Ruslan’s eyes widened.
Like athletes who had been exchanging balls for a long time, their movements were fluid and swift. It was like watching a scene from a skillfully performed comedy.
Ruslan stared at Baigarten with his mouth hanging open, utterly bewildered. Baigarten turned his head slightly again, looking back at Sarka with a composed expression.
Despite having just seen the book flying through the air and Sarka’s reddened eyes, there was no shock or fear to be found in Baigarten.
What appeared on his face was only a bit of weariness and a sneer as if to say, “Do you think I’m at a level to get hit by something like this?”
Even Sarka, instead of being surprised by such a Baigarten, muttered listlessly as if he had expected this.
“……You’ve come back, and your habit of chattering like a sparrow has only gotten worse.”
The low voice was tinged with weary disgust and fatigue.
While Ruslan stared dumbly back and forth between them, having lost his words, Baigarten stripped away the cheerful and friendly attitude he’d had just moments before like taking off an outer coat, and answered coldly.
“You broke an important rule, Sarka Hütivras.”
Simultaneously with ending his words, Baigarten struck the floor with the tip of his cane with a *thud*, as if scolding a young child.
Like a beast hearing the sound of bars being struck, Sarka frowned and glared at Baigarten with a growling gaze.
Far from flinching at that murderous look, Baigarten’s gaze became more severe and sharp.
Meeting Sarka’s eerie gaze head-on without a single waver, Baigarten slowly spat out each word one by one with slow and firm pronunciation. The words dropped one by one into the cold air, cut crisply with the clear and businesslike intonation characteristic of Imperials.
“Do not use your psychic powers in front of other humans except for people from our family.”
“……”
“If a manifestation is unavoidably exposed, swiftly erase the memory and report to me.”
Ruslan unconsciously gasped and swallowed his breath.
Baigarten’s eyes looking straight at Sarka were those of a superior interrogating a soldier who had caused trouble.
Ruslan unconsciously turned his head to look at Sarka’s face.
Sarka’s expression was, if one had to describe it, close to the disillusionment of having to unavoidably endure a bug he wanted to strike down and crush immediately, having to listen to its insufferably grating buzzing.
From just the subtly twisted angle of his head and ominous gaze, Ruslan could vividly feel how much Sarka wanted to crush this man.
Sarka’s eyes were eerie, gloomy, and sharp on all sides, as if they would cut through skin at the slightest touch.
However, even while directly meeting the gaze of a beast brimming with killing intent, Baigarten didn’t bat an eye.
Baigarten’s eyes, in which neither fear nor anxiety could be found, were strict and stern.
With both hands placed and folded on top of his cane, his feet spread appropriately planted on the ground, his shoulders straightened as he looked down at Sarka, Baigarten’s gaze was like a solid fortress.
Ruslan instinctively realized. Those were the eyes of a zookeeper.
An experienced and severe zookeeper skilled at taming and controlling beasts.
Only then did Ruslan realize there was one more category for Sarka.
- A dangerous wasp with a venomous sting that he wants to kill and eliminate immediately but cannot carelessly touch.
<Baigarten Jung>.
Sarka’s gaze looking at him was gloomy.
Sarka, frowning as if enduring buzzing he didn’t want to hear, let out what sounded like a sigh in a voice tinged with faint irritation.
“……I can erase the memory anytime.”
The listless voice was tinged with annoyance and displeasure to the point of rudeness. Not caring about that attitude at all, Baigarten immediately retorted as if whipping a lazy beast.
“Then do it right now.”
As soon as Baigarten finished speaking, Sarka, who also hadn’t batted an eye, shot back bleakly.
“Don’t presumptuously give me orders.”
It was a cold and threatening attitude.
The time it took for three sentences to be exchanged didn’t even amount to a few seconds. Both seemed sickeningly familiar with what the other would say and how to counter it.
At Sarka’s cold response, Baigarten let out a short sigh.
With a tired expression narrowing his brow, Baigarten turned his cane half a rotation and placed it on his knee, as if to stop the power struggle.
As if indicating he wouldn’t cross the line, Baigarten placed both hands on top of the cane and ostentatiously clasped them together. It was a motion like confirming to a beast that there was no intention to attack.
A voice forcibly softened flowed out like a sigh.
“……I’m not ordering you, Sarka. I’m worried.”
Sarka still wore an expression of being so irritated he could die from having to listen to the neighborhood dog bark, not even making eye contact.
At that listless response, Baigarten frowned and grimaced.
Staring at Sarka with sharp eyes, Baigarten began to continue speaking with a serious attitude. Baigarten’s voice, which had finished changing, carried the dignity of an adult man, and as it resonated through his broad jaw and thick neck, the strict feeling characteristic of Imperial language became even more pronounced.
“There’s a limit to what I can overlook. From the moment I heard you’d brought in a human roommate, I knew something had gone wrong, and looking at this friend’s reaction, you’ve already used your abilities in front of this kid too, right? And instead of erasing his memory, you brought him to your room to play with him?”
“……”
Ruslan’s eyes widened unconsciously.
Ruslan’s mouth dropped open at Baigarten, who saw through everything that had happened the past few days as if he’d been watching from the side, but Baigarten paid no more attention to Ruslan.
As if reproaching a problem child, Baigarten glared straight at Sarka and gritted his teeth.
“Do you really have no intention of quietly spending an ordinary school life like everyone else? I don’t know what you’re thinking, but your human classmate is not your toy. Erase his memory while I’m asking politely and send him back to his original room.”
“What if I refuse?”
The immediately returned answer was blatantly listless as if provoking such a Baigarten.
Suddenly Ruslan noticed that Sarka’s intonation when talking with Baigarten was different from usual.
Normally Sarka also used the so-called “royal intonation” like Baigarten, rapidly clicking his tongue and moving his mouth shapes largely, but as the conversation continued, Sarka’s intonation changed to a flavorless feeling with hardly any highs and lows, not moving his mouth much.
Having spent a year and a half at an Imperial school hearing various Imperial language intonations according to region, Sarka’s intonation wasn’t similar to any province. It was a strange intonation to the point of feeling exotic.
Frowning at such a Sarka, Baigarten began to slightly raise his voice with still firm Imperial pronunciation. When a slight aggression was added to his manly and heavy voice, it felt even more solemn.
“Should I resort to cowardly methods? Report everything to superiors so they put a <Controller> on you—do I have to act like a prison guard who’s locked you up to satisfy you?”
“<Prison>? Shouldn’t it be expressed as <livestock pen>? It’s full of vulgar and disgusting humans without exception.
Just having endured not killing anyone for a whole year while stuck in this kind of cattle barn, I think I’ve fulfilled my duty to our family.”
Sarka irritably dismissed Baigarten’s severe rebuke as if it were annoying mosquito noise. Disgust and fatigue were blatantly embedded in his furrowed brow.
At the mockingly languid sneering attitude, Baigarten finally bared his teeth. Baigarten, gripping his cane tightly, raised his voice as if threatening with an intonation that became sharper with the force.
“Are you going to keep acting like this? I don’t know what you threatened him with to shut him up for now, but this kid is an ordinary human! You don’t know when he might change his mind and go around blabbering about you. It’s too dangerous!”
At the end of his words, Baigarten swung his cane and pointed at Ruslan with a clear motion. Baigarten’s face was contorted with anger and faint anxiety.
Ruslan, who had been watching the breathtaking exchange between them in a daze, instinctively opened his mouth to join the conversation as soon as he was targeted.
“I won’t.”
At the suddenly heard voice, Baigarten unconsciously turned his head. It felt like he suddenly became aware of the fact that Ruslan had been listening to the conversation.
When Baigarten’s hardened teal eyes that had turned looked straight at him, Ruslan declared once more with conviction in Frükan’s characteristic strong accent.
“If you’re worried I might reveal Sarka’s identity, there’s no need. I will absolutely never endanger Sarka.”
At the calm and clear declaration, however, Baigarten’s face slowly hardened and became rigid.
His teal eyes wavered slightly, then soon began to be tinged with vivid shock and fear.
Baigarten turned pale as if he’d witnessed a huge crime scene, then contorted his expression and glared at Sarka as if he’d kill him.
“……Sarka Hütivras. You’re really going as far as you can go.”
Grinding his teeth and muttering ominously, Baigarten roughly thrust his hand into his bosom.
When a silver pocket watch came out in Baigarten’s hand, Ruslan unconsciously let out a sigh.
Baigarten roughly opened the pocket watch’s lid with an angry expression, then tilted the built-in silver mirror toward Ruslan.
The teal eyes trembling with anger and shock directly met the dark blue eyes in the silver mirror. Baigarten’s expression suddenly became bewildered.
“……?”
Baigarten stared at the dark blue eyes in the silver mirror for a moment, then looked back at Ruslan with a puzzled expression.
“……?”
Baigarten’s motions as he checked the silver mirror again with a serious expression, furrowing his brow, were confused. His utterly serious attitude even made him look a bit ridiculous.
Flustered by an incomprehensible situation, Baigarten turned his head again and looked Ruslan up and down.
This man seemed to have thought that after catching Sarka using his abilities on Ruslan, he’d threatened the terrified Ruslan to shut him up, or had even hypnotized him and manipulated his mind so he couldn’t divulge Sarka’s secret.
Ruslan had suspected that too. That’s why he checked his eyes against the silver trophy placed in the center of the main building every morning and evening, but his eyes were always dark blue. Sarka hadn’t touched Ruslan’s mind since sending him up to the bell tower.
As if asking what on earth this situation was, Baigarten stared at Ruslan with a dumbfounded expression. When a pitiable bewilderment appeared on his grave and utterly severe face, it was embarrassing to watch.
Ruslan took a long breath for a moment, then slowly began to explain the situation.
From the story of Sarka sending the black dog and checking that dog’s eyes with the silver pocket watch,
To Kanya’s story that was the beginning of everything,
The process of Ruslan coming up to the Empire searching for a vampire,
And the conclusion of the conversation exchanged with Sarka.
“……”
When the long, long story ended, Baigarten stared blankly at Ruslan with his mouth hanging open.
It seemed he had no idea what to say at the unexpected situation, unexpected circumstances, unexpected conclusion.
Glancing at Sarka’s side, Sarka was subtly frowning and looking at Ruslan obliquely.
It was an expression that seemed slightly irritated at having to hear information he didn’t want to hear, Ruslan thought.
“……”
After blinking for a long time with an expression of not knowing what to say while looking at Ruslan, Baigarten suddenly frowned and muttered doubtfully.
“……A vampire who controls dogs? Could such a strong bloodline of vampire have remained in Frükan?”
That voice was peculiar. Ruslan tensed unconsciously.
There was a strange feeling in Baigarten’s tone like “In <Frükan>, not even the <Empire>?”
Sarka, who had been silent throughout, opened his mouth quietly. Though his expression was still listless, Sarka explained in a dry tone.
“……Southern Frükan has terrain as rugged as the Empire’s Miral Mountains. If she hid in the highlands, it’s not an impossible matter. If she was a psychic vampire, she would have had an advantage in surviving too.”
Ruslan unconsciously swallowed and looked back at Sarka.
Watching Sarka explain with exactly the same logic as a passage from a book he’d once read, Ruslan unconsciously felt his heart beating.
So it was true.
Really……you survived in the Miral Mountains.
While Ruslan’s head became complicated, Baigarten was still slightly dazed with a deflated expression.
After remaining silent for a while, Baigarten finally let out a *thud*, deflating sigh.
“……I never even imagined such a situation.”
That voice was steeped in absurdity, confusion, and the ridiculousness of not knowing how on earth to respond.
Baigarten stared into space blinking as if immersed in thought for a moment. His unfocused eyes wavered slightly. Ruslan got the feeling that Baigarten was rapidly calculating something.
As if he’d finally reached some conclusion, Baigarten suddenly glanced at Sarka.
