Chapter 180
I’m reeling from my father’s sudden bombshell.
Parnello, who has been standing still behind father all this time, approaches and whispers softly to him.
“Don. Nowadays, that’s called a girlfriend. It’s called a girlfriend.”
“Hmm? Ah, yes! Well, maybe I’ve gone too far, because as the world changes, so do relationships.”
Luckily, with Parnello’s support, my relationship with Julie was mended.
Parnello frowns and closes his eyes in my direction.
But that’s a bit of an old expression…….After all, Parnello is the strongest and best butler.
“Well, since you’re here, I have to ask. Julie Rodman, is your father still tormented by what happened?”
I had no idea what he was asking Julie.
My father and Dwight Rodman. Has something happened between them?
Julie looked embarrassed so she laughed and scratched her head.
“……Yes. I guess it still is, but from the way he was talking to Eugene before I got here, I think he’s a lot better than he was at first.”
“Really? Hmm, I’ll have to go see him in a bit.”
“I’m sure he’ll warm up to you as soon as he sees you in person.”
My father chuckled, as if he liked the idea of being so polite.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess I’ve been holding you guys back a little too much, so yeah, you two can have your own fun.”
“Thank you for your consideration, Don.”
“Goodbye, then, father.”
It would be nice to keep him company, but the real reason I came to these places was to make connections.
As I walked away from Corleone’s table and toward the crowd, I heard Julie’s cautious voice.
“There he is, one of the living legends. Don Corleone……!”
“And my father.”
“I know now that I’ve seen him in person, he was just lucky that day.”
“……What the hell happened with your family and my father?”
From the beginning, Dwight is looking at my dad with disdain, and father is like, “Is he still pouting?”
I think the last time my father had any contact with Dwight Rodman was when he said he was going to Russia to pick up my gift……So what happened then?
“I’m at the Academy, so I don’t know the details, but apparently Don Corleone and my father had a falling out over Don Corleone search for something. A villain stole something Don Corleone bought, and he ended up on our family’s property, and my father took it from him.”
“……No way. Wasn’t it a pistol?”
“I thought you didn’t know?”
I can’t believe he made it all the way to Romania.
There was a reason he was late…….
“Senior.”
“Yes?”
“Tell your father I’m using it well.”
“Like what?”
“You know, something like that.”
I sometimes use it at the mansion’s shooting range, and it’s really good.
A handgun has its own charm, really.
“Stop it!”
Just then, a fierce voice rang out from the sky, stopping both of us in our tracks.
When I turned around to see what was going on, I saw a black figure rushing towards us.
That’s…….
“Peak?”
“Ah! I see you still remember my name. That’s right, you’re Eugene Han Corleone and you’re Julie Rodman, right?”
Suddenly, having said our names, she circles around us, looking here and there.
“Actually, I’m in a hurry to ask you two a favor. I’ve been looking for you since earlier, but you were nowhere to be seen.”
“A favor?”
Julie asks, puzzled by Peak’s words.
“We’re really nothing compared to the people gathered here, we’re just moderate Awakened.”
It was funny to hear the Academy’s first-year senior and student council vice president refer to themselves as ordinary Awakened, but if she was right, we were indeed nothing compared to the caliber of the people gathered here.
But as if to disagree, she shook her head vigorously.
“No, I’ve looked everywhere, but you’re the only ones!”
“We’re the only ones?”
Peak spoke up cautiously, slowly approaching Julie while her eyes were scanning the room.
“Because what I’m trying to ask you is something that doesn’t work with the ‘adults’.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t work with adults── ah?”
Julie’s face flushed red as if she understood at the same time.
“Now, wait, what does that have to do with this?!”
“Of course it has something to do with it, I’m a fairy! Just like there are magic spells that only work on adults, there are magic spells that only work on children who haven’t grown up!”
Her words made sense.
It was nothing new in this world, where a race’s origins determined its magic.
“But first, you’ll have to tell me what’s going on and what kind of magic you’re trying to cast.”
“Aaah~ You mean that?”
She snaps her fingers at my words, creating a translucent dome around them.
“It’s going to be quite a surprise when you hear it, are you ready to be surprised?”
A mischievous grin curled the corners of her mouth, and she looked like the very definition of a fallen fairy.
Only after the two of us nodded did Peak open her mouth.
“──There’s a rat bastard of Plague in here. Catch and kill that rat. That’s what we’re going to do!”
* * *
Dr. Faust sat in a chair on the dais at the head of the party, stroking his chin and pondering the events of the day.
Tonight’s Walpurgis Night had been quite an eventful one.
It was somewhat common for invitees to come with their immediate family, but when it was Corleone, it was a different story.
‘I can’t believe he’d bring his own son without telling us beforehand.’
Eugene Han Corleone.
He’d heard about him before.
The scion of the Corleone family and a brat who carried his father’s name on his back but at some point, the story began to change.
He became an enforcer of Corleone, a rising dark star and the Crown Prince of the Underworld.
At first, he thought it was just false information spread by Vito Corleone to change his son’s reputation but what he heard from his sources in South Korea exceeded his expectations.
Carlo Blunt, a former Corleone henchman, had been killed, albeit in a drug-addled state of weakness.
The villains that infiltrated Korea, Blanca and Jackal were also killed by him.
He also brilliantly fended off a terrorist attack by Plague.
And……seeing Eugene here today, Faust was convinced that the information he had been given was not false.
‘I thought he was only strong, like his father, but he is as cunning as Consigliere.’
From the very beginning, he used himself to show off who he was and then slipped away like a sneaky little bastard…….
Faust was more impressed than angry at the brilliance of his behavior, so he guessed he could consider him a winner.
That’s it.
‘That child knew things his father didn’t. He’s no ordinary child.’
In other words, Eugene had his own personal network of contacts.
Meaning he’d already created a family of his own, and they could be a huge intelligence organization that reaches far beyond the borders of the country.
‘I thought he was standing still, but he was not only alert to his surroundings, he was also ready to strike at any moment.’
Faust had a hunch that this child was going to be a huge disruptor so he asked for a favor from his hired mercenary, a member of the Villain Alliance, Peak, the Fallen Fairy.
He asked her if she would be the star of this Night of Walpurgis, and if she would be willing to help him catch the rat who had infiltrated this sacred place.
Without hesitation, she exclaimed, “Good thing I have some good magic!” and flew off.
Leaning back fully against the backrest, he looked out at the dome of the Peak in the distance and nodded……and made a pained sound.
“You better be good.”
What worried Dr. Faust the most was not Eugene Han Corleone, nor Julie Rodman but Peak.
* * *
“Okay, I’ve cast the spell. What do you think, is anything different?”
There wasn’t much she did to us.
All she did was spin around in circles above our heads, sprinkling us with a hard, black powder.
It wasn’t very pleasant, looking like a moth dusting, but I wasn’t too worried that there was something wrong with me.
“……Hmm. I think my eyes might be tickling.”
Julie rubbed her eyes as she spoke.
As she said, I was also feeling a foreign sensation like I was wearing lenses.
“Well, I guess that’s good then. The spell I’ve put on you is called the Prankster’s Eye, and it’s like a fairy’s eye for determining who’s up for mischief in this room. It’s not usually used, but…… there’s nothing quite like it in a place like this.”
Peak danced in the sky, talking like she was dying of excitement.
“Huh?!”
At that moment, Julie suddenly pointed at me from beside me.
“Huh, junior, horns on your head, horns!”
‘What? Horns?’
What are you talking about?
I groped for my head, but the sensation didn’t exist.
“……I don’t have any.”
“What? That’s weird, I can definitely see them.”
Julie approaches me and slowly places her hand on top of my head.
“Huh? What is it? You can’t really……touch it, can you?”
Behind her eagerly moving hand, as she tried to touch an invisible horn, I could see a yellow star pattern in her normally red eyes.
Was that the spell she cast on us……Sure, but it was barely noticeable unless you looked closely.
-Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk.
Mmm…….
“Senior.”
“Huh?”
“I’m losing my head.”
“Ah. Sorry!”
She jerks her hand away at my words and blushes as she steps back.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! What are you two doing? Hahahahaha! That’s so funny, really!”
And then there’s Peak, holding her stomach in midair.
Wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes as she realized how much she was laughing, she slowly cleared her throat and said.
“That’s what this magic is all about. The size of the horns you see changes according to your pranks.”
“You mean we just have to find the one with the biggest horns of all the people gathered here?”
“Exactly. I’d use it, but……I’m already a grown-up, so I can’t use it anymore-although it’s great for identifying pranksters.”
Peak flew in front of me as she said that.
“For example, Eugene Han Corleone, you’re a huge prankster in general.”
“……What’s that again, contemplation?”
“No, more like intuition from experience, giggle.”
Oh, come on, here’s someone as serious as me.
“Okay, time to get to work, then, and by the way, if you really do find him, you’d better be excited, because I’ve got a huge present for you.”
With that, Peak turned toward the feast spread out before her, as if to say, “Look forward to it.”
“Now, then, let’s go find the rat who’s trying to ruin this feast.”
