Father, I Won’t Do Anything

It felt as if she had been dreaming, yet the memory eluded her. She only vaguely remembered having a conversation with someone.

“…”

No, that wasn’t important now.

‘Where is this place?’

It wasn’t the room she had been staying in. Her room was cozy but didn’t get much sunlight.

No, what was stranger was that she was being cared for by someone.

Gradually, the sensations in her body began to return.

Just before she passed out, it had hurt so badly that she thought she was dying, but strangely, she felt no pain at all.

In fact, her body felt lighter than before she had collapsed.

Jaina slowly tried to move her body.

At that, the person who had been holding her hand gasped in surprise. It was a familiar voice that she had longed for.

“Jaina!”

“It wasn’t Lady Hilvenzia’s fault,” Jaina said in a weak but clear tone.

For that to be her first words after waking up…

Hilvenzia felt perplexed.

To think of others before herself, right after coming back from the brink of death…

“But after you ate the tart I made…”

“You did it for me. I was always grateful that Hilvenzia cooked for me. Not just because it tasted good, but because no one had ever done something like that for me before.”

The soft, gentle voice of a child.

Hilvenzia stared intently at Jaina.

At first, she had been interested in Jaina because among the magicians of the Magic Tower who ate carelessly, this child seemed to enjoy Hilvenzia’s food.

Upon investigation, she turned out to be a half-dragon who claimed to be Diamid’s daughter.

Moreover, she hadn’t been easily intimidated in front of Mikael and Hilvenzia.

‘That’s how it started…’

Gradually, Hilvenzia became more concerned. She wanted Jaina to taste other dishes besides just white bread, to live in a better room instead of a moldy one…

That small interest grew, until she felt sorrow and guilt when the child collapsed.

When had it become like this?

‘If people knew the recluse Hilvenzia was fretting over a child, they’d laugh and call it a lie.’

That small face, those pale white cheeks, those transparent blue eyes.

Children were numerous in this world.

But… this child in front of her was one who thought of others before herself, even upon waking up.

Hilvenzia couldn’t help but feel affection for her.

“I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Suppressing her surging emotions, Hilvenzia held Jaina’s hand tightly.

* * *

Diamid was lying in bed, recovering his strength. His signature black hair had been cut short, reaching just past his shoulders.

The aftereffects of committing the taboo had lasted a full week.

The pain was one thing, but the biggest change was that he had gone from being a transcendent beyond death to a mortal who couldn’t escape it.

Diamid didn’t care, but Mikael, who knew how much talent Diamid had honed to become a transcendent, was restless.

“Although I did ask for it… Why did you save the kid… no, Jaina?”

Mikael stood with his back to the window where sunlight streamed in, his soft voice echoing through the bedroom.

Diamid, with his hand on his forehead as he stared at the ceiling, answered.

“Did you know the child’s name was Jaina?”

“Huh? Ah, yes. At first, she introduced herself like that. She said that ‘Ashrid’ was a name the dragon clan gave her arbitrarily.”

“…”

“…Hilvenzia must have known too, then.”

Even though Mikael was Diamid’s cousin, for a complete stranger like Hilvenzia to also know that fact…

Diamid moved his hand from his forehead to the collar of his shirt, slowly undoing the buttons. As his shirt loosened, his prominent Adam’s apple became visible, but the feeling of suffocation didn’t go away.

Hilvenzia was fickle and capricious, not the kind of person to do something for others.

She might be under Diamid’s rule as the Lord of the Magic Tower, but that was only because she needed him for her research. She had no loyalty to him whatsoever.

And yet, that woman had made a tart especially for Jaina, calling it a ‘special dish.’

While Diamid had been pushing the child away, saying she couldn’t possibly be his daughter…

‘But she is of my blood. I am that child’s father.’

Diamid slowly closed his eyes. Waves of guilt washed over him.

Had he ever done anything to help that child?

No, rather, by being her father, she had only suffered.

She had nearly died from something as trivial as an allergy.

Heh.

Diamid let out a scornful laugh as he felt Jaina’s existence shaking him.

-I warned you, Mikael Bellafanian. Don’t allow emotions to sway you.

When told that the small girl who had come claiming to be his daughter had collapsed, he had coldly shut his heart and closed himself off.

People said that the Tower Lord, Diamid, was the most rational and dispassionate man of all.

But in truth, he always doubted whether he was actually just a coward.

‘She’ll shake me and bring me down. She’ll shatter me disgracefully.’

So out of fear of being hurt, he excluded his emotions, encasing his heart in ice and building a sturdy wall around it.

Instead, he pursued truth and power. With his emotions running wild and unable to look back, it was easy for him to charge ahead, only looking forward.

That way, he obtained immortality. He ascended to the highest level and became the great Archmage.

He made plans to pursue his own interests to the extreme and bring the world under his control.

As time passed, his plans became more concrete, and the world seemed to be falling into his grasp.

‘But why, did I…’

Why did he abandon everything he had long desired and choose this young dragon instead?

-I want to die, right here.

Why did he take the child’s hand when she said she wanted to die, abandoning all the effort and pain he had endured to obtain what he had, why…

‘Foolish.’

The blood he had spilled would never be washed away, no matter how long he scrubbed.

The lives he had taken while defeating the Demon King alone would be too many to count.

Then why, for the sake of this one child before him…

‘Because that child is special? Because she’s not dragons’ spy, but my own daughter?’

He should have turned a blind eye.

The daughter of Bezrice, who had only left him with scars before leaving.

‘But she was the fruit of love, wasn’t she?’

At least when Bezrice became pregnant with Jaina, she must have loved him, right?

‘No, even if she wasn’t the fruit of love…’

It didn’t matter. In the end, he wouldn’t have been able to let Jaina go.

Just like when he had first met Bezrice, he would have grasped that hand, knowing it was a choice he couldn’t take back.

‘It was all my fault from the beginning.’

Jaina had nearly lost her life.

As her father, he may not have fulfilled his duty, but at the very least he should have warned her about Shizmel before this happened…

No, even before that, he should have acknowledged her as his daughter.

In fact, he had known for a long time. Ever since it became clear that Jaina wasn’t the dragon clan’s spy, he had known she was his daughter.

And yet, he had turned a blind eye. He had erased it from his mind.

Out of fear that the barriers in his heart would melt away, reopening the wounds he had painstakingly sewn shut.

But when he saw his past self reflected in that child’s face as she lay dying, when he heard the name Jaina…

He realized that deeper than his fears, there was a lingering longing.

The reason he couldn’t bring himself to burn Bezrice’s belongings and had instead left them abandoned at the edge of the garden.

The reason he had secretly watched over the child even as he yelled for her to never show her face again – it was all because of that.

‘Was the seal on my emotions also lifted along with my immortality?’

When he lost his immortality, the icy barrier he had erected to seal away his emotions seemed to have melted as well.

The tightness in his chest and the turmoil in his mind were proof of that.

Pushing through his jumbled thoughts, Diamid asked Mikael beside him:

“What do you think Jaina thinks of me?”

“‘Jaina,’ you say?”

“Yes.”

When Diamid called her Jaina, Mikael repeated the name with a bright expression.

It seemed that although belated, Jaina had finally gained a guardian.

Mikael spoke cheerfully.

“I think after this incident, she’ll have quite a favorable impression of the Tower Lord.”

“Is that so?”

Diamid gave a satisfied smile at Mikael’s reply.

Yes, he could catch up.

Although later than Mikael and Hilvenzia, Diamid wasn’t in a hurry.

He wasn’t just anyone – he was that child’s ‘father.’

After staying with relatives, she had come to find her real parents, so she must miss having a family.

He would simply make up for the hurt he had caused her by treating her even better going forward.

He had a lot to offer. There were things he could give her that other fathers couldn’t. So it would be fine.

“How about buying her some new gems at the upcoming auction? It’s easier to learn magic properly using gems as a medium.”

Diamid spoke of gems as though they were disposable items. At his words, Mikael’s eyes widened.

“You intend to teach her magic directly?”

“Isn’t that only natural?”

He said it like it was no big deal, but it was an extraordinary privilege.

To be taught magic directly by the Tower Lord himself – it was a completely different situation from the lofty status she had held until now.

‘I can resolve all the discomforts she has felt until now.’

Diamid spoke in a relaxed tone, having regained his composure.

“And I plan to grant her a title and lands. I’ll bestow one of my territories on her as well. Eilvbrande would be nice.”

“Then she would become Jaina van Eilvbrande Bellafanian.”

Eilvbrande was a renowned fertile plain on the continent, home to diamond mines.

‘He’s really giving her proper treatment.’

Mikael had thought he was doing well by Jaina himself, but Diamid was on a completely different scale.

It was a bit bittersweet to see his own standing with Jaina diminish, but it was still good for her.

“Jaina will soon come to see the Tower Lord as a good father.”

Even up to this point, neither Mikael nor Diamid had realized

What kind of ripples their simple assumptions about Jaina would cause later on.