Episode 118 Falling Love (2)
Bikir felt a chill goosebumps running through his body.
Ossu chicken meat sprouts on the forearm.
‘……What did I just hear?’
love. LOVE.
It was such an unexpected word that even a seasoned warrior who had overcome even the era of destruction, even a veteran veteran who had gone through all the battles of prenatal battles, doubted his ears that had protected his life for a long time.
Hugo is the person in the world who seems to be the least suitable for the word love.
But I never thought I would hear these words from his mouth.
Bikir felt that all the strategies he had set up collapsed from the beginning.
And either way, Hugo said with displeasure and resentment.
“Yes. She was the woman I loved all my life. It’s kind of hard to say, but we fell in love at first sight.”
Hugo’s answer is close to a monologue. Hearing that, Bikir thought to himself.
‘I didn’t ask.’
You don’t have to listen to the detailed answer. The moment Bikir is about to bring out the next business.
“I was from a high-ranking marquis family, and Roxana and she were from poor commoners. But the moment we looked into each other’s eyes, I felt that neither origin nor background could separate our love.”
Bikir thought about it once more.
‘I didn’t really ask.’
But Hugo continued to mutter.
“Yes. Certainly our love was rugged. From the moment I first saw her, I felt a passion that shook my whole soul. But it wasn’t her. She tried to get away from me because her lowly origins were a nuisance to me, and I I followed her leaving everything I had. Yes, I could have left everything for her. Not only my body, but also my soul.”
“Um. Yes. Father. Thank you for your answer. Now, on to the next matter…”
“But! Our love has been put to the test once more. The Baskervilles put a chaser on it.”
“…”
Vikir wasn’t particularly curious, but decided to listen to the end.
Hugo continued to speak even as he gnashed his teeth.
Hugo and Roxana’s subsequent love affair was difficult.
A classic romance fantasy cliché. However, this sad sensibility that goes through regardless of the era.
Hugo Les Baskerville is a cold-hearted handsome man with a big family and a genius in everything.
And Roxana, a poor but strong, confident and cheerful girl.
The love of the two broke through all the opposition around them and eventually met a happy ending.
Fighting over trivial misunderstandings, crying and laughing at the supporting characters who came to steal love, and sometimes screaming at the harsh fate, they finally overcome the opposition of their parents and bear the fruit of love.
Bikir nodded quietly.
“……The result was Penelope?”
Penelope La Baskerville.
At the mention of that name, Hugo’s pupils twitched once more.
The reaction was much more intense than when Roxana was mentioned.
“What kind of answer do you want to hear!?”
“…”
Hugo sighed in amazement as Vikir showed a consistent attitude.
“Yes. That’s right. My first child, Penelope. She was there.”
Hugo trembled for a moment as he mentioned the name Penelope.
Vikir stared blankly at Hugo, who was full of gaps.
It was the first time that an absolute strongman with his feet in the supreme realm was so agitated.
It was probably something that even Deacon Barrymore, who had been aiding him all his life, hadn’t seen.
Hugo opened his mouth.
“Roxana was a frail woman. She died of illness shortly after giving birth to Penelope. And I nurtured her alone.”
Penelope was a bright and cheerful child.
Having inherited a strong spirit from Hugo and a kind heart from Roxana, she grew up being loved by all the Baskervilles.
and one day ‘The accident’ happened.
Penelope, who went out for a walk, was captured by the Rococo tribe, who went out hunting people.
No one knows how the alternate invaders learned of Penelope’s walking route.
The Rococo tribe, known as a cannibal tribe, kidnapped Penelope from that day onwards and disappeared into the deep waters of the Red Mountain.
And from that day on, Hugo went mad.
The sword master, who has a furnace heart and iron blood, abandoned all assets and power in the imperial capital and moved the entire family to the periphery.
The reason is to expand the territory of the empire by subjugating the monsters and barbarians of the sea of water.
After that, Hugo threw away all the rich and prestigious films and devoted himself to work like crazy.
The cold-blooded man’s cold weapon made the necks of countless enemy generals roll on the floor.
However, there was a limit to the power alone.
Hugo increased his wives through numerous arranged marriages in order to kill even one more savage in the flood and produced children who shared his military talent.
The emperor spared no support for the marquis, who resigned from the center of power and volunteered to be dispatched to a remote area.
There were no restrictions on enlisted soldiers, and there were no watchful eyes.
Taxes were exempted and numerous subsidies were delivered under various names.
Hugo mobilized everything he had to subdue the sea and continued to revive the empire.
decades like that.
A huge family that no one in the Imperial Empire can ignore even though it is on the periphery.
This is how the ‘Iron-Blooded Swordsman Baskerville’ was born.
Bikir nodded when he heard that.
‘……Right. Somehow, even when I held hands with the Morgue family I hated, I thought something was strange.’
Bikir recalled the fact that Barrymore’s butler had tipped him off at the time.
The reason Hugo allowed the joint subjugation with the Morgue family in the Red Salt Castle was because he had heard that a girl from Morgue had been taken away by the Rococo tribe.
Could it be that his first daughter, Penelope, overlapped?
Bikir remembered how Kamu wept when he heard that his second cousin had been taken and eaten by the cannibal tribe Rococo.
Deacon Barrymore recalled this incident as follows.
‘It was after the accident that day that the family lord became the cold personality he is today. If only the eldest daughter, Penelope, had been alive, it would have been like this…’
From Vikir’s point of view, there is no way to know what Hugo’s personality was like before. Because it happened before I was born.
However, Vikir knew only the personality of Hugo, having seen him through two lives.
An iron-blooded warrior without blood or tears. A cold-blooded man who only focused on the glory of the empire and the revival of his family.
However, seeing Hugo in front of me now suffering from an old love story really brings a sense of unfamiliarity.
“……Yes. It was.”
Even Hugo’s voice was gradually trembling as he spoke. The red moisture around the eyes is moist.
Bikir was so unexpected that he had a hiccup.
But don’t be fooled by that look.
The opponent was a heartless human who, shocked by the loss of his first daughter, sent his subsequent sons to the battlefield with barbarians.
Even knowing the existence of a granddaughter with savage blood mixed in, there was even room for rampage.
Bikir awakened the demonic sword Baalzebub, intending to draw his sword if the need arises.
And the extreme vigilance opened its mouth in a young voice.
“First of all, thank you for your answer.”
“…”
Hugo quickly dried the moisture in his eyes. Then he raised his bloodshot eyes and glared at Bikir.
“Why did you ask this? If it was to satisfy your petty curiosity…”
But Vikir held up his hand to cut off Hugo’s words.
And he just asked for his own water.
“What would you do if you were descended from your first wife’s daughter, ‘Penélope La Baskerville’?”
“……what?”
Hugo frowned at Vikir’s words.
An expression that seems to hear all the crazy things in the world.
But Bikir never said anything nonsense.
When Hugo is slowly becoming aware of that fact.
…widely!
Bikir reached out with his left hand and placed an item in his pocket on Hugo’s desk.
And when Hugo saw it, his eyes widened as if they were about to tear.
“…This is this!?”
pendant. It is a relic obtained from a village of the Rococo tribe that was nearly annihilated by the Red Death.
Inside are Hugo and Roxana in their youthful past. It also contained a portrait of Penelope as a child.
“I made it myself! It’s the pendant I made myself in the studio and gave to Roxana as a gift! And in the end, it’s definitely the one I put on Penelope’s neck…!”
Hugo was so shaken that he touched the pendant on the table with a hand that seemed to be shaking.
Moment.
rattle!
Hugo’s hand trembled so much that he dropped the pendant off the table.
When Vikir snatched it up quickly, Hugo screamed in a fit.
“Give it back too! Give it back to me!”
“Calm down, father.”
It was Hugo who was so distraught that he floundered in the void.
Vickir obediently returned the pendant to Hugo, who seemed half-fazed.
“……Oh oh.”
A faded portrait in a pendant. The hard metal plate on the lid seemed to have been touched until it was worn away.
Lost first child, Penelope.
Where are you? Are you alive? If dead, where are the remains? What was your situation and what were your thoughts before you died? How lonely, how desolate, how frightened. Didn’t he resent his father for not coming to rescue him? Didn’t he despair or think that his father would have forgotten him?
Hugo was always scared.
Maybe the daughter didn’t blame herself until the end. I wonder if he resented his father, who was always strict without ever saying a warm word and never came to the end or received any news.
The more he did, the more Hugo whipped himself. He did not give affection to even one child. He thought he would do so even if his son did not feel affection for him. It was more comfortable that way.
When I thought of Penelope, who was living a painful life somewhere, nothing caught my eye.
Even more so, when he saw his sons who had the same face and personality as himself, only terrible self-loathing was repeated.
……but.
The moment he looked at the pendant whose cap had worn off from stroking it so much, Hugo felt as if an ice cap that had been frozen in a corner of his heart was melting.
Recalling the image of his daughter, who must have held this pendant until the very end, Hugo couldn’t stand it and lowered his head.
A drop of thick tear eventually knocks on the cold stone floor.
and.
There was a word from Bikir that made Hugo’s eyes open again.
“Sister Penelope has a daughter.”
“?”
Is it because of Bikir’s voice, which is so dry and emotionless?
“??”
Even after hearing Vikir’s words, Hugo looks blank as if he doesn’t understand the situation.
“???”
So Vikir spoke to Hugo once more as if he were killing it for confirmation.
“It means there is a granddaughter of your father.”
yet.
“!”
Hugo’s eyes widened to the point where they couldn’t get any bigger.
