The Maid With a Child - Chapter 29

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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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29. The Matter of Cohabitation
“This is true high-quality bedding!”
Adlen thrashed her arms and legs about with uninhibited joy.
The bedding her master had specially arranged was the finest.
Savoring the exquisite sheets—simultaneously fluffy and firm—Adlen awoke to a new kind of happiness.
It was a contentment that didn’t fade even after dozens of nights.
“Ah, it’s truly wonderful. Long live my master.”
With Racalte’s unconditional “make it happen” and the butler’s “let’s take good care of her so she doesn’t run away,” supplies befitting a noblewoman flowed into her room.
Adlen lay stretched across the sofa, surveying her newly arranged quarters.
“……This might actually work.”
Adlen murmured to herself, glancing at Baby beside her in the same recumbent pose.
The days after her audience with His Majesty felt like she hadn’t truly lived at all.
Losing an entire life’s purpose—that’s what it felt like.
Her dream had been so modest that she’d never imagined losing it was possible. Everyone else achieved theirs, so she’d thought that despite her disadvantaged starting point, with effort she could eventually reach hers too.
But she was wrong. It was possible not to achieve it.
She felt a deep, genuine gratitude toward her master for setting a timeframe of four years.
Putting aside all other material concerns, hope kindled anew simply because it wasn’t forever.
And Baby’s growth played its own part in restoring Adlen’s vigor.
Baby’s stretches of uninterrupted sleep had gradually lengthened, and the intervals between feedings had grown wider. Her cries, too, had become comparatively shorter.
“Waaaaaah!”
“Oh dear…… what could it be this time…….”
But easier compared to before didn’t mean easy—not by any measure.
Baby cried less frequently now, but when she did, the cries were longer and louder. And her demands had grown increasingly complex.
She would judge whether the spoon approached in a curve or a straight line before deciding whether to accept her food.
That wasn’t all.
“This one!”
“Kyaaaa!”
Now she’d started demanding to play.
Today’s discovery of what Baby wanted was rolling.
Adlen rolled dramatically across the floor, side to side.
“Kyaaaaa!”
Baby squealed with delight.
Finding the right thing took effort, but when Adlen played with such enthusiasm, it was worth it. She felt energized. She rolled with even greater vigor.
“Haha! Do you like it? Hmm? More? More?”
“Kyaa! Ooooooh!”
Baby was blessedly easy once you found the right game—it was simply her nature.
Even when sleeping, she needed just the right position, the right pats, the right temperature. Once those precise conditions were met, she’d sleep soundly and not wake.
She was a fussy baby—but conveniently so.
As time went on, Adlen would grow better at reading Baby’s preferences, and caring for her would become easier, but there was one persistent problem.
“Ah, still……?”
“Kyaa! Kyaa! Kyaaaa!”
“Huff, huff…….”
“Ooooh! Ooh! Ooh!”
“I’m dizzy now…… my back hurts…… shall we do shadow play instead? Look here—woof, woof!”
“Ooooh!”
……She had stamina.
Once Baby fixated on something, she rarely tired of it. Satisfying her meant expending energy recklessly. Stop before she was content, and an unstoppable wail would commence.
Her brow furrowed in frustration, her stubborn whimpering, and Adlen heaved a sigh.
“Just a little more, yes?”
“Kyaaaaa!”
Though she knew Baby couldn’t possibly understand, Adlen threw herself onto the bed in desperate appeal.
Her long skirts fluttered and billowed.
With flailing limbs, piercing shrieks, and an endless blur of rolling, her senses couldn’t settle.
That’s why she didn’t notice when Racalte entered the room.
“Ah…….”
Upside down, her eyes met her master’s.
“……Oh.”
Racalte froze as well.
“Oh, oh—Master, you’ve arrived.”
Adlen scrambled to her feet in alarm.
Baby was still bouncing with undiminished excitement, wriggling across Adlen’s stomach. As she thrashed about, her skirt—already rucked up from the earlier tussle—rode higher still.
“Oh! Wait just a moment, Baby!”
While Adlen fumbled to tug her skirt back down, Racalte swiftly averted his eyes.
“…My apologies.”
“No, it’s not—!”
Once she’d straightened her appearance, Adlen rolled upright with a fluid motion.
“Ahem…”
“Hmm…”
Neither of them could meet the other’s gaze, and both stared pointedly past one another.
For Adlen, for Racalte alike, sharing a private space with someone of the opposite sex was entirely new.
It was nothing like servants scrambling together to manage household tasks and ending up tangled on the floor, or knights collapsing anywhere and sleeping like the dead during a campaign.
When they’d first conceived of this arrangement, they’d thought it would be simple enough. But reality proved vastly more complicated. Situations they’d never anticipated kept arising.
“You’re home early.”
Surely he was still meant to be with the Knight Order.
“It was raining.”
“…Oh.”
Only then did Adlen notice the rain streaking down the windowpane in steady rivulets.
The morning had looked overcast, but she hadn’t realized precipitation had actually begun.
“…Have you eaten?”
It was Racalte who first seized upon a way to dispel the awkwardness hanging between them.
“Yes, sir. Today I found a menu that suited my palate straightaway, and ate my fill.”
Adlen gave Baby’s round little belly a few affectionate pats to demonstrate.
The soft tapping made a sweet pattering sound. Baby gurgled with delight, and Adlen laughed along—a small giggle that lightened the strained air considerably.
“And you?”
“Oh, me? I haven’t yet…”
“I’ve told you to eat properly.”
Here we go again. The master’s obsession with meals.
He seemed at times to confuse the battlefield with the Manor. He claimed that raising a child was itself a form of warfare, but missing a single meal hardly constituted life-or-death combat.
Her master was deeply displeased by Adlen’s ascetic eating habits.
Every so often he would inquire about her meals from the head steward, and when the answer displeased him, he would click his tongue—not just once or twice.
As a result, breakfast, lunch, and dinner no longer sufficed; he saw to it that she was also fed snacks and late-night meals, until she felt perpetually stuffed to bursting.
Dishes she’d never been able to taste before appeared like mountains at every meal, and she found herself gluttonously devouring them each time. The constant digestion was becoming a problem.
It was as though he were wielding her like a stick and a ball, tossing her about on a whim.
But of all mornings, today she’d skipped breakfast because Baby had been exceptionally lively and she’d been occupied with play.
That she’d skipped just this one meal, and he’d caught it immediately—of course.
Adlen rolled her eyes downward.
“Tell the steward to prepare it at once. I haven’t eaten either—we’ll dine together.”
“What?! Again, already?!”
Adlen’s eyes widened in shock.
She’d thought the last time she and her master shared a meal would be the final occasion.
She’d only later realized that incident had been born of her own despondence, and he had taken pity on her.
But today she felt no melancholy. So why?
“Sit.”
Her master, however, was not a man to explain his reasons.
Moments later, faced with the prepared table, Adlen found nothing to smile about.
Meat. Meat. Meat.
Whichever direction she looked, all she saw was meat—everywhere, meat.
Was this a dining table or a slaughterhouse?
Others went without because meat was scarce; those who had tasted it ate it well.
Adlen had grown sick of the very sight of it.
“Eat well.”
“Y-yes…”
But his sincerity made it impossible for her to voice such a complaint.
This bounty was his way of telling her to eat and recover her strength.
…She would accept his kindness, at least.
Adlen picked out only the greens arrayed as garnish around the meat’s edge and nibbled on those instead.
Racalte, who had already dispatched two whole chickens with ease, suddenly caught sight of this and his eyes sharpened with keen attention.
“Have you lost your appetite? Or does the food displease you?”
“…Hic.”
Her master was truly a frightening man.
If she didn’t swallow, he’d make her choke.
“No, I… it’s delicious….”
Adlen answered weakly, chewing the mouthful of greens as long as she could manage.
A master chef using the finest ingredients and pouring their entire skill into a dish could not possibly create something tasteless.
But the physical act of forcing it down was another matter. Her tongue welcomed it readily enough; her throat, however, sent an urgent warning that one more swallow would be the death of her.
“If it doesn’t suit you, I’ll have something else prepared.”
Her throat tightened.

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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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