in this wing? Is the steward here just lazy?”
Muttering to herself, she continued down the corridor.
「…ro…」
“Huh?”
「…ero…」
She tilted her head.
“Did I hear that wrong?”
But then, the sound came again—clearer this time.
「…this way.」
The voice was clearer and louder now—strange and dreamlike, making her mind feel hazy.
Drawn as if in a trance, Penelope followed the sound.
At last, she stopped before a massive black door.
It was studded with countless unidentifiable gemstones, radiating an ominous aura.
But Penelope hardly noticed. The voice in her ear had her utterly entranced—like the song of a siren.
It beckoned her relentlessly.
「Come closer.」
「I’m lonely.」
「Set me free…」
“I’ll… set you free…”
She murmured dazedly, placing her hand on the black doorknob and turning it.
The heavy, ancient-looking door swung open without a sound.
From within, a faint light spilled into the corridor.
“I’m coming in…”
And the moment she stepped inside, she saw—
“A sword?”
A single sword.
It was as tall as she was, encased in a pitch-black scabbard set with crimson gems,
its elaborate gold-and-silver inlays forming intricate patterns.
It was beautiful enough to take her breath away—
no, it was a beauty with something almost demonic about it.
“…Wow.”
Penelope let out a sigh that was almost a moan of awe.
She’d completely forgotten where she was, who had called her, or what she had been doing.
「Come closer.」
Again, the voice whispered.
As if possessed, Penelope gazed at the sword.
「Take another step.」
「Take me in your hands.」
Now the voice’s lure was blatant.
Step. Step.
With each pace she took, the blade seemed to thrum with a deep vibration.
At last, she stood right before it.
「Grip the hilt. Take me.」
In a trance, Penelope wrapped her fingers around the hilt.
In that instant, an explosive surge of energy burst from her hand.
Rumble—
The great mansion shook as if it might collapse.
Leaning at an angle against his desk, lost in thought, Duke Theodore Calix slowly rose to his feet.
He had sensed a great power.
—Rumble!—
In that instant, the earth trembled violently.
“Uwaaaah!”
“An earthquake! It’s an earthquake!”
“Help!”
Startled servants came running out of their rooms one by one, filling the mansion with commotion.
“Master!”
The butler, unable to hide his alarm, knocked urgently on the duke’s study door.
Opening the door as he stepped out, Duke Calix issued quick orders.
“This is something from that room. I’ll go take care of it, so calm the servants down in the meantime.”
“Y-you’re going alone?”
“Is there anyone else here who can enter that place besides me?”
“It’s dangerous!”
“Dangerous for you, perhaps. I’ll be fine.”
With an impatient flick of his hand, the duke made it clear the butler should leave and follow his orders.
“…Understood.”
The butler hesitated briefly, then turned away. With no mistress in the household, it was his and the head maid’s responsibility to steady the frightened staff.
What could have happened?
Something from ‘that room’? Don’t tell me… the seal’s been broken? Impossible… The master doesn’t even have an heir yet.
While the butler fretted and hurried off, Theodore Calix strode toward the source of the disturbance.
At the deepest part of the mansion lay a corridor forbidden to all but the duke himself.
From here emanated a chilling aura so unsettling that servants avoided even coming near it. Consequently, that section looked so neglected it was hard to believe it belonged to the Calix estate.
But Duke Calix never blamed them for that.
Around “that room”—the so-called Demon-Sealing Room—it was better to have no one at all.
There hasn’t been an incident in the Demon-Sealing Room in a hundred years…
If something truly had happened, Theodore Calix was the only one in the estate who could deal with it.
Without hesitation, he threw open the black door.
And what he saw made his eyes widen.
“This is…?”
On the floor lay a tiny girl with vivid crimson hair, clutching an enormous sword.
Penelope frowned. It was far too noisy around her.
I want to sleep more…
She smacked her lips and curled up, but for some reason the back of her head prickled—as though someone were staring at her intently.
Still half-asleep, Penelope mumbled in a familiar way,
“Max… you can eat all my food today. I’m just gonna sleep more…”
She expected the usual snarky reply—but instead, a strange voice answered.
“Who’s Max?”
Startled, Penelope shot upright. She shrank back at the sight of three large shadows looming over her.
One was the man who had brought her here to the mansion; the other two were strangers.
One was an incredibly handsome man with an intimidatingly fierce aura, and the other was a plump old man.
“Wh-who are you? Where am I?”
At her dazed question, the dark-haired man spoke.
“This is the House of Calix. And I am its master, Duke Calix.”
“Eek!”
Penelope gasped.
That’s the terrifying Duke Calix?
For reference, the Calix family was an ancient noble house dating back to the founding of the empire—famous for its immense power and equally infamous for its sinister reputation.
“If you don’t behave, Duke Calix will take you away,” parents would warn—and the threat was effective enough to stop a child’s crying instantly.
Some even claimed the duke regularly kidnapped children to serve as tender delicacies in gourmet feasts!
Of course, Penelope didn’t believe every rumor. High-ranking nobles always attracted scandalous tales.
…But still.
Wait… could it be true?
The man claiming to be Duke Calix had eyes so sharp and cold that chills ran down her spine.
An ordinary child might have burst into tears on the spot.
The duke fixed his piercing gaze on Penelope and barked,
“Now it’s your turn to answer. What’s your name?”
Intimidated by the oppressive air, Penelope swallowed hard.
“P-pe… Penelope Banton, but my family calls me Pipi.”
“Penelope Banton. Who are your parents?”
“My mother’s Emily Banton, and my father’s Dennis Banton.”
“Nobles?”
“No? Not at all.”
If they had been nobles, they wouldn’t have been living in squalor in the slums.
“Who brought you here?”
“Uh… that man over there? He said he’d get me a job.”
“Derek, is this the child you brought?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where and how did you find her?”
“Well, uh…”
Scratching his head, the man explained.
“You told me to bring back a child with Calix blood this month.”
“That’s right. I said it would be best if they were an illegitimate child of the previous head.”
“But, well, I’ve already combed through every possible bloodline, and there’s no one left who fits the conditions.”
“So this girl?”
“I… couldn’t come back empty-handed, so I just grabbed a kid I spotted on the street…”
“…Hah.”
The duke pressed a hand to his forehead and shook his head.
After a brief sigh, he turned his gaze back to Penelope. His sharp crimson eyes glinted dangerously.
Yikes, he’s scary…
He began questioning her in detail—where she lived, whether she had siblings and how many, what her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s lineage was, and so on.
Penelope answered as best she could, while the dark-haired subordinate wrote down everything.
The plump old man simply watched with a scowl, as though the whole affair displeased him.
Three imposing adults interrogating a tiny child—it was, to say the least, an odd scene.
“…Enough. Derek, you brought her, so go investigate.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not a word to anyone about this.”
“Yes, sir.”
Derek hurried out at the order.
Duke Calix remained still for a moment, hand pressed to his forehead as though deep in thought.
“…Hah.”
He muttered under his breath,
“…That a little sewer rat like this… would become my…”
After another sigh, he furrowed his brows and spoke.
Penelope, clutching her chest to still its rapid pounding, waited for him to pronounce his judgment.
I don’t know what’s going on, but please, just let me live!
And then the verdict struck like a bolt of lightning.
“From now on, your name is Penelope Calix.”
“…Excuse me?”
“In other words, starting today, you will be my daughter.”
“Eeeeh?!”
It couldn’t possibly be a dream.
Because this was a situation she had never dared to even imagine.
