One Day, My Dad Disappeared - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 2
Am I dreaming right now? I rubbed my eyes and glanced around at my surroundings.
Since the Academy was a place where only nobility studied, today’s graduation ceremony naturally drew quite a crowd.
The area in front of the Academy was congested not just with the graduates’ families, but with the retinues of their houses as well.
“Say, did you see the man who was here just now?”
I stopped one of my classmates and asked. He shrugged lightly.
“Hmm? There are so many people around, I’m not sure who you mean.”
“He was right in front of you!”
“I have no idea.”
What is he doing, not even looking ahead? I grabbed hold of someone else.
“Excuse me, did you happen to see a man carrying a bouquet?”
“A bouquet? Oh, dear. Most people here are carrying bouquets.”
She smiled warmly and patted my head as though I were her own daughter.
“Are you looking for your father?”
“Yes, yes! He has blonde hair and he’s about this tall!”
“I’m not sure I’ve seen a blonde man. You’ll have him show up soon enough, I’m sure. There’s still plenty of time before the ceremony begins, isn’t there? Don’t be in such a hurry, child.”
“But—”
He was definitely here. He looked at me, smiled that barely-there smile, and clearly called my name.
I recalled the carriage Father had ridden in just a moment ago.
Fortunately, the carriage hadn’t gone far.
“Excuse me, over there!”
The coachman slowly reduced the carriage’s pace.
“Will you be taking a ride?”
“No, it’s not that—the man who just brought me to the Academy! You remember him, don’t you?”
But the coachman looked at me as though I were mad.
“A passenger getting out? I haven’t picked anyone up all day.”
“What? No, he definitely got out of this carriage! At the Academy’s front gate, carrying a yellow bouquet!”
“Did you have a dream in the middle of the day, young lady? I haven’t picked anyone up, so I haven’t the faintest idea what nonsense you’re spouting. Before I’ve even started taking passengers for the day, and you bring me such ill fortune—ptui!”
The coachman spat on the ground and irritably started the carriage moving again.
“Liar.”
It was definitely Father. The distance wasn’t so great that I’d misidentify him, and I’d just gotten these glasses adjusted not long ago.
“Right, the phone. Let me try calling Father first.”
I entered a nearby bookshop. Since I’d been a regular there while attending the Academy, I had no trouble borrowing a telephone.
—”The number you have dialed does not exist. Please check the number and try again.”
“What is this thing saying?”
I slowly dialed the number with trembling fingers. But the voice that came back through the receiver was the same.
“How is this not a valid number!”
I couldn’t possibly forget the family’s phone number—it had never changed!
“Calm down, calm down.”
Father might have forgotten to pay the phone bill while he was away working Mercenary Company jobs here and there.
“Cynthia.”
A soft voice called my name from behind. A large shadow approached. That sturdy frame—it had to be Father.
“Father!”
“…What did you just say? Father?”
But my expression hardened immediately. The man looking down at me with that reluctant expression was, of course, not the father I was looking for.
It was Aidan Winslow, my classmate at the Academy.
“What are you doing here anyway? The ceremony is about to start—if you suddenly disappear like this, what happens? Did you forget you’re the graduation ceremony representative? Because you vanished so abruptly, the professors are all asking me to bring you back, and I’m in a terrible position because of it.”
Aidan irritably swept back his red hair, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead.
“Thank goodness someone saw you leaving the Academy, or else I’d have been searching for you for who knows how long.”
When I simply stared at him without responding, he let out a long sigh and furrowed his brow.
“We need to go. Now.”
Aidan Winslow was famous among the Academy students for having the worst temperament, but he was the only heir to a ducal house. He stood at the very apex of the hierarchy.
“Aidan Winslow!”
So, couldn’t he help me?
“What, what? Let go of me!”
“Please, help me find my father!”
“What?”
“You’re the Winslow heir, aren’t you! That means you can mobilize your house’s knights, right? My father suddenly disappeared! He was definitely at the Academy’s entrance, right in front of me! But he has to be in the Capital somewhere. So help me look for him!”
My words tumbled out in a confused rush, but I believed he would understand the desperation behind them.
But Aidan roughly shook off my hand.
“What on earth are you talking about? Where is your father?”
And then I heard what came next, and I went rigid.
“What?”
“You’re an orphan of the Imperial War. Have you suddenly started having delusions? Haven’t you grown past that age?”
His tone dripped with contempt, and I grabbed his collar again.
“What do you mean by that? I’m a war orphan, so why do I have the surname Violeta, and how could I attend the Academy if only nobles can go there?”
When I seized his collar a second time, Aidan could bear it no longer and shoved me. I fell flat on the ground.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but your parents died saving His Majesty’s life during the Imperial War. To express his gratitude, His Majesty conferred upon your departed parents the title of Violeta, and you—who were just an infant then—were raised in our territory. The Academy itself was a privilege granted by His Majesty’s favor…….”
I couldn’t make sense of what Aidan was saying. The fact that my father had vanished before my eyes was already unbelievable, but to hear that he’d never existed at all—I felt a ringing in my ears, as if the world were collapsing.
“Hey! Cynthia Violeta! Where are you going! I said you need to return to the Academy!”
So I just ran. Aidan called after me, shouting something, but I ignored him and kept running.
It had to be a lie. I’d just bought a house and talked to him days ago. He’d been right in front of me just moments before.
There was his bag here, and the Bouquet he’d certainly bought for me.
I wandered through the Capital like a madwoman.
But I couldn’t find him. In the end, I spent the night wide awake in the house I’d purchased to live with him, alone.
And the next day, I set out for my hometown, Robeang Village.

“Father!”
The moment I arrived, I threw open every door in the house. He wasn’t in the study. He wasn’t in the bedroom either.
But that wasn’t all. There were no traces of him—no clothes, no shoes, no hats. As if he had never existed in this place from the very beginning.

“Ashford Violeta? Was there ever such a person in our village?”

The fruit vendor’s wife had no memory of him.

“Ashford Violeta. The man who worked for this Mercenary Company for over twenty years! The war hero of the empire who received a barony despite being a commoner, and there’s even a book about him called ‘The Golden Warrior’! My father’s story made it!”
“Ashford Violeta, you say. I’ve never heard that name in all my life.”
“The Golden Warrior? I’ve never seen any such book.”

The soldiers from the Mercenary Company who’d worked alongside him, and the bookshop owner, neither remembered him.

“What are you saying? Where is your father?”

Even the butcher had no memory of my father. No one in the world knew him.
Yes, now I had to accept it.
In this world, my father had completely ceased to exist.

* * *

As I fell deeper into nightmare, time continued to flow. I searched tirelessly for any trace that he had ever existed, but the harder I tried, the more I only proved that I was mad.
A week passed like this. When I continued to skip work, I received notice that my appointment as a Civil Servant would be cancelled.
Truth be told, if my father wasn’t here, I couldn’t see the point of becoming a Civil Servant. But I thought of the day he would return, and I went ahead and reported to the Imperial Palace.
“Well, Cynthia Violeta. A week of unexcused absence right from your first day. Impressive.”
Aidan Winslow, who’d been my classmate, had become my superior—apparently because of his Title.
“I’m terribly sorry…….”
“You ran out during the graduation ceremony and ruined all the preparations for the event that I worked so hard on. Do you have any idea how much trouble I had to clean up after you?”
Now that I thought about it, Aidan had organized the graduation ceremony as class representative. He hadn’t liked me to begin with, and now I’d made a terrible impression. Of all places, we had to end up in the same department.
“Even if you’re only a noble in name, and lack the dignity befitting your station, I thought at least you wouldn’t cause trouble for others. But to think you lack even basic courtesy. Pathetic.”
Imperial Records 2
Imperial Calendar Year 540, Month X.
From the Black Circle, which had neither taken anything in nor let anything out, incomprehensible monsters poured forth. Their numbers were so great that no matter how many were cut down, there was no end to them, and they were difficult to kill. The Imperial Palace made the decision to seal off Marcel Village.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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