The Maid With a Child - Chapter 28

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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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28. The Fool
“Why? Is that a problem?”
“Oh, no, sir. I think I’ve had plenty. You should eat something yourself.”
“Don’t worry about me—I eat well enough on my own. You just focus on your meal.”
Meals on the Battlefield were always rushed. Those around Racalte tended to devour their food like water.
Her eating pace bothered him. She picked at her food like a squirrel or a bird, pecking away delicately. If something tasted good, you ate it with gusto.
Watching over children already drained a person’s stamina; if she kept eating like that, there was no way she’d manage.
“Eat more. More.”
“S-sir… that’s too much.”
Adlen set down her utensils mid-meal.
By now the plate beneath was barely visible. No matter how hard she tried, finishing it all was impossible.
“You’re quitting after just this?”
Racalte’s brow furrowed.
Her eating speed troubled him, but her portion size troubled him even more.
Just because she ate in small amounts like some squirrel or bird didn’t mean she should eat like it was bird seed.
“I’m already eating more than I usually do…”
“More than usual? Did the Chef starve you?”
“What? No! He takes wonderful care of me!”
There were plenty of masters who begrudged even the food servants ate. Most did, if she was being honest. A household’s wealth had nothing to do with its master’s generosity.
In that sense, Sigelion was an ideal post.
With no mistress in residence and the master himself away at the Battlefield most of the time, there was hardly anyone to scrutinize every morsel that passed their lips.
More than that, he’d left standing orders: “See that there’s no shortage of food for the household.” So the servants’ meals were always abundant.
“I really do eat well normally, and I’ve eaten to my limit right now.”
“Do servants always eat so little?”
Food was a critical element on any campaign. How much a soldier ate directly affected both morale and stamina.
Racalte pressed the matter with the keen eye of habit.
Adlen straightened her slumping shoulders, sensing the seriousness of his scrutiny, and searched her mind carefully.
“Well… I don’t think that’s it. Some people eat a lot, and some eat a little…”
“And you?”
“I’m… one of the ones who eats less.”
Though she said “one of,” the truth was Adlen ate the least of all the servants.
“Why? Doesn’t the Chef’s food suit your taste?”
“No, not at all!”
Adlen’s eyes widened.
Even this meal was delicious, and the Chef’s cooking always was. But the habit of eating sparingly had long since taken root in her.
“Actually, when I was at the Orphanage…”
Strangely, she found herself sharing a past with him that she’d never once mentioned to anyone else.
It had been quite a while since she’d even dredged up this memory.
“A girl I ate with died from bursting her stomach.”
“What?”
“It’s true. She’d gone three days without food, and when they gave her a meal, she ate like a madwoman. Then suddenly she said her stomach hurt and collapsed. And then… she died.”
“Hmm… that can happen.”
Racalte nodded. It happened occasionally on the Battlefield too.
“But the teacher at the Orphanage said, ‘She was too greedy and paid the price with her life.'”
“Hmm…”
“Now I know that wasn’t true, but for a long time I believed those words. And because of that, I got scared of wanting things too much—eating especially. It just stuck with me.”
Adlen laughed softly, scratching the back of her head.
It was the first time she’d confided her childhood to anyone. She never would have dreamed her master would be that first person.
“You’re an adult now. Eating more won’t burst your stomach. Eat more.”
His unexpected kindness made Adlen laugh aloud.
“Besides the food, I’m already full from everything else you’ve given me.”
“Everything else? What?”
“You assured me my wages would be reliable, you’ve fed me such wonderful meals, and I get to wear a Dress and ride in your Carriage and enter the Royal Palace to meet the King himself. Plus you’ve provided the finest Bedding. I feel like I’ve received so much.”
Adlen counted off on her fingers, listing each item as she went.
Racalte stared at her for a long moment, then exhaled deeply.
“There’s truly no cure for a fool.”
“…I’m sorry?”
“Those are necessities for your duties—of course you receive them. Your Stipend is the natural wage for your labor. How could that be something I’m ‘giving’ you?”
Racalte’s thinking differed from most ordinary nobles. Spending so long as a knight on the Battlefield had shaped his perspective.
On the Battlefield, soldiers received their regular wages, and additional Allowances besides. The more dangerous the operation, the higher the Allowance. When the war ended, soldiers also received a share of plunder and performance bonuses.
So to Racalte’s eyes, Adlen—who behaved as though a maid’s wages resolved everything—was nothing but a fool who couldn’t even secure her own needs.
“Ask for more. More.”
“More…… sir?”
“Yes. Right now. Anything.”
Since he’d brought it up, he might as well provide more.
Racalte was a Great General. His attentiveness to his subordinates was one of the very reasons he had become one.
But Adlen was not a soldier, and this sudden demand to make a wish left her mind blank.
It was as though a winning lottery ticket had dropped from the heavens, but her hands and feet refused to move—she was about to let it slip away.
They said opportunity only came to those prepared for it. Without a list prepared beforehand, nothing came to mind.
“I…… well…… um…….”
Her heart raced with urgency, yet the more she panicked, the slower her thoughts moved. Her lips moved soundlessly.
“How little ambition you have.”
“No, that’s not it…… I do have ambition, sir. It’s not that I lack it—I’m just not expressing it…….”
This much was true.
But there was no trust in Racalte’s gaze.
“Really! I took on this maid’s work in the first place to earn a lot of money quickly. That’s ambition, isn’t it?”
“Earn money quickly for what?”
“To buy a house…… a carriage…… livestock…… and to save up for a wedding dowry……?”
Racalte found Adlen’s ambitions—by his standards, almost absurdly modest—inwardly hilarious.
And he laughed twice over at the timidity of never even thinking to ask for such things.
She was so foolish she’d become endearing.
Harmless, weak creatures stirred a particular affection, and Adlen was precisely that.
“Very well then. A house, a carriage, livestock, and wedding funds—that should do it.”
“……Sir?”
Racalte, having declared it so generously, smiled faintly.
In that moment, Adlen’s world stopped.
A house…… a carriage…… livestock…… wedding funds…… these had…… just fallen from the sky?
More precisely, they’d fallen from her master’s purse.
“Is, is, is…… really, sir?”
“Does it seem false?”
Racalte smiled more broadly at Adlen’s dazed response.
Adlen was utterly captivated by that smile.
She’d never seen her master truly smile like this before. Not a sneer, not a smirk—just genuine laughter.
His eyes, which had resembled a poisoned lake, now shone with the brilliant blue of a clear noon sky.
His eyes were that beautiful.
Adlen stood there, mouth agape, staring at her master’s face for some time, until the sensation of saliva trickling from her lips snapped her back to awareness.
“Gulp, slurp!”
As she wiped away the drool, the cheek her hand touched felt warm.
“Does the prospect please you so much you’re drooling?”
“Ah, yes? Oh!”
So that’s what it was!
She’d startled herself with her own reaction, flinching involuntarily, and her master had supplied the answer.
Of course saliva would flow at such a windfall of fortune dropped from the heavens. Even her neck blushing would have been justified.
Still, the warmth hadn’t fully left her face; it continued to glow. Adlen fanned herself with her hand and focused on her master’s continuing words.
“One each year should fill four years perfectly—right until the age when a tutor is assigned. So, shall we endure four years?”
“Four…… years, sir?”
“Once a tutor is assigned, the nanny’s duties will naturally diminish. We’ll decide what comes after when the time comes. Does that displease you?”
Adlen’s eyes grew wide as fists.
There was no way she could dislike it.
“I love it! I love it so much! Thank you! Thank you!”
For the first time in days, Adlen smiled with her whole face.
At the return of Adlen’s smile, Racalte let out a light laugh of his own.
Whenever an operation succeeded, that refreshing sense of satisfaction would always pierce through his chest like this.

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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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