Dad Came Back from a Deserted Island Chapter 6

Perhaps it was because he had hit his head so hard that he couldn’t even remember his own name.

For three years, Jean remained in that state, unable to remember how he had ended up alone on such an island.

After surviving on the deserted island for three years, Jean was finally rescued by a passing ship.

“Over here! There’s someone here! Help! Somebody help!”

The fact that a ship happened to pass by a deserted island that wasn’t even on its route was a stroke of luck.

The fact that the ship was a slave ship was a terrible misfortune.

The beautiful Jean caught the slave traders’ attention, and he was sold into slavery just like that.

He was sold for such an exorbitant price that even the slave traders couldn’t hide their delight, but fortunately, he was rescued before he could fall into his master’s hands.

The auction house had been raided and destroyed.

But even though Jean had escaped becoming a slave, the fact remained that he had nowhere to go with no memories.

As he wandered aimlessly, Jean was taken in by a kindhearted merchant.

After hearing Jean’s unfortunate story, the merchant took pity on him—though his appearance certainly didn’t hurt—and brought him along, teaching him all sorts of things.

Jean followed him like a father and absorbed everything he taught him like a sponge.

Ten years passed like that.

Then, one day, Jean regained all his memories along with a headache that felt as though his skull were splitting apart.

The trembling love in his heart.

The joy he had felt when he held his baby in his arms.

The grief of losing the woman he loved.

The responsibility he felt toward the child who would grow up without even knowing her mother’s face…

“Vivian!”

His everything.

His entire world.

How could I have forgotten Vivian?

I could forget my own name, but I shouldn’t have forgotten Vivian.

There wasn’t even time to regret it.

Jean immediately went to the merchant, revealed that his memories had returned, and set off for his homeland to find Vivian.

“Our princess must have grown so much, right?”

“I have to tell her I’m sorry I was gone. I have to tell her how much I missed her.”

“I wonder how beautifully she’s grown.”

Jean sincerely believed that God must have been watching over him.

Otherwise, how could he have survived that violent sea all by himself?

How could he have survived for three years on a deserted island after losing his memories?

How could he have been rescued just as he was about to be sold into slavery, only to meet such a good-hearted merchant afterward?

But he was mistaken.

All the successive strokes of luck God had granted Jean had been payment for the misfortune awaiting him.

Jean never got to see Vivian again.

What awaited him was a shabby grave without even a gravestone.

It had been left so carelessly that anyone who didn’t know it was a grave could easily have walked right past it.

The truth behind it was even more cruel.

After Jean disappeared, Vivian was treated like a maid by Ron and Mary. As soon as she became an adult, they forced her to marry Peter.

Vivian was forced to marry the man who had abused and tormented her all her life.

The thought was so horrifying that, before their wedding night even arrived, she stabbed her husband with a candlestick.

After Ron and Mary beat her mercilessly in their rage, they locked her in a storage room and left her there.

By the time Peter recovered from his injuries—and horribly enough, he still harbored feelings for Vivian, or rather, his twisted desires for her—and came to release her from confinement so he could take credit for it…

It was already too late.

She had become a cold corpse.

No one knew whether she had died after becoming ill from being beaten too badly, or whether she had starved to death because they hadn’t even given her enough water.

Ron and Mary had kept her death quiet and, without even calling a priest for the dead Vivian, simply buried her by the roadside.

If there hadn’t been a villager who recognized Jean’s face, he never would have heard this story at all.

The villager was shocked by Jean’s return, having believed without a doubt that he had died, and begged for forgiveness with a face worn down by guilt over having been unable to do anything but watch it all happen.

Jean did not shed a single tear over everything his daughter had suffered.

He simply bid the villager a quiet farewell and rose to his feet.

“A ghost has appeared!”

He set fire to House Lambert.

Then he killed Ron, Mary, and Peter, who were all still living in that house.

Because he killed them so brutally, the incident grew larger and larger until the entire Empire was in an uproar.

As a result, the trial of Jean—a country bumpkin nobleman without even a single estate—was held in the capital, the heart of the Empire.

The merchant who had taken Jean in explained his circumstances and pleaded for leniency, but the overwhelming majority of people, who had felt sick just reading the descriptions in the newspapers, demanded the death penalty.

Jean’s circumstances were tragic, they said, but it would be too horrifying to release him back into society.

After hearing the entire story, the Emperor—

Yes, it was a trial in which the Emperor himself passed judgment—

sentenced Jean to life imprisonment.

Jean lived like a corpse.

No, he merely remained alive.

Even if he had been sentenced to death, he wouldn’t have uttered a single word in his defense.

That life force, which even the storm had failed to take from him, was unbelievably tenacious. Even though he barely ate, it refused to let him die.

Perhaps making him live through this hell was the punishment Heaven had imposed upon him.

Days passed.

Or perhaps weeks, months.

Maybe even years.

One day, Jean closed his eyes, waiting only for death in his prison.

And when he opened them again, he was lying on the deserted island.

The moment he saw his reflection in the water, he realized.

He had returned to the past.

 

***

 

This was the end of the story that Vivian did not know, and would never know.

Jean carried chocolate and warm milk into the drawing room with a smile.

None of that would happen anymore.

“It’s sweeeet…”

After putting a piece of chocolate and a sip of milk into her mouth and savoring them for a long while, Vivian pressed both hands to her cheeks and shook her head in delight.

Seeing how happy she was, Jean’s face melted into a foolish grin.

Jean was about to bring out every snack in the house when Vivian stopped him with a single sentence.

“I don’t want to eat anymore.”

“Wh-Why? You don’t like it anymore? Isn’t it delicious? Vivi, should Daddy make you something else?”

“Mm, no. It’s delicious. Really, really delicious, so I want to save it and eat it later. Chocolate is expensive, you know.”

“…What?”

Vivian continued in a surprisingly mature voice.

Although she hadn’t learned to read yet, that was only because no one had taught her. Vivian was a clever child.

Everything Ron and Mary had said to her until now had been piling up inside her heart.

“Daddy left because I liked expensive things, so Daddy went away to make money, right? I don’t need expensive things anymore. Delicious things either. N-No… I don’t need to eat very much, either.”

So please don’t go.

The little hand slowly pushed away the plate of chocolate, and Jean’s heart shattered all over again.

“Who… who told you that?”

His voice trembled as he asked.

“Uncle Ron.”

Jean forced a smile and lifted Vivian into his arms.

“Ron was wrong about that, Vivi. Daddy left because I wanted to keep a promise I made to Mommy.”

“A promise? To Mommy?”

“Yeah. I promised her that when you grew up and became an adult, I’d put you in a beautiful dress.”

“I don’t need a pretty dress! I don’t have to wear one.”

As though starved for affection, Vivian burrowed into Jean’s arms.

Jean lifted her high enough for the child to wrap her arms around his neck, then rested his chin on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Vivian. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I shouldn’t have entrusted you to people like them. Daddy… you…”

Jean couldn’t finish his sentence.

Hot tears spilled from his eyes.

He pressed a hand gently against the back of Vivian’s head so she wouldn’t see him crying, but with their bodies pressed together, there was no way Vivian could fail to notice.

“Daddy, are you crying? Why? Don’t cry, Daddy.”

When Vivian’s voice became tearful as well, Jean finally snapped out of the emotions that had momentarily overwhelmed him.

“You don’t have to worry about those things anymore. Vivi! We’re rich now.”

“Huh?”

“Daddy brought back a treasure chest!”

“A treasure chest?”

Holding Vivian in his arms, Jean carried her upstairs to his room.

The chest he had disguised with straw and brought back in the carriage in case someone tried to steal it was still wrapped in cloth.

“Vivi, wait a moment.”

Jean set Vivian down and carefully unwrapped the cloth.

A chest appeared beneath it, bearing the marks of age while still exuding an antique elegance.

It was a high-quality piece that would fetch a decent price even if they sold the chest alone.

To Vivian’s eyes, however, it was nothing more than an old wooden box.

But the moment the lid of the chest opened, an involuntary gasp of wonder escaped Vivian’s lips.

“Wow…”