I Will Try to Save My Dad - Chapter 46

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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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Chapter 46

On the vast deck.
The enormous vessel moored at the harbor was a transport ship of the Trabel Count Family. At last, the day had come for the figurehead to receive its blessing.
Yet Count Trabel, Laksek Iron Trabel, was in a foul mood.
For reasons he couldn’t quite place, his irritation had been simmering since earlier. Perhaps it was due to that High Priest bestowing the blessing upon the figurehead.
‘There’s something afoot here.’
Normally, I would have sent a high-ranking priest and been done with it. But this time, he’d made the excuse that no one else possessed sufficient holy power and had come in person.
Laksek watched the High Priest until he finished the blessing, lost in thought.
Shortly after, the High Priest walked toward Laksek. His chuckling eyes kept glancing toward one particular spot.
There stood Ciel, Calips, Hati, and Mati. The Twins had mentioned wanting to see the harbor last time, so they’d come along this time to observe the figurehead’s blessing ceremony.
“Your grandchildren are truly adorable.”
“Well, children that age are all cute, aren’t they?”
The High Priest stood beside Laksek. Though the two men were of similar age, Count Trabel was considerably taller.
‘His expression has loosened. He’s found his opening.’
Laksek regarded the High Priest from the corner of his eye.
No matter how I thought about it, this entire affair amounted to nothing more than doing the Church a favor.
The Church hadn’t lifted a finger to find Reytan, had dumped the troublesome Holy Sword onto my son, and accepted every donation from the Trabel Family without returning a single coin.
Recalling it all now, my blood boiled.
Laksek took a subtle jab at the High Priest.
“Yet I’m concerned. Now that you’ve come in person, won’t it appear that you’re using holy power for a single family’s private benefit?”
“Hah. What does such perception matter? Isn’t this the household of the Grand Master? If you need assistance, the Church must provide it.”
Hmph. When he was coercing me into blessing the figurehead, where was this magnanimity? He plays benefactor so well.
In any case, I never liked that old man, even in his youth.
Venting my anger now would only make me look foolish. As Laksek was biding his time, nursing his resentment.
“By the way, I don’t see your youngest granddaughter. She should have returned to the Trabel Estate by now from the Grand Temple.”
At the High Priest’s words, Laksek’s eyes widened.
The youngest granddaughter who visited the Grand Temple—there could be no one else.
‘This… this bastard?’
The High Priest, a man with a heart smaller than a millet seed, is now taking an interest in my youngest granddaughter?
Yes, that searching gaze he’d been directing at my grandchildren from the start—I disliked it. So this was the reason for my unease.
‘My instincts don’t deceive me. You wretch.’
What manner of instinct did I possess? The very instinct that had elevated the Trabel Family to its greatest heights in history.
Everyone who knew Laksek understood this fact.
There were limits to skill and effort. Especially in business, one needed instinct and fortune.
Even Laksek himself couldn’t explain it. When such certainty seized him and he acted upon it, he was always proven right.
In over sixty years of life, Laksek had never encountered another like himself. This was an innate gift.
It was precisely because of this that the Trabel Family had surpassed all competitors and risen to the highest place.
I had amassed considerable wealth, and now I needed heirs capable of protecting it.
Laksek Iron Trabel sought a successor with sensibilities matching my own. Unfortunately, none of my children possessed them.
Had Brown not met with that accident just before his initiation ceremony…
A sudden bitterness welled up in my chest. Laksek Iron Trabel refocused on the conversation with the High Priest.
“Why do you inquire about our youngest granddaughter?”
“She followed Reytan Quartz Trabel all the way to the Grand Temple. Truly adorable. The way she called me grandfather—her voice was positively angelic.”
“Wh—”
Laksek Iron Trabel barely swallowed the rebuke that threatened to burst forth.
‘What! How dare you hear “grandfather” from our granddaughter!’
I myself had yet to hear that word from her lips as much as I desired.

“G-grandfather.”

She would freeze in fear whenever she saw me, yet she possessed a reckless streak that made her say whatever came to mind.
Thinking of my youngest granddaughter’s pink hair, Laksek Iron Trabel’s lips twitched upward before his expression hardened.
‘Yet here I stand, her true grandfather, very much alive and watching.’
Why should this High Priest, with no blood relation to my granddaughter, hear himself called grandfather?
“It seems my granddaughter was impertinent due to her youth. When she returns, I shall ensure she learns proper forms of address.”
“Not at all.”
The High Priest chuckled in response.
“How could a child calling me grandfather be impertinent? I confess I’ve felt lonely having no one address me thus. Consider this a fortunate occasion—I’ve gained a granddaughter.”
“That cannot be allowed. I shall educate her thoroughly on this matter.”
“There is no need.”
“I find it necessary.”
The two men, who had been facing forward, slowly turned their heads toward each other in unison. Their eyes met with smiling faces, yet a subtle tension crackled between them.
‘How dare you overstep? Go play grandfather to the priests instead.’
‘So eager to monopolize the title of grandfather, are we?’
Heh, heheheh.
A senior priest found the High Priest amid the laughter.
Laksek Iron Trabel watched the High Priest’s retreating figure and exhaled sharply through his nose.
No matter how I considered it, I was growing old. Such childish bickering…
“Callet.”
Laksek Iron Trabel called to his aide nearby.
Callet tucked the notebook he’d been holding into his breast pocket and walked toward Laksek Iron Trabel. It was a notebook the instructor who taught commerce to the direct heirs had written something on and handed to Callet.
“When does it arrive?”
“The cargo wagons departed this morning. There should be no disruption to today’s scheduled departure—”
“Not that.”
Laksek Iron Trabel cleared his throat with a soft cough.
Callet was a capable aide. There was only one person Count Trabel inquired about indirectly these days.
“We do not yet know when Miss Berry Quartz Trabel will arrive.”
“You don’t know? Why?”
“I sent a telegram, but we haven’t received a reply yet. The knight who accompanied them sent word that they were ordered to wait in a nearby village until Young Master Reytan summons them.”
“Where is that brat Reytan staying right now?”
“Leaf Village.”
It was a rural village, not even a lordship. Laksek Iron Trabel’s eyebrows twitched at the unfamiliar name.
“I hear it’s the hometown of Young Master Reytan’s disciple, Theon.”
“So they went straight from the Grand Temple?”
“Yes, Priest Holte mentioned that Miss Berry gave a charming farewell.”
Upon hearing this brief boast, the voice of my granddaughter echoed in my ears.

“Grandfather High Priest, I’m heading out!”

No, that wasn’t right.
That had been nothing but an auditory hallucination conjured by my imagination.
Laksek Iron Trabel let out a soft scoff.
She hadn’t even said goodbye to me before leaving for the Grand Temple—there was no way she’d offer one to the High Priest.
“Callet.”
“Yes.”
“What does my schedule look like for tomorrow and the day after?”

***

Theon and I arrived at the Log House gate with Calips—or rather, Porchi.
Porchi was the name of the Chihuahua that Tomato Grandmother kept.
“How well-behaved.”
Theon, holding a picnic basket in one hand, spoke while looking at Porchi.
“Don’t worry~ despite appearances, that little one has quite the voice.”
Separated from his owner, Porchi trudged along behind us with his tail drooping.
I swung the leash lightly back and forth in my hand as I spoke to Theon.
“I read it at the Bonwell Village library—dogs and wolves are both canines. So even though they’re different species, they can communicate on a basic level.”
“Do you think Porchi will understand what Jeffrey says?”
“Only one way to find out~!”
To lure the Wild Dog Tribe down from the mountains—creatures that despised humans—the language of beasts would be far more effective than human speech.
There was even a saying that words without feet travel dozens of kilometers in a single night.
As we stepped through the gate, Jeffrey happened to be walking out onto the deck outside the entrance, dragging a bucket.
“Jeffrey!”
“Huh? Sister Berry! Brother Theon!”
Jeffrey’s gloomy expression brightened in an instant. He tossed the bucket aside and rushed toward us, his nose twitching as he sniffed.
“A dog?”
“Yelp. Whine.”
“Woof.”
The moment Porchi’s eyes met Jeffrey’s, he flipped onto his back and whimpered.
“He can’t move around Jeffrey at all?”
“Wolves are stronger than dogs!”
Jeffrey puffed out his chest proudly, placing both hands on his hips. I called out to him.
“Jeffrey, Jeffrey.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you talk to him?”
“The basics, sure.”
I exchanged a glance with Theon and grinned.
“Then could you pass along a message to him?”
“What? You need my help? Of course!”

***

The effect was extraordinary. Not long after we brought Porchi home, the sound of barking spread throughout the entire neighborhood.
Barks and howls echoed everywhere.
“Hey, quiet down those dogs!”
An elderly villager walking down the street shouted in frustration, his voice drifting through the window.

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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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