My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 38

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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, and she turned out to be mine? Episode 38
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Once the cause of the incident was revealed, the Temporary Capital’s Defense Ministry was disbanded not long after.
I didn’t join the throng of mages heading home. I had something I needed to do.
Dominique wore an uncomfortable expression when I asked him to arrange a meeting with Lea Oker.
“I cannot allow you to meet with a suspect so carelessly.”
He watched my face for a moment, then shook his head as though the answer was still no.
“Moreover… it’s dangerous. For her to possess such a relic, there’s no telling what else she might be hiding.”
“Dominique. You know me, don’t you?”
I struck my chest with my clenched fist once, twice.
“I had my share of combat experience back at the Magic Tower.”
“I’m aware of that, but—”
Lyon, who had been standing nearby with infuriating leisure, watching my display, cut in smoothly.
“This is a directive from Duke Voltaine. I need to see the suspect for a moment.”
The Behemoth Knights, including Dominique, tried to incinerate Lyon with their glares alone. Some of the order cast the same look my way, and it stung a little.
Still, there was no denying that Lyon had been useful.
“…I cannot grant you much time.”
Dominique gestured to the knights standing before the door, and they parted. As he stepped aside, he whispered softly near my ear, brimming with apology.
“Should matters take a turn for the worse, use him as a shield.”
Nodding, I noticed that Lyon and Dominique actually bore a striking resemblance to each other.
The room where Lea was detained was narrow and dark.
Her large eyes were wet with tears. Her clothes were crumpled and disheveled—a pitiful sight. Looking down at her, I recalled the violent struggle from moments before.
When the Relic Ring had been torn from her grasp.
Her state had been wretched.
She had wept and begged, calling some nameless man by an intimate name, screaming not to take away the token of their love.
The fact that she had been trapped in a filthy, dangerous cage meant for beasts, or that she had become the instigator of the chaos that had engulfed the capital—none of it seemed to matter to Lea at all.
Only that ring. The instrument of deception she believed to be a token of love consumed her entirely, desperate and all-encompassing.
“Lea.”
I called her name, but she gave no response. She merely stared vacantly into empty space, tears streaming down her face.
I sensed immediately that I would glean no information from her.
Even as tears poured down her cheeks, Lea Oker wore an expression of profound joy, murmuring to herself.
“A beautiful person…”
It was plain to anyone that she had lost her mind entirely.
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“Rest at home. I’ll follow shortly.”
After pressing a kiss to my forehead, Lyon remained behind to handle the aftermath of the Cage Incident.
Exhausted from running about all day, burning through mana, I was loaded into the Duke’s Residence carriage like so much cargo.
I arrived home sometime during the journey, having drifted into sleep as the carriage swayed.
The servants of the Autreha Mansion, their vitality visibly drained, welcomed me back along with the additional reinforcements with meticulous care.
When I noticed the gaps in the line of assembled staff, my heart grew heavy. Those empty spaces belonged to the servants who had been injured when they caught the edge of the Demon Beast’s Mana Rampage while tracking Lea.
“Mama!”
Lucian, who had been bouncing on her feet, ran to me and threw her arms around me. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying.
“Mama, does it hurt a lot?”
I met Lucian’s eyes and pulled her close. The rapid thump-thump of the child’s heartbeat, the breath mingled with sniffles, enveloped me—shielding me from something beyond this world.
“Lu, my baby. Mama’s fine.”
“Hnngh…”
Upon hearing that I was all right, the child’s weeping only grew louder. Until now, she had been too anxious for me to cry freely.
I let her cry.
How do you know love is real?
This—this was proof that love exists.
My child, born not from my own body, loved me.
It was as I held Lucian close, rubbing my cheek against hers.
From somewhere, a sound so thin it was like freshly drawn thread wove itself into Lucian’s wails.
Lucian was the first to react.
The child, her mind occupied with crying, lifted her head as though doubting her own ears, glancing about, then cried out in a small voice.
“…A kitten!”
Lucian sniffled and stopped crying in an instant. She strained to hear the sound, which was far softer than her own weeping.
The servants surrounding us exchanged anxious glances with me. They all knew I had been careful to keep Lucian and Lea’s child from meeting each other.
“Mama, there’s a kitten!”
Lucian sprang up and began searching for the source of the sound. I could only follow behind her, unable to say a word.
It seemed that the lack of soundproofing in the last breach of the mansion’s defenses had become a problem. Only the four walls and door of the Nursery Room had been treated, and just as I’d feared, the child’s cries had escaped in the brief moment the door opened.
‘Should I stop Lucian?’
I didn’t want her to meet Lea’s child. Besides, what good could possibly come from the two of them meeting? If I just soothed Lucian and sent her back…….
And then, suddenly, I understood.
This was nothing but running from reality.
‘I need to get my head on straight.’
Yes, I wanted to become strong.
Not merely to survive alone.
But to protect my family.
‘This is something I have to face eventually anyway.’
Emil’s whereabouts were certainly a problem.
As much as the identity of that child, shrouded in mystery.
“Kitty!”
But Lucian, who had begun running with such cheerful abandon, knew nothing of my concerns. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have understood them.
I wavered until the last moment, but in the end, I didn’t stop her.
“Wahhhhh! Wah!”
The instant the door opened, a piercing cry filled the entire mansion.
The child lay wailing, face flushed crimson. As if sensing some anxious fate that awaited.
The startled nursemaid clutched the baby tighter, lifting her higher, but I gestured to her that it was all right to let the child be seen. Once curiosity had seized Lucian, she wouldn’t leave this place until she’d gotten what she came for.
It was a strange thing.
Though the infant’s eyes couldn’t yet see clearly, she seemed to be looking directly at Lucian’s large olive-green eyes, and gradually, her crying subsided.
“……It’s not a kitty.”
Lucian reached out carefully, touching the baby’s cheek, and then gently traced the tiny, fragile fingers of the newborn.
“A baby.”
She murmured it softly, then looked up at me and asked.
“What’s this baby’s name?”
I realized then that Lea had never given this child a name.
Lea had held this child only a handful of times before leaving the mansion, without even giving her a proper name.
And by now, she wouldn’t retain a single memory of this child.
I stood gazing down at the infant in silence, while my people watched. Their eyes asked for a judgment. And Lucian’s eyes were full of innocent curiosity.
Within those gazes, I felt as though I had lived an entire lifetime again. A weariness as deep as eternity itself descended upon me.
I was quiet for a moment. Just a moment.
Then I opened my mouth softly.
“Emil.”
The moment that name spilled from my lips, I was certain of it.
This child’s fate was bound to mine, no matter what form it took.
Whether that current would flow as it had in my previous life, or differently, now rested entirely with me.
“Just Emil?”
I nodded.
“Yes. Just Emil.”

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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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