My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 4

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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 on earth is he talking about? Chapter 4
Every word from Leon Voltain’s mouth sounded like a story from some distant, foreign world.
I thought of Emil. The child was certainly lovely. He seemed remarkably clever, too. And yet……
“Good heavens. If I wanted a divorce, I’d have gotten one. I never had any intention of taking that child in!”
“I don’t know how your family persuaded you. But I saw with my own eyes you raising Ocker’s bastard yourself. Your heart just went soft again, didn’t it—like always?”
“That’s not true!”
“You’ve always had a weakness for beautiful things.”
“Well, that may be——”
Now that I think about it, the scenario wasn’t entirely implausible. Before I came back in time, I had nearly reached the point of surrender.
If I had given up then. If I had staked everything on the pathetic position of a legitimate wife and resolved to swallow that humiliation.
Then the future Leon described would certainly have come to pass.
Leon Voltain didn’t give me time to adjust to this absurd claim. He smiled softly and tossed out shocking revelations as if teasing me with them, one after another.
“How long do you think it took Lea Bestin to become Lea Ocker after your funeral?”
“……How long did it take?”
“Three months.”
“Those conniving bastards?”
“Letting you simply watch and wait was my mistake.”
Unlike his usual brazen manner, his voice sounded terribly weary and exhausted.
Today’s Leon Voltain looked somehow worn. Still young, still beautiful, still undeniably strong—and yet somehow old.
Those beautiful eyes looked down at me.
“You were a very good mother.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing……”
“So you’ll raise my child very well too.”
“Y-yes……? Yes?”
What is he saying?
“You have a child?”
“Four years old. At that precious age, isn’t he?”
I counted backward. Four years ago. Four years ago would mean……
“You’re saying the child was born while we were dating?”
I’d climbed over a mountain of garbage only to find a sea of it. What the hell is my life? A collector of cheating bastards with children in tow?
“Seems that way.”
The world went dark before my eyes.
First Pascal, and now my ex-boyfriend too had committed infidelity. I could no longer contain my rage. I grabbed the bottle on the table and hurled it at him. “Get out! Right now!”
“Get out!”
Leon caught the bottle I threw with ease and replied in an exaggerated tone.
“My, how casually you say hurtful things.”
“Do you even know what hurt is? You’re exactly like Pascal. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because you said so.”
“What did I……”
“That you didn’t want to have children.”
His voice was so peculiar that even ordinary words sounded beautiful, like a song.
“You said it would be painful and awful and frightening. And you said that if a man truly loves a woman, shouldn’t he have the mettle to bear her children for her?”
That was……
Certainly something I had said.
Just a petulant joke. Words I’d once thrown at a man I was destined to leave, right before I quit the Magic Tower.
“Back then, you said it was just nonsense!”
“But thinking about it, I thought I could do it.”
In Leon’s eyes as he looked at me, I glimpsed something like a polished madness.
“I gave birth to your child.”
Leon Voltain spoke absolute nonsense with a smile more beautiful and radiant than I had ever seen from him.
“So shouldn’t you take responsibility for me?”
* * *
‘I’ll give you time to think, at least.’
Leon Voltain appeared like a storm, displayed his destructive power, and left.
The invitation he casually tossed onto the table was written in gold ink: “Come see me sometime.” There were no dates or locations written on it.
I folded the invitation and hid it beneath a small clock above the dusty mantelpiece, and saw Leon off.
My family would surely make a scene if they saw the invitation, and unlike the robes provided by the Magic Tower, my dress had no pockets.
After the Duke’s carriage left in front of the house, Mother and Schule, their faces pale and their eyes red and bloodshot, busied about like hungry chicks demanding food.
“What did he say to you?”
It seemed they didn’t mind at all that Leon Voltain had shown no basic courtesy to the head of the household and had left without even a proper greeting.
Well, it wasn’t just anyone—it was my mother and Schule. It wouldn’t have been unusual at all if they’d been pressing their ears to the door to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“I was simply sharing some stories from my time at the Magic Tower.”
“That’s preposterous!”
My mother shoved aside Schule, who was trembling and shrieking, and spoke in a fluster.
“You’re telling me a man of marriageable age spent time alone with a woman well past hers, and that’s all you discussed?”
“If you’re so suspicious, why don’t you contact the Duke’s Residence and ask directly!”
Whether they had the nerve to do such a thing remained to be seen.
No matter what those two prattled on about beside me, only one sentence echoed through my mind: ‘I have your child.’ ‘I have your child.’ ‘I have your—’
But what utter nonsense that was.
Of course, no magic existed that would allow a man to bear children. The kingdom was fundamentally a male-centered society. Women would do the bearing, and surely noble men wouldn’t attempt something so difficult and dangerous themselves.
Yet there was one fact that made me anxious beyond measure.
‘But Leon Voltain might be capable of it!’
He could have pulled it off. He’s a man more than capable of preventing such a thing!
At this point, the fact that nothing between us could have produced a child seemed rather insignificant. Leon Voltain was a prodigy as a mage and an unprecedented figure in alchemy.
Was there a soul in this world who truly understood what he could and could not do?
I desperately hoped that “child” was merely a metaphor for our joint research, or a lie fabricated simply to torment me. Or even—terrible as it was—if it hinted at some perverse sexual inclination, I didn’t care!
Because otherwise, I feared I’d end up encountering something like a chimera creature that could only say ‘mo…mo…’ as it babbled.
Please, let it not be true!
“Well then, there’s nothing for it—I’ll simply have to hold Pascal firmly!”
My mother’s sharp voice cut through my already chaotic mind. I snapped back reflexively.
“I’ve said it before—I’m not marrying that man!”
“Then what, do you expect me to find you a better match now? I cannot do that! Unless he were some twenty years your senior, but—”
My mother muttered something dreadful, then added something she needn’t have said, like a fox claiming the grapes must be sour.
“Besides, Duke Voltain is the Crown Prince’s cousin. A man of Dragon’s Bloodline would never form a formal betrothal with a poor Baron Family like ours. He’d be a perfectly suitable paramour.”
Aunt Otreha’s words continued—a remark befitting someone whose lovers never ran dry.
“Haven’t you already seduced him before? The Duke surely hasn’t entirely forgotten you. Marry Pascal and find stability, and with the Duke you could… maintain a pleasant arrangement. Think of what strength that would bring to our house!”
My mother spoke carelessly, her hand gently grasping my chin. It was a soft hand, one that knew nothing of labor save for the occasional holding of ledgers and pens.
“If only your face resembled mine a little more, life would have been so much easier.”
I knocked her hand away. How could I not understand? Even if I listened to my mother and married a wealthy man, life had never become easier.
‘Whether I become this family’s debtor or that one’s, it’s hardly a choice at all.’
I thought of Leon’s Invitation hidden beneath my clock.
If I set aside—for now—that incomprehensible declaration about “my child,” that Invitation might well be one of my options. Perhaps even the most perfect choice available to me at this very moment.
But it too would surely result in nothing but a change of debtor.
‘Then… truly, only one choice remains!’
So far as I could recall, I still possessed a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity.
Well, that is, if you could call it an investment.

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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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