If there's any child in this house who could claim they were treated worse than I was, it's Kasa Pendell. Daughter of the deceased second wife and Duke Pendell, and two years older than me, her life was at its peak when the mage qualification test revealed she was a prodigy with 4 affinities. She spent most of her time taking care of her sickly mother, who treated Kasa with love and affection.

A few months after Kasa's mage test, her mother passed away and left a letter for Duke Pendell detailing her affairs. She confessed how Kasa was the result of her passionate night with an unnamed common man. After he confirmed Kasa wasn't his daughter, Kasa's life changed for the worse.

While Duke Pendell wanted to banish, or maybe even kill Kasa, he couldn't just discard a future prodigy mage with 4 affinities. Thus, he converted an isolated storage shed into a living space for Kasa.

Unfortunately, that's all he did for her. According to the servants, the shed was smaller than my current room, and the only thing he provided was a blanket, toilet, and books about magic. While she did get meals delivered to her, the quality was so poor even servants would avoid eating them.

I wondered how I forgot her existence, but it seems like she was treated as a taboo in the mansion ever since her mother's death. Maybe I saw her or heard her name when I was very young, but once it became taboo I never heard of her again.

Usually, if a prodigy like Kasa was treated so poorly, mages would try to adopt that child and raise them into a proper talent. In Kasa's case, no mage wanted to adopt a child at the expense of provoking the Pendell family, as a result, she remained trapped in the Pendell family for the last 4 years. This didn't stop Kasa's passion for magic though, according to the servants she spent all her time submerged in trying to understand magic.

After gathering all the information I could on Kasa, I realized she was the perfect target. She had no friends, was treated worse than me, and had a bright future as a mage. As long as I could get on her good side, my safety was probably assured for the next decade in this house.

It's worth noting that children in the country I live in, Alvaine, anyone older than 18 is considered a full-fledged adult.

'How should I approach this girl?' I wondered to myself eating a slice of bread. Of all the information I learned, three pieces of information were the most important:

1. She had no friends.

2. Her father ignores her existence.

3. She doesn't get to eat good food.

I was curious about some parts of her, like why she cares about magic, but at the moment the most important thing was trying to become her friend.

Although I felt guilty taking advantage of a suffering child, I didn't have much of a choice, I felt my death flags were slowly starting to increase. In fact, I could be considered to be doing her a favor, without me approaching her she'd have no friends in this household.

"That's right, doing this doesn't make me shameless, it makes me a good person." I thought to myself as I packed a few sandwiches in a bag.

I had a few choices on how to treat her, I could try to approach her as a friend, a brother, or maybe even a father. Although trying to get her to love me might be a more effective strategy, if I purposely made a nine-year-old fall in love with me I would probably end my life myself.
I also wanted to make use of the fact she was given poor meals by bringing her good food. As they say, the fastest way to make friends is to give people food.

After some consideration, I discarded the father and brother approaches. I wasn't sure if she experienced some kind of trauma stemming from them but I couldn't risk it. This was my last hope after all.

'Approaching her as a friend and giving her food is probably the best option.' I thought to myself as I forced a servant to bring me to Kasa's residence.

After the servant guided me to the shed and scurried away, I started to wonder if someone lived here.

The outside of the shed was in decent condition, the shed was relatively new but was starting to show slight signs of disrepair caused by a lack of maintenance. The most disconcerting thing was that there were no traces of human activity outside her residence. I wondered if she ever actually left her little abode.

'Well no point thinking about that right now, it's time to greet my newest friend, let's just knock on the door and hope for the best.' 

This marked the first real encounter between the bastard girl and the prison boy of the Pendell family.

At the time, I had no idea how big of a mistake this was going to be.