Chapter 36: Great Cold Wave (4) "Then I wish you a good trip. Cadet Guillaume, Second Lieutenant Bonaparte."
"Major, I also wish you a safe voyage to Rochefort."
Major Tréville smiled with satisfaction at my words and went into the cabin. Soon, the large corvette warship raised anchor, spread its sails wide, and—having departed from Ajaccio Harbor in Corsica—shrank into a dot beyond the horizon and disappeared.
Unlike mainland France, which was still suffering in the cold, Corsica had blazing sunshine and weather close to Korea in May. You could call it thanks to the Mediterranean climate.
"Alright, everyone, follow me! You must be tired from the ship, so we should hurry and go rest."
From the moment Napoleon set foot on Corsica, he kept urging us along with his mouth hooked up to his ears.
Well, it had been almost ten years since he'd returned to his hometown, so of course. Come to think of it, when I went home on my first leave as a private, I was probably worse than that, not better.
Smiling, I followed behind Napoleon as he bounced along in excitement.
The Bonaparte family residence, "Maison Bonaparte," was less than five minutes from the harbor where we'd disembarked.
The residence was three stories tall, and it was a fairly large building, with five windows on each floor facing the front entrance.
When we opened the door and went inside, Napoleon's mother, Letizia Bonaparte, welcomed us.
"Ah, you're the boys our Napoleon talked about. Come on in."
Behind her, five children of different ages were hiding, showing only half their faces.
"Hey! I'm back, so why are you all hiding behind Mother? Let's see your faces—it's been a while!"
"Napoleon, big brother?"
"Napoleon, big brother?"
When they heard Napoleon's voice, the two biggest kids peeked their faces out, and the moment Napoleon finished speaking, they ran to him and clung to him.
"Elisa, Louis, right!? Wow, you've really grown! When I left, you were all tiny!"
But the remaining three children still couldn't bring themselves to come out from behind Letizia, even after seeing Elisa and Louis.
They had been born after Napoleon left Corsica, so even though he was their blood, Napoleon was a first-time stranger to them.
Seeing that, Letizia gave a bitter smile and spoke to the children.
"Kids, that's your big brother. Go on, go say hello."
Only then did the children timidly step out from behind Letizia, look at Napoleon's face, and speak.
"B-big brother. I'm Pauline."
"I'm Caroline."
"I'm Jérôme!"
Except for four-year-old Jérôme, they all looked shy.
"Right. You're the little siblings I only ever got through letters. I'm sorry I became your big brother, and still couldn't even show my face until you all grew up like this, and couldn't do anything for you."
Napoleon said it while taking each of their hands one by one and gently shaking them.
"Ah, your eldest brother and your third younger brother are on the mainland?"
"Yeah. Joseph is working as a lawyer now, and the third one, Lucien, is studying in Autun. Once Lucien starts working too, won't our lives get easier? Haha!"
After dinner, we sat at the table and started chatting over tea.
DuPont said four-year-old Jérôme was too cute and was playing with the kid in the living room, while the other children surrounded Napoleon and me and kept chiming in with this and that.
"Big brother! What's Paris like? Do ten million people really live there?"
"Haha, no! Paris is big, but it's not that big."
"Where's Guillaume, big brother, from?"
"Ah, my hometown is a place called Gehenne, next to Toulon."
Starting from cute questions like that—
"Big brother, what rank were you in height at school!? If you're as tall as big brother, you had to be in the top ten, right?"
"Ahem. Do we really have to talk about height…?"
—and even questions that got awkward to answer.
"Elisa said Guillaume, big brother, runs a business, right? Then you make a crazy amount of money, right? Right, Caroline?"
"Elisa is right! I heard it from Mother too. Mother said among Napoleon's friends there's an unbelievably rich person!"
"Uh… I do make money, but I'm not unbelievably rich… Also, why are you all so interested in money…?"
Kids at that lively age, full of curiosity, poured out questions nonstop, like Park Jisung in his prime with the activity level, and like Son Heung-min's sharp shots.
No—if you're eleven and six, can't you ask some dreamy, hopeful Teletubbies or DiXney Land kind of questions? Questions that are fanciful, unscientific, and anti-materialistic?
In this filthy world, this sick old man—no, my body is seventeen, so does that mean I'm not an old man?
Anyway, as someone worn down by the world of adults, I wanted to heal with the cute innocence of pure, innocent kids!
I'm not a vending machine that spits out answers with a "pong" whenever you press me because you're curious!
Ah, I should've played with a four-year-old like DuPont. Sob.
I hate being treated like this! I hate it!
Whether he was saying it because he saw me getting my soul beaten out by the barrage, or because he was just as beaten out himself, Napoleon clapped his hands—clap!—and said,
"Ahem. Since Guillaume and I are both tired from coming by ship today, how about we continue talking tomorrow?"
Ah, it's Napoleon! Damn it! I believed in you!
The kids looked at their mother Letizia with faces that said, Already? but Letizia spoke in a firm tone.
"A good child sleeps quickly and wakes up quickly."
Only then did the kids sigh, go into their rooms, and lie down, and Napoleon and I were finally able to regain our freedom.
"Hey, Guillaume… you really went through it…"
"You too, big brother…"
Somehow, it felt like the comradeship from when we beat up Hugo together a few years ago was coming back to life.
Crack, pop.
"Ugh… watching kids is hard."
Sitting on the bed and stretching my arms straight out, I groaned from my whole body.
"It's not like I'm working part-time at LotX World. I'm dying, I'm dying."
"Lot… X World? What's that?"
Startled by the voice behind me, I turned around. Pauline, Napoleon's eight-year-old younger sister, stood there blinking.
"Huh…? When did you get here?"
"You've been here since big brother started doing that weird dance. But what's LotX World?"
"LotX World is… you see…?"
Hmm. What do I do? Should I be happy because it's at least a childlike question? No—more than that, how am I supposed to explain this?
"…Isn't it bedtime? Can we talk tomorrow?"
At my words, Pauline puffed out her cheeks and glared at me.
Ah. So it's not okay.
"Um… how do I put it. An amusement park for children?"
"What's an amusement park…?"
"So that is…"
Ah, tonight's sleep is over.
That night, because of Pauline's bright, sparkling eyes, I couldn't lie down until 3 a.m., and had to use every gesture and motion imaginable.
"…You came for a break, but our kids might have bullied you too much. I'm sorry…"
"I-it's okay."
I forced my half-closing eyes open and spoke to Aunt Letizia.
During the roughly ten-day leave, Pauline came to me every night and fired off all kinds of questions, and I couldn't bear to hurt an eight-year-old's innocence, so I ended up answering everything.
From Aesop's fables to Hansel and Gretel, to all kinds of fairy tale books, all the way to the WinterX Kingdom story—it was like, what even is this.
Wow! Guillaume's oral comics theater! Open 24 hours, booming business!
Seeing me like that, Napoleon just patted my shoulder silently.
Ah, DuPont? DuPont played with four-year-old Jérôme from day one, then spent all ten days healing like crazy and even got plump with extra weight.
Well, since Napoleon and I carried the activity level of the other four kids, of course he'd heal.
When we got back to Paris, I was definitely going to work him hard.
As the ship we boarded for Toulon began leaving Ajaccio Harbor, Aunt Letizia and Napoleon's siblings all waved at us. And the one waving fastest and most was Pauline.
At the sight of Pauline, I pulled a white handkerchief from my pocket and waved it widely back.
Well, if all it cost to give a kid some good memories was dark circles, it wasn't a bad price.
"…You're that close with other people's children, but you won't even set foot in your own home—doesn't that seem a bit much, Young Master Guillaume?"
"Well… that's…"
"What is it? Do you have something to say?"
"No. I don't."
At the butler Alain's razor-sharp words, I shut my mouth.
After arriving at Toulon Harbor, we couldn't return straight to Paris.
—Oh? Alain? Why are you waiting here?
—The lord said it would be a bit dangerous for you to go straight to Paris right now, and that you should spend a few days in Gehenne first. I've been waiting to depart as soon as you arrived.
—Why? Did something happen in Paris?
—I'll explain the details on the way. I will also escort your friends.
And just like that, we were being kidnapped—well, not quite kidnapped—and taken to Gehenne.
"Alain, what's going on that it's dangerous?"
DuPont and Napoleon, who had been "kidnapped" in the same way as me and had no clue what was happening, also nodded in agreement.
Alain spoke calmly.
"There was a riot in Grenoble, and the army is suppressing it."
"What?"
Grenoble. A small city you have to pass through if you're traveling between Toulon and the big cities of Lyon and Paris.
There definitely hadn't been any issue when we came.
As if he read my expression, Alain continued.
"…People say the riot wasn't that large, but the fact that the military moved in means it was clearly big enough to be dangerous, or so the lord said."
The carriage taking us to Gehenne filled with a bad atmosphere.
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