Chapter 1
Who was Cassian Calypso?
Age: 28.
A war hero who had led his forces to victory in the Great Holy-Demon War five years ago and had been awarded the title of Duke of the Barkasia region.
Over 190 centimeters tall.
Broad shoulders.
Beastlike muscles.
A dangerously handsome face and an intimidating aura that made anyone who got involved with him feel as though they had stepped straight into hell.
In many ways, he was a man who came close to perfection.
Money?
Of course, he had plenty, plenty… Actually, no, he didn’t. He had recently gambled away his entire estate and all his cash.
Honor?
He had some when he first received his title.
The problem was that he had since dragged his reputation through the gutter by doing all sorts of despicable things.
Despite all that, he was managing to live a fairly comfortable life. He had only one problem.
“Come on, Doc. Listen to me. Someone abandoned a kid in front of my house, and now everyone keeps saying she’s my daughter. Why the hell would a man who loves being single so much that he voluntarily lay down on a cold operating table have a daughter?”
A few days ago, someone had left a tiny human being in front of his house. She had only just been born and was still in the early stages of growing up.
She looked around three to five years old, was a little girl, and seemed to have come from abroad because nobody could understand what she was saying.
Obviously, she was someone else’s child, so he had immediately taken her to an orphanage. But they had refused to accept her.
“She’s obviously your biological daughter! Her father is alive and well, so why should she grow up in an orphanage?”
The facility worker had looked at Cassian that day as though he were the biggest piece of human garbage in the world—a complete scumbag and an absolute bastard.
He had somehow managed to look after the little girl, who spoke a language nobody understood, for three days.
…Was it really three days? Or ten?
Since someone else had been taking care of her, he couldn’t remember the exact number of days. Whatever the case, he couldn’t put up with it any longer.
If I hadn’t gotten the surgery, at least I wouldn’t have this to complain about.
Good grief. Whoever had abandoned their own child deserved divine punishment. What a rotten bastard.
“If she looked like me, I might understand. But the little brat and I don’t look alike at all. My eyes are long and narrow, while hers are big and round. Even when I was little, I was already this big, but she’s practically the size of my fist. And yet they insist she’s my daughter? Are their eyes nothing but knots of wood?”
“Your daughter?”
“Exactly! There are some things you can and can’t say to an unmarried man. I don’t know which lunatic is trying to ruin my glorious single life, but if I catch the bastard, he’s dead. Anyway, I figured I should get this properly checked so I’d have a solid argument when I sent the kid to a facility or did whatever else needed to be done.”
The doctor smiled kindly, like a goddess’s statue in a temple.
“So, the reason you’ve come in for a checkup after four years is to have the condition of your surgery examined?”
“Yeah. Let’s make sure everything was definitely severed.”
Flash!
The doctor’s glasses gleamed in the sunlight.
Adjust.
Pushing his glasses up, he spoke with an almost offended expression.
“My surgery was flawless.”
“Ah, I’m sure it was. That’s why the kid and I don’t look alike, right?”
“If the surgery was flawless, why do you need to have it checked? It’s quite rare for someone as young as you, Mr. Calypso, to undergo this kind of procedure. I assumed that handsome men must have quite the wild lives to go with their looks, so I did my absolute best when performing the operation.”
“Who’s arguing with you? I’m just asking you to check! That’s all!”
The doctor glared at Cassian, practically snorting with indignation, as though Cassian had challenged the perfection of his work.
However, there was no way a doctor who had spent his entire life studying could win an argument against a former war hero who was also the capital’s biggest delinquent.
A little while later, as the doctor examined the surgical site, he suddenly covered his mouth with a startled gasp. His hands began to tremble.
“Oh, dear… Good heavens… What are we going to do?”
“Huh? Don’t tell me…”
Thump.
Cassian pressed a hand to his forehead.
No way. Is that little brat really my daughter? Damn it!
He had survived the battlefield without dying. Even when he was injured, he had somehow bounced back in the most ridiculous ways possible, allowing him to continue living comfortably like this.
Haah. Why am I cursed with such absurd vitality? All it does is bring me more trouble.
Just as he clutched his head in a mixture of self-loathing and reluctant pride, the doctor spoke again.
“Mr. Calypso, I’m afraid it’s no longer possible to reverse the procedure.”
“I drink and smoke like a chimney, yet my health is still—Huh? What did you say?”
Reverse it? Cassian raised his head, and the doctor clicked his tongue sympathetically.
“I warned you when I performed the surgery. Once it’s severed, restoring it is difficult. But now, even restorative surgery would be pointless. Do you understand what that means?”
“So, you’re saying I…”
“You’ll never be able to have children. As expected, my surgery was perfect.”
“Oh…”
He had voluntarily undergone the procedure four years ago, but should he be happy about this or not?
Before Cassian could even finish frowning, the doctor drove the final nail into the coffin.
“In short, you’re a seedless watermelon. A male who has been completely neutered.”
Those were the words he had wanted to hear, so why did they leave such a bad taste in his mouth?
“Ahem. Ahem!”
After clearing his throat and composing himself, Cassian finally got to the point.
“The kid who showed up claiming to be my daughter looks around three, four, or maybe five years old. Is there any chance she’s actually related to me by blood?”
“None whatsoever~! If you were capable of fathering a child, the whole matter would already have been settled long ago. You’ve lost your one and only chance to have a child, so… Well, try to stay strong. Some people have many children and live long lives, while others remain childless and die young. That’s simply the way of nature.”
“Dying young is exactly what I’m hoping for, so what the hell are you talking about? Anyway, thanks. Now I can go back to enjoying myself without a care in the world.”
Cassian sprang to his feet and left the hospital with a light heart.
Just as I thought.
He had suspected as much, but having a specialist confirm it made him feel thoroughly relieved.
When he returned home, he heard a child’s voice coming from beyond the front gate.
“** * * *! Mommy! ** **!”
Among the foreign words, the word Mommy came through loud and clear.
The little girl’s voice was thin and chirpy, characteristic of a young child. Cassian frowned at the sound.
Clack.
As soon as he opened the door and stepped inside, the first thing he saw was the little brat sprawled flat on the floor.
The child looked like a chick that had been dipped in flour. She was flailing her short arms and legs, sweeping dust across the floor as she struggled.
“Come ooon. I told you to eat your food! Don’t you like your food? Come on, food!”
Beside the little girl stood a buzz-cut man with a scratch through one eyebrow. He was holding a bowl of soup and looking utterly helpless.
When the buzz-cut man brought a spoonful of soup to the child’s mouth, she burst into tears.
“Waaaaah!”
“Seriously, why are you doing this? Why on earth…”
Unable to bear watching any longer, Cassian walked inside and addressed the buzz-cut man.
“I told you to look after the kid. What the hell are you doing?”
“Boss! Why did you take so long to come back?!”
“I got the paperwork. Take this to the orphanage, and they should accept her.”
“R-Really? Thank goodness!”
The buzz-cut man had apparently suffered quite a lot while Cassian was away. The dark circles beneath his eyes were so pronounced that he looked ready to burst into applause.
“Anyway, that’s settled. I’m going to my room to rest.”
“Whaaaat? B-Boss, you’re not going to look after her?”
“I’m tired. Just get the kid to finish her soup, play with her for a bit, and head home this evening.”
Cassian had downed an enormous amount of alcohol in celebration after receiving the hospital’s diagnosis, even though the alcohol he had drunk the previous night hadn’t completely worn off yet. Now the whole world was spinning around him.
Leaving the buzz-cut man to his anguished screams, Cassian slammed his bedroom door shut.
When I was five years old, I went to sleep one night and woke up in an orphanage attached to a temple.
The orphanage was very, very far away from the empire I needed to return to, so every night, I fell asleep longing for my mother.
Even so, all the teachers were wonderful people.
They praised me every day, hugged me, and kissed me.
Surrounded by the love of the adults, I grew up healthy and strong.
And eventually, I turned ten.
When my friends placed candles on my birthday cake, they said,
“Hurry up and make a wish!”
“That’s right! Since it’s your birthday, the Goddess might grant your wish!”
I had a mother, but I had never had a father. So I decided to make a wish to the Goddess.
“Goddess, my maternal cousin, Enrique, has both a mother and a father, but I’m the only one who doesn’t have both. Mom always says she’ll explain everything when I’m older, and whenever my maternal uncle hears anything about my father, his expression turns unpleasant.”
The friends standing beside me began whispering among themselves.
“My older brother always said the same thing. He told me I’d understand why I didn’t have a dad when I grew up. It turned out my dad had passed away.”
“My older sister told me that sometimes parents say that when one of them has an affair and leaves the family, too. She told me when I turned ten.”
How could they talk about all that while I was praying?!
I opened one eye slightly and whispered to the children in a low voice.
“Shhh! Be quiet. I’m praying right now!”
“Mm-hmm. Okay. Sorry.”
I continued my prayer.
“But… I want a dad, too.”
My mother was frail, so she shouldn’t come all the way here. Honestly, I didn’t want her to come here at all.
But a father…
I wanted to know what my dad looked like, too!
“Goddess! Please give me a dad, too!”
I want to go sledding with my dad!
Perhaps my heartfelt wish had reached the Goddess.
The moment I finished speaking, a massive light appeared out of nowhere and pierced straight through me.
“Riri!”
“Gaaah! Riiii!”
Maybe it was because of the light, but my body began changing in a strange way. Startled, I looked down at my hands.
My friends’ voices rang loudly in my ears.
“You… seem to have developed alopecia!”
“They say … disappears when … is canceled!”
Before my friends could even run to fetch a teacher, my body suddenly began falling downward.
My friends’ screams faded into the distance in an instant.
My head spun wildly, and fear crashed against my heart like wave after wave.
Terrified, I squeezed my eyes shut. Then, little by little, I opened them again.
“What are you?”
A frightening-looking man was staring down at me.
Cassian Calypso.
This was my first encounter with the man known as the capital’s biggest good-for-nothing.
