Allend looked back at the servants and commanded coldly.
“Do not provide food to the animals in this room. Hunting is also forbidden.”
Sarka’s face hardened. His green eyes wavered faintly.
Sarka looked up at his father for a moment, unable to even open his mouth.
Only after a long while did a trembling voice flow from his barely opened mouth.
“……Are you threatening me using my helpless servants as leverage right now?”
Sarka’s voice, overcome with disbelief, was crushed and locked.
Looking down at his son who was staring up at him in disbelief, Allend said coldly.
“Servants follow their master’s fate. If you starve, your servants will receive the same treatment as you.”
“…….”
Sarka couldn’t continue speaking and looked up at his father with a frozen gaze.
Looking down at his son who had frozen in place, Allend said without hesitation.
“Choose. If you say nothing, I’ll take it as refusal.”
Sarka parted his lips faintly, but couldn’t say anything.
Looking quietly at his son whose throat was completely locked from excessive rage, when the silence lengthened, Allend immediately commanded.
“Clear it away.”
“Stop.”
The servants who were about to move stopped at Sarka’s growl.
Sarka gritted his teeth while looking up at his father.
It was a murderous gaze, but Allend’s eyes didn’t waver.
Grinding his teeth, Sarka eventually suppressed his breath and spat out through his teeth with his eyes lowered.
“Everyone out.”
“Stay where you are.”
At Allend’s command that immediately followed, the servants who were about to leave the room stopped.
Sarka looked up at his father with a dumbfounded gaze.
Allend looked down at his son with a frosty gaze, then spoke slowly. His cold voice didn’t waver at all and sank calmly.
“You’re right. The <master> of this house is me. Not you.
I don’t like ‘my servants’ going through unnecessary trouble.
They’ve already wasted enough time going up and down carrying perfectly good food, so I’ll have them refrain from unnecessary movements from now on.
Stay in this room until my son finishes eating, then take the empty dishes down.”
“……!!”
Breath burst from Sarka’s lips.
His molars clenched and Sarka’s jaw and shoulders hardened rigidly.
Eyes crushed with hatred and contempt glared at his father with a look that could tear him to death, but Allend’s grayish-blue eyes didn’t waver.
“Sit down and eat.”
“…….”
At the ruthless command, Sarka clenched his hands. His tightly clenched fists trembled.
When Sarka didn’t move, Allend frowned and looked down at his son at an angle.
“……How long must I wait? I believe I said I don’t like my servants wasting time unnecessarily.”
“…….”
Sarka stood with his entire body locked tight, barely even breathing. His clenched hands were pale, past white and turning bluish.
Allend’s gaze looking down at his son who was suffocated by too terrible rage was cold.
After a death-like silence, Sarka, who had gritted his teeth, took a step.
Moving his body with the feeling of gouging out all the joints in his body, Sarka walked slowly and sat at the table.
Sarka’s gaze looking down at the plate wavered.
Sarka sat for a moment like a child who had forgotten how to eat, then raised a trembling hand.
His slowly bending fingers picked up the knife.
Taking a breath, Sarka cut the food with the feeling of slitting his own throat.
A heavy silence flowed through the room.
While Sarka brought the cut food to his mouth, the servants didn’t even make a sound of breathing.
Gripping his blood-stained cane and standing straight as if monitoring, Allend’s gaze watching his son’s meal was cold.
While Sarka forcibly swallowed the food, the servants turned their heads away, unable to bear watching that scene directly in shame.
That terrible man didn’t dismiss the servants until the end.
Sarka swallowed what was in his mouth with the feeling of swallowing a blade. Even if there really were a blade cutting down his esophagus, the feeling wouldn’t have been much different.
He had known that if he disciplined the servants in the Leogrante way, this man would react as if having a seizure.
Sarka had been prepared for some degree of punishment.
But he hadn’t expected to be crushed miserably in this way, with even the servants standing there.
His father’s intention was clear. It was a scheme to tame him in front of the servants as a display, the one who had been tyrannical to subordinates.
If he was subjected to this kind of treatment, it was obvious that Sarka’s authority in the house would weaken. How could he establish his pride again in front of subordinates who had seen him in such a disgraceful state?
Sarka knew what his father was trying to teach him right now.
He was trying to show that there was nothing Sarka could do as he pleased in this mansion.
He was trying to clearly imprint who held the ‘power’ in this house, how miserably he could subjugate an existence trying to resist.
That this was exactly <force>, <power>, and <domination>.
Allend was disciplining his son in a way he could never forget.
He could feel the cold gaze watching him swallow.
His pale fingertips continued to tremble violently.
Every time he swallowed food, it felt like swallowing frozen metal pieces.
Rather than eating, with the feeling of crushing his esophagus, after forcibly swallowing food to the end, Sarka barely emptied his plate.
Sarka, who had put down his fork and knife from his trembling hands, clenched his fists and remained silent for a moment.
Having struggled to calm his breathing, Sarka looked up at his father and asked quietly.
“……Are you satisfied.”
His tightly suppressed voice cracked and locked with the debris of emotions he absolutely couldn’t wipe away.
Allend silently looked down at his son who was looking up at him with a murderous gaze.
A cold declaration fell.
“From now on, your meals will be sent up to your room. I hope you enjoyed the mealtime you chose.”
Sarka didn’t answer.
Allend left the room.
The servants cleared the dishes without making eye contact with Sarka and left the room soundlessly.
Sarka, who had been sitting with his head turned expressionlessly, bent his upper body while swallowing his breath as soon as the door closed.
“……!!”
Collapsing forward with a momentum similar to half-falling, Sarka vomited up everything he had eaten right there.
The food that came out with violent vomiting was almost in the shape he had swallowed it. Sarka vomited up all the food he had barely managed to swallow, and even after nothing came out anymore, he couldn’t stop retching for a long while.
His entire body trembled. Dizziness arose and his stomach churned. His insides ached as if everything had been twisted.
That day, Sarka couldn’t even put water to his mouth.
Even though he had vomited everything up, the entrance to his stomach was locked tight and hurt as if he had indigestion. As his mind weakened from the surging emotions, his healing power barely worked.
Originally, Sarka, who was a mental ability user, had poor physical healing power. The symptoms Sarka’s body was showing now weren’t physical problems but problems arising from his mind. Sarka’s mind, occupied by rage, failed miserably at drawing up his body’s healing power.
After suffering all day and barely lying down, cold sweat flowed from pain that didn’t disappear. Sarka couldn’t sleep a wink and tossed and turned all night with abdominal pain and nausea.
It was a night of terrible humiliation.
The next morning, as his father had announced, a meal came up to his room.
Seeing the food being set on the same table as yesterday, Sarka wanted to just bite his tongue and die.
He desperately wanted to overturn that table as it was, but Sarka knew he absolutely couldn’t do that.
When he lost his mother and fled wandering through that terrible underground passage, the servants who became support during every moment of death were in the room.
Those beasts wouldn’t even understand why they had to starve.
He had been foolish not to expect that his father would take his servants hostage.
His father and himself were desperately trying to find and claw at each other’s most fatal points. It was a mistake not to hide his heart that cherished too dearly the servants who survived to the end and stayed by his side. It was a lesson learned to the point of being sick of it that exposed weaknesses would be attacked.
Fortunately, the servants who set the breakfast table waited outside. It seemed he hadn’t commanded them to watch his son eat like the previous day.
He wouldn’t care about his son’s humiliation, but perhaps he thought he should be considerate of the servants’ embarrassment.
Sarka, left alone in the empty room, looked at that table for a long while, and only when the food began to turn completely cold did he slowly sit at the table.
Looking down at the plate expressionlessly, Sarka slowly picked up the knife.
Breakfast alone in silence was certainly a new experience.
Even at Leogrante, he hadn’t thought of this method of corporal punishment.
If he had known in advance that he would have to be prepared for something like this when coming to Hütivras, he might not have avoided the exorcists’ gun barrels so desperately.
Sarka silently pushed food into his mouth.
Even if told to tear off and chew rotten flesh from a corpse, it wouldn’t have been more disgusting than this.
Emerging from the memory of two years ago, Sarka shuddered and turned his head.
Like a repeating nightmare, Sarka, who had been staring at the food being set on the same table, struggled to compose himself.
If it’s something that can’t be avoided, he must become accustomed to it.
Since then until now, Sarka’s meals were always prepared separately like this.
Sitting alone in his room eating, he felt like a dog chewing rations thrown to it.
For Sarka, whose servants’ meals were taken hostage, refusal was impossible. Each meal that came up had an obligation imposed to eat it forcibly. Mealtime was the same as discipline time and corporal punishment time.
Sarka realized he had now come to be reminded of that day’s pain every time he put something in his mouth. As the cycle of forcibly swallowing and being unable to endure it and vomiting it up repeated, before he knew it, the act of chewing and swallowing itself had become a trigger.
The taste of food became almost faint, and he felt nothing but a sense of obligation from every meal. Sarka came to avoid the act of eating unless it was absolutely necessary. Because enduring hunger was easier than enduring nausea.
Still, at least when eating together with everyone in the dining hall, he could somehow manage to swallow it. But in situations where he had to eat alone a meal someone brought, his stomach churned so much it was hard to even touch it. Especially if someone was watching him eat, Sarka didn’t even want to look at the food. Just imagining someone’s gaze touching his mouth made him break out in cold sweat.
Strictly speaking, Sarka hadn’t been forced to eat meals alone until now.
Sara, who returned that evening, was furiously angry when she learned what Allend had done, and did make Allend apologize to Sarka and withdraw his command, even if semi-forcibly.
But the water was already spilled.
They both knew that apology wasn’t sincere anyway. It was just meaningless formality.
Sara apologized to Sarka and tried somehow to restore meals at the table, but it was no different from fixing the barn after the cow had died.
It had been an uncomfortable table from the start.
After going through something like this, if told to eat food at a table watched by that human woman and his half-brother, setting aside feelings, it was doubtful whether he could even swallow the food. Perhaps he would commit the outrage of vomiting onto the table in front of his father.
Sarka thought he would rather pull out his tongue than show such a sight in front of that man. Not satisfied with exposing his weakness to that man, in the worst case, he might even receive the pitying gazes of that human woman and the kid. Just that imagination made Sarka feel like all his insides were twisting.
Then should he go out for every meal? Not unless he planned to advertise to the entire city that he was being treated like a dog raised at home.
In the end, there was no method.
It would be ridiculous to starve to death after coming this far.
He had no choice but to endure, hoping his mind would gradually become numb to the repeated humiliation. Anyway, it was something that would end if he just endured during overnight leave days and end-of-term vacation.
Mulling over old rage only made it harder on himself.
Sighing while taking off his jacket, Sarka suddenly hesitated, realizing there were no familiar hands to receive those clothes.
Unconsciously looking around, Sarka froze when he didn’t see the animals that always stayed in the room.
Frozen while looking at the empty room, some realization and subsequent rage soon rose on Sarka’s face.
Sarka’s teeth clenched.
“……Where are my servants?”
His voice, sunken with rage, locked low.
The servants who were setting the table flinched and raised their heads, then answered not knowing what to do.
“Ah, well, that is……we confined them. They were utterly uncontrollable……”
Sarka ground his teeth and spat out coldly.
“Guide me.”
“Please, eat first……”
“I said guide me.”
Feeling the eerie rage dwelling in the voice pressed down low, the servants hurriedly bowed their heads.
Sarka looked at the three beasts causing a ruckus inside the cage.
The small monkey, gripped by fear, clung to the cage and jumped around in all directions making squeaking, shrieking sounds. The female leopard howled with an eerie sound while shaking the cage, and the baby jaguar yowled while bristling its fur and baring its teeth.
Looking at the cage heaving with savage momentum, Sarka felt a miserable feeling.
Damn it.
He should have expected it.
<Angel’s Fangs> nullifies all of a vampire’s supernatural powers.
The moment the Angel’s Fangs extract seeped into his blood vessels and Sarka’s supernatural power was paralyzed, all the hypnosis on his servants would have been forcibly released as well.
It was natural that the animals, awakened from hypnosis they’d been under their entire lives, would become extremely sensitive and cause a ruckus.
All three were branded so that no one but Sarka could access their minds. Only a vampire with a higher bloodline rank than the one who branded them could forcibly break through that brand.
Even his father, who had the highest bloodline rank in this house, couldn’t break through the brand stamped by Sarka, who was the same Complete Pureblood.
No one in this house would be able to calm them, so naturally they would have confined them in cages.
Thinking of his servants who would have been locked up like this continuously since the disciplinary period, Sarka felt his heart breaking.
Sarka’s eyes, silently looking at the animals brimming with killing intent, were dyed red.
The three heaving cages became quiet in an instant.
The eyes of the three beasts were dyed the same red light as Sarka’s.
Sarka began to hypnotize his servants again one by one.
From the face of the female leopard that had been howling violently, killing intent soon disappeared and loyalty and affection bloomed.
Only then did the female leopard, recognizing her master, approach Sarka with a pleased face.
When the female leopard placed her paw on the cage, Sarka matched his hand to that spot and whispered the leopard’s name in an affectionate voice.
“Ember.”
The female leopard Ember scratched at the cage trying to get even a little closer to her master. A pitiful rumbling sound came from her throat.
Sarka opened the cage door as if breaking it.
Ember, who burst out in an instant, pressed her forehead against Sarka’s leg and rubbed against it.
After stroking the forehead of Ember who was growling pleasantly once, Sarka raised his head and released the small monkey and baby jaguar in turn as well.
The hypnotized animals ran out to their master expressing boundless joy as if they’d never caused a ruckus.
Sarka gently picked up the baby jaguar who was whining and trying to climb up his leg.
“Lily.”
When he quietly called the jaguar’s name, Lily whined and burrowed into his arms. Sarka suddenly frowned, realizing that Lily in his arms was excessively light.
Examining his servants, Sarka noticed they were bone-dry and had haggard appearances.
From the lips of Sarka who had been silent for a moment, a voice locked low with rage seeped out as if being crushed.
“……Did you starve them?”
The servants standing behind watching nervously answered in frightened voices.
“We gave them food, but……they wouldn’t eat at all.”
Sarka bit his molars and remained silent for a moment.
It was true that the servants feared Sarka, but it wasn’t a lie to avoid punishment.
Animals released from long hypnosis show extreme wariness. Wild beasts don’t eat well in anxious situations. All three would have practically starved voluntarily.
At the gaunt appearance of his servants looking up at Sarka with loyal expressions, Sarka barely swallowed the surging emotions.
Biting his lip, Sarka commanded sternly in a voice locked low.
“Prepare my servants’ meal and send it up to my room.”
The servants immediately bowed and withdrew.
