CAR 37

At times, looking at Sami’s face reminded him of Laurent. The contemptuous gaze that looked down on Dennis as if he were an insect was the same as Sami’s. The round tip of the nose where a dark shadow fell was also identical between Laurent and Sami.

The hand that had torn Dennis’s clothes without a shred of consideration or guilt and the hand that shoveled the garden soil had the same shape, even if their textures were different. The two of them even resembled each other in their shadows. There were times when even looking at Sami’s face was agonizing.

However, daily life at Volè always… covered Dennis’s trauma with a greater trauma, so it was now a half-faded past.

Vittorio, who was affectionately stroking Sami’s curly bangs, let out a sneer.

“Why?”

“…”

“Can’t you do it?”

Dennis suddenly thought he was like a doctor. With Sami, who was half-dead, laid out on a sacred operating table, he was asking Dennis if he had the will to conduct this chaos.

Vittorio snatched the axe from Dennis’s hand. Gripping the axe handle close to the blade, he turned his head back to Sami.

Dennis looked at the key that had fallen on the floor. The one Sami had found after searching through the bushes all day to get him out…

Dennis, who was staring at it, suddenly grabbed Vittorio’s shoulder. As if quite pleased by the sudden contact, Vittorio turned to him in one swift motion.

“…Leave that kid alone.”

It was at that moment. Vittorio, gripping Sami’s chin, abruptly shoved his thumb inside his oral cavity. A shrill scream followed no sooner than his long finger pressed down on Sami’s lower lip.

Dennis’s entire body froze, having witnessed Vittorio’s atrocity with his own two eyes. Vittorio was trying to grab Sami’s tongue. Sami’s body twitched as if having a seizure. His two eyes, filled with fear, quickly turned red.

“Leave him alone?”

Vittorio asked again. When Dennis didn’t answer, he slammed his hand on the desk.

“Why?”

He’s the brother of the one who harmed you… Vittorio genuinely seemed not to understand Dennis. As Sami, cupping his own jaw, screamed and thrashed his body, Vittorio struck his chest with his elbow. Then, he observed Sami as if looking at a very bizarre insect.

“Did you develop some affection for him?”

“You’re, insane, Vittorio…”

“That’s high praise.”

Vittorio, who wiped away a bead of sweat running down his cheek, gently felt Sami’s Adam’s apple. Looking down at the pulsating throat, Vittorio held the axe in his other hand.

Sami would probably lose his life at Vittorio’s hands today. That much he could sense clearly. Before Dennis could even stop him, Vittorio readjusted his grip on the axe.

Dennis’s and Sami’s gazes met. What filled the eyes of the one groaning and lying sideways on the desk was clear terror. It was an emotion anyone would naturally feel if threatened by Vittorio.

The only thought in Dennis’s head was that he had to stop Vittorio. It was when Vittorio was about to strike Sami’s neck.

“Bonaparte.”

The person who threw open the door was a middle-aged woman in a deep green dress. The woman, who had been standing politely with her hands clasped, pinched her nose upon seeing the chaos that had unfolded inside the classroom. Dennis too reflexively looked down at his crotch, but by then the smell of old metal had already covered all the other foul odors.

“Gack…!”

Vittorio, who had struck Sami’s Adam’s apple with his fist, then raised both hands in the air with an innocent face. The woman, looking back and forth between Sami, who was covered in bruises from head to toe and barely breathing, and Vittorio, who was not entirely unscathed, sighed.

“Didn’t you say it was a stroll?”

“A stroll, that’s right.”

Behind the woman stood five strapping men, as large as Vittorio. The men, who had stood without batting an eye at the tragedy inside the classroom, only approached quickly when the woman pointed at Vittorio.

Dennis just stared blankly as they seized Vittorio’s arms. He had never heard of such people being stationed on the school grounds.

Someone approached Sami and checked his pulse. The men, who exchanged glances among themselves, carefully supported Sami. Soon, noticing his entire body was a wreck, they held him up by his ankles and wrists respectively.

“Is he alive?”

Vittorio asked the man. The man gave Vittorio a short nod before carrying Sami out of the classroom. He seemed regretful that he hadn’t been able to finish Sami off. Dennis sank into an empty chair.

“Take him to the infirmary.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t get unnecessarily involved.”

Vittorio was deliberately relaxing his body to make it difficult for the men. Half-slumped on the floor, he slowly winked one eye at Dennis.

He was sick and tired of all the incidents he was involved in. A belated wave of nausea swept over him. As Dennis covered his mouth and bowed his head, the woman who had not yet left the classroom approached him. Without even avoiding the filth pooled on the floor.

“Are you hurt?”

“…”

“We will separate your companion from Mr. Bonaparte and treat him with the utmost care.”

“…Yes.”

She had said companion. In others’ eyes, it must have looked like Dennis and Sami were a pair. The middle-aged woman seemed to have finished a sort of ‘appraisal’ as she scanned Dennis from head to toe.

But Dennis was too exhausted to even put up a front of pride. He was at a point where he couldn’t even perceive the smell emanating from himself.

“I am the nanny of the Bonaparte family.”

“…I see.”

“I haven’t seen you before…”

Dennis, who slowly got up from his seat, extended his hand to her. However, the nanny did not respond, as if to say a handshake was unnecessary.

Dennis, feeling dizziness and thirst at the same time, swallowed dryly.

“I am Kahler. I was appointed to Volè… as a literature teacher.”

“Ah, the one from the rumors…”

However, the nanny of the Bonaparte family, who closed her mouth as if she would say no more, gestured with her chin to the outside of the classroom.

“You seem to be extremely worn out by Mr. Vittorio’s rudeness.”

“It’s more than just rudeness…”

“…”

“Never mind.”

He felt pathetic for not being able to finish his sentence. But it was useless to report Vittorio’s actions to a member of the Bonaparte family. Besides, the other person seemed as cold and blunt as Vittorio.

In any case, it was she who had put an end to all this tiresome chaos, so it was a situation where Dennis should be offering his thanks, if anything.

“You seem frightened.”

He had no strength to retort even to the pointed taunt. Dennis just glared at the innocent empty air for no reason. The nanny, who had followed Dennis’s gaze and looked around, lowered her voice and continued.

“It is difficult to even speak of, but… he suffers from a madness.”

“…Pardon?”

“As you have already seen.”

The nanny, who added briefly, let out a sigh. She looked down at the messy classroom floor and muttered as if to herself.

“As he is the noble body who will be enthroned as the next heir, we are careful to prevent it from leaking out, but…”

“…”

“At times, it seems he cannot control that vigor.”

The nanny, who smiled smoothly, bowed her head toward Dennis. Dennis, who was stupidly staring at her neatly tied-up hair, also moved his lips, but no words came out. His madness seemed to be an open secret.

“It is truly a relief that he is so outstanding in ballet that we can confine him to Volè.”

Vittorio’s madness was no longer surprising. How could his mind be sound after committing such acts without a guilty conscience?

What was more surprising was the ‘proposal’ from the woman who was the Bonaparte family’s nanny.

“The Bonaparte family would also like to help with your recovery, Teacher.”

“…”

“If you allow it, of course.”

What the nanny handed Dennis was a white handkerchief. Unless one was blind, there was no way of not knowing that the insignia embroidered in the corner was the royal family’s seal. Unable to either accept it or refuse it, Dennis could only stare.

Had the Bonaparte family always dealt with the numerous people tormented by Vittorio in this way? It was impossible to know whether it was simply a superficial offer to help with Dennis’s treatment, or if there was another hidden meaning.

As if she had read the deep anxiety and suspicion on Dennis’s face, the person called the nanny raised the corners of her mouth.

“Would it be troublesome?”

“…I must decline.”

It was an extremely tempting offer for Dennis, whose goal had been crushed in an instant by Vittorio. It might also be a chance to get acquainted with the core of the royal family. Even though their power had waned, the royal family was still the royal family.

Just as Vittorio was the king’s maternal nephew, yet the public heir… perhaps he could curry favor with them and plot a counterattack against the aristocratic faction that had killed his father.

However, objectively speaking, the current Dennis would not be a particularly useful card for them.

Dennis, the human being named Dennis Kahler… was an entity that was effective only when he had Marquis Quachi as his backer and was ‘the dog closest to him’. If it was true that Vittorio had killed Quachi, if it was true that he had killed the fearsome, resentful, and terrible, yet simultaneously the one and only Quachi… it meant that the current Dennis had not a shred of utility value.

And so, Dennis felt this pathetic version of himself was horrifying.

Another thing, he was not currently broken enough to require separate treatment. Everything he had experienced at Volè was wretched and annoying, but he felt he was still fine.

Although the ghost of Eric did mock him at crucial moments… it was an extremely personal hallucination that he could not tell anyone the truth about.

The desire to not get entangled with Vittorio any further also helped with the decision. As Dennis repeatedly shook his head, the nanny did not press him any further.

The nanny, who was about to leave Dennis behind, suddenly turned her body and looked straight at him. It didn’t seem like she had something to say. It seemed it was just to get another look at Dennis’s face, so he did not avoid her gaze.

The face, which bore the full traces of time, was at a glance as emotionless as Vittorio’s. Not a single emotion was present in the mouth set like plaster. Indeed, this was the person who had raised the prince who reigned here.

Dennis, who was enduring the silence, impulsively opened his mouth.

“I shouldn’t speak of this, should I?”

“Well.”

It was an ambiguous reply, neither an affirmation nor a denial, nor a warning. Her gaze was like an arrow piercing through Dennis. Fearing that what was suppressed would leak out like a sore, Dennis desperately kept his mouth shut.

“Everyone here knows about it anyway.”

The nanny, who added so, turned around. She left quietly as she had come, without any particular farewell. Dennis, who was just listening to the footsteps of the Bonaparte family nanny, looked back once more at the scene of the disaster he was standing on. The nausea he had suppressed to be polite came pouring out. After retching for a while, Dennis suddenly looked up at the ceiling.

Unlike the mire, that place, without a single speck of dust, was endlessly high and distant.