IBDHD 1

Chapter 1

Who was Cassian Calypso?

Age: 28.

A war hero who had led the Holy-Demon War to victory five years ago and been granted the title of Duke of Barkasia.

Over 190 cm tall.

Broad shoulders.

Beast-like muscles.

A dangerously attractive appearance and an aura that made you feel as though you’d experience hell itself if you got involved with him.

In many ways, he was a man who came close to perfection.

Money?

Of course he had ple—plenty…… Actually, not so much. He’d recently gambled away his entire estate and all his cash.

Honor?

He’d had some, at least until he was first granted his title.

The problem was that he’d since dragged his reputation through the gutter by doing all sorts of outrageous things.

Even so, he was managing to live a fairly comfortable life. He had only one problem.

“Nooo. Listen to me, Doc. Someone left a kid in front of my house, and everyone keeps saying she’s my daughter. What kind of daughter would a man who was so happy being single that he voluntarily lay down on a cold operating table have?”

A few days ago, someone had left a tiny human being who had only just been born and had barely started growing in front of his house.

The child was around three to five years old, a girl, and she couldn’t understand a word anyone said, as though she’d come from a foreign country.

Obviously, she was someone else’s child, so he’d taken her straight to an orphanage, only to be turned away.

“She’s obviously your biological daughter! Her father is standing right here, alive and well, so why should she grow up in an orphanage?”

That day, the facility staff had looked at Cassian as though he were the most worthless piece of human garbage in the world, a complete son of a bitch.

He’d somehow managed to keep the little girl who couldn’t understand a word anyone said under temporary care for three days.

……Was it three days? Ten days?

He didn’t know the exact number because someone else had been looking after her, but anyway, he couldn’t take it anymore.

If I hadn’t had the surgery, at least I could’ve felt wronged.

Good grief. Whoever the hell had abandoned their own child was going to be punished by heaven. What a rotten bastard.

“If she looked like me, I might understand. But the kid 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 this big, but she’s barely bigger than my fist. And they’re still saying she’s my daughter? Are everyone’s eyes full of holes or something?”

“Your daughter, you say?”

“Exactly! There are some things you can say to an unmarried bachelor and some things you can’t…… I don’t know what crazy bastard is trying to ruin my glorious single life, but if I catch him, 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 whatever later.”

The doctor smiled benevolently, like a statue of a goddess in a temple.

“So, the reason you’ve come in for the first time in four years is to have your surgical results checked?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s make sure everything was definitely severed.”

Flash!

The doctor’s glasses gleamed in the sunlight.

He adjusted them with a smooth motion, then spoke with an almost stern expression.

“My surgery was flawless.”

“Ah. Of course it was flawless. That’s why the kid and I don’t look alike, right?”

“If the surgery was flawless, why do you need to check? It’s rare for someone as young as you, Mr. Calypso, to undergo that kind of procedure. I figured handsome bastards like you must have been having a hell of a good time, making the most of their looks, so I did my absolute best when I operated on you.”

“Who’s complaining? I’m just asking you to check. Just check!”

Apparently feeling that Cassian was challenging the perfection of his work, the doctor glared at him, snorting in irritation.

But a doctor who had spent his entire life studying stood no chance against the capital’s greatest delinquent, a former war hero.

A little while later, as the doctor examined the surgical site, he suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth in shock and began trembling.

“Oh dear…… What…… What should we do?”

“Huh? Don’t tell me……”

Thump.

Cassian pressed a hand to his forehead.

Don’t tell me that little brat really is my daughter? Damn it!

He’d survived the battlefield without dying, and even when he was injured, he’d somehow bounced back in the most ridiculous way possible, allowing him to keep living comfortably like this.

Haah. Why does a guy like me have such ridiculously strong vitality that I keep bringing trouble upon myself?

He was clutching his head in a mixture of pride and self-loathing when the doctor spoke.

“Mr. Calypso. It’s at the point where it can no longer be reversed.”

“Even with all that drinking and smoking, my health is still— Huh? What did you say?”

Reversed? What?

When Cassian raised his head, the doctor clicked his tongue sympathetically.

“I warned you during your last surgery, remember? Once it’s severed, it’s difficult to reverse. But now, even reconstructive surgery would be useless. Do you understand what that means?”

“So, you’re saying I……”

“You’ll never have children for the rest of your life. As expected, my surgery was flawless.”

“Oh……”

He’d voluntarily undergone the surgery four years ago, but was he supposed to be happy about this or not?

Just as Cassian was frowning, the doctor drove the point home.

“In short, you’re a seedless watermelon. A male who’s been successfully neutered.”

Those were the words he’d 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 about three, four, or maybe five years old. Is there any chance she’s actually related to me by blood?”

“None whatsoever~ By this stage, the outcome would already have been decided from the very beginning. You had one chance to have a child, and now it turns out she isn’t yours. Well…… Cheer up. If some people are blessed with many children and long lives, others are destined to have no children and die young. That’s simply the way of nature.”

“Dying young is exactly what I want, 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 promptly stood up and left the hospital, feeling much lighter.

Just as I thought.

He’d suspected as much, but having it confirmed by a professional was a tremendous relief.

When he returned home, a child’s voice drifted out from beyond the front gate.

*! Mommy! !”

Amid the foreign words, the word Mommy came through perfectly clearly.

The child’s voice was thin and chirpy, the distinctive sound of a little girl, and Cassian frowned.

Click.

As he opened the door and stepped inside, the first thing he saw was the little brat sprawled flat on the floor.

She looked like a chick that had been dipped in flour dough and pulled back out, flailing her short arms and legs as she swept dust across the floor.

“Come ooon. I told you to eat your din-din! Don’t you like din-din? Din-din!”

Beside the little girl stood a buzz-cut man with a scratch through his eyebrow, anxiously holding a bowl of soup.

When the buzz-cut man brought a spoonful of soup to the girl’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 spoke to 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. If you take this, the orphanage should accept her.”

“R-Really? Thank goodness!”

The buzz-cut man, whose eyes were almost black with exhaustion from looking after the child while Cassian was away, looked ready to burst into applause.

“Anyway, that’s that. I’m going to go inside and rest.”

“Whaaaat? B-Boss, you’re not even going to look after her?”

“I’m tired. Hey, once you get her to finish the soup, play with her for a bit, then head home around dinner.”

He’d been so excited after getting the medical report that he’d started drinking heavily before the alcohol from the previous night had even worn off. Now the whole world was spinning.

Leaving the buzz-cut man to his desperate screams, Cassian slammed his bedroom door shut with a bang!

When I was five years old, I went to sleep 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 went to bed missing my mom.

Still, all the teachers were very kind.

They praised me every day, hugged me, and kissed me.

And so, growing up surrounded by the love of adults, I eventually turned ten.

On my birthday, as we placed candles on the cake, my friends said,

“Hurry up and make a wish!”

“Yeah! Since it’s your birthday, the Goddess might grant your wish!”

I had a mom, but I’d never had a dad, not even once, so I made a wish to the Goddess.

“Goddess, my maternal cousin Enrique has both a mom and a dad, but I’m the only one who doesn’t have both. Mom always says she’ll explain when I’m older, and whenever my maternal uncle hears anything about my dad, he gets upset.”

The friends standing beside me began whispering to one another.

“My older brother was always like that, too. He said I’d understand why I didn’t have a dad when I grew up. It turned out he had died.”

“My older sister says parents sometimes leave home because they’re having affairs, and adults tell their kids the same thing. She told me when I turned ten.”

How could you talk about things like that right beside me while I’m praying?!

I opened one eye slightly and whispered to the kids in a low voice.

“Shhh! Be quiet. Can’t you see I’m praying right now?”

“Mm-hmm. Okay. Sorry.”

I continued my prayer.

“But, um…… I want a dad, too.”

Mom was frail, so she shouldn’t come all the way out here. Actually, I didn’t want Mom to come.

But a dad…… I wanted to know what my dad’s face looked like, too, you know?

“Goddess! Please give me a dad, too!”

I want to go sledding with my dad!

Was it because my heartfelt wish had reached the Goddess?

The moment I finished speaking, an enormous light appeared out of nowhere and pierced straight through me.