The Maid With a Child - Chapter 66

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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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66. Congenital Pauper’s Survival Method
Until Adlen stepped fully into the shop, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t lift her head.
Her face buried deep, heat gathered and throbbed across her cheeks.
“Welcome!”
Only after entering the shop could she slip free from Racalte’s arms.
A cool draft of indoor air rushed in, and the fever burning her face began to fade.
“Is there something I can help you find?”
The Store Clerk, seeing at a glance that these two were nobility, approached with exaggerated courtesy.
Adlen cast her eyes around the shop. There was no need to search long. The items nursemaids used were clearly bestsellers—they were displayed in prominent positions throughout the store.
“That one, and that one, and that one too, I saw it earlier… it looked so nice.”
Adlen lit up and rushed toward the display like a child drawn by a flame.
“Buy it.”
“…Yes?”
Before Adlen’s feet had even reached the display counter.
The purchase was decided faster than a glance at the goods.
Adlen watched blankly as the quick-witted Store Clerks carefully carried the items she’d pointed to the register.
They didn’t even check twice.
“You’re… you’re really just buying it like this right now?”
“Did you want to buy something else?”
“N-no, it’s not that, but…”
She’d simply wanted to look. It was for The Baby, after all—she’d only hoped that perhaps the master might buy it for her.
Even from the start, Racalte had never been stingy with money. More than just not being stingy, he seemed to not even regard money as money.
Just thinking of how he’d suddenly offered her double, triple, quadruple her salary proved that.
After that, whenever Adlen conveyed to the Steward that she needed something, he would immediately order its purchase without hesitation. He’d even told the Steward not to trouble herself over the price or quantity—just speak freely about what was needed.
Yet now, watching these purchases happen before her eyes, the feeling was altogether different.
It wasn’t her own money, but she felt like a tycoon.
“Is there anything else you might need?”
The Clerks had already understood: today they’d caught a real customer.
And they’d also grasped that the choice of what to buy rested with Adlen.
“Um, well, no, not really…”
She’d bought what she came for; she should suggest they leave now.
But it had been so long since she’d visited this shop. And a shop lined with items The Baby needed was temptation at every turn.
“This one… is it meant to be held in the hand and shaken?”
Just looking, she told herself. Just looking.
Adlen found herself helplessly drawn toward the item.
“Yes, that’s right. When placed in a baby’s hand, they become so captivated they can hardly think. That’s when you get a moment to catch your breath.”
“Oh…!”
She was hooked.
Her eye had already caught on it, but hearing the Clerk’s explanation made her heart waver all the more.
Yet she’d already bought several things.
Some of them were quite large, so the total price surely wasn’t trifling.
“Buy what you need. Isn’t it more accurate to come out and see things for yourself rather than have the Steward fetch them?”
Just as Adlen hesitated, glancing uncertainly, Racalte gave generous permission.
By his measure, a few items like these amounted to nothing. If it grew tedious to pick each one individually, he might as well consider acquiring the entire shop outright.
“Th-then this one too… The Baby? Do you like this?”
Armed with a blank check, Adlen had no more restraint.
Adlen at least deliberated for a moment, but The Baby didn’t know what deliberation meant.
“This one! Pretty!”
“You think this is pretty? Should we buy it?”
Whatever caught her eye even slightly, she’d eagerly snatch it up.
Adlen resolved to buy everything The Baby grabbed, tossing each piece into the selection basket.
The flush that had drained from her face when entering the shop now returned in full bloom.
This was something you could only do in dreams. Yet here she was, doing it in reality. The world glittered and shimmered like a waking dream.
“Would you perhaps be interested in something like this?”
“What is this?”
The baby items had filled the basket to overflowing—by now they’d selected one of nearly every type of item in the store.
But the Clerk was not discouraged.
The shop stocked items not only for babies but also for their mothers and fathers.
“It’s a Support Band that eases back strain when holding the child. I can see The Baby has quite the frame for growth ahead. Surely it’s already quite taxing, is it not?”
“W-well, yes, it is, but…”
Adlen had chosen things for the baby without hesitation, but when it came to something for herself, doubt crept back in.
“Put it in.”
That was when Racalte gave his permission again.
If they lingered here any longer, she would spiral into endless deliberation and second-guessing.
“Yes, I’ll add this to the register right away.”
The clerk swept away Adlen’s hesitation for her.
Adlen froze, amazed that this was somehow acceptable.
“I think… I think we’ve seen everything now……”
The embarrassment of having chosen her own item so hastily, swept along by the clerk’s sales instinct, lingered stubbornly.
Adlen had never been the type to simply buy things on impulse.
No matter how necessary an item was, she would carry it in her heart and agonize over it for at least a week. Then she would go see the thing in person three times or more. She would look, and look again, and look once more, comparing it against other options, weighing quality against price, worrying endlessly.
Even after she had decided, she would not purchase immediately. She would sit with her final decision for another week or more, turning it over in her mind, before she finally bought it.
It was the Congenital Pauper’s Survival Method.
To someone born into such frugality, watching her master—a man born into wealth—make purchasing decisions was not merely surprising but terrifying. It felt like committing a crime.
Once, passing through the market, she had caught the scent of candy being sold on the street—so sweetly fragrant that she could not resist and impulsively bought some. It was that sweet. But behind the sweetness came a bitter guilt that clung to her for days, the shame of having spent money on something wasteful.
This moment felt exactly like that.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes, truly everything!”
Adlen wanted nothing more than to flee this place.
Racalte was bewildered by her sudden shift.
She had bounded into the shop practically glowing with delight, but the moment she bought a single item for herself, her expression darkened completely.
“You only got one thing?”
Even at a glance, the shop held quite a few items worth purchasing.
“There’s no real reason for me to buy anything……”
“You don’t need a reason. You can buy something just because you want it.”
“But… why?”
“It’s a bonus.”
When a master is in a good mood, he might toss a maid a single coin, or unfasten a piece of jewelry from his own person and hand it to her.
Thinking of it that way, there was nothing she couldn’t choose, was there?
From the very beginning, Racalte had never taken Adlen’s efforts lightly. Even though he had given her work through coercion, he had always thought himself fortunate to have her, always grateful.
To Racalte, the price of anything in this shop was almost nothing. So it made no difference how much she chose.
“Don’t foolishly refuse again. Choose generously. And it’s not greed—it’s your rightful due. Didn’t I tell you that before?”
This fool clearly wouldn’t remember with just one telling.
He would have to keep saying it, repeating it, until she learned to see herself as a wallet.
“Uugh……”
But habits do not break in a single day.
If anything, the weight of obligation had multiplied a hundredfold, and Adlen groaned. Now she couldn’t even see the merchandise anymore.
“My, how enviable,” the clerk murmured, smiling warmly despite herself.
She had been watching their exchange and couldn’t help but be charmed by it.
“When you both care for each other like that, no wonder the little one grows up happy and healthy.”
“…Pardon?”
Adlen’s intuition had sharpened. Now she could read a misunderstanding in someone’s eyes at a glance.
“It’s not like that……”
“A wife so considerate of her husband’s purse that she won’t even look at things for herself—how beautifully devoted you must seem to him. And then a husband who wants to buy her anything her eyes so much as rest upon. You two are the most touching couple I’ve ever seen in all my years of business.”
“…No, please, it’s not……”
The clerk’s misunderstanding would not unravel easily.
“Come now! You have a child together and you’re still shy about it? Heavens! That’s precisely why you two are so devoted to each other!”
“He’s my master.”
“You’re married to your master?”
“……”
Human imagination knows no bounds, and once a misunderstanding takes root, it rarely comes undone.

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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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