The name Leander Pyralis Sincavage inspires awe and fear into any and all who hear it. That's the man who took the Northern Territories back by himself, the man who slayed three dragons with one slash, the man who even the king comes to for advice. The man who did all this, and is still young at 29 years old.

I am that man, and I wear my name proudly.

I consider myself a very capable person, but the last few months have been difficult. Even as the Duke of the Northern Territories, what was thrown at me was near ridiculous. Right as I started preparing for annual winter festivals and budgeting my wealth with my closest advisors for the upcoming year, an anomaly occurred.

It was in a single second, a blink and you miss it moment.

Within my duchy there surged a bright pillar of light, deep in the Eldfern Forest to the west. It could be seen across the horizon, and just by looking at it, one could tell there was an immense magical power at its source.

That was the catalyst for over five months of nonsense, but all of that doesn't matter right now.

What matters at this very moment is that I am running the fastest I've ever run, carrying my injured daughter in my hands.

There's no room for doubt that this girl is my daughter. The resemblance is too strong, physically and magically. I have so many questions about how she ended up the way she did and I'm also concerned about her mother. There's so many loose holes in her existence and with the way the girl is now I'm not surprised if I don't get answers.

That magical anomaly was caused by the girl in my hands, which means she's related to the 71 children my knights and I found around the scene. I had personally taken charge of those children. I gave them new homes, whether they be under knights or servants, and ensured that they would grow up well. The four most promising children are currently training to be vassals at my uncle's manor. They are to form a retinue and serve my heir.

And while that heir is not this girl, that matters not. The girl is wounded by my own hand, and for that reason alone I must heal her.

Unfortunately, I do not have potent healing magic, and the nearby town of Rrainefell is home to no mage at all, which means I am forced to take a direct path through the Winderraine Mountains in hopes that I can reach my estate in a timely manner.

And so I run. I scale hills in seconds, my body powered by the flames of my magic. I traverse cliffsides in desperate panic and shield my daughter in my arms.

Throughout all of this, the girl remains asleep. I have her wrapped in her own cloak, a prize of her own hunt, and I can't help but notice that she looks frail like that. An intense difference to how she battles. How did a child like her get so battle-prone in the first place? Her level of magic is outstanding, as is her proficiency. She's able to do all this even with her apparent limitations. If the girl's appearance and magic weren't evidence enough, her tenacity in battle truly makes her a Sincavage.

It takes me an hour to free us from the mountains’ territory. I'll take a short break here. I quickly catch my breath as I lay my daughter against the ground. Her breathing is slightly labored, most likely from the unfortunate wound in her abdomen…

Why couldn't I have slowed down when I confronted her? What is her impression of me, her father? It was our first meeting, and I almost killed her. She was crying…

I quickly unwrap the cloak and check her again. I reapply magical patches to the biggest injuries making sure to lightly move her body, as to not wake her up. It's only then that I realize that the girl is tightly gripping her broken weapon in her hands. Even while asleep, she's using magic to lock her hands and grip this stick as if it were her lifeline. Is it habitual, or does she have an attachment to her weapon?

For now, I leave her as is. Prying the stick out would disturb her. I need to make sure that everything directed towards her is non confrontational. She likely still perceives me as dangerous. It is because of this that I decided to wait until the girl fell asleep before transporting her. I'm glad the griffin soup helped with that.

I wrap the girl up again, time to run. I need to take advantage of her sleeping hours.

I'm able to make it to the trail leading to the town around my estate within 8 hours. The town of Fardreg is sure to be active and bustling with energy, even at this late hour. I'll have to temporarily cause a commotion for the sake of my daughter.

Running up toward the large steel doors that adorn the town's entrance, I shout to the two guards posted there.

“Open the gates, immediately! This is the Duke's order!”

These two are… Kal and Torne. Good men, but easily flustered by my appearance, which is why I have them stationed here. They can't handle my direct gaze, and so I needed them as far as possible, but in a place where they could still be useful.

This also means that I need to deal with their situational incompetence right here and now, which is not welcomed.

“Blithering fools, open it!”

“On it sir!”

The gate is just barely open before I rush through. I channel a final burst of mana into my legs as I dash through the town, narrowly avoiding the citizens. This is a common occurrence for them, so they're not entirely surprised, but usually it's not me running around like this.

I jump my own decorated fence and kick open the doors to the estate house.

“Get me the physician! And any other healer ready, now!”

“Your Grace?!”

I'm greeted by my butler. An aging but solid man who was the attendant to my father. He wears a simple monocle, and his confused expression warps his graying mustache, which is pristine and styled.

“Winfred! Wonderful, someone competent. I need you to fetch Dr. Sylburn immediately, and if there's any of the duchy mages that work in forensics available, I need them too. I'm taking this girl to a guest room immediately, meet me there!”

“Wha- Your Grace, who is that?!”

“My daughter! Now go!”

I leave my bewildered butler in the dust and quickly prepare my daughter a bed. Within an hour Dr. Sylburn has fully performed her healing and evaluation on the girl.

“Unfortunately, it's permanent, Your Grace. Whatever the girl went through has caused damage beyond repair.”

The physician reiterated this multiple times when checking her. The scars are too old to wash away with magic, as are the burns, and the limp is to remain as well.

The only thing that both the physician and the forensic mage are stumped on is her eyes. There's apparently an absurdly high concentration of mana within them, but if that were the case, why can't I sense it? And why did they need magic tools to see that mana in the first place?

That can be explored at a later time.

“And we're sure then… that she's my daughter?”

“She is definitely your child, Your Grace.”

“...Thank you. You can rest for the night.”

I'm left in the room with Winfred, my daughter, and myself. I can tell Winfred wants to speak his mind, and because I trust him, I allow him to speak freely with me without formalities at his will.

“Why does she exist, Leander?”

“You know damn well the only way she could exist.”

“And you're taking retroactive responsibility for it? Where is her mother? You'll need to find your lover and marry her into the family.”

“We can talk about her at a different time, right now, I have a daughter in front of me, and she's wounded and in pain.”

“I have many questions, Leander, but I know you are not in the state to answer them. Just answer me this, what did you save her from, that she is so injured?”

“Myself.”

“...Pardon?”

“I was in the Winderraine Mountains and I saw her there. We attacked each other and I ended up using Vulnus.”

Winfred steps in front of me, and with a shaking hand, dramatically removes his glasses and gives me a bewildered glare.

“You attacked a child, Your Grace?! Your own child?!”

“Well, yes, but-”

“For what reason?! Do you know what this means for your familial situation?!”

“Keep your voice down, Winfred! I know! I know…”

We stood there in the room with my daughter for a long while, while I explained to him what exactly happened. I find it rough, reliving those hours that I was in battle with her. Admittedly I like to remember my battles as triumphant victories, with my knowledge of my enemies supporting those notions.

After all, as a Duke, especially in territories like these, I need to keep up appearances. A battle hero is nothing without his accomplishments.

The fight with my daughter was certainly not something to be celebrated. When I think of how I mischaracterized her, and when I realize that my first impression towards her was of extreme hostility, it angers me. Truly, it was unfortunate all around.

“Winfred, we need to give this girl a good life, and we'll need to prepare people for her to meet, and most certainly, we need to go at her pace.”

“Naturally. I'll begin by searching for maids that can serve her and support her ailments well.”

“Good. Rest for now. Tomorrow I'm going to temporarily move most staff elsewhere so that the girl can get acclimated more easily. Plus, if she lashes out, I don't want anyone to get hurt.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

“You know, Winfred, you always switch to formalities again right when I give you orders.”

“Likely the results of habits and training. Pay no mind to it.”

“Hm. I suppose so.”

I waste no time as I wake up the next morning. By Dr. Sylburn’s words, the girl will be asleep for a few days as her body focuses on recovery. In that time, I need to create an introductory environment for her.

Maids, servants, attendants and any other miscellaneous workers will be moved to the annex temporarily, and have their duties reduced in favor of a briefing by Winfred. He'll explain the situation of my daughter to them, and instruct them on how she should be treated. The junior butler, Sebas, will remain here. I'll leave the head chef and lead groundskeeper here too.

Next, I had my daughter moved next to my office. Should she wake up when Sebas is not monitoring her, I want to be as close to her as possible. I already know my daughter to be a crafty girl, and I've prepared a slight test for her if she wakes up. There's an enchanted key in a box within her room. She simply needs to unlock the door out of habitual curiosity and I'll get a signal that she's awake. From there we'll decide what to do with her.

There's many, many miscellaneous processes to consider as well. I need to formally register her under the Sincavage family, which involves naming her, but that means we need to go to the Church for her middle name, since she is a noble. I also need to check if she already has a name from her mother, so I can only partially complete this process. Unfortunately, this important task is always tedious.

I want my daughter to meet her brother, who happens to be my heir. Loukas Erebus Sincavage is the name of my son, and he's currently studying foreign sword techniques in a neighboring country. I haven't seen him physically for half a year, but thankfully we have loyal mages that can use magic for visual communication. It'll be an arduous process to bring him here though. We might have to wait a few years for him to return. Despite this, I would like him to at least see her through the magic.

Because I now have a daughter, I am obligated to report to the royal family that she is a marriage candidate for the crown prince. But is she truly someone who can be considered for that position? I will need to thoroughly discuss this with my friend, the King.

And even then, as my child she would be expected to debut in noble society, and practice etiquette, and get fit for dresses and so, so much. Noble society is sure to be hard on her appearance and demeanor regardless, so should I resist that traditional mindset for the sake of the girl? There's too much to consider.

Loukas and the girl have different mothers, which means the blame falls to me, but I don't want the children to be attacked for something that their father is responsible for.

Having a child appear in your life out of nowhere with no preparation is truly a massive situation to deal with. Despite all this sudden work, her existence gives me even more answers to that magic anomaly, and a greater drive to find out why 72 children were being transported secretly. What sort of trafficking was going on there? It must not continue.

I remember the day my daughter's light flashed for all to see. It took me two hours to round up my knights and head out to the scene. Half a day's travel later, we stumbled across a large group of children. These children were shivering, injured and lost. They looked like a tiny mob of commoners.

It was an involved process figuring out what to do with these children. An entire 71 children unaccounted for is no ordinary event. By interviewing the children, I found out their situation, and sighed to myself as another thing got put on my plate. Amidst winter preparations, this was not a welcome task. They were apparently linked to that magic anomaly, and claimed they were freed from their captors by it.

A rush of events happened next, my knights and I split up, and simultaneously tended to the children while investigating the scene in question.

There's a technique that few people utilize, and it involves directing mana to the eyes to scan for magic traces. With some concentration, anyone can visually see another person's magic, and even moreso, they can identify specific mana signatures. People related to each other tend to have similar signatures, so the technique is a viable tool in forensics.

Back then, when I arrived at the scene, there existed two signatures in the area. I didn't care about the shredded corpses or destroyed carriages, those could be dealt with later. Mana signatures fade and distort over time, so I made that my priority.

I eventually linked the weaker signature to the young lady who seemed to have taken a leadership role in the children’s group. She has access to healing magic, and had a bright and confident demeanor about her. I assumed she helped treat the children after the incident. Her and three other children had taken my interest. I was wondering if the other mana signature could be traced back to one of the remaining three.

And surprisingly it did.

He was a blue haired boy, lean, and thin. Frankly, his casual attitude irked me. Even when I questioned him, he would answer with “yeah”, or “nah”. For a child in his situation, he was frustratingly casual.

When I observed his mana, I found it to be complicated. He had a blue signature, and then a purple one, like the pillar of light. The blue one flowed slowly, ebbed calmly, and could easily be manipulated. The purple one was erratic, and the boy seemed to have no knowledge that he even possessed it.

I was curious to investigate the cause of this, and especially needed to keep an eye on the safety of the duchy, so I took the boy in, as well as the healer girl, and the other two children of interest.

After sorting the rest of the children, I gave my attention to the candidates I picked. I named three of the four children. The annoying boy was to be named Rodney, and the healer girl, Charity. The fiery temper of the red haired boy granted him the name Ignatius. The meekest of the bunch, a brown-haired girl, insisted she keep the name Nalelyn. She seemed most conscious of her past, and knew the name her birth parents gave her.

Regardless, they currently reside in a manor of the duchy. My uncle is raising them to be vassals to Loukas. I'm sure the four will provide great support to him as they grow older. I may need to adjust their education so they can serve my daughter as well.

I checked in with them every other day, and each week, Rodney’s erratic purple mana dissipated more and more. As I compared the signatures to everyone I've come across, it matched none.

On the day that Rodney had no purple mana left, I compared that signature, still fresh in my mind, to my own.

And I felt a strong connection.

I was boggled. I can still remember my thoughts from then. Was Rodney a child of the Sincavage family? Of whom? Certainly not mine, the women I've bed with had no connections to blue hair or mana, and my hair is black. Is he an unknown child of the branch families? No, considering the current circumstances of those fools, that wouldn't happen. His age wouldn't match with their timelines either.

Which means Rodney never was related to me at all, and he never had two mana signatures. Someone placed that there on purpose. Someone knew that people would look into the event and trace things back. And they did this knowing that Rodney could act as a decoy. This person was also directly related to me. It was clear I had some cleaning to do.

That was the day before the second part of the winter festivities started. It had been about three months since that flash of light.

The Duke needs to attend to things that reach the citizens of the duchy as well, so as much as I wanted to go back into the forest and start from scratch, I took a week of celebration for the people. They needed a distraction from the magical anomaly anyways.

From there, I took a leave of absence from my estate to conduct further investigation. A week was wasted getting no new information from the branch families, so I went to the scene as originally planned.

And through that action I eventually found my gremlin disguised girl. Her achievements were so great that I named her Alberblanche, and I think that even now, she still deserves the title. If she ever finds herself in battles of a grand scale, and by the spirits I hope she never does, I think that name would suit her well.

If I am able to work with my daughter and the children related to her, perhaps I can track down this trafficking situation and erase it. Once she settles down here, I'd like to help her and the children get some closure regarding that event.

I glance to the left of my desk and see a stack of papers. When tracking down the Alberblanche, I left a lot of work here to do. Time to catch up. I'll think of a name for my daughter in the process.

As I scribble onwards, attacking the stack of papers with my decisions and signatures, I finally reach an internal breakthrough on what I should name my daughter.

Aella.

Yes, that's a strong and graceful name. Perfect for my daughter.

Aella… I hope we can become close, even after everything.

…I grab the next paper off of the pile and get back to work.