Chapter 30 · A Real Papa (4)

I was so dumbfounded I nearly laughed. Of all things, to hear someone ask me to become his daughter right in front of my real father. Only something you’d encounter after regressing so many times.

“We’ve decided to wait a while after the betrothal before marrying, and then adopt the princess as our daughter.”

Who gave you the right to decide that?!

I carefully looked at Paeon. His face had gone pale as a sheet, but his red eyes were blazing.

‘So he does get angry after all?’

Maybe it wasn’t because of me, but because he was angry at Alter for switching to her younger sister so soon after my mother died. No, that was probably it.

“So when His Majesty the King asks for the princess’s opinion, all you need to do is agree. Isn’t that wonderful for you too, Princess?”

Alter’s blue eyes sparkled as he leaned in.

‘I want to slap him.’

“Why no answer, Princess?”

Because even if I have to regress ten more times, I have no intention of becoming Aquila’s daughter. Even if I became that woman’s daughter, there’s no way she wouldn’t drive me to my death. And this man, who threw an innocent little girl into prison, would never truly cherish me either.

“You must still find it awkward. It seems the princess is surprisingly shy with strangers.”

When I just kept glaring at him without a word, he shrugged and backed off.

“But I look forward to the day when those cute lips of yours call me Papa! It won’t be long now.”

He laughed heartily, gave a bow, and left the room.

“…”

In the room left behind after Alter’s grand exit, only a heavy silence pooled. I roughly grabbed the bouquet he’d given me and threw it.

“Princess, let us begin again. Start with gathering your prana—”

“Papa,”

I said to Paeon, who was trying to resume training as if nothing had happened.

“Papa weally doesn’t care?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Asha might become that cweepy man’s daughter, and you don’t care at aww?!”

“…”

He couldn’t meet my eyes and bowed his head.

“I,”

A slow voice, as if dragged out with difficulty.

“I…”

But he couldn’t finish, and it drove me crazy.

“I have no right to interfere in this matter, Princess.”

He answered in a dry tone after a long while, still avoiding my gaze.

‘Of course.’

What had I been expecting? But hearing it still left me hollow.

The word ‘no’… There was no way he would say it. Perhaps I had been foolishly hoping again.

‘I need to make a plan.’

What could I do now? That bastard and Aquila had probably won over all the surrounding nobles. If they united to pressure the king and the temple, my stubborn refusal would be useless. I quietly reviewed my past lives. Only one usable idea stood out.

‘I have no choice but to use that card…’

◇ ◆ ◇

“Hahaha!”

Alter walked with a light step, laughing loudly. He was utterly delighted. The weather was clear, the sky was blue, and everything was going according to his plan.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that insolent bastard react like that.’

Paeon Parsiel—a man who, from the very first time he saw him, made him want to crush him underfoot.

“Commander, why is that blond brat wearing the formal uniform of Veritas?”

When he had just been formally knighted into Dinitas at sixteen, Paeon had become a formal knight of Veritas at the mere age of ten.

“Ah, that’s Veritas’s treasure who joined a few months ago. The Great Temple dotes on that child so much they even gave him a name meaning ‘savior.'”

“He didn’t even have a name?”

“Yes, that child was a tuno (a combat slave). Lower than low.”

A combat slave—the most despised of slaves, someone who had to sell his own life as a spectacle for others.

“It’s remarkable he survived this long without divine power. Just looking at him, he’s pretty enough to be used for some noblewoman’s twisted tastes.”

“They say that, despite appearances, he was strong enough in the fighting pits to be called ‘the Red-Eyed Demon.’ Sometimes Lord Lux makes strange arrangements. He ought to give the strongest power to the most noble.”

“Well, sometimes children show promise briefly when young. The fighting pits are just commoners brawling, aren’t they? The world of knights is different. It seems Veritas knighted him too hastily.”

Yet he had never once beaten Paeon at the Ars Confelo.

‘Insolent bastard.’

He hated those eyes. Paeon, even in victory, never once looked pleased or satisfied. That somehow bored, numb gaze. As if victory and defeat were both outside his interest…

It gave him a deep, profound sense of humiliation.

‘And he’s nothing but a lowly slave.’

Veritas had once been nothing but an auxiliary to Dinitas, but as Paeon grew, their power had grown rapidly. Now they had become rivals in earnest.

‘To be rivals with those mostly common-born!’

The world was going wrong. They were the lowly ones who should be guarding the rear, healing Dinitas’s wounded while they fought. So why were they increasingly in the spotlight!

‘If I don’t bring him down, the balance will shift.’

Paeon seemed to have no weak spot. Humans fall to their desires. He, who had offered all his desires to God—who had nothing he liked, nothing he wanted—was almost invincible.

But on the day he informed the knight order of his betrothal to Beatrice, he learned that even Paeon was not invincible. The despair that filled those arrogant eyes! The moment he saw that look, a thrilling shudder ran through Alter’s entire body.

He had secretly admired Beatrice. It was truly laughable. The most lowly, the worm that had crawled on the bottom of the world, desired the most noble being in the world.

He had felt that thrill again today. The moment he said he planned to adopt Anastasia, Paeon’s eyes had been dyed with despair. He already seemed to cherish the bastard princess almost as if she were his own child.

‘But that bastard is a real piece of work too. To be so obsessed with someone else’s child. Well, she does look exactly like that woman, face and personality both…’

He had never even been special with Beatrice, so what gave him the right to lecture him so high-handedly? It was absurd. In any case, Alter resolved not to miss the opportunity he had been given again. This time, he would bring Paeon down.

He was on his way to the palace to get approval for his betrothal to Aquila. He should have calmed his excitement before his audience with the king, but he was so elated he couldn’t stop whistling.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Aquila, be honest with your father. Do you truly like that man?”

After the conversation with Alter, left alone with her, the king asked his daughter with a somewhat reluctant expression.

“Why do you ask? You can’t even congratulate me.”

She answered in a deliberately wounded tone.

“Of course it’s something to congratulate! The Alter family is a peerless noble house, and if they form a tie with the royal family, they’ll become an even greater force than now. Besides, Count Edwin Alter is a man any noble lady would covet. But…”

The king hesitated and trailed off.

“It doesn’t seem like that man loves you.”

Aquila stared at her father for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“Haha! How amusing.”

“What’s so amusing?”

“Your reaction is so different from when it was Sister. Sister’s betrothal wasn’t a love match either, was it?”

“That’s because Tris was the heir, so the circumstances were different from yours.”

“Isn’t every royal marriage like that? Made according to conditions at the time. Just like you and Mother.”

King Ferdinand turned pale. He looked as if he had been struck over the head with a hammer.

“What?! I loved your mother!”

“Father loved only one person.”

Aquila answered firmly.

“Not me, not Mother, not Stella… only Tris, who looked exactly like you.”

“…!”

“A man who didn’t grieve much even when Mother passed, wailing and refusing food and drink when Sister died.”

“Aquila, I don’t know what misunderstanding you’re under, but… I loved all of you equally.”

“Should I call it breathtaking self-love? I never imagined… that you would even embrace that bastard child just because she resembles Sister.”

Aquila poured out what she had been holding back, though her voice and expression remained calm.

“I didn’t acknowledge that child because she resembles Beatrice!”

The king cried out passionately. His flushed face contrasted sharply with his white hair.

“Yes, I’m sure you have many reasons. They don’t particularly matter to me.”

“You, really…!”

She raised the now-cold tea to her lips and spoke calmly.

“Don’t worry. At least I’ll show more sincerity than you did. For the sake of the child who will one day be born between him and me.”

◇ ◆ ◇

Time passed quickly, and the day of Alter and Aquila’s betrothal ceremony arrived in an instant. Paeon fiddled with his banquet uniform in front of the mirror. The navy suit with lavish gold trim and embroidery felt awkward, as if it weren’t his.

He had not the slightest desire to attend the banquet, but he was the commander of Veritas. If the commander of the knight order were absent, it would look extremely strange, so he had no choice.

“Papa weally is usewesswy handsome.”

Anastasia said from behind him. She too was dressed in a splendid banquet gown of pale pink. Blended with her snow-white hair, she looked exactly like a slice of sweet strawberry cake.

“…”

“Papa can’t cook, can’t have chiwdwen, so why do you wook wike that? You can’t even make a wiving off youw face. It seems Wux made a mistake in the distwibution when He made you, Papa.”

Anastasia said something that could not possibly be taken as the words of a five-year-old, looking regretful.

“But Papa, what’s that? You wewe witing something eawnestwy eawwier. A wettew?”

When she trotted over and tried to snatch the envelope on the vanity, Paeon quickly pressed down on her head to stop her.

“Eek! Don’t! You’ww wuin my haiw!”

Paeon hastily removed his hand from her hair and slipped the envelope into his suit’s inner pocket.

“It’s nothing. Rather, I think you should have Sister Rosa fix your hair again. I apologize.”

She grumbled and went to the next room where the priestesses were.

“Phew…”

He let out a small sigh. What was in that envelope was… his letter of resignation from the position of commander.

Fortunately, Anastasia had adapted to the two powers far faster than he had expected. Of course, she was still far from fully accustomed, and only the intervals between the pain had grown longer. Still, it seemed she had passed the dangerous crisis. In a few months, she would no longer need his power.

Then he planned to leave the capital. Wandering Santra, fighting monsters, bandit gangs, and pirates—that would be the only way to keep the vow he had made. If only he disappeared… her life too would find stability.

Then a devil whispered in his heart.

‘Are you truly all right with that?’