Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 204 Father and Daughter's Night Talk
The night was quiet.

Although Roberts and his two companions were nominally working with the man who called himself Uberto Bruni, their distrust of Uberto led them to share a bedroom as a precaution. Wendy and Joan slept in the double bed in the bedroom, while Roberts made do on a small sofa nearby.

Since escaping Boston, this was the first time the three of them had been able to sleep peacefully. At least as long as Uberto didn't cause any trouble, they were safe for the time being. However, once the tension and vigilance of the past two weeks were relaxed, a host of questions and doubts followed...

"Tick...tick..."

The wall clock ticked away, its sound clear enough to be heard in the stillness of the night. No one spoke, but everyone knew that no one was asleep. The three of them lay on the bed and sofa, each lost in their own thoughts, unable to fall asleep.

A long silence...

Lying on the sofa, Roberts' breathing was extremely slow, as if he had fallen into a state of semi-sleep, his ears listening to every slightest sound around him, which would wake him at the slightest disturbance. This was a habit he had developed over many years as a witcher; otherwise, he would have been killed countless times while he slept.

"dad."

Suddenly, a voice rang in my ears.

"Ah."

Without opening his eyes, the Witcher, lying on the sofa, simply responded with a sound, as if to acknowledge his daughter.

"Even now, I still find it hard to believe all of this..."

In the darkness, Roberts could only hear his daughter's babbling, her slightly childish voice tinged with confusion.

"Suddenly, the father, whom we rarely see, becomes a legendary witcher who has been around for many years, and the kind and gentle aunt becomes a cold and decisive female warrior carrying a rocket launcher. Before we can even react, we are forced to fight against the legendary Shadow Government... It all seems too strange. Is this really not a movie?"

"Joan, I'm sorry for dragging you into this."

Faced with her daughter's words, Roberts could only reply apologetically.

"Well, it's nothing. I just feel like I've been deceived, like I've been excluded from this family. I'm a little... unhappy."

Unable to see her face in the darkness, Roberts could only hear the woman's muttering, a hesitant tone tinged with dissatisfaction. Roberts fell silent. He didn't know how to tell his daughter, after all, he was the one who had chosen to hide it all from Wendy back then, and Wendy had merely followed his wishes.

"I'm sorry, Joan... I'm so sorry."

Roberts apologized to his daughter in a low voice, but Joan didn't seem to blame him. She paused for a moment, then murmured something.

"I feel like I've never really known you, Dad. Can you tell me about your past?"

"There's nothing to say."

"Tell me a little bit~"

"..."

Roberts couldn't resist his daughter's half-coquettish behavior, so after thinking for a moment, he began to speak slowly.

“Joan, I’ve told you before that I’m English. At the end of the last century, your great-grandfather was a highly respected knight in Wessex, England. Our family even still retains an old castle and a small estate of about 172 acres…”

As he spoke, his voice inexplicably lowered, and then he said...

"Of course, I learned all of this from information I gathered later."

"Why?"

The daughter asked curiously, but Roberts didn't answer her directly. Instead, he continued.

“I was born in 1961, nearly twenty years after the war ended. I vaguely remember that there were many women in my family. Apart from some maids, they were all my aunts and uncles, because several of my uncles, grandfathers, and several distant male relatives died in that war. My father was too young to join the army at the time, so he was spared.”

"After he and my mother gave birth to me, I became the only newborn male in the entire family, and the whole family placed high hopes on me, but at that time I couldn't understand it..."

As he spoke, his voice carried a touch of reminiscence and a rare gentleness.

"Even now, I can still recall riding my little pony joyfully across the plains of our family's territory. When we got tired, I would lead it to a small spring... Actually, it wasn't really a spring, just a babbling brook flowing from a crack in the rocks. I remember the water was clear and sweet. After drinking, my pony and I would play by the stream, often returning home covered in mud. The maids would secretly complain that my clothes were hard to wash. But the women in the family were worried that the water wasn't clean, because I was the only male heir, so they leveled the rock. I even cried a lot about it..."

"More often than not, I would lie on the grass, feeling the wind brush against my cheeks. The grass was so dense and soft that I couldn't feel any pebbles at all. I would just lie there, and sometimes the hyacinths and speedwells around me would fall on my nose, making me sneeze. I would look at the clouds above my head and sometimes imagine them as menacing monsters and valiant knights. To emulate those knights, I even secretly made a wooden sword out of a twig, but nobody knew about it."

As she spoke, Roberts chuckled.

"The women of my family, the ancient castle, the vast plains, my father who rarely appeared... these are all my childhood memories."

"and after?"

“Later, they all died,” Roberts said calmly, without any evasiveness or reservation. He knew his daughter could now learn about his family's past. His daughter was clearly taken aback by Roberts's unusually calm tone. Even though they had never met, they were still her blood relatives, and she couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness.

"It was spring of 1967, I was six years old... I remember it clearly, it was a very bright and sunny day. I took my pony out to play, and we played until it was getting dark before I realized it. Although the family had declined a lot, it still retained some old aristocratic rules. I knew I would be scolded if I went back, so I was very scared and didn't dare to go back directly. I only went back when I was so hungry that I couldn't stand it anymore, and then..."

"When I returned, I saw corpses everywhere and red blood. Among the corpses stood a cold-blooded nobleman and many monsters. I was terrified and tried to run away, but he spotted me. Just then, Brother John appeared and saved me."

"Brother John?"

The daughter asked, puzzled.

"It was a mercenary group that specialized in hunting monsters from the Otherworld. Its predecessor was a knightly order from the First Crusade, and it was also one of the forces controlled by the Secret Order."

Roberts explained her confusion to her daughter.

"Later I learned that one of our ancestors was that vampire's mortal enemy. However, after our ancestor died, that guy came to seek revenge after his wounds healed. That's why the John brothers came and saved my life. After that, I joined the John brothers' training camp to seek revenge and eventually became one of the John brothers."

"After that, I got the nickname Iron Heart because I was cold-blooded and ruthless and never showed any mercy. As for Wendy, when I was 21, Wendy was only 8 years old, but because of her intelligence, she had already become one of John's little informants... Come to think of it, so many years have passed without me realizing it."

He muttered to himself.

In the darkness, Joan paused for a moment, then asked hesitantly.

"So... what kind of person is Mom?"

Her voice was hesitant and cautious because she knew her father didn't like to talk about her mother. She knew almost nothing about her mother, and even her favorite Wendy never spoke of her.

The only response she received was a long, deathly silence. She felt as if she were facing a suppressed volcano. After a while, a slightly hoarse voice rang out.

"Betty...she's a very lively and kind girl."

Joan realized that her father was in a bad mood, so she considerately didn't bring it up again and instead talked about Wendy.

"Speaking of which, Bruni said that Sister Wendy is the Guardian of the Hermitage, what is that?"

But the next moment, she realized she had said the wrong thing, because Wendy, who had been silently listening to the father and daughter's late-night conversation with her back turned to her, suddenly froze...

This older sister, who had always doted on her the most, rarely showed fear and unease.

“Joan, there are some things we don’t need to know too much about. Everyone has their own little secrets. Trust Wendy, one day she will tell us on her own.”

Not far away, Roberts' voice rang out, a voice filled with comfort, addressed not only to Joan but also to Wendy.

He said he would no longer doubt Wendy, but he was waiting for Wendy to one day tell him everything on her own.

"...I will tell you one day."

With his back to the two of them, he murmured these words.

Although the voice was very faint, Roberts still heard the words thanks to his keen ears. Soon after, he closed his eyes and drifted into a light sleep. In his dream, he seemed to return to that day 18 years ago...

He was 25 years old that year, and he was on a mission in the United States. He was sitting in a taxi in the bustling city where traffic jams were common. His face was stern and indifferent as he quietly waited for time to pass.

Suddenly, a red-haired girl, like a leaping flame, yanked open his car door. Just as he instinctively tried to pull out his gun from his pocket... the red-haired girl quickly made a silent gesture.

Shh... Can I hide for a bit?

Her slender fingers were held up to her lips, her face flushed slightly, and her bright eyes were filled with curiosity and excitement as she spoke, half pleading. Behind her, not far away, several burly men dressed in black could be vaguely seen searching around.

For some reason, the young man, who should have refused, couldn't bring himself to refuse when he looked into those eyes.

"Ok."

And so, the story begins...

……

Two months later, an icebreaker was sailing through the glaciers of Antarctica.

"It's finally here."

Wrapped in thick clothes, looking at the Antarctic permafrost that has remained frozen for millions of years, Roberts murmured to himself as the others on the ship gazed at the boundless glacial world.

(End of this chapter)