“Dad.”

It was when all the food had been set. Lucy, who had been holding her forehead with both hands, lifted her head from the table.

Damian, who had also been sitting blankly at the table, turned his gaze at Lucy’s voice.

“Did you fight with Mom?”

At Lucy’s question, Damian rolled his eyes for a moment.

Fight? Fight… Fighting is an act of trying to win against the other person, but did I try to win against Eriel…?

“…Wait, just a moment.”

Lucy, who stretched out her small palm to Damian, said firmly.

“Dad, don’t tell me you got angry at Mom?”

Lucy’s face beyond the palm was all crumpled up.

The green eyes glaring as if daring him to say yes to the answer were unwavering.

However, Damian could confidently answer his daughter’s words for this question.

“No.”

“Then… did you get scolded?”

The palm disappeared and Lucy opened her small lips, speaking as if dumbfounded.

After mulling over that word for a moment, Damian slowly nodded.

“…I guess I was scolded.”

Lucy, who sighed as if to say ‘I thought so’, shook her head.

“Haa… I thought it might be that. You got scolded, right? Anyway, why did Mom scold you?”

Lucy, who had concluded that he was scolded, asked Damian with wide eyes.

“Well.”

Damian looked at his daughter, whose face changed vividly with various expressions even in that short moment.

Meanwhile, perhaps unsatisfied with Damian’s answer, a look of exasperation flashed across the green eyes looking at Damian.

But it was difficult to answer the question of why he was scolded.

Somehow, it wasn’t easy to tell either Eriel or his daughter.

However, there was no need to define it particularly. The daughter didn’t seem likely to dig deeper either.

Damian, who had unconsciously smiled at Lucy, who was staring straight ahead with a very serious expression, lowered his gaze to the child’s wrist.

Whether it was a resemblance to Eriel, Lucy’s wrists and bone parts were also very thin.

They say you need to eat well when you’re young to grow up strong.

Damian looked down at the steak on his plate and picked up the knife. He cut it into pieces to fit the child’s mouth size.

He hesitated for a moment, but Damian nonetheless pierced the steak with a fork and approached the child’s mouth.

He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction would come, but fortunately, Lucy put the meat that approached her mouth into her mouth in one bite, with a serious expression as if she was about to make a major decision.

Even while chewing the meat, the green eyes staring straight ahead were fully focused, as if deep in thought about something.

Lucy, who had swallowed the meat, called out to Damian while twitching her eyebrows.

“…Dad.”

Damian, who had a small smile at the sight of Lucy eating well, nodded and picked up the knife again. He started cutting the steak into small pieces, as much as she had just eaten.

“I need a little brother, and you want to make up with Mom, right?”

Damian nodded as he brought another piece of meat to Lucy’s mouth with his fork. This time too, Lucy put the meat Damian gave her into her mouth without any resistance and frowned with a “Hmm-.”

“Then let’s do this.”

Lucy, who had put the meat in her cheek like a small animal storing its food, sparkled her eyes.

*

While Damian and Lucy were eating, Eriel scanned through the list of investors that Bruno had written down.

It was obvious, but there were many unfamiliar names and families.

“They’re all aliases.”

If they had money to spare while playing at the club, and moreover, if they were thinking of investing, it would be impossible with ordinary wealth.

There was no way someone from a family Eriel didn’t know could have such ability.

So all the names and families written on the memo were aliases.

Eriel sighed and sat on the sofa.

Even if they were aliases, it wouldn’t be impossible to find them if people were deployed…

But at this rate, even if there was a mastermind among them, it seemed very difficult to find evidence.

It would be impossible unless they searched the entire club or checked the ledgers.

There was also no certainty that the memo Bruno gave was real. The possibility of a mastermind being inside was also something to consider.

“If only Bruno would just open his mouth… Should I wait for now?”

Eriel held up the memo.

It wasn’t just one or two names he had written down.

Did he write so many on purpose? Or did Bruno want to dig deeper into the background forces?

If he were to frame him as the culprit right now, he would have nothing to say…

Eriel frowned.

Of course, it would be confidence coming from the judgment that Damian wouldn’t frame Bruno himself as the culprit.

In reality, he couldn’t know how Damian would act.

“Hm? The name is… Kerfin?”

In the memo Bruno had written, some had only the family name written, and some had only the name written.

There weren’t many full names written, but among them, there was one written as Kerfin.

A strange feeling of déjà vu struck.

“…Kerfin? It sounds very familiar.”

Eriel, blinking her eyes, detached herself from the sofa backrest.

“Kerfin. Kerfin…”

Eriel, who had jumped up from her seat, opened her lips.

“Could it be Blake Borghese…”

Kerfin was the name of the monster in the fairy tale book that Eriel’s younger brother had liked since he was young.

Eriel, who let out a hollow laugh, put down the memo. Perhaps things would be resolved much more easily.

Her younger brother, who was the spitting image of their father, had completely inherited that nature itself. When she was young, Eriel had been quite surprised more than once or twice.

But because of that, he was simple.

Except for Eriel, he hated taking orders from anyone, and his eyes would roll at money and shiny things.

There’s a high probability that the club owner is her younger brother.

He wasn’t the type to invest money in something that wasn’t his own.

Moreover, if it’s a club, there are many shiny things because money comes and goes. It would be a sight satisfying to her younger brother’s heart.

“He must have leaked it on purpose.”

The fact that her brother’s alias was written on Bruno’s memo was probably not a coincidence.

It was a signal.

Come if you see it.

The moment she was certain upon seeing Kerfin, there was a knock.

“Madam, the Young Lady wishes to talk with you in the garden inside the mansion.”

*

“Daughter.”

Damian called Lucy. After dinner, they had moved to the garden for a while as Lucy had suggested.

Lucy, who had naturally sat on Damian’s lap, turned her head back as if asking why he was calling.

Instead of speaking, Damian nodded towards the seat next to him. It was a space where two people could sit.

Moreover, there wasn’t just one bench.

Among the scattered benches, he couldn’t understand why he was sitting so close with his daughter.

It was already hot because it was summer, and when his small and hot daughter climbed onto his lap, it became even hotter.

“…Ha. How on earth did you marry Mom?”

Lucy frowned, crossed her arms, and shook her head at Damian.

“Even Benjamin tries various things to sit with Elisha, but Dad… you might be dumber than I thought? You weren’t a stone, you were a fool.”

A scathing criticism came from the small lips.

“Why on earth did Mom…”

Lucy, who had been staring at Damian’s face, sighed again and again.

“I saw in a fairy tale book, it said looks last for 3 months!”

“3 months?”

Damian tilted his head at the sentence he had never heard before.

“But…”

Lucy, who suddenly seemed to lose confidence in her words, bit her lip and held her chin with her hand.

She slightly lowered her head and fell into thought again. Her small voice added weakly as she muttered.

“But Elisha said that appearance is for life.”

Damian, who burst into laughter at Lucy’s words, nodded and asked casually.

“If you had to choose between being handsome and having a good personality, which would you choose?”

“Can’t you be both handsome and have a good personality?”

Damian shook his head at his greedy daughter’s answer.

“If that were possible, the choices would be unfair. A handsome dad or a dad with a good personality. Which one?”

Lucy, who had squeezed her eyes shut at Damian’s words, said firmly.

“…A dad with a good personality! If it were a dad with a good personality… there would be no reason for me to be doing this.”

The round eyes of Lucy, which had suddenly opened wide, were once again filled with coldness.

However, the round eyes that had been flowing with coldness seemed to have changed their thoughts in that short moment, as the coldness disappeared and they rolled in the air.

Perhaps because she was a child, she seemed to have many thoughts welling up.

Lucy, who had quickly changed her mind, nodded her head.

“But Mom is both nice and pretty. How… How… can that be? No, but… meeting a dad who doesn’t even have a good personality and going through such hardship…”

Lucy, whose thoughts had been changing like this and that even within one sentence, suddenly grabbed Damian’s cheeks with both hands.

Lucy, who was pressing down on his cheeks firmly, frowned.

“Dad must surely be protected by the soul of a knight who saved the country in the past. There’s a huge~ huge~ important ship with the Emperor, and you must be protected by a knight who was at least the left helmsman there. Otherwise, you couldn’t have met Mom.”

“That’s fortunate. That such a knight is protecting dad.”

When Damian agreed, Lucy nodded.

“What kind of luck did you have to marry Mom. When I grow up later, Mom will marry me.”

“Well. That seems difficult?”

Damian’s words, tinged with a slight smile, rang out, but Lucy, who had already stopped pressing on Damian’s cheeks, thrust her head forward.

The voice that had become small, as if it had really been a joke until just now, scratched at Damian’s ear.

“Be a handsome husband with a good personality. Before I find such a new dad.”

“Lucy? Damian?”

The child’s expressionless face flashed eerily and disappeared.

It was at the moment when Eriel raised her voice in surprise at the sight of the father and daughter sticking to the bench.