Dustiness Ford Ignis

**Dustiness Ford Ignis** (ダスティネス・フォード・イグニス) is the father of Darkness and the current head of the Dustiness House.

## Appearance

Ignis is an older man usually wearing formal attire befitting a noble. Like most nobles he has well-kept blonde hair and blue eyes. Unlike his daughter, Darkness, his hair has no ombre of yellow to orange.

## Personality

Ignis is aware of Darkness's masochism and worries about her safety as an adventurer. Thus, he tries to match-make his daughter with exceptional young men that have a bright future. However, Darkness only wants someone that is the scum of the scums, so she rejected all the candidates because they are too good for her taste.

When Darkness was engaged to Lord Alderp, Ignis asked Kazuma to elope with her, as the former would rather her be happy then have to marry a corrupt noble for the sake of her household.

While he is calm, gentle and generally a reasonable authority figure he can also be somewhat mischievous: he taught Darkness that distracting Kazuma was a legitimate strategy to beat him at chess, which given the strange nature of chess in the Parallel World, it is possible he was being earnest. He can also be ruthless when it comes to his daughter's well-being, showing no hesitation in ordering the executions of those who he thinks had gravely wronged her.

## History

After marrying Darkness' mother (at act that unwittingly invited bitter feelings from Pickles), Ignis fathered Darkness shortly before his wife died, and mostly let his servants take care of his daughter while he busied himself in official affairs of the kingdom as one of its top advisors. When more reports came in about Alderp's various crimes that the kingdom couldn't find proof of, Ignis was deployed to reside in the Axel area for keeping an eye on the crooked governor in addition to seeking evidence against him.

As Darkness grew up into a personality of perverted masochistic fetishes and became an adventurer, Ignis had to repeatedly post rewards for seeking her whereabouts whenever she ran off to Axel for adventuring with Chris. He also tried to arrange marriages for her, only to be clobbered unconscious each time he brought up the subject. Subsequent to Darkness finding herself a stable place in Kazuma's party, Ignis agreed to sell nearly all of the household's assets for covering most of the flood damage on Axel caused by Aqua. And once she settled in the party's mansion, he periodically sent her precious gifts and supplies, such as the crab the party used for crab pot.

At the proposal from Alderp for Darkness' marriage to Balter, however, Ignis who had long admired the young man insisted on Darkness having a marriage interview with the governor's son despite days of her protesting. After Darkness returned from her party's mansion with Kazuma and Aqua who dressed up as a butler and a maid for the household, Ignis struck a secret deal with Kazuma to help seal the marriage, which the Adventurer did as he repeatedly prevented Darkness from saying something untoward while Balter was meeting with the Dustinesses. Ignis soon excused himself to let Darkness and Balter take a walk in the gardens with Kazuma and Aqua accompanying, before heading to send refreshments after hearing of them sparring at the dojo, only to be shocked when he found a soggy and half-naked Darkness lying unconscious on the floor. Ordering the executions of Kazuma and Balter upon hearing Aqua accuse the two men, Ignis later retracted the command as he discovered what really happened, and instead apologised for his daughter's bizarre behaviour. Next asking Kazuma to take good care of Darkness, Ignis became overjoyed when the awakened Darkness claimed to be pregnant with Kazuma's child, and it took a good part of the hour following Balter's departure before Kazuma could convince him that it wasn't true.

Many months later, Ignis suddenly fell grievously ill, the cause of which was neither poisoning by Alderp nor anything the doctors could identify. Meanwhile, Alderp began calling on the debt with the Dustiness House for compensating damages caused by the Destroyer, and Ignis could only look on helplessly from bed as Darkness offered to marry Alderp in exchange for the debt being cancelled. When Kazuma who raided the Dustiness residence chanced upon his room, Ignis explained the situation to him before suggesting he elope with Darkness, though Kazuma soon had to flee the room from the said heiress out for his blood.

Following the disruption of the wedding ceremony and Darkness' return alongside her whole party, the dying Ignis proceeded to speak with his daughter for the final time, only to have Aqua break the curse cast onto him by Maxwell, causing the Dustinesses' both joy and embarrassment. Recovering his health thereafter, Ignis was appointed the role of governor for Axel and its surrounding areas following Alderp's disappearance and the realisation that their debt with him was invalid, a task which Balter and occasionally Darkness assisted him on.

When the Devil King's Army began large scale mobilizations, in his conversations with Sylphina's father, Ignis talked of Axel which was furthest from the front lines as well as Kazuma's mansion there, and consequently Sylphina got sent to that city where she could be safe and able to visit Darkness. Upon hearing about the concept of education systems, Ignis also experimented with the idea by opening the house's coffers for setting up schools at Axel's orphanages.

## References

1. ↑ Light Novel Volume 9, Bonus Short Story coming with the E-book
2. ↑ Television Anime Blu-ray Disc Volume 1, Special Short Story Booklet
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Light Novel Volume 3, Chapter 3
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Light Novel Volume 7, Chapter 5
5. ↑ Explosion Light Novel Volume 3, Chapter 2
6. ↑ Light Novel Volume 2, Chapter 4
7. ↑ Light Novel Volume 7, Chapter 4
8. ↑ Light Novel Volume 8, Chapter 1
9. ↑ Light Novel Volume 12, Chapter 1
10. ↑ Light Novel Volume 12, Chapter 4