My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 34

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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 fathered my child—what does that even mean? Episode 34
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Lea Ocker’s disappearance was a catastrophe.
Her vanishing itself was trouble enough, but it also meant that a gap had opened in the security of the Ortreha Mansion—the very place Pascal had so proudly relied upon.
“She couldn’t have been gone long. I’ve already sent people after her. We should be able to pick up her trail.”
Cyril spoke with a rigid expression, then added:
“I’ll conduct a full security review of the mansion at once.”
Cyril tore through the house and grounds with an intensity I’d never seen from her before—searching like someone wringing water from cloth. The loyal staff threw themselves into her investigation, each one desperate to understand how this had happened.
And eventually, they found Lea’s escape route.
Cyril reported to me quietly, her jaw clenched.
“From this point in the corridor to that point in the garden, she somehow detected the dense Soundproofing Magic that was laid down.”
I pressed my palms to my temples.
“How in the world—?”
“She may have deduced it from the movements of the household staff coming and going with the child.”
“I never thought it would come to that…….”
As the mage responsible for the magical maintenance of this mansion—myself—I had made my top priority after Pascal’s arrival the concealment of Lea and the baby. That’s why I installed the Soundproofing Magic.
I never imagined it would create this problem.
“Well, Lea is a grown woman, so one could argue—”
“Yes.”
“But the baby is a baby!”
“I understand.”
Yes. Hiding Lea was manageable enough.
But the child she’d borne was an actual infant.
Except when sleeping, the little thing cried constantly, and that lusty wail was utterly beyond my control.
I’d had no choice but to cast a spell that enveloped not just the baby’s room but the entire corridor—because I feared even the brief opening of a door might reveal to the household that an infant was present.
Foolishly, I myself had punched a hole in the mansion’s security.
Cyril spoke as if trying to comfort me.
“Lea Ocker is a clever woman. She stole the dishes and Silver Cutlery from that day’s meal. She must have planned and calculated everything carefully.”
“Is that something a woman who went through a difficult childbirth could really do?”
“If she possessed extraordinary will, yes.”
“But how—”
The moment she could move about, this happened. Lea Ocker had gathered a few small, valuable items, found the gap in our surveillance, and slipped out.
The one thing she’d wanted most…….
To meet the child’s true father.
A chill sank into my bones.
Had her choice truly been her own? Or was it the work of Mind Magic?
“……And she abandoned even the child she’d treasured so dearly.”
I thought I could never understand a woman who’d abandoned her own child for some man. Yet at the same time, I remembered my own mother.
Whether Mind Magic played a role or not, I had to accept that such lives existed.
I understood it.
But understanding and forgiveness are not the same thing.
I thought desperately.
‘Where could Lea Ocker have gone?’
What Lea Ocker knew about the child’s father was probably no different from what I myself knew about him.
A person neither of us had any way to find, unless he chose to come to us first.
Lea Ocker blamed me for this circumstance so deeply that it bordered on hatred—me, engaged to Leon. After our betrothal, ‘he’ had stopped visiting her entirely.
‘But what was it like in my past life?’
Before I turned back time, an image surfaced of Lea clinging to Pascal Ocker. If that wasn’t love, then someone must have been directing her.
That man had continued his relations with Pascal Ocker while meeting with Lea Ocker in secret!
Pascal Ocker had kept his secrets from me. But money, I’d learned, spoke far more truthfully than people.
‘The real estate Pascal Ocker purchased suddenly. The places he visited regularly by carriage……’
I turned to Cyril.
“There’s a map of the Capital in the study, isn’t there?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Let’s go and check it.”
* * *
I marked several properties on the map that the current Pascal Ocker likely owned.
Some were located in shabby back alleys, while others were places whose ownership he’d never revealed.
Cyril simply nodded, asking nothing about how I came to know such things.
“I’ll broaden the search efforts around those locations.”
“Lea Ocker is an extraordinarily conspicuous woman. If she’d passed anywhere nearby, someone would surely have seen her.”
I recalled the Milky Way Silk Scarf I’d given Lea. The fact that it disappeared alongside her meant she’d certainly planned to exchange it for travel funds.
“Also look into whether a red Milky Way Silk Scarf was ever sold at the market along with the missing silver cutlery. It’s a very rare shade—gold and teal mixed together.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Cyril and several trained hired hands vanished from sight. The informants from the Duchy that Leon had given me were mobilizing.
Whatever security breach the mansion had suffered, Cyril’s pursuit—wounded in pride—was merciless.
Days slipped away in an instant.
Through Lea’s unremarkable physical description and the stolen goods that had leaked from the mansion—silver cutlery and the like—her location was gradually being pinpointed. Somewhere in the Capital’s back alleys, amid buildings that had become a labyrinth through countless extensions.
Just as Cyril’s pursuit was drawing near.
Bang!
A thunderous roar swallowed the Capital’s sky.
* * *
“Cyril is injured?!”
“Hic, cough, my lord! We’re treating her downstairs right now!”
“Let’s go at once. What in the world happened? What was that enormous sound?”
Cyril had been brought back soaked in blood.
The dark garments she wore were caked and crusted with crimson. The sharp metallic stench of blood and the acrid reek of scorched leather.
By a stroke of luck, Cyril remained conscious. Her limbs seemed to have escaped nerve damage. Yet she was in no condition to move alone.
The freckled maid who’d half-carried Cyril spoke through sobs, without even time to change out of the dark work clothes soaked with Cyril’s blood.
“We found the house and went to investigate when a Magical Power Rampage erupted inside. It was definitely happening deep within the house! A massive Magical Beast burst out with the explosion and—”
“A Magical Beast in an ordinary home?”
“Yes! Still, Cyril was able to buy us time to escape… but then a much larger explosion detonated from behind—”
The moment the thunder covered the Capital’s sky, Leon, who had brought Lucian to Ortreha Mansion, glanced at the partially charred map they’d brought and narrowed one eye.
“The second isn’t going to like this at all.”
Before we could even react in shock at Adrian’s casual reference, something shot through the window like an arrow.
A Mage Conscription Order from the Mage Tower.
Whether he’d received the same order as I had, Herdi crawled up from the basement.
“What? The Temporary Capital Defense Bureau?! Why is this damned thing activating now?! Are we at war?!”
His frantic protests made clear once again why being a Mage had become an undesirable profession.
Regardless of rank, every Mage outside the royal family had to register their name and physical description with the Mage Tower.
It was partly for contingencies when a Mage committed a crime, but also to conscript them in moments of national emergency like this one.
In other words, we were always standing reserve labor for the Crown.
Arriving at the assembly point with Herdi, who continued his complaints, and Leon, who had grown strangely taciturn, I saw Mages arriving one after another like myself—all wearing utterly bewildered expressions.
Soon the reason for the conscription became clear.
“The third cage at the Colosseum has been half-destroyed by a Magical Beast’s Magical Power Rampage.”

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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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