RNFB 1

Chapter 1

Again.

Another child had died.

“…”

Dantalion lowered his head as he held his daughter, whose body was growing cold, closer to him.

Guardian of the Goddess.

Apostle of Holy Light.

The most noble holy knight in the world, and the strongest holy knight in the empire.

Dantalion Klein was the one who bore all these titles.

His immense divine power was proof of God’s love, and his lofty, unwavering faith was nothing short of humanity’s pride.

However, now.

“Why…”

The holy knight who had been more faithful than anyone else was kneeling in a state more fallen than any demon.

With despairing eyes that seemed to curse God. With his divine power thoroughly contaminated.

“Why is she only 12 this time…”

His lifeless eyes blankly brushed over the child’s cheek.

Why couldn’t you even live until you were 16 in this life?

Haniel. My daughter. My child. My treasure.

“…Again.”

He gritted his teeth.

“Daddy will try again, sweetheart.”

This time, I’ll definitely find a cure that’ll save you.

Fwoooooosh-

A white light rose like smoke from his body.

Soon, a massive regression circle appeared.

As though punishing the holy knight for committing a taboo, fierce wind, rain, thunder, and lightning raged outside the window.

BANG BANG BANG, BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

“Dante Klein! Stop right now! Won’t you stop? Damn it!”

“His Grace, Grand Duke Vertus! Put your sword away!”

He could sense someone shouting from outside the door, but his ears had stopped hearing long ago.

Black blood poured from his mouth. The pain shooting through his entire body felt like a punishment. But he didn’t stop.

There was something in this world more precious than his wretched life or pitiful faith. If realizing that was his sin, then it was indeed his sin.

“We’ll see each other again soon, our little princess…”

This time, Daddy will come find you sooner.

Amid the pain that felt as though his entire heart were being torn apart, Dantalion smiled faintly.

And so, his 98th life came to an end.

Dantalion stood on a hill and slowly opened his eyes.

The area was noisy all around him.

“It’s bread! Bread! It’s mine!”

This was District Z, a slum.

Down below, he could see the isolated slum residents.

The residents were reaching their hands beyond the barricades, desperately trying to catch the bread being thrown toward them.

It was utter chaos, a complete madhouse.

Dantalion stood there for a moment, enduring the throbbing headache that was washing over him. Why was he here?

“Breead…”

At the same time, far away, the blurry outline of a tiny child came into view.

“Me too, give me some breead…!”

The child was being pushed around among the adults, waving her tiny hands.

But for a child who didn’t even reach an adult’s waist, catching bread flying through the air was no easy task.

The child hopped up and down for a long while. Then, by chance, she spotted a loaf of bread that had fallen onto the ground.

The moment he saw her running away while clutching the bread covered in dirt and filthy water as though it were precious.

“…!”

Dantalion came to his senses as if struck by lightning.

‘Haniel!’

“Ugh.”

His 99th life had begun.

The memories of his previous lives came crashing down all at once, violently.

Amid the suffocating pain, he clenched his trembling jaw. Even staggering was a luxury he couldn’t afford right now.

He raced down the hill like a madman.

He should’ve regained his senses at an earlier point!

Unfortunately, the regression point was always this moment, and each time he regressed, it became harder and harder for him to regain his senses.

He forced open the gate restricting entry to District Z and frantically searched through its maze-like alleys.

And finally.

At the end of a dark, filthy alley.

“Sniff…”

He found his six-year-old daughter curled up and crying all alone.

The child looked even more disheveled than before. The bread she’d carefully carried in her arms was gone, too.

“Hani’s bread, sniff, it was Hani’s bread… I only ate the smell so far…”

Dantalion knew why.

The bread she’d picked up had probably already been taken away by the neighborhood children.

“Sweetheart.”

He slowly approached, doing his best not to let his expression twist.

He wanted to run over and hug her right away, but he couldn’t frighten the child.

“Sniff, hic, hm…?”

At the unfamiliar presence, Haniel raised her head.

“So there you are.”

“Sniffle, wh-who are you…”

Dantalion lowered himself and tried his best to smile kindly.

However, he couldn’t stop the fist hidden behind his back from trembling until his knuckles turned white.

“I’m a man who came looking for his lost daughter.”

“Sniff… Wh-what?”

“You have a pretty star-shaped mark on the back of your neck, don’t you? That’s proof that you’re my daughter. Have you ever seen it?”

He steadied his voice.

He spoke the lines he’d repeated dozens of times.

‘This time, definitely.’

Daddy will save you this time.

The 99th time.

His first meeting with his child.

Haniel suffered from an incurable disease.

Its name was mucorosis. It was a disease where one was born with a body incapable of containing either divine power or magical power, causing the heart to suddenly stop one day.

It was a disease closer to a curse, with no known cause, cure, or recorded cases of successful treatment.

In truth, Haniel had been a tool to him. He’d created a child out of a sense of duty, believing he needed an heir to inherit his divine power.

As was customary among first-class holy knights, producing a child with powerful divine power was also considered one way of serving God.

So he found a noble lady whose interests aligned with his and married her. After giving birth to the child, the woman who had been his wife took the money and new identity provided according to their contract and left for a distant foreign country.

There had been no problem up to that point.

There was just one thing he hadn’t expected…

“Isn’t she… awfully small?”

“Kyah!”

He’d never dreamed that such a tiny child would completely shake his world.

He was bewildered. It felt as though he’d been thrown into an entirely new world, completely different from the one he’d known until then.

But before he could even explore those feelings…

Sadly, the baby had an accident.

It happened on the way to the temple to receive a blessing for her first birthday. Her guards and maid died instantly, while the child was said to have fallen from a dizzying cliff.

Dantalion returned from a month-long monster subjugation and blankly received the news.

“…I see.”

He searched the entire gorge for the child’s body. But he couldn’t find her.

He was a little bewildered, but he had never been a man with particularly strong emotions to begin with.

He quickly pulled himself together and returned to his daily life. He’d only seen the child three or four times a year because he was so busy in the first place.

He simply thought…

That tiny baby must have been in a lot of pain.

Why hadn’t God watched over her?

Had my prayers been insufficient?

He would occasionally wonder about it absentmindedly.

Then, years later, he heard miraculous news that a child bearing the ‘crest of House Klein’ was alive in District Z.

He rushed there as though possessed.

And there.

When he found Haniel crying alone.

When he saw that tiny, fragile back that was still so small.

‘This time…’

Dantalion was overwhelmed by a feeling that words couldn’t possibly describe.

‘This time, I’ll protect you no matter what.’

Only then did he realize.

He’d been missing and loving his daughter more than anyone all along.

That was the child he’d gotten back.

His precious daughter who had somehow become his entire world.

And he was supposed to lose that child again… over nothing more than a disease?

He couldn’t accept it.

He shuddered with guilt, knowing that he’d not only made his precious daughter live in a slum, but had ultimately allowed her to contract a terrible disease and die.

So he committed a taboo. The absolute human taboo of regression.

Dantalion, who valued discipline and restraint above his own desires, didn’t hesitate.

He searched through the temple’s forbidden books, found the ‘Book of Regression,’ and poured his divine power into turning back time.

But Haniel died in his second life as well. Dantalion could no longer stop. From then on, his clock began turning back endlessly.

It didn’t matter if monster poison burned away his skin, mangled his limbs, or robbed him of both sight and hearing.

If there was an elixir, he ran wherever it was. He wielded his sword, smashed through everything, was smashed apart himself, and obtained the medicine with his body reduced to rags, only to force it down his child’s throat.

But the child died.

She died with the same face every time. No medicine or treatment worked.

He became downright resentful.

Why?

Why does my daughter have to be the one to die?

Does God really exist? If so, why is He so indifferent to our suffering?

After dozens of lives, as the cycles continued, he felt something inside him gradually breaking. It was probably the faith that had once been stronger than anyone’s.

And now, he had reached his 99th life.

It had already been two years since he brought the child home after their 99th reunion.

‘My divine power… it’s even more contaminated.’

Dantalion hurried down the hallway with his silver helmet in hand.

‘Even if I drink the purification agent, there’s definitely less I can use in this life.’

He knew his divine power was becoming contaminated as the price for violating the taboo, but he couldn’t stop. By now, he couldn’t even gauge how contaminated his divine power had become.

‘It’s still… fine. I can endure it.’

He stared blankly into the air.

‘Still, this cycle isn’t bad.’

He had a good feeling about it somehow. Haniel had been unusually healthy this time.

Of course, he wasn’t letting his guard down. She could suddenly die at 12 again, just like last time.

“Sir Dante! So you’re here! They say the dragon legion has attacked the north again. His Grace, Grand Duke Vertus, is confronting them… Wait, are you heading out?”

“Yes. I’ll go to the north.”

“What? The army hasn’t even been fully assembled yet. It’s dangerous to go alone!”

“I need to carve the dragons’ cores out while they’re still alive. I didn’t obtain many last time.”

“…What does that mean, Si-Sir Dante!”

This time, he would succeed.

“Daddy!”

Just as he was stepping outside the building, a tiny child came running out from somewhere. His stiff expression instantly softened.

“Haniel? Why are you here… Our little princess, shouldn’t you still be asleep at this hour?”

The child dangling from his waist laughed brightly, clear as dawn. Silver hair just like his. Adorable pink eyes.

“Daddy, happy birthday!”

The child held out a piece of paper neatly decorated with ribbons.

“Here, a present!”

Ah, had it already been that time?

Dantalion bent down and accepted the child’s drawing.

‘This time…’

A round, lumpy brown mass.

‘A pile of horse manure. I wondered why she’d been playing with the pony so much lately…’

“Ta-da! Hani and Daddy turned into potatoes!”

“I knew they’d be potatoes. No wonder they looked so delicious. Thank you, our little princess.”

“Hehehe!”

When he gently lifted her into his arms, Haniel rubbed her chubby cheek against him. Warm.

He carefully held the child and strode toward the bedroom. His heart was somewhat hurried, but the fact that Haniel was wearing thin slippers caught his attention.

When they turned into the hallway, the child whispered secretly.

“Daddy, you know what? I have something to tell you.”

“What is it? Is there something you want?”

“Um, it’s not that…”

There had been a time when he’d wondered.

‘Could I perhaps love this child a little less in this life?’

But…

“Thank you for running to find Hani that day.”

“…”

“I’ve been happy every single day lately, you know? I mean, I’m so, so happy, like I ate ten cream buns all at once!”

What a foolish expectation.

His love grew with every cycle, and he had become utterly bound by its infinity.

“Daddy, I love you. I like Daddy more than bread now!”

How could he bury this child in a cold coffin?

‘Sweetheart, don’t die.’

Please don’t leave Daddy behind.

Daddy still doesn’t know how beautiful a flower you’ll bloom, or how full and sturdy a grain you’ll bear.

Wouldn’t you show me your tomorrow just once?

“Yeah. Daddy loves you, too. Our little princess.”

So this time, definitely.

No matter what he had to pay as the price.

‘Daddy will save you.’

His black, contaminated divine power burrowed into his heart.

And several years later.

Dantalion Klein lost his child once again.

Even after obtaining all the cores of the dragon legion, it was useless. The western craftsman’s elixir, the heart of the deep-sea beast from the south, the golden root from the eastern plains… Every mystical creature in the world was useless.

“…”

Haniel was only ten years old in this cycle.

Blood tears streamed from his bloodshot single eye. The cheek against his own was no longer warm.

“…Again.”

He tightly held the cold body of his child with one arm. A gush of black blood surged back up.

“Daddy will try again, our little princess…”

Rrrrrrrrrr-

Once again.

The world’s time turned back.

And I, Haniel…

“This… This is…”

I, who had watched all of this from God’s embrace…