Dad Came Back from a Deserted Island – Chapter 20

Author: isuzuuy

“Found you!”

[Hmph. I only hid somewhere easy for you to find.]

“Hehehe. You always say you hid somewhere easy to find! Then this time, Kiki gets to find me!”

[Tch.]

While Kiki covered its eyes with both hands and counted, Vivian dashed toward the backyard.

‘Aaaah, I have to hide quickly!’

Although Kiki was always putting on airs about being a divine beast, it and Vivian were perfectly matched when it came to playing.

Even now, they had been playing hide-and-seek for over an hour.

Soon, it would be time to stop playing and learn letters from Daddy, so knowing they didn’t have much longer made the game even more fun.

Vivian looked around for somewhere to hide.

“I hid there last time… Hmm. Somewhere Kiki would have trouble finding… Huh?”

Vivian tilted her head back.

A pitiful cry was coming from above.

“Pyeaang! Pyeaang!”

The desperate sound immediately made her ears perk up.

“Where is that crying coming from?”

It didn’t take long for Vivian to find the source.

A dense forest stretched behind House Lambert, and at the very top of one particularly tall tree, a tiny kitten was clinging to a slender branch and crying its heart out.

It was so small—barely the size of Vivian’s hand—with tufts of fluffy fur sticking out like dandelion seeds. It looked more like a tiny mouse than a cat.

Honestly, it was so small that Vivian could barely see it properly.

Just then, an orange blur beneath the tree came rushing toward her.

[Child! Child! You can understand me, right?]

It was the cat Vivian called Nabi.

[Help me! Save my baby!]

“Huh? That cat…”

[My baby! I saw them playing together, so I took a little nap. How did it even climb all the way up there?!]

The cat sounded so desperate that Vivian instinctively ran toward the tree.

But naturally, there was no way Vivian could climb a tree that rose higher than the house.

“Can’t you climb it? You’re a cat, Nabi!”

[If I climb it, the branch will break!]

The cat had a rather substantial backside.

It let out a mournful “Myaaaaoo” as it cried helplessly.

Kiki, who had been searching for Vivian because it thought she was hiding, heard the commotion and hurried over. It looked extremely wary, apparently assuming Vivian was doting on the cat again.

[Vivian, you! You’re with that cat again—what’s going on? Why is it crying like that?]

[Oh, Divine Beastship! You’re a divine beast, aren’t you? Please, please save my baby!]

[Kee-keek?]

After hearing the situation, Kiki wore an awkward expression.

[I could transform into another form and rescue that child, but then Vivian would collapse.]

“Why would I collapse?”

[Because you’re still far too weak!]

“I’m not weak! Anne said I’m a strong, healthy child because I sleep well and eat lots of food!”

[Sleep and food don’t matter! Just save my baby!]

It was complete chaos.

The kitten was crying pyeong-pyeong from the top of the tree, the mother cat was wailing below, and Kiki was screeching at both of them.

And then someone else rushed into the chaos.

“My lady! Are you all right?”

“Vivi! Did something happen? Why is it so nois—A cat?”

Anne and Jean had looked out the window at the commotion and rushed outside after spotting Vivian.

When they saw the fat cat yowling loudly, question marks seemed to appear over both their heads.

“Daddy! The kitten up there can’t get down! Please save it!”

“Oh my, it must be too little to climb down! Shall I go get a long stick?”

Anne lifted her skirt, preparing to run, but Jean rolled up his sleeves and shook his head.

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

“Pardon?”

It was far too high for an ordinary person to climb.

Leaving a stunned Anne behind, Jean took off even his shoes and began climbing the tree.

With every blink, he had gone higher.

Blink.

Higher still.

“Whoa! Daddy is really good at climbing trees!”

Vivian was so impressed that she even clapped while anxiously watching him.

“H-How can a person…?”

Anne covered her mouth in shock.

[Oh-ho. It seems you climb trees better than a monkey.]

Even Kiki, watching from below, was impressed, while the cat stared blankly.

Jean reached almost the very top in an instant, as though he had spent his entire life climbing trees, and stretched out a hand to catch the crying kitten.

“Oh, look how frightened you are.”

Terrified by the unfamiliar hand, the kitten dug its tiny claws into the slender branch and clung desperately to it, but it stood no chance against Jean.

He carefully pried it loose and held it against his chest before descending just as quickly as he had climbed up.

“There. You’re safe now.”

“Myaaaang!”

The moment Jean set the kitten down, its mother came rushing over with a loud cry.

She quickly grabbed her baby by the scruff and carried it away from the humans before thoroughly licking its fur.

[Hey, you! Aren’t you going to thank him?]

Only after Kiki scolded her did the cat seem to remember her manners and come trotting over.

She rubbed her body against Jean’s leg to express her gratitude, but the moment she heard her kitten calling for its mother, she hurried away.

“Is she the mother? She must have been terribly frightened.”

“We were pretty shocked ourselves…”

Anne muttered blankly, and Jean turned around.

Anne, Vivian, and Kiki were all staring at him with stunned expressions.

Jean scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“I, uh… I had some experience climbing trees.”

“How did that happen…?”

“I lived on a deserted island for several years—”

“Pardon? A deserted island?”

Anne nearly jumped out of her skin.

She knew Jean had been away from home for a long time, but she had never heard the details, so her reaction was only natural.

“I was shipwrecked and spent several years there. Since the only things I could eat were fruit from trees and fish… I ended up having to climb trees.”

He had spent years climbing trees simply to survive.

He couldn’t even count how many times he had fallen from them. There had even been several occasions when he nearly died—not from starvation, but from falling badly.

After surviving all those trials, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Jean’s tree-climbing skills were probably the best in the country.

“Daddy is the best!”

“Y-You think so?”

Jean had never considered being good at climbing trees something worth bragging about, but Vivian’s sparkling eyes and praise made the corners of his mouth rise.

A foolish little laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

“Heh heh… Hehehe. It’s really nothing special…”

“It’s so cool!”

“Hehehe!”

Jean laughed like a fool, then suddenly climbed back up the tree.

He used the momentum of his body to leap onto another tree.

“Whoa! Daddy, what was that? You went whoosh! You practically flew!”

Seeing himself showing off his tree-climbing skills in front of his little daughter made Jean laugh.

But when he saw her sparkling eyes and delighted expression, he was more than willing to endure a little embarrassment.

“Does my princess want to try climbing trees too?”

“Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm!”

“Come here.”