The Maid With a Child - Chapter 19

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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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19. Oh!
Until now, Adlen had never meant so much to anyone. He was the kind of person who didn’t matter whether he existed or not.
But could it be that he’d become someone just a little bit more special to this child?
The word ‘special’ sent a thrill cascading through him.
“Oh, my beautiful little one!”
Adlen couldn’t contain his overwhelming joy, sweeping the child into his arms and rolling across the entire room.
“Adlen! Adlen!”
The child caught his excitement, calling out Adlen’s name again and again.
“You seem to be in quite a good mood today.”
The Butler entered as mealtime arrived, catching sight of the scene unfolding before him.
“Ah, Butler! Look at this! Go on, young master. What do you say?”
“Adlen!”
“He’s started talking!”
The Butler raised an eyebrow.
Because of this child, the budget had to be rearranged, separate shopping trips had to be arranged, and the workload had multiplied several times over. At first, he hadn’t regarded the situation kindly. Yet seeing the child every day had worn away his resistance.
“Let me hear—did he just say Adlen?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Can’t he say anything else?”
“Well… I’m not sure? Maybe if I taught him?”
“Then have Lacalte try teaching him.”
“Lacalte? What’s that?”
“My name.”
……
No one disliked hearing their own name from a child’s lips.
“Young master, try saying Lacalte. Lacalte.”
“Ow?”
“Laaaacalte.”
“Adlen!”
The child was stubborn.
No matter how many times Adlen repeated the lesson, the child wouldn’t even pretend to listen.
As if Adlen were the only thing in existence, the child stubbornly cried out his name alone.
“Adlen, from now on call me Lacalte, not Butler.”
“Really, that much?”
The jealousy of not having his name called by the child ran deeper than expected.
After that, the Butler called out “Lacalte” roughly a hundred more times before leaving the room.
“Young master, won’t you say Lacalte even if it kills you?”
“Adlen?”
“…So you won’t. All right. Let’s start with mama, and dada, and food.”
“Mama!”
……
Thank goodness the Butler wasn’t here right now.
The child had clearly grasped what mattered most. After Adlen, mama seemed to be the next priority.
“Ah, young master. Your name is Habel.”
But wasn’t he himself the most important of all?
He called the child “young master” constantly, and everyone else did the same, or referred to him as the Crown Prince, so his actual name rarely came up at all.
Whatever else, the child ought to know his own name.
“Say Habel.”
“Ah?”
“Yes, Habel.”
“Habel.”
“That’s right, well done. You’re Habel, and I’m Adlen.”
“Habel, Adlen!”
Perhaps his own name resonated with the child on instinct.
Lacalte’s name—he wouldn’t utter it even on pain of death—but Adlen’s name the child had picked up at once.
“And… what else is there?”
As Adlen looked around the room searching for something more to teach, the hour drew near for his master to return.
‘What should the master be called?’
Even as Adlen prepared for his master’s return, his mind was filled with only that question.
Something about his expression seemed different from usual.
“What troubles you?”
Lacalte, who had been passing by indifferently, paused to ask for confirmation.
How fortunate that his master had spoken first. This was his chance.
He could manage to answer questions now, but initiating conversation still required considerable courage.
“Oh, no! It’s not that there’s anything wrong… I, I had something I wanted to ask you.”
“What is it.”
“How should Habel address you?”
Lacalte did not answer immediately.
He had never imagined the Crown Prince of Moren would have occasion to call him anything.
“Even if he’s a hostage, he’s still the Crown Prince, so it feels strange to have him call you ‘master’ just like me… and I can’t very well have him use your name… I don’t know what to do.”
“But why are you suddenly asking about that.”
“Ah! It seems Habel’s beginning to speak. He called my name too. So soon he’ll start calling you as well…”
Adlen held up the child proudly, rattling on with evident delight.
“Aduen!”
The child, recognizing himself being discussed, broke into a grin and cried out the name once more.
Lacalte’s brow furrowed.
It seemed, as Adlen said, that the child would indeed be speaking soon.
The child’s growth had been far swifter than expected.
Once he could do nothing but eat, soil himself, cry, and sleep—now he crawled about with practiced ease, and his speech was beginning to emerge. The passage of time became visible in the child’s transformation.
He had thought the operation would take only days. He had not imagined it would stretch on this long.
“Don’t teach him.”
Lacalte’s voice turned deliberately colder, cutting off further discussion.
He had to be careful. Feelings accumulated naturally as time passed.
What good would it do to let affection take root in an enemy nation’s Crown Prince, when his future remained uncertain?
“Pardon?”
“What would you have him do with my name? Remember it and use it to take revenge?”
“… Ah…”
There it was again—he had forgotten they were enemies.
Adlen accepted this immediately, nodding dejectedly as he retreated.
At that moment, the child pointed at Lacalte and cried out.
“Yah!”
The blood drained from Adlen’s body in an instant, and vertigo seized him.
Adlen went pale as chalk and clapped his hand over the child’s mouth.
“M-m-master, I, I never taught him this! He, he was just m-making sounds, just sounds!”
For the first time in ages, he found himself trembling before his master.
By now he had grown accustomed to his master’s presence—whether he rose and moved about or spoke, Adlen could sleep peacefully through it all, and when they crossed paths he could exchange a light greeting and slip away smoothly.
Though he still grew tense on occasion, he no longer feared imminent death—until this moment, when he could not shake the terror of losing his head.
“It, it’s true. Master. Yah—yah—yah, he’s excited, that’s all!”
“Yah—yah—yah!”
“You see, Master? It was just a sound. Habel certainly didn’t mean any disrespect by—”
“….”
By all appearances, Adlen was telling the truth. Lacalte understood this. Yet his furrowed brow would not relax.
The timeline.
He needed to establish it more clearly.
If this continued, he would neither capture General Kias nor plunge Moren into chaos—he would simply end up raising someone else’s child.
But neither Adlen nor Lacalte could know then that a storm of a problem loomed ahead, one that would sweep away such petty concerns about titles like autumn leaves.
* * *
Adlen woke to an unusual bustle, different from his everyday mornings.
“Habel…?”
He reached habitually to the side, but the child slept peacefully on.
“?”
Adlen opened his eyes fully and sat up. He tensed, wondering if assassins had come while his master was out.
But the visitor was not an assassin—it was his master in an unfamiliar form.
“Master…?”
It was the hour when he typically attended the Knight Order training. Yet his master stood in the Dressing Room, changing clothes under the Butler’s attendance.
Lacalte adjusted his collar and sleeves in the mirror one final time, then turned to look at Adlen.
“You’re awake?”
This was the most splendid attire Adlen had ever seen his master wear.
Not the usual simple, neat clothes he favored, nor his training garb—in such lavish raiment, he resembled a prince from an old tale.
So our master had this side to him…
Had he always dressed like this, the rumors would never have taken root—whispers of severing necks on a whim, of sending a fist flying if things went awry.
Lacalte gave the order to Adlen, who was staring at him vacantly.
“Now that you’re awake, get ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Entering the Palace.”
“?”
Adlen’s eyes merely blinked.
Entering the Palace? If she understood it correctly, “Entering the Palace” meant only one thing—going into the Royal Palace itself. It was a distant world’s affair that should never happen in the life of a commoner-born maid.
“Entering the Palace…… I, what should I prepare?”
“Change your clothes.”
“Pardon? Me? Why?”
“You can’t enter the Royal Palace wearing a maid’s uniform.”
“I’m going into the Royal Palace?”
A peculiar phenomenon was unfolding—she was speaking about her own situation as if it belonged to someone else.
Adlen, unable to gather her scattered wits, continued asking questions.
“Yes. His Majesty wishes to see the Crown Prince once.”
“Ah…… I see. But why me?”
Instead of answering, Lacalte glanced at the baby.
Adlen followed his gaze and turned to look at the child.
“Adlen! There, there!”
The baby, having just woken from a good sleep, was looking this way.
Pleased by Adlen’s gaze, the child flashed a smile—but it was a smile that carried a threat: separate me from her and I will scream terribly.
There were indeed frightening things in this world.
Blood, her master, and the baby’s smile.

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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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