The Maid With a Child - Chapter 32

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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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32. Is That Child Actually a Baby?
“Kyaaaaaah!”
Today, too, Sigelion Mansion rang with pandemonium. There was no need to search for the source.
“An attack?!”
Ricalt and his knights, who had been heading toward the conference room, turned on their heels and burst into the Master Room.
There was not the slightest hesitation in their movements.
The knights kicked the door open with such force it nearly shattered, rushing inside only to freeze at the sight before them.
“P-please, help me! Save me!”
Adlen’s frantic screams echoed from the room and down the corridor.
A full-grown man was weeping and wailing, yet everyone understood completely.
Given the situation, even they would have shed at least a few tears, if not collapsed into sobs outright.
“How, how did this—”
It was Ricalt who regained his composure first and moved to act.
Of all of them, he had the most experience with situations like this. Within just a few months, no less.
“Kyaaaa! Aah! Waaah!”
While every adult had turned ashen, only the child’s voice rang out in brilliant, cheerful color.
Creak, creak.
They had procured nearly every toy imaginable, but not a swing. Yet the sound of a swing echoed from inside the room.
The child had climbed onto a chandelier and was playing on it as a substitute.
“Baby! Please come down! Please!”
Adlen sobbed pitifully, pleading with the child. But the child ignored him entirely, throwing his whole body into creating momentum with even greater force.
The chandelier, composed of countless crystals, rang out with musical chimes as it swayed in increasingly threatening arcs. The world’s most expensive and dangerous swing had just come into being.
“I don’t see how he could come down……”
One of the knights stared upward blankly, muttering to himself. There was no visible way down. Of course, there was equally no sign of how the child had gotten up in the first place.
So the only way down was to fall, yet the child perched atop the chandelier seemed far too secure to ever lose his grip.
If anything, it was the chandelier that was in peril.
If the child fell along with the chandelier, it would be a true catastrophe. The chandelier’s intricate structure meant there was no way to extract the child without bringing the whole thing down.
“A ladder! Get a ladder!”
Adlen, who had discovered the disaster first, was also the first to think of a solution.
The knights, who had been standing entranced staring upward, snapped to attention at Adlen’s shout and bolted from the room.
But before the ladder could arrive, the chandelier grew unstable. The child was swinging with such gusto that he seemed to be conjuring a hurricane fierce enough to level the house. For such a small body, he moved it as though channeling a storm.
The ceiling joint bearing the weight of the heavy chandelier began to creak as it reached its limit. Pieces of ceiling plaster started raining down.
Adlen’s face went white. For just a moment, he wondered desperately whether he should climb the ladder himself and try to reach the child before it was too late.
“Move aside.”
Ricalt pushed the knights and Adlen far back, then sprinted toward the wall.
“?!”
There was no time for shock.
Ricalt seized a protruding section of the wall and pulled himself up. From the air, he grabbed the window frame and hauled himself higher, then caught one of the chandelier’s support chains connected to the ceiling edge and released himself into flight.
Brushing perilously close beside the swaying chandelier, he reached out and snatched the child.
“Euuu!”
Even in his grasp, the child stubbornly gripped the chandelier, but his strength was no match. He was torn away from it as though being peeled off.
The chandelier lurched sharply. But fortunately, it did not fall.
Ricalt landed hard beneath the swaying fixture.
“Heeuh! Waaaah! Graaah!”
Furious at being denied his fun, the child pummeled Ricalt’s shoulders and arms with all the wrath he could muster.
Though his fists were less than half the size of a grown man’s, they landed with audible thuds.
Adlen rushed over in shock and scooped the child into his arms.
“Aaah! Waaah!”
“There, there, Baby. Please, calm down, calm down.”
Adlen buried the child’s face against his chest, holding him tight.
Whether hitting Ricalt had truly satisfied his anger or not, the child shrieked but did not strike Adlen. Instead, he nestled firmly against his chest, thrashing about with indignant fury.
“Oh my……”
Adlen sighed and held the child’s body close with all his strength. There was still so much growing left to do, yet his own strength was already failing him.
Both holding firm against such physical struggles took a toll on his body, as did each day bringing fresh, new disasters.
“I only looked away for just a moment to put the soiled diaper away, and in that short time, I have no idea how he even got up there in the first place.”
No matter how one looked at it, it was ultimately his own negligence.
Adlen bowed his head deeply, spilling out excuses and laments in equal measure.
“What happened! Are you alright!”
The Head Butler appeared with a ladder, arriving belatedly and cried out in panic. Upon seeing the situation had already resolved, he wiped sweat from his brow.
“……It’s over then, it seems. So what broke this time?”
“It didn’t break, but it almost did.”
“What almost broke?”
“The chandelier…….”
“What? No, how on earth did that happen? Did the baby throw a table at it?”
Ricalt saw from the Head Butler’s grave, unwavering expression that he wasn’t joking. The man actually believed a baby could hurl a table. What in the world was going on here?
Truth be told, Ricalt had been rather occupied with other matters lately.
Adlen had grown more adept at watching the child, and Ricalt hadn’t paid much attention in quite some time.
What had happened in the meantime?
No—not what had happened, but how the baby had been growing.
Or rather—was this creature even still a baby?
“Ahhyoo-eh, yaaah-weh!”
The babbling had evolved now into something that mimicked human speech.
The baby pushed forcefully at Adlen, seemingly insisting on something with great conviction.
“Oof!”
Adlen, drained of strength, staggered and lost his grip. The baby swiftly scampered down his body and crawled toward the wall.
Crawled…… if you could call it that.
Everyone’s eyes widened in disbelief.
On all fours—two arms, two legs—it was technically crawling, but the speed rivaled running. The floor where contact was made crackled with rapid-fire impacts.
Upon reaching the wall, the baby followed the exact same path Ricalt had touched moments before, scrambling upward with grunting effort. Ricalt had only brushed those spots in passing, but the baby climbed them with fierce determination.
“So that’s how…… it got up there…….”
So stunned were they that no one thought to stop the baby—they simply stood transfixed. When the small fingers finally reached the junction cord near the ceiling edge, Ricalt stepped in and pulled the child down.
“Kyuuaahhh!”
“We’ll need to take down the chandelier soon.”
The Head Butler glanced up at the chandelier and nodded gravely. His assessment was entirely correct.
“I’ll also have the corner by the window shaved down.”
“Good thinking.”
Ricalt nodded heavily in agreement.
The Head Butler set a ladder beside the wall and began methodically gathering the scattered fragments from the floor.
“It seems the baby played on the chandelier a bit less today and broke fewer pieces.”
The fragments strewn across the floor were the remains of toys—or what used to be toys.
No matter how many toys were brought in, none lasted more than three days.
Fortunately, House Sigelion’s wealth was inexhaustible, and Ricalt was not stingy about such matters.
It had become quite the task to keep procuring new toys.
The greater problem was that the baby didn’t actually prefer playing with toys in the first place.
“The little one seems to enjoy breaking them far more than playing with them.”
“……Blood will tell, I suppose.”
Ricalt clicked his tongue, gazing down at the baby.
The child, now prone to anger rather than tears, was the very image of both parents.
“Both parents possessed exceptional Martial Arts, so the child was bound to be anything but weak.”
“Ah, even the mother’s side?”
“The mother’s side was actually the more terrifying of the two.”
The mother’s side included General Kias as well.
If even that General—one whom the master laughed at as an equal—was deemed frightening by comparison, just how formidable had she been?
And this young master, who had inherited that formidable woman’s talents in full, was destined to become even more unmanageable from here on out.
Adlen’s shoulders sagged helplessly.
“Will I…… truly be able to handle this young master in the days ahead……?”

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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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