ODD 1

Chapter 1

The day my father disappeared.

Which is to say, that day was the day my long-cherished wish came true.

“This place faces south, so it gets plenty of sunlight! If the owner weren’t in a hurry, they wouldn’t have listed it at this price, you know?”

The real estate agent kept explaining how popular this house was as he climbed the stairs.

“You said you’d be living here with your father, just the two of you?”

“Yes, that’s right!”

“Since it’s a two-story house, it’d be perfect if the daughter uses the second floor and your father uses the first floor!”

A two-story house, he said — but honestly, this was attic-level. An ordinary person wouldn’t even be able to stand up straight, but as the agent said, if I was the one using it, there wouldn’t be much inconvenience.

“The shopping district is close too! And you said you commute to work as a royal palace civil servant~ How close is your commute? This is perfect, perfect.”

“You said 250,000 gold?”

“Yes, that’s right. You know the market price around here is all over 300,000 gold, right? At this price, it’s really cheap.”

“Alright! Let’s sign the contract!”

With a hearty shout, the agent went outside to contact the owner right away. I looked over the house once more.

I’m going to live here with my father from now on. My heart swelled.

“The owner says that since it’s a young lady buying a house to live in with her father, he’ll let it go for 240,000 gold! Here, the sales contract. Read it carefully and stamp your seal here.”

“240,000 gold?”

“Yes, 240,000 gold. You’ve made quite a profit today, miss.”

The real estate agent smiled brightly.

A whole 10,000 gold off? Isn’t this a scam, I wondered — but first, I slowly read the contract. For today, I had memorized <The Book You Must Read to Avoid Being Scammed When Signing a House Contract> from the academy library, I tell you!

“Ho ho ho, miss. You were cautious when looking at the house, and you’re cautious with the contract too! Would I ever scam a royal palace civil servant?”

“Hahaha, right?”

I took out the seal I had carefully hidden in my bag.

“Alright, I’ll stamp it!”

I blew on the newly carved seal I’d made for today — hoo, hoo.

Gulp — I swallowed dryly for no reason. Thud — a small echo spread across the table.

Good, it’s perfectly straight.

I looked with satisfaction at the seal stamped neatly in the square box.

“Ho ho ho, from now on, this house belongs to Miss Cynthia Violetta. And here’s the key.”

Jingle — two keys dropped onto my palm. One had a red ribbon, the other a blue ribbon.

After that, the agent explained a few more procedures and left. Only then did it truly sink in that this house was mine.

“Wow, I finally have my own house in the capital.”

It was my long-held dream. To have a decent job in the capital, to buy my own house, and to live together with my father.

Actually, it was only my house in name — most of the money was the bank’s. If you wanted to be precise, maybe I owned just the entrance? After all, the moment I passed the royal palace civil servant exam, I took my certificate and pulled out a full loan from the capital bank.

Of course, Father had said, “What are you doing living in the capital at your age?”

“You already bought the house, so what are you going to do about it!”

Since he couldn’t undo it, I had to call him right away and tell him to come up!

-“What? You really — how can you just go ahead and sign a contract like that without even telling me.”

Father’s sigh came through the receiver.

“Stop saying you hate it and quit being a mercenary now and come up to the capital. I have a job, so what’s there to worry about?”

-“But…….”

At his still-hesitating voice, I drove the nail in.

“If you really want to do mercenary work, you can do it here in the capital. We barely spent time together when I was young — let’s be together now, even if it’s late.”

-“……Was that hard on you?”

“Of course! I thought you hated me because I was a daughter you picked up, you know?”

When I was young, I thought Father hated me.

How old was I then? About seven or eight, I think. Our house sat halfway up a hill, so we didn’t interact much with the villagers. So I thought all father-daughter relationships in the world were like ours.

Then, belatedly, I saw it.

On the day of the village festival, the fathers and children gathered in the square looked completely different from us. They held hands and took walks together, lifted their children high onto their shoulders.

The sight of another father rubbing his face against the cheek of a child whining for something tasty, for a toy, laughing heartily — that was a huge shock to me.

I envied those children. I wanted to be the daughter of a home filled with warmth, not a home filled only with silence.

So that day, I mustered my courage and ran out to the entrance the moment I heard Father’s footsteps returning from mercenary work.

“Father, welcome home?”

The embrace I summoned courage to give — Father’s arms were far firmer and warmer than I expected.

My heart pounded like crazy.

I wanted his large hand to stroke my head. I wanted him to smile, even awkwardly, and ask if I’d been good at home alone, if I’d been good at home alone.

But what came back was not a tender voice.

“Get away.”

With a cold tone, Father roughly pushed me off as if I were covered in filth.

‘!’

I fell backward from the force and landed on my rear, but Father didn’t even look back and went into his room.

That day, I went into my room without eating dinner and cried.

Is it because I’m a picked-up daughter after all? If I were his real daughter, would he have cherished me?

The more I made meaningless assumptions, the more pathetic I felt.

After that day, I let go of the thread of hope regarding Father. I no longer waited for him, nor spoke to him first. Under one roof, we stayed in a silence worse than strangers.

Back then, I didn’t know. That Father headed straight to his room the moment he came home because he didn’t want his young daughter to smell the blood soaked into his body.

That I came to understand Father’s heart was because of the academy.

The Selman Royal Academy I attended is a place only nobles can attend. Because of that, tuition was extremely expensive. So expensive that our family — noble in title only — couldn’t even dream of it.

Even when my teacher said at a parent consultation that he’d like me to go to the academy, I thought it was impossible.

But Father sent me to the academy the moment he heard that from the teacher.

After enrolling in the academy, I can’t describe how shocked I was when I heard the tuition for one semester. It was more expensive than our family’s living expenses for a whole year.

Did we have that kind of money? Had he secretly received a hefty sum from the emperor, contrary to rumors? Or had some huge job come in through mercenary work? I wondered.

But when I went home for the first summer vacation, I found out. To pay for tuition, Father had sold his most treasured sword. That sword was one he’d received from the emperor, and he cherished it dearly. So much that he even slept hugging it.

Only then did I realize that Father’s blunt, loud way of speaking was his own way of expressing affection.

“There’s no way!”

At Father’s flustered voice, a smile spread across my face on its own.

“Exactly. So stop refusing and come up to the capital. You know the academy graduation ceremony is this week, right? You’re coming to the graduation ceremony. Let’s just move then too. Okay?”

Mmm, a sound of deliberation spread.

“Fine, I understand.”

“Great! Everything you need is prepared, so just bring yourself! I’ll buy you clothes too, so throw away those worn-out ones!”

“Why throw away perfectly good clothes? I can wear them for another 10 years.”

“If you wear them another 10 years, people will curse at you!”

I clung to the dormitory phone with its poor sound quality and nagged on, and only after hearing Father say he understood did I put down the receiver.

* * *

And then, the day of the graduation ceremony.

I was waiting for Father at the academy entrance.

“Seriously, when is he coming?”

Surely he’s not walking again to save on carriage fare? The distance from the station to the academy is no joke.

Just then, a carriage stopped in front of the academy, and someone got off.

“Cynthia.”

It was Father. He’d even brought a bouquet to give me, saying it was for the graduation ceremony. When I waved my hand, he showed a faint smile. I know well that’s the best smile Father can make.

“Father!”

It was about the time Father started to wave his arm back.

Thud —

The bag and bouquet Father was holding fell to the ground.

I stared at the bouquet rolling away, then raised my head.

“……Father?”

Father had suddenly disappeared.