The Maid With a Child - Chapter 60

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

60. Are you serious?
“Actually… I can’t read, sir.”
Just as Racalte’s patience was wearing threadbare, Adlen made her confession.
“Hmm?”
Among commoners, almost no one could read. It was fair to say that among servants and maids, there were virtually none who could read at all.
Stewards and head maids came from cadet branches of noble houses and therefore had noble blood flowing through them—they could read. Knights, too, were mostly nobles, or if they came from commoner stock, they learned letters upon becoming knights.
Among everyone Racalte saw daily, there wasn’t a soul who couldn’t read. So her claim struck him as momentarily incomprehensible.
“… Ah. I see.”
Only after several seconds of silence did Racalte grasp it.
He felt, viscerally, how narrow the world he’d been living in truly was.
He’d thrust a paper covered in nothing but letters at someone who couldn’t read and told them to read it—of course she’d looked deflated, with nothing to make sense of.
“… I’m terribly sorry. I never had the chance to learn letters.”
“You’ve nothing to apologize for. If no one taught you, it’s only natural you couldn’t know.”
Even looking at the Crown Prince, nothing came for free.
That simple phrase—happy birthday—took several days of his pressing and rehearsing before the boy could manage it.
Letters, then, were something one simply couldn’t learn unless someone deliberately taught you.
“Now that I think about it, I should be teaching the young lord his letters too.”
The child still couldn’t speak properly, but children grew so quickly.
The two of them watched as the baby, cycling through three steps of walking and five of crawling, repeated the pattern endlessly.
“Butterfly! Butterfly!”
The baby toddled after the Butterfly Mobile swaying in the breeze, stumbling and getting back up in infinite repetition. The butterfly hung from the end of the chandelier, spinning and twirling this way and that. Following it around naturally burned off energy. It was the greatest toy Adlen had ever invented.
“Soon he’ll be running, won’t he?”
“Soon enough.”
Racalte agreed with solemn certainty.
“Then we’ll need to find a tutor quickly.”
“A tutor, hmm…”
Racalte trailed off, lost in thought.
His Majesty had commanded only one thing: raise the child as a person of Teplan. There had been no separate instruction on what *kind* of child to raise him as.
But given the circumstances, it was unlikely that the Crown Prince growing too exceptional or too well would sit well with anyone.
Not that he’d intentionally stunt the boy’s growth, but how far to let his education go was a question that needed discussion.
“I’ll bring the matter before His Majesty soon enough.”
“Yes, sir!”
As for the child’s affairs, the more pressing problem at hand was choosing a man to introduce to Adlen.
Racalte picked up the papers.
“Then I’ll read them aloud for you.”
“Oh! Yes! Thank you so much!”
Adlen practically bounced with joy, scooting close beside Racalte as she sat.
Even though she couldn’t read the letters herself, she wanted to grasp what little she could.
As Adlen drew near, warmth radiating from her, the tips of Racalte’s fingers trembled faintly where they held the papers.
Carelessly.
He wanted to chide her—a woman shouldn’t press so close to an unrelated man.
That she’d allowed Mydot to touch the back of her hand, that she’d heard the gossip spreading like crude rumors and said nothing—it all knotted together now, surging into discomfort.
Yet there was nothing he could fairly call a fault in Adlen. His own mood was simply sour.
Racalte drew in a measured breath and pushed the displeasure down. She wasn’t a child, and this wasn’t his place to meddle.
Racalte turned his attention to the papers instead of her warmth.
“First. Name: Borun. Friend of the ward of knight Semoodin’s relative.”
Adlen’s ears perked up as she concentrated.
A friend of the ward of a knight’s relative meant…?
… The connection was stretched so thin it barely held. But whether someone was close didn’t really matter.
“Yes…”
“Delivers hay for work. Rejected.”
“What?!”
He should’ve read the whole thing first. Racalte frowned sharply and turned the page.
Adlen, flustered, turned the page back.
“Why, why, why? You didn’t even finish reading!”
“Do I need to hear more? He delivers hay.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s what someone does when they’ve no real trade, isn’t it? That’s fine if he’s young. He could build capital that way or learn a proper skill. But he’s five years *older* than you and still doing work that requires nothing but brute strength? That’s the life he’s chosen?”
Racalte levied a sharp critique on a man he’d never even met. It was the sort of thing a distant uncle might nag a nephew about once a year—the grousing of a pedant.
“His family might run a hay business! He could be helping with the family trade, or maybe he’s just the sort who’s content with a modest living, humble and without ambition!”
“You’re going to date a man like that and marry him? Have you lost your mind?”
Racalte’s voice rose at Adlen, who had rushed to defend someone she’d never even met—though truth be told, he would have bristled just the same.
This wasn’t about Adlen specifically. He’d have been irritated regardless.
No matter how beautifully one tried to see the world, innocence and stupidity were fundamentally different things.
“If you marry a lazy wretch like that, you’ll suffer for it—obvious as daylight. All the money you’d scrape together over a lifetime, spent keeping a man like that fed. That what you want?”
“Does it matter? As long as he only looks at me, only loves me—then maybe it could work!”
“Maybe? There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. There’s no guarantee that if you spend money on him, he’ll give you love in return. In any case, rejected.”
Racalte flipped the page roughly, his eyes sharp with intensity.
He’d been laboring under the delusion that because Adlen wouldn’t stop harping on about marriage, she must have an exceptional eye for men. A foolish delusion. If she was going to marry at all, she ought to think carefully and choose someone genuinely worthwhile—but her judgment was so poor it seemed like any man would do.
Leaving it to someone with such atrocious taste was asking for trouble. She could end up hurt by a man, lose faith entirely, and abandon everything—the baby, work, all of it. For the sake of protecting his workforce, it fell to him to keep his wits sharp and do the choosing himself.
“Still, you could at least read the next one…….”
“Talin. Former coworker of the head chef’s, now an assistant. Hmm. Assistant cook. Hmm.”
The occupation was unremarkable. Racalte moved to the next line.
“Appearance: round face shape. Short in height. Soft build, though some muscle present. Rejected.”
“What?! Why again?!”
“Cooking is physical work. You’re doing physical labor and putting on weight? And he’s a man? That’s just surrendering to poor discipline. Unlike women, men don’t gain weight easily, and they lose it even easier. A man whose body’s already like this at his age? He’ll struggle to stay healthy long-term. You want to spend your youth nursing a sickly husband through his ailments?”
“I could manage it for him! We could exercise together…….”
“Is it marriage you want, or a job as a personal trainer? In any case, rejected.”
Racalte turned the page with irritation.
He couldn’t fathom what Adlen was really after.
She spoke of happiness, of closeness and togetherness—but the moment you got into specifics about how she’d actually meet a man, how they’d actually live, she said something entirely different.
Two prospects so far, and both of them only showed willingness to sacrifice and serve. They never once thought about what these men would offer, what they themselves actually wanted. How did they imagine that led to happiness?
“Sirlont. A friend of the knight Helrut……. Automatic rejection.”
“Why him too?!”
“He keeps the man around because he’s competent, but the man’s personal life is a complete cesspool. If he’s friends with Helrut, he’s garbage for certain.”
Garbage congregates with garbage.
“No, but still……. You have to meet someone to know…….”
“You can know without meeting. Next. Nesiol. Him too, rejected.”
“Why him?!”
“He’s ugly. You’re not thinking about what your children would look like?”
“……Well……. He could have my features, and if you mix us together, you might actually get a very beautiful child…….”
“Would you even feel like meeting someone that ugly in the first place?”
“People say once you grow close, looks don’t matter!”
“You might never grow close at all. It’s a waste of time. You’re busy enough as it is—why throw away time like that?”
Racalte turned the page without listening to Adlen’s further objections.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————