Chapter 1

Again.

Another child had died.

“……”

Dantellion lowered his head as he held his daughter’s cooling body closer.

Guardian of the Goddess.

Apostle of the Holy Light.

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

Dantellion Klein was the owner of all those titles.

His immense holy power was proof of the gods’ love, and his lofty, unwavering convictions were nothing short of a source of pride for humanity.

And yet, now—

“Why……”

The holy knight who had been more devout than anyone else was kneeling there, looking more corrupted than any demon.

His eyes were filled with despair, as though cursing God, while his holy power was thoroughly tainted.

“Why is she only twelve this time……”

His lifeless eyes blankly stroked the child’s cheek.

Why was it that, in this life, you couldn’t even live until sixteen?

Haniel. My daughter. My child. My treasure.

“……Again.”

He clenched his teeth.

“Daddy will try again, sweetheart.”

This time, he would definitely find a cure for her.

Whoooooosh—

White light rose like smoke from the ground.

Soon, a gigantic regression magic circle appeared.

As though punishing the holy knight for violating a taboo, violent rain and thunder raged outside the window.

Bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

“Dante Klein! Stop immediately! Are you not going to stop? Damn it!”

“Your Highness Grand Duke Vertus! Put away your sword!”

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

Black blood poured from his mouth.

The agony coursing through his entire body felt like a punishment.

But he did not stop.

There was something in this world more precious than his miserable life or his pitiful faith.

If realizing that was his sin, then so be it.

“I’ll see you again soon, my little princess……”

This time, Daddy will come to meet you sooner.

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

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

Dantellion stood atop a hill and slowly opened his eyes.

The surroundings were filled with noise.

“Bread! Bread! It’s mine!”

This was the slums, District Z.

Down below, he could see the impoverished people who had been quarantined.

They stretched their hands beyond the barricades, desperately trying to catch the loaves of bread being thrown toward them.

It was complete chaos. A living hell.

Dantellion stood there for a moment, enduring the pounding headache that came surging in.

Why was he here?

“Breeead……”

At the same time, a tiny child appeared in his blurred vision in the distance.

“Me toooo, please give me some breaaad……”

The child was being shoved this way and that between the adults as she waved her tiny hands.

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

The child bounced up and down for a long while.

Then, by chance, she spotted a loaf lying on the ground.

The moment he saw her running away with the precious loaf, covered in dirt and filthy water, clutched tightly in her tiny hands—

“……!”

Dantellion snapped back to reality as if struck by lightning.

‘Haniel!’

“Ugh.”

It had begun again.

His ninety-ninth life.

The memories of his previous life came crashing down upon him all at once, almost violently.

Amid suffocating pain, he clenched his trembling jaw.

Even staggering was a luxury he could not afford right now.

He sprinted down the hill like a madman.

He should have regained consciousness at an earlier point!

Unfortunately, the regression point was always at this moment, and with each regression, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to recover his mind.

He forcibly opened the entrance to District Z, which was under strict lockdown, and frantically searched through the maze-like alleys.

And finally—

At the end of a dark and filthy alley—

“Hic…….”

He found his six-year-old daughter crying alone, curled up on the ground.

She looked even more miserable than before.

The bread she had been carefully carrying in her arms was gone as well.

“Hani’s bread…… hic…… it was Hani’s bread……. I only ate the smell of it so far……”

Dantellion knew why.

The other children in the neighborhood must have taken all the bread she had just picked up.

“Sweetheart.”

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

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

“Hic, sniff…… huh?”

Haniel raised her head at the unfamiliar presence.

“There you are.”

“Sniff…… wh-who are you……”

Dantellion lowered himself and tried to smile as gently as possible.

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

“Mister…… came here looking for his lost daughter.”

“Hic…… wh-what?”

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

He composed his voice.

And spoke the same lines he had repeated dozens of times.

‘This time, definitely.’

Daddy will save you.

The ninety-ninth time.

His ninety-ninth first meeting with his daughter.

Haniel suffered from an incurable disease.

Its name was Mucoiosis.

It was a disease that afflicted those born with bodies incapable of holding either holy power or magical power, causing their hearts to suddenly stop one day.

There was no known cause, no cure, and no documented case of successful treatment.

It was a disease closer to a curse than an illness.

In truth, Haniel had originally been a tool to him.

He needed an heir to inherit his holy power, and it was out of that sense of duty that he had created a child.

As was customary among First-Class Holy Knights, producing a child with powerful holy power was also considered one way of serving God.

So he found a young noblewoman whose interests aligned with his and married her.

After giving birth to the child, his wife took the money and new identity they had agreed upon in their contract and left for a distant foreign country.

There had been no problem with that.

The one thing he had never expected was—

“Isn’t she…… awfully small?”

“Kyaa!”

He had never dreamed that such a tiny child would completely shake his entire world.

He was bewildered.

It felt as though he had been thrown into an entirely new world, one completely different from the one he had known before.

But before he even had time to explore those unfamiliar feelings—

Unfortunately, the baby was involved in an accident.

It happened while they were on their way to the temple to receive a blessing for her first birthday.

The escort and maid had died instantly, while the child had supposedly fallen from a towering cliff.

Dantellion returned from a month-long monster extermination campaign and blankly listened to the news.

“……I see.”

He searched the entire gorge for the child’s body.

But he could not find it.

He was somewhat bewildered, but Dantellion had never been a particularly emotional person.

He quickly pulled himself together and returned to his daily life.

He had been so busy that he had only seen the child three or four times throughout the entire year, after all.

He merely thought from time to time, absentmindedly—

That tiny baby must have suffered terribly.

Why had God not protected her?

Was it because my prayers were insufficient?

Then, several years later, he heard miraculous news.

A child bearing the ‘crest of House Klein’ was living in District Z.

He rushed there as though possessed.

And when he found Haniel crying alone—

When he saw that tiny, frail back that was still so small—

‘This time…….’

Dantellion was overwhelmed by emotions that words could not fully express.

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

Only then did he realize.

He had actually missed and loved his daughter more than anyone else in the world.

She was the child he had regained.

His precious daughter, who had somehow become his entire world.

And now he was supposed to lose that child again……

Just because of a disease?

He could not accept it.

The guilt of not only allowing his precious daughter to live in the slums, but ultimately allowing her to contract that terrible disease and die because of it, made him shudder.

And so he violated a taboo.

The absolute taboo of humanity:

Regression.

Dantellion had always valued discipline and restraint above his own desires, but he did not hesitate.

He searched through the forbidden books of the temple until he found the ‘Book of Regression,’ then poured his holy power into it and turned back time.

But Haniel died in her second life as well.

Dantellion could no longer stop.

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

It did not matter if monster venom burned away his skin, if his limbs were destroyed, or if he lost both his eyes and ears.

If he heard that there was a miraculous medicine somewhere, he would go anywhere.

He would take up his sword, smash his way through, be smashed himself, and with his body reduced to rags, he would obtain the medicine and force it down his child’s throat.

But the child died.

She died with the same face every time.

No medicine or treatment worked.

Eventually, he became furious.

Why?

Why did only my daughter have to die?

Does God truly exist?

If so, why is He so indifferent to our suffering?

As the lives continued, dozens of them, he felt something inside him gradually breaking.

It was probably his faith—the faith that had once been stronger than anyone else’s.

And so, here he was.

His ninety-ninth life.

Two years had already passed since his ninety-ninth reunion with his daughter, and the two had returned home together.

‘His holy power…… is even more corrupted.’

Dantellion walked quickly down the hallway, holding his silver helmet in one hand.

‘Even if I drink purification medicine, the amount of holy power I can use in this life will definitely be limited.’

He knew that his holy power was becoming corrupted as the price for violating the taboo, but he could not stop.

By now, he could no longer even tell how badly his holy power had been contaminated.

‘For now…… I’m fine. I can endure it.’

He stared into empty space with hollow eyes.

‘Still, this life isn’t bad.’

For some reason, he had a good feeling.

Haniel had been particularly healthy in this life.

Of course, he could not let his guard down.

She might suddenly die at twelve again, just like last time.

“Sir Dante! So you were here! I heard that the Dragon Legion has attacked the North again. Grand Duke Vertus is confronting them…… Wait, are you going on an expedition?”

“Yes. I’ll go to the North.”

“What? The army hasn’t even been fully assembled yet! Going alone is dangerous!”

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

“……What are you talking about? Si-Sir Dante!”

This time, he would succeed.

“Daddy!”

Just as he was stepping outside the building, a tiny child came running from somewhere.

His stern expression immediately softened.

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

“Hehe.”

The child clung to his waist and smiled as brightly as the dawn.

Silver hair exactly like his.

Adorable pink eyes.

“Daddy, happy birthday!”

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

“Here! A present!”

Ah.

Had that time already come?

Dantellion bent down and accepted the child’s drawing.

‘In this life…….’

A round, lumpy brown mass.

‘That’s a pile of horse manure. I wondered why she’d been playing so much with the ponies lately…….’

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

“I knew they would obviously be potatoes. No wonder they looked so appetizing. Thank you, my little princess.”

“Hehehe!”

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

Warm.

He carefully held his child and strode toward the bedroom.

His heart was somewhat hurried, but he noticed that Haniel was wearing thin slippers.

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

“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 once been a time when he wondered—

‘Maybe in this life, I’ll be able to love this child a little less.’

But……

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

“……”

“Lately, I’m happy every single day! Like, like I ate ten cream buns all at once! I’m so, so happy!”

What a foolish expectation that had been.

His love only grew stronger with every regression, and he was completely bound by its endlessness.

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

How could he bury this child in a cold coffin?

‘Sweetheart, please don’t die.’

Please don’t leave Daddy behind.

Daddy doesn’t even know what kind of beautiful flower you’ll bloom into, or what kind of strong grain you’ll bear.

Couldn’t you show me your tomorrow just once?

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

So this time, definitely.

No matter what he had to pay as the price.

‘Daddy will save you.’

Black, corrupted holy power dug into his heart.

And several years later—

Dantellion Klein lost his child once again.

Even after obtaining all the cores of the Dragon Legion, it was useless.

The Western master’s elixir, the heart of the Deep-Sea Beast from the South, the Golden Root of the Eastern Plains……

Every miraculous substance in the world was useless.

“……”

Haniel was only ten years old in this life.

Blood tears streamed down from his bloodshot, single eye.

The cheek pressed against his own was no longer warm.

“……Again.”

He tightly embraced the child’s cold body with one arm.

A rush of black blood surged back up his throat.

“Daddy will try again, my little princess……”

Rattle-rattle-rattle—

Once again.

Time in the world turned backward.

And I, Haniel—

“Th-this……”

I, who had watched all of this from within the arms of God—

[Have you seen it? This is the sin of Dantellion Klein.]

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