The Maid With a Child - Chapter 10

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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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10. The villain was on this side.
Her body wouldn’t move.
Her legs had gone slack—she couldn’t even twitch.
Adlen watched his face carefully, squirming as much as she dared, terrified that any delay would drain away his Patience.
Rakalte, who had been tallying his dwindling Patience on his fingers while looking down at her pitiful state, finally stirred.
A massive hand clamped around her forearm.
“!”
Her body shot upward as though plucked from the earth. Startled, Adlen screwed her eyes shut.
“Yes, close your eyes and walk.”
Rakalte nodded as if this arrangement suited him perfectly, then grasped Adlen’s arm and began to move, her eyes still sealed shut.
“Ugh—ah, ah.”
Adlen staggered forward, her steps uneven.
With her eyes closed, she had only his grip on her forearm to anchor her, and her body swayed uncontrollably. The fear itself had drained the strength from her legs.
Adlen’s constant stumbling threw off Rakalte’s own pace.
She was proving to be an inconvenient servant in every conceivable way.
“Tsk.”
Rakalte clicked his tongue and hoisted both Adlen and the child onto his shoulders in one fluid motion.
“Eek?!”
“Stay still.”
“……!”
Shock turned to sheer horror. Yet at his commanding tone, Adlen dared not make another sound, clinging to his shoulder instead.
Even in her panic, all she could think was how impossibly vast his shoulders were. They seemed to stretch out like a continent.
Broad enough to hold both her and the child without either slipping off, strong enough to carry that weight with perfect stability.
She couldn’t even imagine struggling free, clawing at his neck, or any other resistance—his physical presence was simply overwhelming.
Though they had long since left the scene behind, Adlen kept her eyes clamped shut, unable to bear the sight of herself draped over his shoulder like a hunted animal’s kill.
Where would they be taken next?
An execution ground? A slaughterhouse? Or somewhere worse?
“Open your eyes now.”
Her feet touched solid ground.
Obeying the command instinctively, she snapped her eyes open to find herself in his chambers.
It was hardly the place one would go to be carved into pieces.
Adlen let out a relieved sob and hugged the child, who had gone quiet—frozen stiff, just as she had been.
“Augh-aah?”
“…….”
The child was different.
Unlike a coward like Adlen, the whirlwind of events had simply captivated her—she’d been watching in fascination the whole time.
“Wait here.”
Rakalte released Adlen and stepped into the Wardrobe Room.
She thought she might have a chance to escape—until he wheeled back and left a warning.
“Behave yourself.”
“……Yes, sir.”
Adlen swallowed her tears and pressed herself against the wall nearest the door.
When Rakalte emerged, changed into fresh clothes, he walked to the sofa and collapsed onto it.
“Sigh…….”
His hand swept through his damp hair with a rough, agitated motion. Beneath his controlled facade, barely suppressed fury radiated from him.
One child had reduced everything to chaos.
Until now, his life had been remarkably straightforward. He learned as he was taught, executed as he was commanded. There was nothing difficult about it.
To take the Sigelion that his father had elevated to the rank of Earl’s House and raise it to a Duke’s House himself—that was his goal.
Once this matter was settled perfectly, once the War with Moren was truly over, it would be within reach.
Ending the War—that was an achievement that would silence even the old nobility who had sneered and obstructed the rise of this upstart house.
Abducting the Crown Prince was supposed to be the hardest part; after that, everything else should have fallen into place.
How could things have spiraled this far out of control?
Faced with Rakalte’s smoldering fury, Adlen barely dared to breathe, hovering nervously near the door.
Then the Knights knocked.
They lined up before Adlen, bowing their heads as they delivered their report.
“We’ve lost him.”
“The pursuit?”
“We entered immediately, but…….”
“Sigh…….”
“We sincerely apologize!”
One sigh from Rakalte, and the Knights fell like dominoes, pressing themselves to the floor.
Adlen felt a kinship with them and pressed herself deeper into the corner. She wished, if possible, to remain invisible to her master’s eyes forever.
But Adlen’s wish went unfulfilled.
“You’re telling me you lost a man who crawled in on his own two feet in the Front Courtyard?”
“My sincerest apologies!”
“Once we catch that bastard, this whole mess ends. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
“It’s not too late. Pursue him.”
“Yes!”
“Go.”
The Knights rushed out as hastily as they had rushed in.
Now only Adlen remained.
Rakalte jerked his chin toward her.
Adlen moved forward stiffly, as if she were a corpse that had died yesterday.
She didn’t even dare approach the sofa as she had before.
Standing beside the sofa with both feet pressed together in deference like a criminal, her eyes fixed on her toes, Adlen felt the weight of Rakalte’s piercing gaze.
“Still, you made a good choice at the end. Thanks to that, you’re standing alive before me now.”
He heard everything after all. He had no intention of letting this pass.
“I’m… I’m terribly sorry…….”
Adlen bowed her head repeatedly, choking back sobs.
But at the same time, she felt a bitter resentment.
“B-but there was a k-knife at my throat.”
“Yes, with just a knife at your throat, you’d confess everything you know, hand over the Crown Prince, and flee all the way to Moren.”
“…….”
“It’s that easy, isn’t it?”
“…….”
It was true.
By her own reckoning, her loyalty had practically no credibility whatsoever.
Finding nothing more to say, Adlen bit her lip.
“Since there’s no one else suitable to look after the child, I can’t just kill you outright.”
“Please, spare me!”
“I can’t kill you…… But I can’t simply trust you either…….”
Rakalte stared at Adlen, lost in thought for a long while.
It was a stretch of time that came perilously close to boring a hole through her face.
At last, Rakalte came to a decision.
“For the time being, you’ll stay in my chambers.”
“……Pardon?”
“I’ll only be at ease if I can keep you where I can see you.”
“Oh…… I…….”
Living in the same room with a master whose very presence made her suffocate with tension. And in this very chamber where she’d watched a man die before her eyes.
She glanced at the spot where blood had pooled earlier, but it had been scrubbed away cleanly. Yet the memory couldn’t be scrubbed away so easily.
“If you can think of another way—one where I can trust you and security remains sound—speak up.”
“Well…… That is…….”
She would have loved another option, but there wasn’t one.
She could ask to have the entire Knights stationed as a guard or watch, but that would hardly be easier. The other servants’ curiosity would come pouring down like rain. Enduring that would be unbearable.
But in her master’s chambers…… just the two of them…… well, the child as well, making it three…….
If she refused, his answer would be predictable.
Death.
Yet even being confined indefinitely in her master’s chambers was a kind of death, a life not worth living.
“Th-then……!”
Adlen spoke up, steeling herself with a do-or-die resolve.
“H-how long will this last?!”
“…….”
Rakalte assessed the audacity of a criminal maid who dared ask conditions of him. She didn’t seem particularly bold, so perhaps shock had made her leap out.
“Until I say otherwise.”
“Ah…….”
A deep despair settled over Adlen’s face.
Rakalte couldn’t fathom why she was sinking into such despair. He wasn’t asking her to remain imprisoned for life.
“……Hmm?”
Something about it felt strange.
“Not forever.”
“Really? Truly?”
Adlen’s face lit up in an instant.
She had genuinely believed it.
Rakalte made a deflating sound at the absurdity, then realized that Adlen knew nothing of the operation concerning the Crown Prince.
“Surely you didn’t bring the enemy king’s son here just to raise him well.”
“No……”
“That man who was seducing you earlier. He’s bait. We brought him here to draw that man out.”
“That man…… Who is he?”
She’d heard the name. Kias.
She understood he’d been at odds with her master for a long time.
“The Crown Prince’s uncle.”
“Ah……!”
At last, the stranger’s identity was revealed.
The casual proposal he’d offered her, his advance deep into enemy territory—all the pieces fell into place.
‘So he separated a family…… by force?’
Just moments ago, she’d been proud of herself for not falling for the stranger’s proposal.
But now it seemed everything was inverted.
The stranger was her master and herself.
Villains who’d kidnapped a child who’d been living happily and taken her as a hostage.

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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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