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Chapter 1
I Absolutely Cannot Accept This Kind of Biological Father
“Abubu!”
She was the kind of baby who was loved just for breathing.
She was born into a poor but happy family, and her parents adored her whether she was eating, sleeping, or even pooping.
When she first managed to hold her head up, they celebrated as if they had won a great victory.
When she first started crawling, they applauded enthusiastically.
When she took her first steps, her parents held hands and cried.
“Mama!”
“My goodness, our daughter must be a genius!”
They laughed at every clumsy word she spoke.
“Waaah. Mom! Dad! I can’t poop.”
“What do we do? What should we do? Oh dear!”
And when she suffered from constipation, they cried with her.
Thinking about it now, it was so exaggerated that it was almost ridiculous.
But because she had parents like that, she was happy.
That was why she absolutely could not accept this kind of biological father!
“Zenith, this is your real father…”
Fernando tried to introduce them to each other.
“I don’t accept it!”
“I don’t want to!”
Their replies came out at exactly the same time.
“Why don’t you want me?!”
“If you were me, would you want a father like you?”
The man who was supposedly her biological father—Garen or whatever his name was—immediately flared up.
Zenith threw the question right back at him.
“What’s wrong with me? I’m pretty impressive!”
“Yeah, right.”
“Hey, I’m a Duke, you know! Do you even know what a Duke is?”
“I do. It’s a stupid bird that spreads its tail and shows off whenever it sees a female!”
“…You little!”
Her father gritted his teeth.
So what if you grind your teeth? Bleh!
Zenith rolled her eyes and made faces at him.
“Stop it! Stop it! She’s only seven years old!”
“Does she look seven to you? I’d believe there’s a seventy-year-old old man inside her!”
“She just lost her parents not long ago. How do you expect her to feel? Why are you so immature? That terrible temper of yours!”
Fernando hurriedly tried to stop Garen.
“Is she really my daughter? Who in the world did she take after? Fine, let’s say I somehow had a child. There’s no way she’d have a personality like that. The kid must have been switched!”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“I don’t want a father like you either! Absolutely! Absolutely! Absolutely not!”
“Zenith, please!”
Fernando practically begged. He even put his hands together as if praying.
“Hmph!”
Fine. I’ll let it go because of you, mister!
Zenith turned away with a loud snort.
Garen also turned away with a sigh.
Honestly, they didn’t even need a paternity test.
Anyone could tell they were father and daughter.
How could both of them have such terrible tempers?
Fernando let out a long sigh.
Chloe had given birth to Garen’s child by herself.
Before she died, she entrusted that child to Fernando.
Fernando then left the child in the care of the Baker couple, old friends of his.
The Bakers had no children of their own and cherished Zenith more than anything.
The girl grew up surrounded by love.
Whenever Fernando occasionally checked on her, he would think that perhaps she could simply continue living this way forever.
Garen didn’t even know the child existed.
And even if he did, it wasn’t a situation he could easily accept.
A patient suffering from amnesia shouldn’t be exposed to excessive shock.
Fernando felt sorry for Zenith, but Garen was his friend.
One day turned into another, and before he knew it, seven years had passed.
Then one day, the Bakers sent him a letter.
If anything happened to them, they asked him to take care of Zenith.
A few days later, he received news that the couple had been murdered.
When he rushed over, he found Zenith alone in the empty house.
She was crouched by the front door, waiting for her parents to come home.
In her tiny hands were pieces of her parents’ clothing.
She hadn’t even been able to cry.
When people tried to take the clothes away, only then did she burst into tears and desperately cling to them.
—Don’t take them away! Don’t take them! They belong to my mom and dad! Their scent is still on them!
The child’s pain was so obvious that Fernando hugged her and cried with her.
Fernando planned to raise Zenith himself until Garen recovered his memories.
But then a problem arose.
He heard that Garen intended to adopt a child.
If an adopted child were formally recognized first, that child would gain the right to inherit Garen’s title and wealth.
Zenith might be his biological daughter, but she had not been born from a lawful marriage.
If an adopted heir entered the family first and Zenith was registered afterward, she would inherit neither the title nor the estate.
The title and fortune belonged to Zenith by right.
Her rightful inheritance could not be taken away.
Fernando knew it was still early, but he had to make a decision.
And the current situation was the direct result of that decision.
—
“You can come live with me. I’d gladly accept you as my daughter. A kind and beautiful child like you would make me very happy. At my house, there’s another child around your age, so you might even make a good friend. But Zenith, would you meet your father just once? I think your father would treasure you very much too.”
Even though it was difficult to accept, kind-hearted Zenith tried to understand.
The problem was Garen.
—
“Are you dreaming? Have you gone crazy? A child? What child? Women give me hives just from making eye contact!”
“Do you know how old I am? The child is seven? You’re saying I met a woman at the Academy and had a child? Do you remember the Academy didn’t allow women? Go ask anyone! Which sounds more believable—that I fathered an illegitimate child at the Academy, or that I’m homosexual?”
At least he seemed aware of the rumors surrounding him.
In fact, high society had spent years spreading all sorts of absurd gossip about Garen.
That was probably why the old Duke and Duchess had allowed him to adopt an heir.
—
“Nonsense! Are you after the ducal title and fortune too? If that’s the case, just admit it! Since it’s your child, I’d gladly adopt her instead!”
Garen looked at Fernando with open contempt.
But Fernando wasn’t lying.
Zenith really was Garen’s daughter, and Chloe was her mother.
After repeated persuasion, Garen finally agreed to meet the child.
—
“Idiot. You’ve been scammed.”
Garen seemed convinced Fernando had been deceived.
But Fernando believed everything would change once Garen saw the child’s face.
Instead, Garen exceeded even his worst expectations.
—
“H-Hello…”
“Modern scammers are impressive. She does resemble me. I wonder where they found a child like this.”
The moment he saw her face, he immediately began mocking her.
Then—
“Give me your hand.”
“Ow! That hurts!”
“You won’t die from this.”
Without warning, he drew her blood for a paternity test.
When their blood confirmed their relationship—
—
“Maybe she’s not my daughter. Maybe she’s Father’s daughter! That’s it! That must be it! She’s not my daughter—she’s my little sister! Yeah, I can accept that!”
“Garen!”
“This makes no sense! How can I have a daughter I know nothing about? You know me! I hate women! Just holding hands gives me chills and hives! My body rejects them! You know that!”
What he said was true.
He didn’t merely dislike women.
His body genuinely reacted to them.
—
“…Maybe she’s a chimera? A chimera! Right? She’s not human. That’s definitely it!”
Garen’s imagination ran completely out of control.
As Zenith listened, her face gradually stiffened.
Fernando had barely managed to calm Garen enough to introduce them when—
—
“What an idiot. You can’t even tell the difference between a human and a chimera.”
Zenith, who had inherited Garen’s personality almost perfectly, started round two.
Remembering the ten minutes that had felt like a hundred years, Fernando rubbed his face.
“Alright, calm down, both of you. Let’s start over. Garen, this is your daughter Zenith. And Zenith, this is your biological father—”
Fernando desperately tried to salvage the situation.
“I don’t accept it!”
“I don’t want to!”
But neither side was willing to cooperate.
Even Zenith, who had been relatively cooperative before, had come to deeply hate her biological father during those ten minutes.
Fernando felt like crying.
Their first meeting had been a battlefield.
Zenith came to hate her biological father immediately.
Human trash!
If he didn’t want responsibility, he shouldn’t have caused trouble in the first place!
Zenith hated irresponsible men like him.
He reminded her exactly of her father.
Her father from her previous life, Min Kyung-tae.
Min Kyung-tae was trash among trash.
Though he was married, he lied and claimed he was single.
He seduced a young girl who wasn’t even an adult yet and slept with her.
When she became pregnant, he abandoned her without hesitation.
If the girl had ignored the child, her life might not have become so miserable.
But she couldn’t abandon her only family.
So she did every job she could find.
She worked at a factory during the day.
At a restaurant at night.
On weekends, she carried bricks at construction sites.
She worked until her body broke.
And when her daughter reached high school, she was diagnosed with cancer.
The woman worried constantly about what would happen to her daughter after she died.
After searching everywhere, she finally found Min Kyung-tae.
But he only showered them with insults and humiliation.
The woman’s daughter watched through tears of blood.
The woman passed away worrying about her daughter until the very end.
Several years later, the man sought out the daughter.
He offered her money in exchange for part of her liver.
The daughter cursed him on behalf of her dead mother.
In response, he insulted both her and her deceased mother.
Then one day, fate finally gave her a chance for revenge.
The daughter became a prosecutor.
Min Kyung-tae happened to be the son of a famous politician.
The grandfather who had become a member of parliament, born into a wealthy family.
The father who had spent his entire life protected by political influence.
They both collapsed in an instant.
And yet…
It felt strange.
She wasn’t happy.
Only emptiness, exhaustion, and meaninglessness remained.
The accident happened shortly afterward.
As she looked at the car speeding toward her without hesitation—
and saw her biological father’s face inside—
she smiled.
Because the daughter had already lost all meaning in life ten years earlier, on the day her mother died.
