emotional neglect fucks up a child’s development to such an extent that they often struggle for their entire lives to form connections with people (disorganized attachment style) so even if he gave him food/water/shelter the MC is maladapted as shit, and his father is a piece of human scum for it. his father is a coward, that’s why he didn’t kill his son.
He’s not nice he just doesn’t have a backbone. Plus locking a child in a house and wholly isolating them from any interaction besides an maid that sneaks out to talk to him without the masters permission is not something someone who is secretly nice does even if he didn’t starve him to death or murder him up front.
Im not saying hes nice just nicer than he seemed to be portrayed. It was a way of pointing out how bizarre the setting is and how weird I find the authors justification for why the mc has this land and a bag of cash and a loyal maid. He could've obtained all those things in a much more realistic manner than 'my abusive dad gave me this' but ig expecting that from this manga author is too far
lmao genuinely tweaking at the mc's dad's actions - bro doesn't like his kid but doesn't make him disappear under a 'mysterious' illness?? He must be dumb as fuck or nicer than loads of ppl, even gave land to a kid he hates. Ig the whole giving property thing is justified as 'he doesnt wanna pay taxes for land that has no use' but wow, he even gave money along with it. Man's actually pretty decent if u ignore all of the negligence in mc's early childhood; no physical abuse, still fed kid at times and gave decent shelter (I would've killed to live in the 'shed' mc was isolated in ngl)
I also find the loyalty of the girl he bought a bit strange but ig if she was treated awful than camping in forrest would seem pretty nice