The Maid With a Child - Chapter 6

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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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6. A Master Who’ll Slit Your Throat if Things Go Wrong
“I’ve come to understand the limits of my own abilities.”
“What?”
“Well, that is… the child is simply too difficult to care for. As you just saw, he truly cries constantly, and he won’t stop easily, and he’s terribly particular about everything else too.”
It wasn’t a lie. Among all the younger children who had passed through Adlene’s hands at the orphanage, this one was unprecedented.
Yesterday, the moment she received the baby, everyone had promised to share the childcare equally—a promise that meant nothing by this morning. The baby had apparently decided to stay settled in Adlene’s arms, and the moment anyone else’s hands touched him, he would burst into tears.
If that were all, she could have simply endured by holding him constantly, but the baby’s fussiness knew no bounds.
Too hot and he’d wail, hungry and he’d wail, sleepy and he’d wail, someone lying on the adjacent bed and the creak of the mattress and he’d wail, and even her hand patting his back falling out of rhythm and he’d wail.
Because of this, Adlene had spent the entire night unable to sit properly or stand, maintaining an awkward half-posture. It was sheer torture.
Remembering the endless suffering of last night, Adlene burst into tears.
In just one night, she had come to understand why postpartum depression happened—it had been a night from hell.
“I only manage a little better than others because I have many younger siblings, but I’ve never actually worked as a nursemaid before… In fact, I don’t even want to work as a nursemaid.”
Adlene finally admitted this while tears streamed down her face.
After hearing Adlene’s full report of last night’s ordeal, Rackalt tapped his folded arms with his fingertips.
The very fact that a subordinate would resist and refuse to do what she was told infuriated him. But he held back, considering the effort she’d expended through the sleepless night.
“Then who would you like to have take on the job instead?”
“… Um…”
Adlene stood frozen with her mouth open, unable to answer hastily.
She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Recalling yesterday’s situation where everyone had tried to dodge the responsibility, she couldn’t single out any one person. Besides, it was the kind of work where you could die if things went wrong—how could she volunteer someone by name?
“Someone in this household must do the work. Who would you prefer?”
Rackalt pressed the question again.
It was a question, but also an interrogation.
Even as his voice remained measured, almost soft, Adlene’s mouth went completely dry.
Adlene squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
Her job mattered, but her life mattered more.
“I—I’m s-sorry. Then I’ll, I’ll r-resign!”
The words she had once tried to use to blackmail her senior colleagues with—threatening to quit if they didn’t take their share of the work—were now becoming reality. But if she wanted to survive and escape this position, there was no other way.
As expected, a sharp silence fell.
The only sound that escaped was the Butler’s intake of breath.
Adlene was so frightened she couldn’t even open her eyes, her neck shrinking like a turtle’s into her shoulders.
“I—I’m so s-sorry… I’ve h-heard that you, you d-deeply dislike people who c-can’t perform their duties p-properly. I th-thought it would be b-better to qu—to quit rather than f-fail at the work you g-give me.”
Every time Adlene had changed jobs before, it had been due to unavoidable circumstances.
An employer relocating to an entirely different country, a business collapsing and everyone being laid off at once—she had never once left a position of her own will.
She had endured a full year even at a household where other maids would flee in disgust and new servants came and went every week or month.
She’d stuck it out even when the master’s disposition was so disagreeable that the business failed and she didn’t receive her proper wages.
So it was the first time that Adlene herself was saying she wanted to quit first.
“… All right.”
After a stretch of time so cold it felt like the breath itself froze, the judgment that finally descended was an unexpected permission.
“Yes? Really? Is that true?”
“You’re neither a slave with an owner, nor a knight sworn to loyalty. If you don’t want to work and wish to leave, then leave. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
Adlene’s resignation had been decided with startling ease.
But that was not the end of it.
“However. You cannot leave this house.”
“Yes…?”
“Otherwise, you die.”
“What?!”
A death sentence had suddenly been pronounced.
She was about to experience firsthand what people meant when they said the master would slit your throat if things went wrong.
“You’ve already become entangled with the Crown Prince of Morun, and your very existence has become part of a secret. I cannot allow that secret to leak out.”
So either confine her, or kill her.
Rackalt had drawn his conclusion with little difficulty.
Of course, not a trace of Adlene’s consent had been reflected in that conclusion.
“Y-you mean you’d r-really k-kill me…?”
The threat “Want to die?” was something she heard often enough in everyday conversation.
But it was rare for anyone to actually mean it as a genuine death wish or curse. Usually it was a joke, spoken lightly, and people would laugh it off when they heard it.
But the master’s “Want to die?” meant exactly what it said.
“Taking the Crown Prince of Morun as a hostage is by His Majesty’s direct command. Nothing can go wrong with this, so the cleanest approach is to kill you beforehand and seal your mouth.”
“…”
Rackalt tilted his chin as if offering her a choice.
Die or live?
Adlene didn’t want to die. But she couldn’t bear to give up her dream either—spending decades bound to this child, surrendering her own life to build a home and find happiness.
“I… would it be all right if I chose to stay… in this house?”
…….
Rackalt’s eyebrows twitched as though the breath had been knocked from him.
It had been a threat—that she couldn’t leave the house alive. Yet she’d twisted his words into something entirely different.
But they were his words, after all, and Adlene’s interpretation wasn’t wrong.
……Ha.
Rackalt laughed despite himself, shaking his head at the absurdity.
* * *
She was imprisoned.
He’d laughed like a madman at her answer—so absurdly that she’d worried he’d lost his mind. Mercifully, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d locked Adlene in a remote room and posted a guard at the door.
Adlene sat hunched on the bed in that dim, cramped space, breathing shallow and hollow.
At least she was alive.
But that wasn’t the problem.
“Waaaaaah!”
The child’s wails never ceased.
So piercing were they that even this remote room, the farthest point from the master’s quarters, resonated with the baby’s cries.
“Adlene. Dinner.”
As the Butler opened the door with her meal, the child’s screams echoed even louder.
“I’m deeply disappointed. All that talent, and you mean to waste it boiling soup? You should’ve aimed higher—accepted the nursemaid position, secured yourself a better wage.”
“A promotion, you say…… Haha, haha, haha.”
Adlene laughed weakly, stirring the stew that had been brought for her meal.
Even if the master had dangled that promotion, the ending would have been identical. She’d have refused, been threatened, attempted escape, nearly lost her head, and ended up imprisoned anyway.
“I told you—I will never become a nursemaid.”
“Why not? It’s one of the highest-paying positions after the Head Maid and Head Cook.”
“Because you can’t marry. I want to get married early. I’ve been working as a maid to save money for a dowry faster, but……”
“……Ah, I see. Well, nursemaids do pour their whole lives into the work, so marriage would be difficult. Even if they do marry, husbands tend to resent it.”
“Exactly……”
Marriage was Adlene’s grandest, most precious dream.
A handsome husband—kinder than any prince—and a good child, better behaved than any bratty child.
To have those things, she first had to marry. A life without that dream held no meaning for her.
Becoming a nursemaid was the greatest obstacle standing in her way.
“Sigh. I do hope the master’s anger fades soon, or that you come to your senses. The child’s been nothing but chaos. We’ve called the Head Maid, all the other maids, even the servants—given it to everyone—but it’s complete bedlam.”
That chaos would still be unfolding somewhere in the house at this very moment.
The child’s relentless wails confirmed it, filling the silence like a constant refrain.
* * *
The Maids’ Quarters was a shared dormitory where, no matter how quiet things seemed, there was always the sound of someone snoring, rustling, or a bed frame creaking—so constant that one’s ears dulled to it.
Having been alone for so long, every sound in the world seemed magnified tenfold.
Assaulted by countless noises pressing relentlessly against her ears, Adlene tossed and turned on her bedding, unable to sleep.
Yet mounting exhaustion finally dragged her under. Though not for long.
?!
An unfamiliar sound jolted her awake, and Adlene sat bolt upright.

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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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