The moment he saw the face of <Count Allend Hütivras> who arrived at the school, Ruslan thought.
No one could deny that Sarka was his blood relative.
He had a tall, splendid height about a span taller than Sarka, with the same curly silver hair. His straight nose bridge, sharp jawline, and elegant build seemed like they were cast from the same mold as Sarka.
If there was just one thing different, it was the eyes.
Unlike Sarka’s eyes which gave a delicate feeling as if completed by drawing each strand with a fine brush, Allend’s eyes had plain and upright lines as if drawn with charcoal.
Sarka’s green eyes sometimes exuded a languid atmosphere, but Count Allend’s grayish-blue eyes were only calm and quiet like a giant rocky mountain.
Count Allend, who got out of the carriage, exchanged brief greetings with Baigarten and was guided to the principal’s office. Sarka, who had been summoned to the principal’s office immediately after the outing, still hadn’t returned to his room.
The weekend evening was drawing to a close.
Ruslan looked toward the principal’s office with a heavy heart. All the windows of the principal’s office were closed with curtains drawn.
Ruslan was afraid to imagine what kind of conversation was taking place.
“……”
Baigarten stood with his hands behind his back in a stiff expression at a slightly withdrawn position.
The principal sat on the opposite sofa with a heavy expression, and between them, father and son sat facing each other in confrontation amidst silence.
After a while, Count Allend broke the silence quietly.
“……Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
Sarka looked at his father with a gaze like an awl piercing through iron, then replied ominously.
“……You speak as if you’d listen if I had something.”
There was not a bit of warmth in the father and son’s conversation.
Sarka’s voice still had a chilling blade in it. Baigarten swallowed dryly while looking at the father and son in tension.
At the clear aggression his son sent, the Count’s gaze became heavy and rigid. Allend spoke in a voice like a heavy rocky mountain.
“……I thought I’d given sufficient warning about what consequences you’d receive if you threatened humans.”
At the threatening voice, Sarka’s eyes narrowed with hatred. He glared at his father with contemptuous eyes and spoke as if chewing.
“……You should have also warned me that I’d hear condolences spoken with the tongues of the same species that killed my mother. I never learned how to endure such an insult.”
The ominous voice undulated like waves filled with shattered glacier fragments, as if trying to swallow even the creatures on the surface.
The Count, who had been quietly looking at the anger-soaked eyes, spoke coolly.
“Then it would be good to learn now.”
“……!!”
Violent murderous intent surged from Sarka’s eyes. Like shattered glacier fragments swept by waves, violently colliding with each other.
Baigarten saw the green eyes tremble like an enraged beast.
Sarka spat out while grinding his teeth. His voice was pressed down by fury, sinking ominously with each syllable trembling minutely.
“……Please teach me then.
How should I endure watching the species that slaughtered my mother like a pig and burned her alive gossip about even her death?”
That voice was like a crushed beast howling. Baigarten unconsciously lowered his gaze.
However, the Count calmly met that violent gaze without wavering at all.
With a voice like a rocky mountain shattering the fiercely crashing waves to pieces, the Count declared.
“……Your mother was cheap even for that.”
“……!!!”
The sound of Sarka swallowing his breath could be heard.
Baigarten unconsciously flinched and raised his head to steal a glance at the Count.
While silently looking into his son’s eyes, frozen speechless, the Count spoke plainly.
“……She’s a woman with no right to complain about her death.
That poison was revealed to have been created through forbidden experiments in a laboratory your mother supported.
She must have intended to use that poison to eliminate political enemies, but your aunt noticed and stole it first to beat her to the punch.
It was truly a case of being caught in her own trap.”
It was a cold and dry evaluation.
Sarka seemed like someone whose tongue had frozen from too terrible anger and murderous desire.
Looking at his son frozen stiffly without even breathing, the Count continued with faint contempt.
“The Imperial family had been watching that laboratory for a while. The drugs produced there were being leaked to human society through illegal routes, even weakening the Coexistence Faction’s position.
The human government made a condition that if your mother revealed the source of the poison she swallowed and admitted to leading the illegal experiments, they would provide additional blood supplies for treatment.
Your mother went mad stubbornly refusing to confess her crimes until the end.
Eventually, starving for blood, she left her residence without permission, violated the border, and was barely stopped by the Imperial exorcists just before she attacked a civilian home.”
“……”
Sarka seemed to have lost his breath.
The Count looked down at such a son with a cool gaze, then slowly leaned back on the sofa.
Looking straight into his son’s eyes, the Count declared plainly without a moment’s hesitation.
“……In my view, it’s a meritorious deed worthy of giving a medal.
Offering condolences for such a death is rather showing excessive courtesy.”
“……”
Sarka’s face was like a corpse. Sarka’s hand, which had been trembling, could be seen slowly clenching into a fist.
Sarka’s eyes, glaring at his father while grinding his teeth, became faintly wet.
The Count frowned as if even those tears were unpleasant.
Exhaling lightly, the Count spat out in a voice full of disgust and contempt.
“……That woman was always like that.
She only knew how to deceive others, kill them, and humiliate them.
Even 17 years ago, to have you, she deceived me, took away everything precious to me, and tried to kill someone more precious than my life.
That woman lived her entire life that way.”
“……”
Sarka couldn’t breathe like someone whose respiratory system had been cut off. His frozen body only trembled minutely, unable to move.
There was nothing but deep disgust in the Count’s eyes looking at his pale son.
Looking straight into his son’s eyes covered with moisture as if a thin film had formed, the Count declared in a cool and firm tone.
“I have no sympathy to offer for such a shameless person’s death.
That woman died well.
That’s my sentiment.”
“……”
Sarka’s arm trembled due to muscles stiffened like a corpse. Convulsions were occurring on his face.
From Sarka’s throat, who was facing the Count looking down at his son coldly, came the sound of something being swallowed with difficulty.
A completely crushed, low, hoarse voice slowly leaked out like a wail.
“So I…… should be smiling…… among humans who treat my mother like a mad dog?”
Sarka’s voice was trembling thinly like a tightly pulled thread.
With a voice tearing to shreds, Sarka asked in a low cry.
“Do you want me to raise a toast…… saying she died well…… that it was excellent slaughter skills……”
That voice was like a scream.
Baigarten felt his own gaze toward Sarka scatter without realizing it.
Sarka’s eyes were terrible. So much so that it was hard to look straight at them.
However, the Count looked straight into those eyes without a moment’s hesitation and declared plainly.
“If that’s what I want, then you should.
Because that was the condition for accepting you.”
A small breath burst out.
Baigarten watched as Sarka’s eyes trembled, then soon lowered.
“……”
A short silence flowed.
Sarka’s Adam’s apple moved with difficulty.
Like an ice fragment crushed under a rock, the emotions that had been raging on Sarka’s face were crushed and broken as they were pressed down.
Sarka convulsed with difficulty for a moment like a child who hadn’t learned how to breathe.
The Count looked down at such a son with a cold gaze and slowly spat out.
As if slowly rolling a rock over the shattered ice fragments to grind away all the remaining edges, the Count’s voice poured straight toward his son with a cool weight.
“You begged me. You said if I spared your life, you’d abandon all the ideology your mother taught you.
When you remembered what death was, you were ready to lick my feet, but once you saved your life, that arrogant nature seems to have revived.”
“……”
Sarka slowly opened his closed eyes.
The green eyes were blackly dead.
Until the debris of shattered ice slowly sank below the sea and finally nothing remained above the surface, Sarka trembled thinly and remained silent.
The green eyes that moved slowly looked up at his father as if looking up at a giant cliff.
Baigarten stared at those eyes frozen.
Those eyes were empty.
The Count looked down at Sarka like a person standing at the mountain peak bowing their head to gaze at the debris of shattered waves below a steep cliff.
The Count looked straight into his son’s eyes and whispered quietly.
“If I make you feel what <death> is once more, you’ll remember your position.”
“……”
Sarka was silent.
The Count turned his head to look at the principal.
He declared quietly.
“For one week, I will have my son wear the <controller>.”
The principal looked at the Count with a dark face.
The hesitating principal spoke with a displeased expression.
“……Count, as far as I know, purebloods cannot carry out daily life while wearing a controller. That’s also why I permitted your son not to wear a controller.”
The Count answered in a strict voice while looking down at his silent son.
“This is being worn for the purpose of corporal punishment, so we must consider that daily life will become difficult for about a week. I will send the necessary items.”
The principal looked at Sarka with an unwilling gaze for a moment, then soon stood up with an attitude of having no choice.
The principal, who unlocked the wall cabinet and took out a small case from deep in the safe, walked in front of Sarka and stopped.
“……”
Sarka looked at the case with a hazy gaze, then soon began to untie his tie with a resigned look as he raised his hand.
Baigarten watched as Sarka slowly put down the tie he’d undone on the table, took off the jacket and vest that Baigarten had chosen and dressed him in one by one, and unbuttoned his shirt.
A moment later, Sarka, who had unbuttoned his shirt completely, raised his right hand and pulled back the left side of his shirt.
As his white shoulder and arm were revealed, the principal opened the case and took out the object inside.
The object, elaborately made of metal and belts, was curved in a circle to be worn around the arm, with a vinyl pack containing medicine and a hose with a thin needle attached.
The principal tied a rubber band around Sarka’s arm and found a vein. When the thin needle attached to the controller pierced the vein, Sarka minutely furrowed his brow.
Baigarten knew well what the medicine in the vinyl pack that began flowing through the thin hose into Sarka’s veins was.
<Angel’s Fangs> extract.
It was a drug that completely paralyzed a vampire’s supernatural powers.
The principal covered Sarka’s left arm between above the elbow and below the shoulder as if wrapping it with the controller, and tightened the belt in a position that completely covered above the needle.
Sarka was silent with his gaze lowered, like a beast being fitted with a chain collar.
The sound of a metal lock being fastened was heard.
Sarka lowered his eyes.
At the sensation of the medicine seeping through his veins paralyzing something, Sarka’s eyelashes could be seen trembling minutely.
Baigarten swallowed dryly while watching that sight. The sight of the arrogant vampire finally falling to a boy no different from a human.
When the principal, who had closed the empty case, withdrew, Sarka moved his hand slowly.
The boy pulled up the disheveled shirt and began buttoning it expressionlessly.
None of the people in the room opened their mouths.
Sarka buttoned his shirt back up to the end of his neck, put on his vest and jacket, and tied his tie.
The boy, who had returned to a neat and tidy appearance, raised his head and looked up at his father expressionlessly.
The Count rose from his seat.
Father and son faced each other for a moment.
The Count, who picked up his hat and pressed it down, looked down at his son and spoke coldly.
“……I’ll come again in a week.
I expect you to gain sufficient lessons this time.”
Like a beast fitted with a muzzle, Sarka gave no answer.
