Dad is Back From a Deserted Island - Chapter 1

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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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Father has returned from the Deserted Island.
Chapter 1

“Cough, cough—”
The man lying motionless on the Sandy Beach suddenly convulsed with coughing, expelling seawater from his lungs.
Hack, hack.
After violently purging his insides, my eyes beheld a small sandy shore and the forest sprawling beyond it.
In the opposite direction lay only an endless expanse of sea.
This place, devoid of any human presence, was unmistakably a deserted island.
Complete shipwreck.
Yet the man who should have surrendered to despair suddenly gazed upon this landscape and—
“Ha, haha, hahaha!”
I began laughing like a madman.
Hot tears streamed from my blue eyes.
This was not denial of reality.
Rather, this landscape was not unfamiliar to me.
“O God, I thank you!”
Seized by sudden understanding of everything, I prostrated my body low upon the sand, tears flowing freely as I offered prayers of gratitude to the heavens.
I paid no mind to the sand clinging uncomfortably to my soaked body.
My tears dampened the parched sand of the beach under the scorching sun.
Sand trickled through my clenched fists, the tendons straining visibly.
Suppressing a bestial cry, I—Jean de Lamber—spoke once more the promise I had failed to keep.
“Father will return soon. My daughter….”

* * *

Two years passed.
“Hey! Vivian, you’ve left streaks on the dishes!”
“I’m so sorry! I’ll wipe them clean right away!”
Vivian, who had been scrubbing the dust beneath the table, snapped her head up in response.
After finishing the floor she’d been diligently cleaning, Vivian rose to her feet—her face was a mess of perspiration.
“Ugh.”
Soft, cotton-candy-pink hair clung in strands to her flushed cheeks, which burned with exertion.
Yet Vivian had no time to brush them away; she rushed to dry her hands and hurried to finish wiping the dishes with a cloth.
“Why are you so slow! I can’t put the dishes away until you finish!”
“Yes, yes… I’ve finished wiping them now!”
The child, who had polished the dishes until her reflection gleamed upon them, presented them with a proud expression to the stern-faced woman.
The woman, whose brow was creased with deep furrows, examined the dishes meticulously before tossing a single hard, black piece of bread to Vivian.
“Thank you so much!”
Vivian accepted the bread—so hard it required soaking in water just to become edible—as though it were the greatest treasure.
Her starving belly cried out to be filled at once, yet Vivian swallowed hard and carefully placed the bread in the pocket of her apron.
This was her only food for the day.
With work still remaining, she would need to eat half after finishing her tasks and save the other half for evening to survive the day.
“It’s half a span larger than yesterday’s! Yes! I must ration it carefully!”
It was a sound that would break a parent’s heart to hear, yet this was Vivian’s reality.
A small child left utterly alone in the world, with not a single ally.
Still, things had been manageable until Father Jean de Lamber boarded a ship, promising to earn money and return.

“If you sleep for one hundred nights, we’ll see each other again, Miss!”
“That’s longer than ten nights?”
“Yes! If you sleep ten nights ten times, that’s it!”
“Mmm. I don’t quite understand.”

Until then, the butler couple Ron and Mary had called Vivian “Miss” and treated her well, and the villagers greeted her warmly whenever they met.
Everything changed for those two when rumors spread that the ship Jean de Lamber had boarded encountered a terrible storm, and when not a single letter arrived from him.

“He’s likely dead, don’t you think?”
“A man who doted on his daughter so much would surely have sent at least one letter if he were alive.”
“Then…”

His absence awakened desires that had slumbered within Ron and Mary.
A month after his disappearance, Vivian was cast out of her room.
That room was claimed by Peter, the son of Ron and Mary.

“You should be grateful that Miss encountered people like us. Anyone else would have simply cast you out without hesitation.”
“That’s right. Do you have any idea how hard it is for wandering orphans to survive? You should be thankful just that you don’t freeze to death.”

Ron and Mary began treating Vivian’s family assets as their own, claiming it was compensation for raising the orphaned girl until adulthood.

“I’m sorry, Miss.”
“We have to eat and survive too.”

Every villager owed Jean de Lamber debts of varying sizes, and with Ron wielding those promissory notes, they had no choice but to turn a blind eye to poor Vivian’s plight.
Jean de Lamber had designated Ron as his proxy before departing, making it legally impossible to challenge the arrangement.
Had Vivian possessed even a single respectable relative when she was merely five years old, circumstances might have been different, but she had neither grandparents nor aunts and uncles.
As for her mother’s family—no one even knew which household she came from. She had abandoned her home the moment she fell head over heels for Vivian’s father, and all connection was severed.
In truth, Vivian understood none of these adult complications. To her, her mother was simply a being who had departed to heaven the moment she gave birth.
Despite such circumstances, Vivian strove to live with courage—
“Hey! Useless!”
Yet the world offered her no assistance whatsoever.
It was Peter, the son of Ron and Mary. Two years older than Vivian, he had been itching to torment her ever since Jean de Lamber left.
I pretended not to hear his spiteful voice calling out to me.
“Pretending not to hear, are we? Hey!”
“…Right. I still have laundry to do. Oh, I’m so busy! I need to get to the washing.”
“How bold. You’re going to keep ignoring me?”
“Ow!”
Peter grabbed my hair and yanked it so hard my body lurched forward.
“Let go!”
“Then why are you ignoring me when I call? You should answer right away when someone speaks to you—”
“When did you ever call me by my real name? My name isn’t ‘Useless,’ you know?”
“If I say you’re useless, then you’re useless. Idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot! Who do you think you are!”
“Who do I think I am?”
Snicker.
Seeing Peter’s expression, I instinctively sensed something ominous.
Peter’s mouth twitched at one corner as he barely suppressed his laughter, his cheeks flushing red—an expression that felt deeply unsettling.
Whatever Peter found amusing like this could hardly bode well for me.
“Well, you know. Kehe, kehehe. Anyway, never mind. You’re still too young to understand.”
Peter, chuckling to himself with evident malice, simply vanished.
“What was that about?”
I rubbed my arms, which had broken out in goosebumps.
Though deeply unsettled, finishing the laundry took priority for now.
Carrying a heavy bundle of clothes, I made my way to the Stream and began washing with practiced motions.
As the pain from my fingers, reddened and nearly numb from the cold, consumed my attention, that uneasy feeling faded away.

* * *

Grrrrowl.
Vivian wrapped her arms around her aching stomach and opened the door.
The bread she’d received that morning was long gone, so she had no food left—her plan was to at least fill her belly with water.
Ron and Mary hadn’t objected to her drinking water.
She stepped out of the room in the furthest corner, just below the Attic Room, and descended one flight of stairs when she heard voices.
“…Vivian….”
‘Huh? Me?’
The moment she heard her own name spill from the room that Jean de Lamber once occupied but Ron and Mary now used, Vivian’s feet froze.
‘Oh no. Are they trying to throw me out?’
Her heart plummeted with a sickening thud, and she crept forward on her tiptoes, moving cautiously closer.
Through the slightly ajar door, Vivian’s blue eyes trembled as she peered inside.
“Perhaps we should arrange an engagement first?”
“But the child is only seven years old—how could she marry?”
“An engagement ceremony won’t be necessary.”
‘An engagement? What is an engagement? I know what marriage is—it’s a promise to live happily forever with someone you love.’
Vivian tilted her head in confusion. So why had her name come up?
“If Peter marries Vivian, we won’t have anything more to worry about!”
“Eek.”
Shocked beyond measure, Vivian let out an odd sound before quickly covering her mouth.

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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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