24.
“Lord Leguin.”
Lexion, who had retreated behind the desk, spoke while bending his knee. It seemed Leguin had been sitting on the floor.
“Yeah. Why?”
A dry voice drifted from over the desk.
“Someone claiming to be your daughter has come to see you.”
“What? Now, of all times?”
“It is a bit late, yes, but her testimony regarding her mother matches the records. However, the records do not indicate that the mother gave birth to a child.”
“I suppose because there was no word, the person in charge back then assumed she hadn’t gotten pregnant or had miscarried.”
It was a conversation about Philomel, but it was information she knew nothing about.
“She is here now. Would you like to see her?”
“I suppose I should see her at least once.”
Soon after, a figure rose abruptly from behind the desk.
Philomel stole a glance at Leguin’s face. Golden eyes shone strangely beneath messy silver hair.
Having seen Eustis and Nasar, she had been confident she wouldn’t be shaken by just any handsome man, but he was beautiful enough to make her eyes widen in surprise.
And he was remarkably young. She had vaguely imagined someone older, but he looked to be, at most, in his early thirties.
Was there any resemblance to Philomel…? Maybe the eye color was a bit similar, though hers was closer to the color of a forsythia than the brilliant gold of his.
Suddenly, Philomel remembered that Lexion also had eyes of a similar shade.
While she was skimming him over, her gaze met Leguin’s inorganic stare.
At that moment, a strange sense of alienation washed over Philomel.
‘Something is different.’
For some reason, this man felt like a creature fundamentally detached from her and everyone else.
‘What is this? This sensation?’
The silver-haired man saw Philomel, dropped his bored expression, and flashed a seductive smile.
“Hi? My name is Leguin. What might your name be?”
“Phil… is fine.”
She couldn’t reveal her real name, so she gave her nickname—even though she had never actually been called by it.
“I see. So you’re Phil. Sit here for a moment.”
Leguin cleared away the clutter that had been occupying the sofa to make room for her.
“Should I step out?”
“I have something to tell you when this is over, so stay.”
“Understood.”
At Lexion’s query, Leguin answered as if his business with Philomel would be over in a flash.
Philomel and Leguin sat down, and Lexion stood nearby.
“Hand.”
He held out his hand to Philomel, who was stiff with tension and struggling to find a way to start the conversation.
“Yes?”
“Can I have your hand?”
When Philomel hesitantly held out her hand, Leguin grasped it. His grip was firm and large…
“Gah…!”
A sudden, sharp pain made it hard to breathe. It felt as though something had entered her body and was tearing through her from the inside.
“Ugh…”
“No magic. No, there’s a tiny bit. But this is practically an empty shell.”
Leguin muttered, looking down at the cowering Philomel with indifference.
“Are you alright?”
Lexion, who had approached, protested on Philomel’s behalf.
“Sir! You should ask for consent before doing something like that. It’s hard for anyone who isn’t a Mage to endure it.”
“Ah, my apologies. Since she claimed to be my child, I naturally assumed she was a Mage.”
Philomel raised her upper body and looked back and forth between them.
“What exactly was that…?”
Lexion explained.
“He poured his magic into you to check yours. We can tell through magic whether you are truly his child or not. For Mages trained in magic operation, it’s just a sting, but it must have been painful for you. I apologize on his behalf. He’s always been that kind of man…”
Ignoring Lexion’s subtle condemnation, Leguin added.
“It’s ridiculously small, but it is indeed my magic.”
“Then…?”
“It means you are indeed my daughter.”
It was a moment of reunion that was neither moving nor dramatic.
‘What is this?’
She had imagined this moment of meeting her biological father hundreds, no, thousands of times.
From a tear-jerking, touching reunion to a cold rejection where he claimed he couldn’t recognize someone like her as his daughter.
But the situation unfolding now was something she had never imagined.
For a man meeting a biological daughter he didn’t even know existed, Leguin’s attitude was excessively businesslike.
‘There were so many things I wanted to ask if I ever met him…’
Why did you leave Katherine behind while she was pregnant? Did you not know you had a daughter? With what intent did you take in ‘Philomel’ from the book? And… do you have even the slightest bit of affection for me?
Questions she hadn’t been able to ask for years swirled in her heart.
Leguin opened his mouth first.
“You look like you have many questions. Feel free to ask.”
Philomel parted her lips and let out her first question.
“…Why did you leave my mother alone when she was pregnant?”
“I don’t recall exactly, but I likely wanted your mother to stay there. Unless it’s a special case, I usually recommend staying at the Magic Tower.”
She could not understand the logic behind his words. Even while realizing their conversation wasn’t clicking, Philomel pressed on.
“…You don’t recall?”
“It happened more than ten years ago.”
She was left speechless by Leguin’s attitude, as if his forgetfulness were the most natural thing in the world.
Katherine and Leguin had truly been nothing more than a one-night affair.
“My mother’s name was Katherine Hownz. I look a lot like her. Does seeing my face not bring back any memories?”
Leguin brought his face close to Philomel’s and pointed to her hair with his finger.
“Dye.”
“Ah.”
Now that he mentioned it, she had dyed it that morning. She should have washed it off.
Leguin flicked his finger, and a cool sensation spread over her head. In the blink of an eye, Philomel’s hair regained its original color.
“Hmm. I feel like I might remember something…”
The man, who had been crossing his arms and searching his memory, smiled brightly.
“Sorry. I don’t know.”
“…How, how could you not even remember?”
“Is there a reason I should?”
Seeing the man ask back so confidently, Philomel’s eyes grew hot.
“More than that, what do you want? You must have come to find me this late because you want something, right? Being a Mage is out of the question since you have so little magic, so it must be money.”
Her hand grew wet. Philomel realized a bit late that the moisture dampening the back of her hand was her own tears.
“I’ll add in the amount your mother didn’t take, so you won’t be left wanting…”
She had lived for years forgetting how to cry. Because the world would not soothe Philomel just because she wept.
“Why are you crying?”
The man’s eyes went round. He seemed to truly not know the reason.
“I don’t need it. Whether it’s money or anything else, if it’s from you, I don’t need it.”
“Why?”
“Because we share only blood, and we are no better than strangers. Excuse me. I shouldn’t have come looking for you.”
Philomel packed her meager belongings and headed for the door.
“I won’t appear before you again, so live well.”
As she was about to leave, Philomel turned around and said this last thing to the man who had brought her into the world.
“…Why is she so angry?”
Leguin stared blankly at the spot where Philomel had stood.
“Ah, seriously! You could have at least been polite, you…!”
Lexion said with annoyance, hurrying out of the room.
Philomel ran aimlessly, even though she didn’t know the way back. It felt as if her tear ducts were broken; hot liquid kept streaming down.
She had thought she wasn’t expecting anything, but that wasn’t true. Deep down in a corner of her heart, she had been craving the affection of her biological father. Like a fool.
“Wait!”
Lexion, who had followed her, called out.
Philomel wiped the moisture from her eyes with her sleeve and turned her head.
“What is it?”
“I’ll see you to the exit. Could you listen to me until then?”
Since there was no other way to get out of the Magic Tower, Philomel accepted his offer.
As they descended on the floating stone just as she had come, Lexion spoke up.
“I suspected as much, but it seems you know very little about your own birth. Did your mother not teach you?”
“What is it that you think I don’t know? No, there are many things I don’t know. But I have come to know one thing well. The fact that the man I call my father is a scoundrel who doesn’t even remember the woman who bore his child.”
It wasn’t Lexion’s fault, but the sharp words escaped her.
Lexion scratched his cheek.
“That is true, but…”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You have nothing to do with this, Lexion.”
“That’s not true. I do have something to do with it.”
“Yes?”
“If you want to get technical, I am your half-brother.”
Philomel gasped at the unexpected words.
“I see…”
“You’re not very surprised.”
She had thought that not only his eye color, but his facial structure and features resembled Leguin’s.
“I heard he wasn’t married, so he’s a scoundrel who has fathered two illegitimate children.”
“Four. Besides me, you have two other brothers.”
“…”
“For your information, the mothers of the three of us are all different.”
A heap of shocking facts was added to a shocking fact.
What kind of family was this, anyway? Her head was throbbing.
Lexion continued.
“I wouldn’t deny your assessment of Lord Leguin, but… don’t you want to know the secret behind your birth?”
When Philomel nodded weakly, he began to explain.
“Lord Leguin is a man who doesn’t know what love is. To be precise, he doesn’t understand most of the emotions that people have. The parental affection, interest, and all that stuff you wanted from him? He wouldn’t be able to understand even a speck of it.”
“…But he fathered children with several different women. Was it just out of desire?”
“That is where the misunderstanding lies. He has never had an intimate relationship with any woman.”
“Then how were we born?”
“Experiments.”
…Experiments?
To the uncomprehending Philomel, Lexion added an explanation.
“In other words, we are children born through experiments.”