My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My ex-boyfriend had a child. What on earth is this about? Episode 3
Leon Voltein was my first love.
The problem was, he had also been the first love of nearly every female student at the Magic Tower.
In those days, Leon Voltein was beautifully, almost unnaturally striking.
His black hair, dark enough to appear almost blue, fell in soft waves; beneath eyelashes so long and dark they cast shadows under his eyes gleamed irises blue as jewels, seeming to hold the shimmer of water itself.
Watching that boy with skin pale as marble move silently across the room on impossibly long legs made one feel it was almost a waste that he’d ever entered the Magic Tower at all.
That face alone was magical.
Why bother learning magic?
But, regrettably.
Beauty was no guarantee of character.
The dazzlingly beautiful Leon Voltein was, at his core, an insufferable human being.
One should have realized it from the very beginning—someone born with so much would never ordinarily pursue the life of a Mage.
Being a Mage is fundamentally a dirty, grueling, headache-inducing profession. It was safe to say that the heir to a truly distinguished noble house almost never chose such a path.
In other words, there was no way a man who would pursue magic while being a Duke’s own heir could be anything but twisted.
Our first meeting went something like this.
‘Little runt.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Didn’t realize you were so small you were blocking the way. Move.’
Staring at this rare beauty smiling brilliantly while spouting such crude words, my first thought was exactly this.
‘Is he insane?’
* * *
All the way to the drawing room, Mother praised Duke Voltein so lavishly I wondered if Pascal was even the one she’d attached to me.
“Oh, Irina!”
Schule, spotting me from beyond the doorway, raised his hand without the slightest dignity.
I felt shame wash over me—astonished that I still possessed such a feeling.
“You’ve arrived at last, Schule. Heh, she’s a disappointing younger sister, but such a good girl. We’ve raised her with nothing lacking……”
His bloodshot eyes glittered with the joy of having found another buyer to peddle me to.
Shameless creature.
Whether he sensed my contempt or not.
The man with the black hair rose slowly from his seat.
In the years since we’d last met, his build had grown more imposing. Those broad shoulders rose higher, more prominent than before.
The Black Coat woven with silver thread, the deep gray shirt beneath it, the Cloak embroidered with blue vine patterns that gleamed softly—all of it was burned into my vision in slow motion as he stood.
“…….”
I opened my mouth to speak, but my words caught in my throat.
The Duke Voltein I faced after so long wore an expression I had never seen before.
His complexion was ashen, and his eyes shifted restlessly, never still for a moment.
Like someone who had just woken from a terrible nightmare.
His magical beauty, tangled with sickness, gave off an air at once so sorrowful and grim, so decadently melancholic it defied explanation.
“Irina.”
But the instant our eyes met.
Leon Voltein smiled like a bud that had been holding its breath all winter finally beginning to bloom.
My name, called in that low voice.
An ordinary name—yet it felt entirely different when he spoke it. A tremor started at my feet, climbed my spine, brushed the nape of my neck, and finally vanished.
His beauty felt almost threatening now. An invisible grip seemed to close around my throat, and I had to fight down the urge to flee.
Rising from the sofa, he rounded it and approached me slowly. His gaze from above was so weighted I couldn’t even breathe deeply.
The silence stretched on.
When I said nothing, he merely tilted his head to look at Mother and Schule, then spoke.
“Baron Autreha. Baroness Autreha.”
“Yes?”
A chilling word fell like a knife.
“Leave.”
“Of course, Schule!”
“At once!”
The two of them, without a moment’s hesitation, moved toward the door. Mother even formed her lips into the words “Do your best!” as they left.
What?
And then—thud.
The door closed, and we were alone.
I went to the chair where Schule had been sitting. On the table lay two half-empty glasses and a bottle of liquor scattered about. Serving alcohol instead of tea in broad daylight—it was pitiful.
But what could I do.
This was my reality.
The one saving grace is that Leon Voltein is himself a man largely indifferent to propriety and convention.
The moment Schule and Mother left, he settled back onto the long sofa where he’d been sitting before, then reclined halfway across it. The sight of the man’s long legs stretched lazily over the worn armrest of our shabby couch seemed almost surreal.
Duke Voltein observed me with his chin propped on one arm, his posture relaxed and careless.
“What are you staring at?”
“Just wondering if you’re really you.”
Was Leon Voltein the sort of man to radiate this kind of atmosphere?
Not as far as I could remember.
The boy I knew was weightlessly frivolous and arrogant, yet possessed a certain endearing quality. But now.
Why did it feel like I’d become prey in the presence of a predator?
He let out a soft laugh, then tilted his head and spoke in an oddly casual tone.
“Why haven’t you sent me a single letter?”
“Why should I?”
“Why? I thought we were together.”
“That was true once.”
Things happened. We’d dated for barely a year.
It wasn’t as though we’d shared some weighty, passionate love. To put it plainly, Leon Voltein had simply tired of the barrage of confessions from new students, and I’d been the shield he’d raised against them.
Our ending was unremarkable.
I’d failed the Final Selection at the Magic Tower.
Leon Voltein stayed at the Tower, and I returned home.
I saw no reason to send letters.
It would have looked like I couldn’t let go.
Our parting was unspoken, just as our courtship had been. We vanished completely from each other’s lives.
Until he appeared at our house without warning today.
“Are you breaking off your engagement with Pascal Acker?”
His low voice pressed down on the crown of my head. Feeling like I’d be crushed, I hurried to speak.
“Your information is remarkably fast.”
“I made an educated guess.”
“I see…….”
“That visit to the Autreha Mansion never should have happened in the first place.”
Just like his appearance here now.
Leon seemed to have no intention of prolonging this ambiguous situation where events that never occurred were now occurring. His piercing, ice-blue eyes bore down on me with an intensity that seemed to strip away what lay behind my irises, searching for the truth within.
“……So it was you who rewound time?”
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anyone else capable of using magic that was supposed to be pure theory.”
“I see.”
“How did you even make it work? And if you’re the one who cast the spell, why did I come back too?”
Leon’s eyes widened. He was gauging whether I was hiding something. After tilting his head in thought for a moment, he finally spoke.
“You don’t remember? You look far too composed.”
“You think I look composed right now?”
“I expected you to be crying, obviously.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Rhea Bestin’s bastard son killed you. That ungrateful wretch.”
“What?”
A thunderbolt from a clear sky.
As I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, he raised an eyebrow.
“You raised him like your own son until he was twenty, and you’ve forgotten all of it?”
A gasp escaped me unbidden.
From ten years old to twenty?
That would be ten years.
I had a future I didn’t know about……?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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