The Maid With a Child - Chapter 35

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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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35. Two Men
Nine times out of ten, when Adlen woke with Baby, the two of them were wrapped tightly in each other’s arms. At first he’d thought it was just professional instinct—protecting his charge—but the real culprit was his own sleeping habits.
“Well… thankfully, nothing hurts anywhere… though I do seem to have a bit of body ache.”
Adlen had reflexively started to say it was fine, then caught himself and changed course. His body really was falling apart anyway, so it wasn’t a lie.
“That makes sense. After playing with him all night, I can imagine how exhausted you must be.”
Baby cried the moment he was held, yet apparently playing was acceptable to him.
After Adlen had fallen asleep, the two men had apparently played on for quite some time.
“It seems you played with him for a long while even after that.”
“Right up until just before dawn, more or less.”
“Really? Even Baby? You didn’t deliberately wake him to play, did you?”
“He dozed off here and there, but woke up almost immediately. His stamina is absolutely extraordinary. If he’d grown up like that in Moren, Teplan would have collapsed in the next generation.”
Rackart fixed the child with a menacing stare.
As a Teplan man, his heart should have turned cold at the thought of his country nearly falling to ruin. Instead, relief flooded through him first—relief that their Baby was so sturdy and strong.
That was wrong. You should have forbidden attachment long ago.
But he’d already given it, given it freely.
What would become of him now? Where would the thread of fate intertwined with this child lead?
“Adu…u?”
As if sensing Adlen’s spiraling thoughts, Baby opened his eyes and searched for him.
“Ah, you’re awake, Baby?”
“Ahhh!”
“Yes, good morning to you too.”
The moment he saw Baby’s bright, innocent face, all the tangled thoughts that had clouded his mind moments before scattered like dust.
Whether to give affection or withhold it, how to raise him or what not to do—reasoning through it all was useless. In the end, people simply did what their hearts commanded.
Adlen picked Baby up with his usual warmth and tenderness.
“Hngh!”
But his body felt nothing like usual.
From overexertion yesterday, from sleeping on the floor, from countless accumulated strains—his joints cracked and popped with every movement.
And Baby felt heavier.
His weight surely hadn’t increased overnight, yet holding him with an ailing body made the added heft suddenly apparent.
He really was growing like a weed.
“Ahduu! Au, uuu!”
The moment Baby’s eyes opened, he searched for the ball before breakfast.
Adlen stared down at him in bewilderment.
“You want to play?”
“Yes! Paw!”
“Let’s eat first…”
“Noooo!”
Baby’s stubbornness had grown as much as his weight had.
Adlen gazed at the ball crammed into the corner. Somehow, in a single day, it looked as though it had weathered decades of hardship.
So even a ball can grow old.
Looking at the ball—so worn and exhausted—Adlen felt a catch in his throat and his nose twitched.
It was enough that it hadn’t burst, enough that it held on. Thank you, ball. And today will be the day you burst. Probably along with what’s left of my strength.
“I have no appointments today, so I’ll play with him a bit longer. I think I figured out some technique from before dawn.”
That was when Rackart stretched and stepped forward.
The polite refusal—”You must be tired too, sir”—caught in Adlen’s throat and died there. If his master was willing to help, gratitude was all that was fitting.
“Let’s see how long he can go, then, shall we?”
“……”
Though Adlen wasn’t entirely sure if “helping” was the right word.
It seemed more like his master was simply continuing some private contest of his own.
The truth of it mattered less than this: his master was playing with Baby in his stead, taking the burden from him.
‘You told me to take care of my own life first….’
And yet his master had apparently forgotten his own advice entirely.
He’d set everything else aside to engage with the child.
Part of Adlen worried whether it was right, but… he secretly hoped his master would keep forgetting.
Adlen watched Rackart retrieve the ball, then set down Baby, who was squirming frantically to escape his embrace. Baby’s excitement burned just as fiercely as his master’s.
“Did he cough?”
Hearing sounds from within, Butler knocked at the door.
Instead of the two men preparing to play, Adlen opened it.
“Good morning, Butler.”
“Ah, Adlen. You don’t look as though you got much… rest. That’s true.”
“Still, the master played with the young one again today, I hear.”
“That’s a relief… The master is…?”
The butler’s eyes widened, unaware of last night’s events.
Lately it had been nothing but departures from convention.
First, taking meals with the servants—then converting the Master Room into a nursery.
Now he was minding the child himself.
“Wheee! Aaah!”
A ball came flying through the air, courtesy of the young one’s generosity toward the incredulous butler.
“Oof!”
The butler lacked Rackart’s gift for swatting away projectiles without looking.
The ball struck him square in the face.
Clutching his forehead and sinking to the ground, the butler was met by the child crawling toward him at surprising speed.
“Chet!”
“…! Young one?!”
Anyone would feel a surge of emotion after taking a blow like that.
But before the butler’s feelings could swell, the child called out a name he had not heard from her in so long.
“Again, again…!”
“Chet!”
“Oh, oh, oh!”
The butler could not contain his joy and lifted the child high into the air.
He had resolved not to lay a hand on her, mindful of her age and fragility, yet in this moment he could not help himself.
“Wheee! Chet!”
The child called out his name again, delighted by the lifting.
“Oh, our little one!”
The butler answered her joy with warmth of his own.
But that would be his undoing.
“Our? Whose young one?”
Rackart’s cold voice froze the butler’s joy in an instant.
“I, I master. That is, I didn’t mean to….”
“All of you, one way or another…. I’ve told you to keep your distance.”
The butler hastily set the child down and bowed his head.
“My apologies. The young one grows more dear with each passing day, and after watching her so long, my heart has simply… wandered without my knowing.”
Adlen glanced nervously sideways.
Heart again?
As if reading Adlen’s thoughts, Rackart’s gaze shifted to him as well.
“…That wasn’t what I said.”
Adlen, needlessly stung, struck first.
“…But I do think the butler’s right.”
He didn’t back down, though.
Working had done nothing to build his stamina, but it had cultivated plenty of nerve.
Once he’d grasped that his master would not slit his throat on a whim, nor throw a punch at the first misstep, he’d learned instinctively that there was nothing to fear.
“The heart wants what it can’t have—that’s what makes it a heart.”
The debate on the nature of the heart ended in Adlen’s favor.
* * *
Word came from the Royal Palace.
A summons and a change of orders.
“Not just a greeting, but a song too…?”
The king had changed his mind.
A greeting alone seemed insufficient—they were to have the child perform a song as well.
The king’s birthday celebration was merely a pretext.
The birthday wishes were ritual; the true purpose was to announce to the world that “we have the crown prince of Moren.”
The young one, made the centerpiece of the party without her consent, remained oblivious, wide-eyed as she stared at Adlen.
“Aden! Bawl!”
In both small hands, she clutched the ball that looked nearly ready for retirement.
Adlen gazed down at the child with hollow eyes.
He would have to bring this innocent little creature, ignorant of all malice, to a party crawling with enemies.
And on top of that, the king’s assignment.
“She can barely manage to speak her own name, and now she’s supposed to say ‘Happy birthday’?”
“His Majesty says that is the most crucial part.”
“Will it work?”
“It has to be done.”
“…….”
Once again, His Majesty showed no consideration whatsoever for the person being ordered about, insisting only on what the one giving commands wanted.
“Aden! Adlen!”
The serious conversation between adults was no concern of the baby.
She kept pestering to go back to playing with the ball.
“Just hearing you say his name makes it sound like you’d do well at it.”
“With names, yes. But everything else is rather…….”
Baby had such distinct tastes that even her vocabulary reflected this stark preference.
Beyond the ball, Adlen, and mama, there was no real progress at all.
“But surely it’s all right if you continue to call the master by just his name?”
“…….”
And Rackart’s designation remained fixed at just his name.
Was this really acceptable?

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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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