At night, there is no sound.

Although the three Roberts were nominally working with the guy who called himself Uberto Bruni, their distrust of Uberto led the trio to choose to share a bedroom just in case. Wendy and Joan slept in the double bed in the bedroom, while Roberts spent the night on the small couch lying next to him.

Since fleeing Boston, the three of them had a rare peaceful sleep for the first time, at least as long as Uberto didn't do ghosts, they were safe for the time being, but once the tension and vigilance for half a month relaxed, there was a lot of confusion and questions......

"Tick ...... Tick ......"

The wall clock on the wall ticked and walked, although the sound was clear, but it was clear enough in the dead of night, no one spoke, but they all knew that no one slept, and the three of them were lying on the bed and sofa with their own thoughts, and no one could sleep.

Long silence......

Lying on the couch, Roberts's breathing was extremely slow, falling into a state of false sleep, and his ears listened to the slightest sound around him, and the slightest unusual sound would wake him up. It was a habit he had cultivated over the years as a witcher, and otherwise, he would have been killed by someone in his sleep for an unknown number of times.

"Dad. ”

At this time, a voice suddenly sounded in my ears.

"Hmm. ”

Without opening his eyes, the witcher lying on the sofa just answered, counting it as a response to his daughter.

"Actually, even now, I still can't believe all this......"

In the darkness, Roberts could only hear his daughter's voice whispering to herself, a little confused in her slightly immature voice.

"Suddenly, my father, who I rarely saw on weekdays, became a legendary witcher for many years, and my kind and kind aunt became a cold, resolute, bazooka-carrying female warrior or something, and then before she could react, she was forced to fight the legendary shadow government or something...... It's weird to think about it, isn't this really a movie?"

"Joan, I'm sorry to get you involved. ”

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

"Well, it's nothing, I just feel like I've been cheated on, as if I've been excluded from this family, a little ...... It's just not happy. ”

Unable to see her face in the dark, Roberts could only hear the woman's voice muttering, a little dissatisfaction in her hesitant voice. Roberts was silent, he didn't know what to say to his daughter, after all, he was the one who chose to hide all this with Wendy, and Wendy just obeyed him.

"I'm sorry, Joan...... I'm really sorry. ”

Roberts whispered an apology to his daughter, but Joan didn't blame him, but was silent for a moment before muttering.

"I feel like I've never known you, Daddy, can you tell me about your past?"

"There's nothing to talk about. ”

"Let's talk about it~"

“......”

In the case that his daughter was half coquettish, Roberts couldn't resist it after all, so after thinking about it, he began to speak slowly.

"Joan, I told you that I was an Englishman, and at the end of the last century your great-grandfather was a well-respected knight in Wessex, England, and our family even kept an old castle and a small piece of land of about 172 acres......"

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

"Of course, that's all I know from the information I've gathered later. ”

"Why?"

The daughter asked with some curiosity, and Roberts did not answer her directly, but continued.

"I was born in 1961, nearly twenty years after the end of the war, and I vaguely remember that there were many women in my family, all but some of the maids, who were my aunts and aunts, because several of my uncles, grandfathers, and a few distant male relatives died in that war. My father survived because he was too young to join the army. ”

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

As he spoke, his voice carried memories and rare tenderness.

To this day, I can remember when I rode my foal on the plains of my family's domain. When the foal and I were tired, I would lead him to a small spring...... Actually, it wasn't much spring water, it was just a gurgling stream of water that came out of the cracks in the stones, and I remember that the water was clear and sweet, and after drinking the water, I would play with the foals by the water, and I would often go back with mud on my clothes, and the maid would secretly complain that my clothes were not easy to wash. But the women of the family were worried that the water was not clean, and since I was the only male heir of the family, they bulldozed the rock, and I cried a lot about it......"

"More often than not, I would lie on the grass and feel the wind on my cheeks, and the grass was so dense and soft that I couldn't feel the presence of stone seeds, and I just lay there, and the hyacinths and mothers-in-law next to me would sometimes fall on my nose and make me sneeze. When I looked at the clouds above me, I sometimes imagined that it was a monster with teeth and claws, and a valiant knight, and in order to emulate those knights, I secretly made a wooden sword out of twigs, but no one knew about it. ”

Roberts chuckled as he spoke.

"The women of the family, the old castles, the vast plains, the fathers who don't often show up...... That's all I remember from my childhood. ”

"And then?"

"Later, they all died. ”

Roberts said calmly, without any tactfulness or scruples, he knew that his daughter could now know the past of his family. The daughter was obviously shocked by Roberts's overly calm tone, even if she was not masked, but it was also her relatives who were related by blood, and she couldn't help but feel a little sad in her heart.

"In the spring of 1967, when I was 6 years old...... I remember very well that it was a very sunny day. I took the foal out and played until it was starting to get dark. Although the family has decayed a lot, there are still some old aristocratic rules, and I know that I will inevitably be taught a lesson when I go back, so I was very scared and didn't dare to go back directly, and I had to go back until I was so hungry that I couldn't do it, and the result was ......"

"When I went back, I saw corpses and red blood all over the place, and in the middle of the corpses stood a gloomy nobleman and many monsters, and I was so frightened that I tried to run, but he found me, and then Brother John appeared and saved me. ”

"Brother John?"

The daughter asked suspiciously.

"It's a mercenary group that specializes in hunting monsters in the inner world, formerly a knight order during the First Crusade, and one of the forces in the hands of the hermitage. ”

Roberts explained her doubts to her daughter.

"I later learned that one of our ancestors had been the vampire's sworn enemy, but after the ancestor's death, that fellow came to seek revenge after his injuries had healed, and that was why Brother John came and saved my life. After that, I joined Brother John's training camp for revenge and eventually became a member of Brother John's. ”

"After that, I had the nickname of Ironheart, because I was cold-blooded and cruel, and I never showed mercy. As for Wendy, when I was 21 years old, Wendy was 8 years old at the time, but because of her intelligence, she had become one of the little informants of the John brothers...... Speaking of which, so many years have passed unconsciously. ”

He muttered to himself.

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

"That'...... What kind of person is Mom? ”

Her voice was a little hesitant and cautious, because she knew that her father didn't like to talk about her mother, she knew almost nothing about her mother, even Wendy, who loved her the most.

She was answered by a long, dead silence that felt as if she were facing an oppressive volcano, and after a few moments, a slightly hoarse voice sounded.

Betty ...... She is a very lively and kind girl. ”

Joan realizes that her father is not in a good mood right now, so she thoughtfully refuses to mention it again, and instead talks about Wendy.

"Speaking of which, that Brunny said that Sister Wendy is a hermit guardian, what is that?"

But the next moment, she realized that she had said the wrong thing, because Wendy, who had been listening to her father and daughter silently beside her with her back, suddenly froze......

This big sister, who has always loved her the most, rarely shows fear and uneasiness.

"Joan, there are some things we don't need to know too much, everyone has their own little secrets, trust Wendy, she will tell us one day. ”

Not far away, Roberts's voice rang out, and it was a voice with a bit of relief, not only for Joan, but also for Wendy.

He's saying that he won't doubt Wendy anymore, but he's waiting for Wendy to come out and say it all one day.

“...... One day, I'll tell you. ”

With his back to the two of them, the murmuring voice said.

Although his voice was faint, Roberts heard the words with his keen ears, and soon he closed his eyes and fell into a false sleep, in which he seemed to return to that day 18 years ago......

He was 25 years old at the time, on a mission in the United States, he sat in a taxi, and in the busy city he was always prone to traffic jams, his face was unsmiling, cold as frost, quietly waiting for time to pass.

Suddenly, a red-haired girl pulled open the door of his car like a beating flame, just as he subconsciously tried to pull the gun out of his arms...... The red-haired girl hurriedly made quiet movements.

"Shh......h Can you let me hide for a while?"

The slender fingers were on her lips, her face was a little red, her bright eyes were full of curiosity and excitement, and she said half-pleadingly, and behind her, not far away, there were several big men in black who were searching around.

For some reason, the young man who should have refused looked at those eyes, but he couldn't refuse.

"Okay. ”

And so the story happened......

......

Two months later, in the glacial thickets of the Antarctic continent, an icebreaker was moving forward.

"It's finally here. ”

Draped in thick clothes, looking at the Antarctic permafrost that has not melted for hundreds of millions of years, Roberts muttered, and several people on the boat looked at the endless glacial world.