Chapter 28
“Have you come?”
Lately, Pierre was not by the fountain as he used to be.
Since I first entered the building, he would stay in his room or the drawing room, and upon seeing me arrive, he would speak like this.
Sometimes, seeing Pierre sitting in front of a window that gave him a clear view of me, I wondered, ‘Is he waiting for me to come?’
But that was likely just my imagination.
“Uh-huh… Hello, Master.”
“Yes.”
I carefully scanned Dad’s countenance.
Let’s see, is there anything different today?
He was still damn handsome, with a beauty that looked like an official from a Hong Kong triad, and his languid, weary expression remained the same.
To the naked eye, nothing was different at all.
“……”
…No. Was it?
‘Why, why is he staring at me so intently?’
It was different. Something was slightly different.
Unlike usual, he was staring right through me.
the cold sweat I thought had stopped began to flow again.
What would happen if that Dad found out I had deceived him?
I never thought I could lie and never get caught forever.
However, I simply judged that it would take a long time for a person like Pierre to find out what I had hidden.
‘At the very least, Dad has no interest in world affairs, so I thought I could hold out for about another month?’
I was even timing the moment of being caught myself while carrying out the ‘Seodongyo Strategy’!
I didn’t expect to face it today, right now!
Furthermore, because he was staring so intently, it felt as if he were looking at me saying, “You must know your own sins!”
From the perspective of someone with a guilty conscience, it was very troubling.
I still need that Dad’s protection for now.
“What is that?”
When Dad finally opened his mouth, I reacted quickly. On the contrary, this became a breakthrough.
“What? This? The parchment I’m holding?”
“Yes.”
Ah! Was he looking at the parchment in my hand?
A look of joy rose to my face.
“I brought this for you, Master! How about it, aren’t you curious what it is? Aren’t you excited?”
“…Not particularly.”
Success! At the usual blunt reaction, I felt the stuffiness in my chest clear up instantly.
Right, I don’t know why Pierre gave Laila such an order.
‘For now, he probably doesn’t want to have a detailed conversation with me.’
I was curious as to what whim drove him to give that command, but I decided it wasn’t the time to bring it up yet and quickly adjusted my hold on the parchment.
“Just wait, Master! I’m going to make you an amazing dish today!”
What I had requested from the Luga and Luba brothers.
That was none other than a cooking recipe.
***
Pierre was not in a good mood.
No, he was in such low spirits that he wondered if there had ever been a time in the last three years when he felt this bad.
Usually, he was languid or weary. Or bored.
It was a vividly colored mood, unlike him, who had lived with only emotions close to resignation unless it was one of those three states.
And this was a mood created solely because of his daughter, whom he had taken in as a disciple.
“By any chance, do you not need a second disciple?”
Just yesterday. His daughter, Calypso, had done something absurd, just like when she first appeared before him.
Had she not brought some boy and requested to take him in as a second disciple?
The problem was that the boy she brought was a child who looked just like himself to anyone’s eyes.
A sight where he had turned pale, perhaps because he had already realized the power of water and sensed his father’s anger first.
His own third son.
Even thinking about it again, it was a ridiculous situation.
‘…Does she even have the intention to hide it from me?’
By this point, Pierre wondered what on earth his daughter was thinking with that tiny little head of hers.
In the first place, asking him to take the boy in as a disciple while pretending not to recognize him was not something that could be done in one’s right mind.
Furthermore, was she not even boasting about a fictional father in front of him? She was no ordinary child.
Can a killer whale go crazy too?
The answer was ‘Yes’.
“Crazy fellow. You’re my child, but you’re truly a crazy fellow.”
It was a phrase he himself had heard countless times from his mother.
In fact, among killer whales, there were many who went mad because they couldn’t overcome the madness or insanity given as a side effect of their excessively developed instincts.
Regarding this, his mother clicked her tongue, saying they went mad because they were weak.
But Pierre’s thoughts were different.
It was simply engraved in the killer whales’ DNA. An unerasable madness.
“I don’t need him. Get lost.”
Anyway, by this point, even Pierre was bound to feel like he was being deceived.
Pierre refused, feeling anger added to his bewilderment.
And he even thought about quitting this shabby master-disciple relationship from now on.
He definitely intended to do so.
Definitely.
“Master, do you know who he is? I beat him today! You said so, Master. If I fight, don’t get beaten up and make sure to hit them back!”
He intended to, but.
“…You beat him?”
“Yes, I won!”
The moment he saw Calypso’s beaming and triumphant expression, his anger lost its place to go.
Admittedly, it was his first time like this.
It was a relationship started on a whim because of an interest he didn’t have before.
He always thought he held the end of it, but.
“But since I beat him and he became my subordinate, there’s no place to use him. Can’t he be here together?”
Pierre thought for the first time that might not be the case.
It was unfamiliar, ridiculous, and incomprehensible.
“He’s alone too.”
The phrase ‘Like me,’ which was engraved in the eyes of Calypso as she spoke like this.
By the time he snapped out of it, he had already accepted it haphazardly.
His third son wore an expression asking, ‘Did I hear that wrong?’ the entire time, but in the end, he didn’t utter a single word of defiance to Calypso.
Because of this, Pierre became curious instead.
From what he knew, there was an unbridgeable wall of age between Calypso and his third son, Agenor.
Was that all? Unlike Calypso, Agenor had awakened the power of water since birth.
How on earth did she coax him that he couldn’t say a word and stayed still?
“Master, ta-da! Did you wait long? It’s all done!”
By the time he rose from his thoughts, there was a dish with steam rising before his eyes.
Pierre pondered for a moment.
…Can a three-year-old even cook?
It was on a completely different level from simply arranging dishes brought by servants, heating them up, or going through a slight processing stage.
However, Pierre, who did not know the growth process of a child, let it go this time as well.
“Seeing you last time, it seemed like you liked red salmon, Master! So I looked for something that could be eaten mixed with salmon!”
“You looked for it?”
Pierre looked at the food and Calypso’s face once each.
Then, he frowned minutely.
The dish Calypso presented confidently.
The dish with steam rising. It was.
The dish revealed as the lid was opened was, no matter how one looked at it, something that couldn’t be said to have salmon mixed in; it had an appearance that even felt somewhat bizarre.
If there were such a thing as ‘salmon that came up from the underworld’, perhaps it would feel like this.
‘…It’s a mess.’
Had the signs been there since she started hacking away at the food after saying she would cut it for him?
It seemed his daughter was terribly bad at cooking.
Pierre calmly accepted the fact revealed before his eyes.
On the other hand, he became a bit troubled by the fact that the person who had to shove that into his mouth was none other than himself.
“It’s okay, right? Even if it looks like this, I considered nutrition too!”
To tell the truth, Calypso was actually of the principle that as long as it goes into the mouth, anything is good, as mentioned before.
In her first and second lives, not only did she eat while walking on eggshells, but she also lived a dietary life close to abuse in the households she was sold to.
In the previous life, she had lived by surviving, such as catching animals on the plains or in the forest while going through all sorts of hardships after leaving the family.
She was in a state where her concept of food was severely dulled.
There was no way a person could be sane after regressing three times.
The regressor, who was broken without knowing it herself, revealed a prominent madness in cooking and food, but she was the only one who didn’t know.
“…You considered nutrition?”
“Yes, because I obtained a precious recipe. It even considers the three major nutrients!”
…If I eat this, I feel like I’ll lose not only the three major nutrients but even my sense of taste.
Pierre critiqued calmly.
If he didn’t want to eat it, he could just flip the plate or throw the fork as he was.
If the worst came to the worst, it would be enough to push it away and tell her to take it back.
Even so, he was struck by the fact that his hand did not do so.
“Actually, it’s because I feel sorry toward you, Master…”
Calypso, unaware of this, fidgeted with her hands while leaving the food set out.
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