Dad is Back From a Deserted Island - Chapter 78

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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 78

Vivian lived a life of neglect, without family to call her own. Even Dietrich, who knew little of ordinary life, could see that her circumstances were far from favorable.
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave that house? That man and woman seem like terrible people.”
“But I don’t know when Father will come back. What if he returns and can’t find me?”
“That won’t happen, will it? Wasn’t your father dead?”
“No! He’s… he’s not dead!”
That day, Dietrich witnessed someone angry with him for the first time.
He was accustomed to fear and trembling responses, but never before had anyone been upset because of him.
Vivian glared at Dietrich with tears pooling in her eyes, her breath coming in ragged gasps, before she began pummeling him with fists no larger than beans, calling him an idiot.
It didn’t hurt at all.
“I hate you, Diti!”
After exhausting herself striking her hateful friend, Vivian turned away in anger. For weeks afterward, I could not see her.
‘Has she stopped coming?’
Dietrich felt an unfamiliar emotion stir within him. The boy would later come to understand that this feeling was called longing.
The absence of her presence—the one who came every day to sit beside me and share her stories—left me hollow.
Yet Dietrich could not seek out where Vivian lived. He did not arrive here through any physically connected passage.
He didn’t even know where she lived in the first place. Dietrich, who had never heard such questions asked nor asked them himself, felt no need to inquire about it.
‘What did I do wrong?’
Raised without normal relationships, Dietrich could not understand why Vivian had left in anger.
If Vivian’s father were alive, he would surely have returned home. Even Dietrich himself was merely avoiding the truth—he didn’t truly believe her father was alive.
Overwhelmed by a loneliness and longing he had never known before, Dietrich spent his days sitting in the Garden.
I could not fathom what would fill this hollow ache. The books in my Study contained no answers. There were no fairy tales or storybooks among them.
It was a month later when Vivian appeared in the Garden again.
Her face was wet with tears, just as it had been when she left crying.
“Wahhhhh. Waaaaaahhhhh.”
“Vivian. Why are you crying?”
Her sobs were so wrenching that her trembling shoulders took a long time to still.
Through her puffy eyes and nasal voice, her story emerged.
“Peter, Peter said to me—”
Peter had mocked Vivian for missing her father, calling her foolish for waiting for someone who would never return.
When Vivian pushed Peter away and tried to flee, insisting her father wasn’t dead just as she had told Dietrich, Ron had erupted in fury and hurled cruel words at her.
No one in that House or Village had taken Vivian’s side.
The child, suffocating under such loneliness, had run through the Forest to find Dietrich, the only one she could call a friend.
“Is my father really dead? If he is… then I have no one left.”
“….”
Dietrich had been about to say that I was indeed dead like before, but he held his silence, unwilling to make Vivian cry again.
Vivian read the answer in that silence and began sobbing anew. Seven years old was still too young to accept the death of family.
Unable to embrace her in return as she clung to my waist, her chest growing damp with tears, Dietrich stood in an awkward posture.
Dietrich, who had never held anyone nor been held in return, did not know what to do in such moments.
“…You have me.”
“Sn-sniff… W-what did you say?”
“You said you have no one. You do. You have me.”
“Who do I have?”
“Me.”
Vivian looked up at Dietrich with tear-filled eyes.
Dietrich remembered everything from the moment Vivian first appeared in the Garden until now. He had never forgotten anything to begin with.
“You said it before. That we’re friends. …Isn’t that enough?”
“Friends?”
“Friends… weren’t we?”
The voice asking this was very careful. Dietrich worried—would Vivian get angry again and leave?
Vivian let out a small giggle.
Even with her face so swollen she could barely see, it was beautiful.
“Right. Friends. So… Diti, you’re not going anywhere, are you?”
“You forgot because it’s been so long since you came. I’ve always been here. It was always you who left, Vivi.”
“You waited? For me to come?”
Dietrich nodded slightly. With just that, Vivian could smile as if she possessed the entire world.
Dietrich smiled in return. Vivian, seeing me smile for the first time, made a fuss about it.
‘Did I just smile?’
Dietrich was equally surprised—he had never had reason to smile in his life.
Vivian urged me to smile again, but the facial muscles that had forgotten how to smile would not obey.
“Your face looks really weird right now.”
Vivian burst into bright laughter.
Dietrich thought that was enough.

* * *

Unfortunately, Vivian’s circumstances grew worse with each passing day.
Even after accepting Father’s death, Vivian could not bring herself to leave that house. If anything, it had become even more precious to her—the only remaining trace of Father in this world.
Dietrich had shared things of value with her before, but Ron and Mary discovered it, took it away, and accused her of theft, demanding to know where she’d gotten it.
Whenever Dietrich tried to share food with her, poison-laced dishes began appearing on his table with unsettling regularity.
Dietrich could consume such poison without harm, but an ordinary person would surely die.
Because something catastrophic could occur, sharing food became impossible.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help to you.”
“Always apologizing. What did I tell you?”
“…That being my friend is enough.”
“Remember that well. So stop saying you’re sorry. It’s not your fault anyway.”
That Dietrich was a special existence was something anyone who saw him could recognize. Even the Emperor who looked down upon him, even the Empress—neither could deny this truth.
Such special beings inevitably invite the jealousy and wariness of those in power.
Assassination attempts against Dietrich had become so frequent that they were no longer occasional events but a daily routine.
The assassins could not inflict a single wound upon Dietrich, but as if venting their frustration, the Servants died in their stead every single day. There was no way I could bring Vivian to such a place.
With an assassin’s hot blood splattered across my face, I clenched and unclenched my fists.
I could feel my strength growing more powerful as I matured.
Already far beyond the level of ordinary humans, but if I grew just a little stronger, I would be able to protect not only myself but Vivian as well.
‘If I become strong enough that no one can threaten me—’
I had no attachment to the position of Crown Prince, nor to the Emperor’s throne.
I could discard these cumbersome things immediately, but the Emperor and Empress wanted to eliminate my very existence.
Their hatred toward me intensified as I grew. The Emperor deeply regretted his own choice to appoint me as Crown Prince.
I cared nothing for what they thought.
‘Not much time left now.’
Gauging my innate power was an instinctive sense. I knew I was not far from reaching my target level.
I estimated that time would come right around my coming of age.
When that day arrives, I will leave this place without hesitation, go to Vivian’s house, kill every person who torments her—of course, Vivian would be frightened, so I’ll do it secretly—and live happily with her.
With my face drenched in blood, I smiled with satisfaction.

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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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