I Raised the Northern Grand Duke as a Farmer Behind My Father’s Back Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Again.

The child had died again.

“……”

Dantelion held his dying daughter in his arms and lowered his head.

The guardian of the goddess.
The apostle of sacred light.
The noblest and strongest holy knight in the Empire.

Dantelion Klein was the man to whom all those titles belonged.

His immense divine power was proof of the god’s love, and his proud, unwavering faith was beyond comparison among mankind.

But now—

“Why……”

The holy knight, who had once been more faithful than anyone, knelt with a face more corrupted than any demon’s.

His eyes were filled with despair, as though he were cursing God, and his divine power had been thoroughly tainted.

“Why did you only live to twelve this time……?”

The child’s lips, already drained of life, moved faintly.

Why, in this life, had she failed to live even until sixteen?

Haniel.

My daughter.

My child.

My treasure.

“……Again.”

He clenched his teeth.

“Daddy will try again, baby.”

This time, no matter what, he would find a cure that could save her.

Whoooooosh—

White light surged upward like a haze.

Soon, the enormous god of regression appeared.

As though punishing the holy knight for violating a taboo, a fierce storm raged outside the window as thunder roared.

BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!

“Dantelion Klein! Stop right now! Stop! Damn it!”

“Your Grace, Grand Duke Vertus! Put down your sword!”

He could hear people shouting outside the door, but it had been a long time since he had truly listened to them.

Black blood spilled from his mouth.

The pain tearing through his entire body felt almost like punishment.

And yet, he did not stop.

In this world, there was something more precious to him than his own miserable life—more precious even than the god he had once worshiped.

Realizing that truth far too late—

that was his sin, if he had one.

“Let’s meet again soon, my princess……”

This time, Daddy will come find you sooner.

Through the agony that felt as though his heart itself were being crushed, Dantelion smiled faintly.

And so, his ninety-eighth life came to an end.

Dantelion slowly opened his eyes atop a hill.

Everything around him was unbearably noisy.

“Bread! Bread! That’s mine!”

This was the slums of District Z.

He could see the starving poor gathered below.

They reached beyond the control barrier, desperately trying to catch the bread being thrown through the air.

In other words, this was the Abyss Regulation Yard.

Dantelion stood still for a moment, enduring the pounding headache as he tried to remember why he was here.

“Bwead……”

At that exact moment, through the hazy distance, he caught sight of a tiny child.

“Pwease give me some bwead……!”

The child was being jostled back and forth among the adults, stretching out one tiny hand.

But with so many adults surrounding her, catching the flying bread was no easy task.

The child struggled desperately for a long while.

Then, by chance, she spotted a piece of bread that had fallen to the ground.

The moment Dantelion saw that tiny figure carefully pick up the dirt-covered bread and run away, clutching it like a treasure—

“……!”

Dantelion snapped back to his senses as though he had been struck by lightning.

“Haniel!”

“Eek.”

It was the ninety-ninth life.

It had begun again.

Memories of his previous lives flooded back all at once with almost violent force.

Amid the suffocating pain, he clenched his trembling jaw.

He should have come to his senses sooner!

Ironically, the point to which he regressed was always exactly the same, and with every regression, it became harder and harder for him to regain his bearings.

He forced open the gates of District Z, where entry and exit were strictly controlled, and frantically ran through the labyrinthine alleys.

And then, at last—

at the end of a dark, filthy alley—

“Hic……”

He found a six-year-old girl sitting there all alone, sobbing quietly.

The child looked even more disheveled than before.

And the bread she had been clutching so carefully was gone.

“Haniel’s bread… hic, it was Haniel’s bread…… I didn’t even get to taste it yet……”

Dantelion knew exactly why.

The neighborhood children had ganged up on her and stolen the bread she had found earlier.

“Baby.”

He desperately tried to keep his expression from twisting as he slowly approached.

He wanted to run straight over and embrace her, but he could not afford to frighten the child.

“Hic, wh-who are you……?”

Startled by the unfamiliar presence, Haniel raised her head.

“There you are.”

“Sniff… wh-who……?”

Dantelion lowered himself to her level and tried to smile as gently as possible.

But he could not stop the fist hidden behind his back from trembling until his knuckles turned white.

“I’m…… someone who came looking for his lost daughter.”

“Huh……?”

“There’s a pretty star-shaped mark on the back of your neck, right? That’s proof that you’re my daughter. Have you ever seen one like it?”

He softened his voice.

Then he repeated the words he had already said dozens of times before.

“This time, for sure.”

This time, Daddy will definitely save you.

For the ninety-ninth time—

it was his first meeting with the child.

Haniel suffered from an incurable disease.

Its name was Mucoidosis.

She had been born with a body incapable of containing either divine power or mana, and one day, without warning, her heart would simply stop.

There was no known cause, no cure, and no record of anyone ever recovering from it.

It was closer to a curse than an illness.

In truth, Haniel had been born because of Dantelion.

He had felt a sense of duty to produce an heir who could inherit his divine power.

Among first-class holy knights, having children blessed with powerful divine power was considered one of the ways in which they could serve God.

So he found a woman of suitable lineage and married her.

After giving birth, the woman took the money promised in their agreement, adopted a new identity, and left for another country.

Up to that point, there had been no problem.

There was just one thing he had never anticipated.

“Isn’t she… a little too small?”

“Kyaa!”

He had never imagined that such a tiny child could shake his entire world to its core.

He had been bewildered.

It felt as though an entirely new world, utterly unlike anything he had known before, had opened before him.

But before he could fully understand that feeling……

Unfortunately, the child was involved in an accident.

It happened while she was on her way to receive a blessing at the temple for her first birthday.

The carriage and attendants were destroyed instantly, and the child was said to have fallen from a sheer cliff.

Dantelion returned from a month-long monster subjugation expedition and heard the news in stunned silence.

“……Is that so?”

He searched every ravine and valley for the child’s body.

But he could not find it.

He was shaken, but Dantelion had never been a man ruled by emotion.

He quickly composed himself and returned to his everyday life.

After all, he had been so busy that during the entirety of her first year, he had seen the child only three or four times.

He merely thought—

That tiny baby must have suffered terribly.

Perhaps the god did not watch over her.

Was it because my prayers were lacking?

Those were the vague thoughts that occasionally crossed his mind.

Then, several years later, he heard something miraculous.

A child with a “Blacksmith’s Mark of Blessing” was said to be living in District Z.

He ran there as though possessed.

And when he found Haniel there—

crying all alone,

still showing that tiny, frail little back—

This time……

Dantelion was overwhelmed by a feeling he could not put into words.

This time, I will protect you no matter what.

Only then did he realize the truth.

More than anyone else, he had missed his daughter.

He loved her.

That was how he found his child again.

Before he knew it, she had become his entire world.

His precious daughter.

And now he was supposed to lose that child again… because of some damned illness?

He could not accept it.

He had not even managed to let his precious daughter truly live outside the slums, and in the end, she had died vomiting blood.

The guilt crushed him.

And so, he committed a taboo.

The absolute taboo of mankind—

regression.

Dantelion had always valued rules and restraint above his own desires.

But he was not a fool.

He searched the temple’s forbidden archives and found the Book of Regression.

Then, pouring out his divine power, he turned back time.

But Haniel died in his second life as well.

Dantelion could no longer stop.

From that moment onward, his clock began turning backward endlessly.

His skin burned away from monster poison, his limbs were mangled, and both his eyes and ears—

Even if his arms and legs were cut off, it didn’t matter.

If there was even the slightest chance of finding a cure, he would go anywhere.

He would take up his sword, break himself apart again and again, and with his body reduced to tatters, crawl forward with the medicine clutched in his hand and feed it to the child.

But the child still died.

She died every single time, wearing the same expression.

No medicine or treatment worked.

He felt unbearably wronged.

Why?

Why did only his daughter have to die?

Did God truly exist?

If so, how could He be so indifferent to their suffering?

After repeating the regression dozens of times, Dantelion felt something inside him slowly begin to break.

It was probably the faith he had treasured more dearly than anything else.

And so, somehow, he had now reached his ninety-ninth life.

It had already been two years since his ninety-ninth reunion with the child and since they had returned home together.

“My divine power… has become even more corrupted.”

Dantelion walked briskly down the corridor, holding a silver flask in one hand.

“If she takes the purification medicine, I’m certain the amount of divine power I’ll be able to use in this life will decrease.”

He knew that violating the taboo had caused his divine power to become corrupted.

But he could not stop.

At this point, it was impossible to even guess how severely his divine power had been tainted.

Not yet… It’s fine. I can endure it.

He stared into empty space with hollow eyes.

Still, this regression isn’t too bad.

For some reason, he had a good feeling.

Haniel had been especially healthy in this life.

Of course, he had not let his guard down.

Just like in the previous life, she could suddenly die at the age of twelve.

“Sir Dantelion! Are you here? We’ve received word that the Dragon Corps has launched another surprise attack in the north. Grand Duke Vertus is holding them back, but… wait, are you planning to deploy?”

“Yes. I’ll go north.”

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

“I need to retrieve a dragon’s core while it’s still alive. I failed to obtain one last time.”

“……What are you saying, Sir Dantelion?”

This time, he had to succeed.

“Daddy!”

Just as he stepped outside the building, a tiny child came running toward him.

His usually stern expression softened instantly.

“Haniel? Why are you here…… My princess, shouldn’t you still be asleep?”

The child clinging tightly to his waist smiled as brightly as the dawn.

Her silver hair, exactly like his own, shimmered softly, and her adorable pink eyes sparkled.

“Daddy, happy birthday!”

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

“Here! A present!”

Ah.

Had it already been that long?

Dantelion bent down and accepted the drawing from the child.

This time too……

A round, brown lump.

So it’s a potato drawing. I was wondering why she kept drawing so many little things lately……

“Ta-da! It’s Haniel and Daddy after becoming potatoes!”

“Of course I knew they were potatoes. No wonder they looked so appetizing. Thank you, my little princess.”

“Hehe!”

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

Warm.

Holding the child carefully, he hurried toward the bedroom.

His heart was somewhat uneasy, but what caught his attention most was the fact that Haniel was wearing thin slippers.

Just as they turned into the corridor, the child whispered cautiously.

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

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

“Mm, it’s not that……”

There had once been a time when he had wondered:

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

But……

“Yeah. Thank you for running to find Haniel that day.”

“……”

“I’ve been happy every single day lately! Like, like I ate ten cream buns all at once—I’m that happy!”

What a foolish hope that had been.

His love only piled higher with every regression, and he had surrendered helplessly to that infinity.

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

How could he pour cold water over this child’s happiness?

Baby, please don’t die.

Please, don’t leave Daddy behind.

You still don’t know how beautifully you’ll bloom, or what a strong and precious person you’ll become.

Couldn’t you show me your tomorrow just once?

“Mm. Daddy loves you too, my princess.”

But this time, no matter what—

no matter what price I have to pay—

Daddy will save you.

His horribly corrupted divine power dug into his heart.

And several years later—

Dantelion Klein lost the child once again.

Even after getting his hands on every core from the Dragon Corps, none of them had worked.

The Elixir of the Western Artisan, the heart of a deep-sea beast, even the Golden Root of the Eastern Plains……

Every rare treasure in the world had been useless.

“……”

Haniel was only ten years old in this life.

Tears streamed down her pale cheeks.

Her once-rosy face had long since lost its warmth.

“……Again.”

He coldly lifted the child’s small body into his arms.

Dark blood flowed down his arm.

“Daddy will try again, my princess……”

Rrrrummmble—

Again.

The world’s time began to turn backward.

And I, Haniel—

“Th-this…… this is……”

From within the arms of God, I watched everything.

[Did you see? This is Dantelion Klein’s sin.]

“What in the world is all of thiiiiis—!!”

I screamed.