Dad is Back From a Deserted Island - Chapter 80

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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 80

“Kiki, you’re a divine beast. You know all sorts of fascinating things, so this time too—just tell me you know something.”
[….]
Kiki could not answer that desperate plea. Dietrich, observing Vivian trembling with a pallid face, asked.
“Do you hate that I’m dying?”
Was he really calling that a conversation?
“Why? You don’t remember everything anyway. We’ve only met a few times in dreams, as you said. Why can’t you just go back and live as you did before, pretending you never heard any of this?”
“What are you even saying right now…?”
Watching Dietrich speak with such indifference, Vivian felt fear for the first time—but for a reason entirely different from why others feared him.
Dietrich was lacking something fundamental. He possessed none of the instinctive will to survive that every living creature should have. The only thing he found any meaning in was Vivian herself.
Unable to fully remember the past, as Dietrich had said, Vivian could not comprehend why the boy would go to such lengths for her.
Yet she could not simply abandon him and leave.
“What if we took you to the Imperial Palace? I collapsed there because too much power flowed into me. Since Diti—I mean, the prince lost all that power and grew weak because of it.”
“I’m fine, so just go back. Vivian. Your father has returned now, and you can be happy.”
[Hmm. It’s not entirely impossible. The power this body once held also flowed into him. If he were to regain such power, he might be able to escape death.]
“If the price was set as a lifespan, could it be unchangeable?”
[I don’t know the details. It wasn’t this body that turned back time, after all.]
“Hey. Aren’t you listening to me?”
Vivian completely excluded Dietrich and spoke only with Kiki. Dietrich, who showed no attachment whatsoever to his own survival, seemed unlikely to be of help.
“Vivian.”
“You be quiet!”
At her raised voice, Dietrich’s eyes widened and he shrank back.
A mysterious and pitiful prince, indeed. Vivian laughed bitterly at her own delusion.
“Fool. Idiot.”
[Isn’t that too cute a way to call him?]
“Then should I call him someone who thinks he can just give without ever considering the recipient’s position? That’s too long.”
“Are you talking to me?”
Dietrich blinked.
“Who else would I be talking to if not you? What were you thinking, letting me find out about all this later, after you’re already dead?”
I should not have left him alone in this cold, decrepit castle.
I should have asked him to leave with me.
I never imagined he would suffer from irreversible regret—and the answer he gave was absurd.
“I didn’t account for a situation where you would learn the truth.”
Vivian bit her lip. Otherwise, she feared she might scream at the boy before her.
“But you know now. And I hate the thought that you might die in my place. I wish you wouldn’t die. After hearing all this… is telling me to leave really all you can say?”
“Because that’s the best you can do. Go back, forget about me, and live your life happily. That’s what I want for you.”
“What if I can’t forget and can’t be happy?”
Watching Dietrich’s expression of genuine incomprehension, my chest tightened painfully.
What words could possibly reach him?
How could I change Dietrich’s mind?
Vivian’s lips trembled as she struggled to continue speaking.
“Don’t ask why. If you truly want me to live happily, then try to survive. Don’t act as though your own life means nothing… don’t tell me there’s no point in trying when nothing will change.”
As if struck at his core, Dietrich’s lips parted and then closed.
“If I die, will it prevent your happiness?”
[Vivian. Take a deep breath, a deep breath. Don’t get angry. You know he’s not in his right mind.]
“…Yes. If you die, I don’t think I can be happy.”
“I never thought my existence would be connected to your happiness.”
Kiki soothed the visibly exasperated Vivian and asked instead.
[Do you know what price you paid?]
Though Dietrich’s gaze toward Kiki was not kind, he nodded obediently.
“My heart.”
“You gave what?”
[Your heart? Time cannot be reversed with a mere human heart as payment… Wait. Your heart?]
Kiki’s mouth fell open in shock.
Vivian could only look between them anxiously.
In a voice completely drained of patience, Kiki began to explain.
[A dragon’s power flows from the heart. Vivian, the strength of this body that he created also springs from this robust heart. While a heart is important to any ordinary creature, for beings like us it is far more vital. …He was born closer to dragon than human. To say he gave his heart means he surrendered his very essence.]
“Then there’s no way to save him? When that time comes, he’ll simply… die?”
It was like being struck by something invisible. Without realizing it, my breathing grew increasingly ragged.
Clinging to Vivian’s shoulders as she gasped for breath from the shock, Kiki spoke with uncertainty.
[That would be the logical conclusion. But wait—both of you, touch hands for a moment. I need to verify something.]
It was an odd request, but given the talk of hearts and sacrifices, Vivian readily extended her palm toward Dietrich.
When Vivian offered her hand, Dietrich naturally placed his against it.
A chill ran through her at his touch.
Kiki watched intently as the two held hands, her murmurs of “Oho, hmm, yes” continuing without pause.
“…How much longer do we have to do this?”
[When you made your wish, what exactly were you thinking? Did you simply ask for time to be reversed?]
“I wanted to make Vivian happy.”
The words came without a single blink, and it was Vivian’s face that flushed instead. The palm pressed against hers tingled inexplicably.
[Yes, that’s exactly what happened! I’ve found it suspicious for eight years now.]
“Do you understand something now? Can we let go of our hands?”
The moment Kiki nodded, Vivian withdrew her hand. Kiki thrust out her chest triumphantly and declared.
[Vivian. You are the key!]
“Huh? Me, me?”
Kiki’s voice was filled with certainty.
[The author’s wish was to make you happy, wasn’t it? You are the very heart of that wish. Time revolves around you, and that wondrous power has undoubtedly taken root within you. However, the true master of that power is this prince. When you both held hands, I felt the power dwelling in you transfer to him.]
And though faint—so faint it was like a single raindrop falling into a parched sea—I could feel Dietrich’s life force beginning to surge.
“If I transfer the power, can he live? How do I transfer it all?”
Kiki’s arrogant demeanor, which had been soaring without bounds, deflated slightly.
[The power dwelling in your body will hardly be enough. The power within you is merely at a level an ordinary human can withstand….]
[You must find where the power he carried in his heart has taken root. You said earlier that Vivian is the key, didn’t you? Go there, and you will become the conduit through which you return that power to him. You will be the passage.]
“If it’s where the power dwells, it must be the Imperial Palace, right? That’s where such power was suddenly given to me in the first place.”
[In the Imperial Palace, it would have taken root where he made his wish.]
“Did you hear? Where is the place where the wish was made?”
Vivian, clinging to this thread of hope, asked with eyes gleaming. Yet that hope would not last long.

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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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