The Maid With a Child - Chapter 5

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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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5. This Child Is a Calamity
“You certainly seem to have talent.”
While everyone had fallen silent, staring at the now-quiet child in astonishment, Lacalte approached.
Adren hastily bowed her head.
She hadn’t even managed a proper greeting to her master, and then she’d fainted at the sight of blood and collapsed into his arms.
“M-master. I’m terribly sorry about just now. You see, when I see blood, I…”
“Blood?”
“Yes, I’m rather frightened of it.”
Lacalte understood readily enough. It was possible for anyone not accustomed to the battlefield. Besides, what had unfolded before her eyes just moments ago was hardly an ordinary occurrence in the daily life of a common person.
“I see. See that no such bloodshed occurs in the future, then.”
“Y-yes, master… wait? In the future? Such bloodshed won’t…?”
Adren, who had reflexively begun to bow, stopped short.
“Yes. You said blood frightens you. I meant I’d keep you from seeing blood.”
“B-but that’s not the only thing… Wait, you mean something like this could happen again in the future?”
“Perhaps.”
Lacalte shrugged with such utter nonchalance that it seemed rehearsed.
The color drained from Adren’s face.
The rumors she had dismissed as unlikely were materializing into reality before her very eyes.
It had been not long after she’d arrived at House Sigelion.
‘I’m not sure I deserve such comfortable work for such high wages.’
With the master away, the household duties were light and leisurely. Without realizing it, such carefree words had escaped her lips.
One of the senior servants had given her a knowing smile.
‘That’s really compensation paid in advance for what’s to come later.’
Later, she’d learned why a green maid like Adren could be hired at all by such a well-positioned house.
The master, called the King’s Blade or the King’s Hound, was a key figure on the Tepla front lines. In the midst of the long war with Morn, there was no end to the factions seeking his life.
The moment the master returned home, House Sigelion would become a battlefield against assassins, or so they said.
Of course, servants weren’t usually targeted directly, but if you were unlucky, you might catch a stray blade passing by, or end up taken hostage, and…
Yet since Adren had begun her duties, the master had never once come home, and that story had faded from her memory like some ancient tale.
And then it had suddenly become reality.
Without a moment to prepare herself.
“S-so, well, a-I won’t have to see you much going forward, r-right?”
“Why?”
“B-because then I w-wouldn’t run into assassins, w-would I?”
Lacalte shook his head coldly at her words.
“Whether you see me or not won’t be the issue.”
“W-what? Why, why not?”
“Just now, those men weren’t after me. They were after you.”
“…Me?”
It had all happened so quickly that her memory of it was hazy at best.
The last image she could clearly recall was her master swinging his blade toward her, and behind that, something warm and wet splashing down.
Adren hastily reached up to touch the back of her neck.
“Your neck is still properly attached.”
Lacalte informed her kindly. It was delivered in such a dry tone that she suspected he might have said, “You’re still properly dead,” had the opposite been true.
“Next time, I can’t guarantee it.”
Adren barely managed to steady her reeling mind and asked again.
“C-could it be that I was targeted because of this child?”
Adren’s gaze fell on the child looking up at her, its eyes brimming with tears.
The child had clear, innocent eyes that knew nothing. Had it not been for this crisis, she would have wanted to protect it with everything she had—it was that adorable.
She’d grown sick of children from raising her siblings, but this one was cute enough to overcome even that.
“Exactly.”
Yet she could not carry a child that amounted to a calamity through danger.
Why? How? For what reason must she be swept up in these treacherous currents?
She’d only become a maid of House Sigelion because she wanted to earn a little more than others and live a comfortable life.
“This child… What on earth is this child?”
Lacalte looked Adren up and down.
A fearful maid who fainted at the sight of blood, who trembled just seeing his face, timid through and through.
The body he’d felt when she collapsed in his arms was clearly that of someone who’d never so much as held a weapon in their life.
The type of human who was easy to intimidate and leverage, who’d never dream of betrayal. That was how Lacalte assessed her.
“Yes, since we’ll be working together from now on, it’s best you know this much.”
Lacalte walked forward past Adren with heavy, measured steps.
With every step he took, droplets of blood that hadn’t yet dried fell cleanly onto the polished floor.
Adren couldn’t tear her eyes from those bloodstains. Had this been the path her master walked all along?
A grim premonition came to her as well—that the path stretching before her would look much the same.
“His name is Havel. A male child, five months old. The sole prince of Morn and crown prince.”
……!
Adren’s head snapped up.
What did I just hear? Her facial muscles moved of their own accord.
“Wait, crown prince……?”
Of the enemy kingdom Morn, no less.
“The key to ending this wretched, endless war with Morn.”
Lacalte disclosed the secret with a serene, almost gentle expression that starkly contrasted with Adren’s astonishment.
Adren was so startled she nearly dropped the child—the very key to ending the wretched, endless war with Morn!
She tightened her grip with both arms, clutching the baby firmly. Yet despite that, the child’s weight didn’t feel as light as it had before.
“So from now on, you must keep him alive. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, from now on……? For how long exactly……?”
“Until he’s no longer useful, I suppose.”
“And when will that be?”
“Who knows.”
Adren blinked at her master’s vague reply.
If her master didn’t know either, it could mean days—or it could mean decades, until the boy came of age.
Watching over a single child, constantly subjected to assassination attempts, never able to dream of family of her own. A life nearly imprisoned for decades……
It was impossible. She hadn’t worked so hard all this time just for this.
“N-no, that won’t…… work……”
“Adren……?”
Even the Head Butler turned back in shock at her audacity in answering back.
But Adren, who had already nearly died once and now faced the prospect of dying far more often, was losing her grip on reason.
“I…… I can’t do this!”
Adren’s voice wavered as she sank to her knees.
“It means this could happen every single day, not just once. I know I’m supposed to do whatever you command, by any means necessary, but—you can only obey orders if you’re alive to obey them, can’t you?”
It was the first time in her life as a maid that Adren had ever said she couldn’t do something.
No matter how unreasonable the command, Adren had always managed it. Once she left the orphanage, with no one to rely on, she had no choice but to hold onto her position.
If it couldn’t be done, she did it anyway until it could. That was how she’d always endured.
But caring for a child was different.
All the more so if that child was the crown prince of the enemy kingdom—one that could leave her neck dangling at any moment.
This was her last chance to escape the assignment. Given the nature of childcare, once she took it on, there’d be no quitting it.
“I’m telling you, incidents like today won’t happen.”
Lacalte looked at her with an expression that said, Isn’t that enough?
It wasn’t.
No matter how much her master promised to prevent bloodshed, no one could predict what people might do. There was only one life to live. As long as she didn’t quit, the danger of death would always remain.
‘He doesn’t intend to let me refuse.’
Her master had already decided she was the right person for this.
Then she needed an excuse—any excuse—that would justify not taking the job, beyond mere fear.
“Actually…!”
Adren gritted her teeth and swallowed her pride.

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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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