How to Protect My Sub Male Lead Dad

Is it really Hart?

After coldly dismissing me, was he finally admitting that I was his daughter?

“…….”

But it wasn’t Hart who appeared in front of me.

A gruff, middle-aged man grinned at me.

“You must be Hanelope,” he said, “You look pretty and strong, especially with those pink eyes.”

“She’s clever. A bit of a troublemaker, though. It’s going to take some work to tame her.”

“Haha. Looks like she’s got a lot of energy. She will be a good one to take in and put to work.”

Their conversation was ominous.

The man who came to take me handed Sandy a bag of money.

“Ten Defars, as promised for the child.”

“Let’s see. One, two, three… ten Defar is a bargain, I’m sure you’ll be satisfied with her.”

He’s trying to sell me off as a slave!

I stepped back to avoid the oncoming slave trader.

“You’ve never been on a boat in your life, have you? I’m going to take you for a ride. You’ll be able to eat all the fish you want.”

He was going to use me as a shipboard slave, the worst of all slaves.

I shook my head.

“N-No. I won’t go. I’m not going!”

“Listen to your elders and get over here now!”

The slave trader yelled.

His face was as vicious as an evil man who had owned countless slaves.

I was so scared that I missed Hansen’s smiling face.

“N-No!”

I shook off the slaver’s grasp and darted between his legs.

“That, that!”

I ran with all my might.

Behind me, Uncle Sandy and the slave trader were yelling and chasing after me.

If I get caught here, it’s over.

Once I become a slave on board, I can’t escape.

I’ll die without any cure for my genetic disease.

I’ll never see Hart again!

‘… Why did I think of Hart at this moment?’

Before I could ask the question, my body slammed into something.

“Where are you going to run!”

It was Aunt Judy’s stomach. She grabbed me by the nape of my neck and lifted me up.

Aunt Judy shouted to the slavers coming to get me, “The child is here! Take her away.”

“Thank you, please give her to me…”

“No, no! I’m not going!”

I struggled, trying to pull away. But I could do nothing as I was transferred like an object from Aunt Judy’s hands to the hands of the slave trader.

“Where are you going to run away, you little thing… You are not even close to escaping, heh heh.”

I was terrified and my tears wouldn’t stop.

Being dragged like this would be the end.

Nothing as good as Hart saving me from Uncle Sandy and Aunt Judy would ever happen again. I would never meet the Prince, who was indifferent to me, who didn’t bully me, who was a bit mean to me without being rude.

And that scared me.

“Wahhh!”

“Shut up, will you?”

The slave trader shouted.

I shut my mouth in fear, but a whimpering cry kept escaping my lips.

‘I want someone to save me, please, anyone..!’

Hart’s face kept coming to mind.

You can criticize me regarding confusing antidote and rejuvenator. You can ignore me, you can laugh at me. You don’t have to introduce me to others as your daughter. You can be ashamed of me and keep me hidden.

I won’t ask for much.

It was enough when you slowed your pace to match my tiny steps as I followed you.

Please take me away.

Tears of unfulfilled wishes trickled down her cheeks.

“Hart… hng..!”

“I could’t stand it. As if someone kept calling my name, my ears were itching.”

It was then that I heard an unbelievable voice from somewhere.

The voice was as cold and clear as ice water.

‘Am I hallucinating? Or is it..?’

Slowly, I lifted my head and saw the blond hair covered with a red halo due to dusk. Red eyes that seemed to swallow the sun, and features like finely crafted jewels. A fierceness that swept across a beautiful face that seemed not of this world.

The one man who had it all was looking at me with a smile. Even if showed a smile, but for some reason his anger could not be hidden.

“Wh-who’s that new guy?”

“Hi-His Highness Prince Hart, how did you get here…!”

Uncle Sandy and Aunt Judy quickly fell to the ground. The slave trader, who had looked so agressive, turned pale. He made me sit down as if he was letting me go and bowed his head.

Hart ignored them and approached me.

“Hanelope, what is going on here?”

He spoke to me in the blunt way without even a hint of trying to be friendly, as he’d never spoken to a child before.

But instead of being frightened, I was relieved.

“Ha, Hart… wahh!”

And I burst into tears.

Hart looked down at me as I cried like a baby.

‘It’s probably the first time a child cried while calling out his name.’

I stopped sobbing and looked at him, embarrassed.

‘A child who cries and makes a fool of himself must be annoying, right?’

I bit down hard on my quivering lip and wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-No. I didn’t.”

Does he not believe me?

Hart leaned down to my eye level and examined every inch of my tiny body.

His touch was careless, his gaze nonchalant, but I could tell he was worried.

But apparently not to Sandy and Judy.

They glanced at each other. I felt they came to a mutual understanding.

“Yo-Your Highness, please let go of your anger.” Uncle Sandy said, “If you think Hanelope has disgraced Your Highness by lying to you, feel free to punish her.”

“But we are being treated unjustly. The child is the daughter of a dead neighbour. We couldn’t the fatherless child by the roadside, so we took her in and raised her. But no matter how hard we tried to teach her manners…”

Hart’s face contorted for a moment, as if he didn’t care what they were saying.

“The woman next door who… died?”

“Yes. She’s Hanelope’s biological mother, a woman with no roots who suddenly appeared in the village one day. Even on her deathbed, she was so out of her mind that she said something ridiculous as asking some nobleman to take her child away.”

“Someone noble, who?”

Hart asked sharply.

“The name…? Do you remember, honey?”

Uncle Sandy shook his head. Aunt Judy rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t quite remember either.

“Oh, you mean… Ah, Hart von Rei…… aack?”

The two of them were dumbfounded as they realized that the ‘nobleman’ my mother was referring to was the man in front of them.

Before she died, my mother had asked them both to do her a favour.

It was to take me to Prince Hart.

But the couple, who were only thinking of stealing my mother’s fortune, dismissed the request as nonsense and forgot about it.

But now they came to know who was referred as the ‘nobleman’.

It was too chilling to be a coincidence.

I heard the sound of gnashing teeth over my head. It was Hart.

His icy gaze turned to the slave trader.

“Is that the slave merchant who came to buy Hanelope?”

“N-No! I’m not a slave trader. I’m just a merchant passing through.”

“S-Slavery, that’s ridiculous!”

The slave trader and Uncle Sandy shook their heads brazenly.

Hart tilted his head.

“I heard earlier that you were going to buy Hanelope for 10 Defars.”

“Yo-yo-you’ve heard it wrong. B-buying and selling kids in these times, if anyone heard this they would assume something worse.”

“I’ll take this kid instead. I can be more generous than that slave trader.”

“It’s really not true. We are…”

“50 Defars.”

Uncle Sandy and Aunt Judy’s expressions, which were in denial by waving their hands, changed.

I couldn’t believe it’s 50 Defar.

It was a lot of money enough for food and playing around for months.

The two seemed eager to sell me at once.

But trading slaves with a Prince was too risky.

Besides, the couple had already been caught once for the same offence, so they were bound to be cautious.

“H-how do you intend to trade slaves, which is forbidden by state law? We will get in trouble.”

“Who do you think I am? I am the first Prince of the Empire. How dare you oppose me?”

“B-But if we this, we won’t remain safe.”

“When you were caught the other day, did you really think you were let off because there was no evidence?”

Hart asked with a smirk.

As if getting away with a crime of this magnitude was no big deal.

“Then you think the person who released us then was…!”

The enlightened couple’s faces lit up with greed.

“I see what you’re saying, but if we do business with Your Highness. We’ll be breaking our previous contract, and we have to pay a penalty….”

“One hundred Defars.”

“W-We will give her to you!”

The corners of Hart’s mouth twitched upward at the shout from the shameless couple.

“Really? Maxim!”

A man we didn’t realized was here, suddenly appeared at Hart’s call.

The man was as big as a bear, with a terrifying scar across his eye.

He bowed dutifully to Hart.

“Go to the carriage and bring me a hundred Defars.”

“Yes.”

Soon the man called Maxim brought a pouch with the money.

Hart tossed it to the old man and woman.

The couple’s jaws dropped as they opened the pouch.

“Th-Thank you, Your Highness!”

“I’ll take her.”

My body was lifted from where I had been sitting.

Hart had scooped me up.

He was careless. It was obvious that he never held a child before.

But he was gentler than Aunt Judy and the slave trader, who had treated me like an object.

I was about to put my arms around Hart, when I saw the look on his face.

“Why are you so light? What do you eat? Are you a picky eater?”

He looked me up and down curiously, and when I whimpered, “Uh, I’m dizzy”, he scooped me into his arms.

‘Didn’t it occur to you that holding like that would make me dizzy? You really don’t have a clue. He has a lot of learning to do.’

I puffed out my cheeks and sighed.

Hart looked at me like I was a strange animal, then turned and spoke to Maxim.

“I suppose you watched what they were trying to do?”

“Yes,” Maxim replied, “Your Highness only baited them, but they were so excited they actually believed you had set them free.”

“Arrest those fools for slave trading and send them to the magistracy.”

“Yes, Sire.”

Maxim strode over to Uncle Sandy, Aunt Judy, and the slave trader.

Hart picked me up and walked to the carriage.

It didn’t take long for the laughter behind me to turn to sobs.

 

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