My Ex-Boyfriend Gave Birth to My Child? What Does That Mean? - Chapter 53

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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 Got Pregnant With My Child — What’s Going On Here? Episode 053
I exhaled and added my thoughts.
“What problems do we anticipate?”
“Interference in another territory’s internal affairs without official justification, and murder between nobles — both carry heavy penalties. Lord Voltein has many enemies in the Temple and the Nobles’ Assembly, and as a mage from the Magic Tower, he faces the risk of aggravated sentencing.”
“And yet you’re pushing me toward it anyway?”
“Well, Lord Voltein would certainly be pleased.”
I leaned back in my chair.
Thanks to my excellent aide Cyril, the rage that had been boiling hot enough to split my skull had cooled somewhat. Now was the time to think with my head, not my heart.
“I won’t shout ‘Go, Leon!’ to him, but I can’t let Baron Giz off the hook.”
I tapped the tip of my pen against the small sketch of Giz’s territory on the report.
“Send merchant caravans to the Giz barony for a while — make it look like we’re expanding the business we started in the Otreha Territory. If possible, we’ll dig all the way to the inner castle and try to extract information. No need to use a greatsword just to catch a stupid chicken.”
“I’ll relay that accordingly.”
Next, I reviewed the status of the Argent Merchant Guild’s operations in the Otreha Territory.
I carefully examined one by one the original contracts that had arrived from the Otreha Family. All of them bore the Administrator’s Seal, and there were no problems whatsoever.
‘It’s about time they discovered the Lord’s Seal is missing. Why is everything so quiet?’
They say no news is good news, but for my home in the Otreha Territory, that saying didn’t apply. No news? That meant something was definitely happening beneath the surface.
I didn’t trust peace!
“…Otreha Castle has nothing unusual going on?”
“Madame Fonten’s spending has decreased significantly lately, and the Baron of Otreha is currently in seclusion. No other issues have been reported.”
“Can’t let my guard down. Keep watching.”
How much longer would I have to carry this bomb? A sigh escaped me, but at least Noah hadn’t reached adulthood yet.
Without major grounds for disqualification — such as tax evasion or insulting the royal house and the sacred — it wouldn’t be easy to bring Schule Otreha down.
“…For now, I’ll have to wait for Schule to crawl out of his hole.”
“Do you think he’ll move easily?”
“We’ll need to find a way to draw him out.”
I was having this quiet conversation with Cyril when it happened.
From beyond the study door came a knock — softer than our whispers. It was such a faint sound I barely noticed it, but Cyril reacted with practiced alertness.
“Master.”
“Hmm?”
“Someone is at the door.”
I tensed in an instant.
No one in our household knocked like that — so tentatively, so uncertainly. It wasn’t the knock of our staff, and it certainly wasn’t Leon or Lucian, who always barged right in anyway.
I gestured to Cyril to open the door.
And…
Noah appeared, his lips pressed firmly shut.
* * *
In truth, I might have sensed this moment coming from the day the older sister and her two children arrived at the Otreha Mansion.
When Noah first arrived at the mansion, his expression bore a stronger resemblance to their mother’s expression on her first visit than to Evening’s — the expression of someone carrying a secret they cannot bear alone.
I had sweet pastries and milk-laced tea prepared for the child.
Even as the hot tea and warmed snacks slowly cooled, the boy did not easily open his mouth.
I decided to wait for him.
Secrets were like balls passing through a narrow opening — they trembled at the slightest breeze and sank deeper into hiding.
“…It’s because of Father, isn’t it?”
These were the first words the child spoke, breaking his silence.
“Father did something again, didn’t he? That’s it, right?”
I found myself at a loss in an instant.
Noah was eight years old. Ten more years until adulthood. He was a bit young for this conversation.
‘The older sister said the children wouldn’t know about the family’s hardships!’
But thinking about it, how could a child not notice what happened in his own home? By the age of five or six, a child in a commoner’s household is already counted as a laborer. I decided to think of this differently.
The next Baron of Otreha is quite clever. Good.
“How much do you know?”
“I know Mother cried in secret every day. You called us to the Capital to help us, didn’t you?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“What should I do?”
“What?”
Dark blue hair — so like his mother’s — trembled as the child lowered his head.
“What can I do so Father can’t hurt Mother anymore?”
I shot up from my desk and quickly lifted the bowed child upright.
“Didn’t Madame Fonten tell you? You are the future Baron of Otreha. You mustn’t bow your head carelessly.”
“But you can help Mother, can’t you? Right?”
The child’s round eyes, which had always observed everything with a stubborn gleam, glistened with tears. I could not fathom how much turmoil and confusion had churned behind that small brow.
When Evening laughed brightly and played with Lucian, Noah simply watched in silence. In my absence, I’d made easy judgments—that the child had grown remarkably composed.
Yet even within that peaceful scene, this child had been struggling alone in his own private torment.
I pulled Noah into an embrace.
“Of course I’ll help your mother. We don’t need to speak of such things between us.”
“But Phelon often says…….”
Noah wiped his own wet eyes and clenched his small fists tightly.
“That placing the right person in the right place is how the divine moves.”
Unintentionally, I’d turned the children into theologians. I sighed quietly to myself and patted Noah’s back. Well, theology was a nobleman’s accomplishment regardless—the more he learned, the better.
“So you wanted to be in the right place?”
“I believe…….”
Noah whispered in a small, frightened voice, yet with unmistakable clarity.
“That the divine has placed me where I am needed.”
What followed was a story I could never have imagined hearing from Noah’s lips.
* * *
It began with a small bead.
Among the miscellaneous gifts that merchants of the Argent Merchant Guild had presented to the wife of the Otreha Family—their trading partner—lay a pretty wooden bead inlaid with delicate patterns.
Rosalie, the wife of Otreha, had long pitied the two children, who had no playmates their own age at an age meant for play. She gave them several precious items as gifts, toys they had long been without.
“Mother, can we really keep these?”
“You’re the best, Mother!”
The children rejoiced greatly.
The wooden beads, inlaid with flowers of the four seasons and emitting a pleasant fragrance, were also perfect for playing marbles—there were ten of them.
And not long after, Noah lost one of the beads.
It wasn’t a grave matter.
But Noah could not bear the loss of a precious gift received on no special occasion. All the more so because the pattern on the lost bead was the iris design his younger sister loved most.
Where could he have lost it?
The eight-year-old searched the old castle, from one corner to another.
And in doing so, he stumbled upon something.
The sound of his father’s angry, raised voice.
Having come this far, Noah could not bring himself to speak further. I pressed a sweet into the child’s palm and spoke gently.
“You don’t need to say the parts that are hard to speak of. Just say what you feel you must, and that’s enough. You’re showing such courage.”
Noah, who had held the sweet with trembling hands without eating it, finally opened his small mouth.
“Father said……Father said that my aunt hated becoming the mother of a bastard so much, and yet she’s raising another person’s child…….”
The child looked up at me with trembling eyes.
“Aunt, isn’t Leon your child?”

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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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