The Maid With a Child - Chapter 7

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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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You are my only hope.
The baby’s crying sounded different now than before.
The sound came in precarious, stuttering gasps.
“What do I do? I’m going to drop the kid—hiee?!”
Half-asleep, Adlen’s vision blurred until he finally noticed the figure standing before him, and terror seized him like a physical blow.
“Wh-who, who are—”
The darkness kept the person’s face hidden from view.
Even in that gloom, he could make out the figure’s massive height and broad shoulders, the thick, solid limbs that suggested an almost intimidating presence.
Alarm bells shrieked in his mind.
Had he come under attack? But he knew nothing. Nothing worth extracting. All he had in his head was that the baby was adorable!
“Spare me! I don’t know anything—I swear I don’t! Ask me whatever you want and I’ll tell you everything, just please let me live!”
Adlen shouted without drawing a single breath.
“…Maybe I should just kill you.”
Adlen’s eyes went wide as recognition flooded through him. That heavy, distinctive voice—he knew it instantly, even in the dark.
“M-my lord?”
There was no need to ask. It was him.
But what was his lord doing here?
That aside, what really troubled him was what had just come out of his own mouth—that he’d confess anything if threatened.
“N-no, I didn’t mean—I have nothing to tell anyway! I really don’t know anything!”
Adlen scrambled to backpedal, but what came back was relentless interrogation.
“Eye color and hair color. Eye shape. Age. When the child was brought in. Who brought it. Where it’s been kept.”

“Everything you know can become information.”
“I-I don’t know!”

It was futile.
The lord’s gaze was merciless.
As Adlen trembled and shrank, driven to the very edge of dissolution, Racalt weighed how to dispose of this liability.
But that wasn’t why he had come seeking Adlen.
“Come with me. It’s too late to send you away quietly, so you might as well cooperate.”
“C-cooperate? You mean cooperate with killing me?! You’re going to drag me out and slit my throat, aren’t you?!”
Adlen clung to the edge of the bed with his whole body. If Racalt used force, one arm would be enough to pry him loose, but this was the extent of his resistance.
“If that were the plan, I wouldn’t have come myself.”
Racalt exhaled a long breath and swept his hair back with a weary hand.
Adlen’s eyes widened at the unexpected words. That was true. Why had his lord come here in person? Curiosity bloomed within him.
“Your resignation hasn’t been processed yet.”
“Y-yes…”
“Go watch the child.”
“…Pardon?”
“Look after the child for me.”
So that’s what this was about.
Now that he looked closer, his lord’s appearance was rather disheveled—like someone who’d been awake all night, just as he had been.
Even when he’d returned from the battlefield, his face had seemed more polished than this.
His voice carried the weight of exhaustion. He didn’t look like a man who’d come with murder on his mind.
“First, go and stop that child’s crying. Then we’ll move on to negotiations.”
“Negotiations…?”
“Think about what you want on the way.”
Racalt, in no mood to wait longer, seized Adlen’s arm and pulled him up.
Adlen offered no further resistance and went along quietly.
“Waaaaahhhhh!”
As they walked, the baby’s wails echoed through the corridor.
With each rise in the child’s cry, Racalt’s pace quickened.
Adlen nearly had to run just to keep up with him.
As they passed through the long corridor and approached the Lord’s Chamber, two knights standing guard at the door swung it open wide before they even arrived.
Adlen could have sworn he heard a phantom cry of welcome.
“Adlennnnn!”
And inside, in place of that phantom voice, genuine, fervent welcome poured forth.
* * *
The moment Adlen left the Lord’s Chamber, the Sigelion household fell into chaos.
“Hoo, oh my, little one, please, do try to calm down, hmm?”
“Waaah-waaah!”
“If you keep crying like this, I won’t give you any tasty supper tonight, so stop it now, all right?”
“Waaah-waaah-waaah!”
The Butler’s coaxing and threats fell on deaf ears. The baby thrashed about, wailing with every fiber of its tiny body.
The Butler had devoted his entire life to Sigelion. He had no family, no children. This was his first experience holding a baby.
The infant was heavier than expected, stronger too. For an aging body, it was almost unbearable.
So this was why Adlen had given up the letter of introduction and wanted to quit.
“Hngh! Oh dear! Hngh!”
Another moment and it would constitute elder abuse.
Unable to bear it any longer, Racalt rose and snatched the baby from the Butler’s arms.
“Hngh, huff, thank you, sir……”
“What’s the problem, exactly?”
He tried holding the baby this way, then that way. Hoisted it onto his shoulder. Laid it across his knees.
Yet nothing worked.
“Waaah-waaah! Waaah-waaah!”
When a baby cried with that soft lilt, it could almost be cute. But this baby—it screamed. A sharp, grating scream that only grew louder with stubbornness.
It refused sleep, refused food, refused play.
Ever since being parted from Adlen’s arms, the baby had done nothing but cry.
Given time, it would exhaust itself. If it wanted to survive, that’s what it would do. Racalt felt certain of this prediction.
But that confidence was hubris.
“Waaah-waaah! Waaah-waaah!”
The baby was formidable.
They sought out whoever they could find capable of minding an infant and pressed it into their arms, but all of them fled after ten minutes at most. The baby’s crying never ceased.
In the end, the baby fell to Racalt’s care.
With Adlen, it cried when sat down, cried when put down, cried when rocking stopped. But Racalt was dealing with something else entirely.
It cried louder when sat down, cried harder when put down, and cried even more desperately when rocking stopped.
The Childcare Hell that Adlen had endured through the entire night came calling on Racalt with perfect impartiality.
There was no escape.
* * *
“Hurry, quickly!”
“Eh? Ah, no. Yes!”
Adlen took the baby into his arms almost by reflex and immediately began soothing the infant, which was on the verge of passing out.
“Sob……”
From morning through dawn, the flames of Childcare Hell that had been consuming Sigelion Mansion gradually extinguished.
Those who remained somehow managed to gather their scattered wits, drifting like ash on the wind.
The moment the baby’s cries ceased, it fell into sleep.
“……It’s sleeping. It is sleeping, right? Not dead?”
The Butler muttered with tears in his voice, peering down at the infant.
The baby was neither dead nor unconscious—it was simply asleep. Its face peaceful, it even babbled softly, breathing with the steady rhythm of deep slumber.
“We…… we survived……”
The baby had nearly perished, but so too had those who’d been tending to it all night. Just as Adlen had the night before.
“Adlen, truly there’s no one but you. You are Sigelion’s hope.”
“……”
Adlen could not find words to respond.
Everything had already been decided in the air around them, but his heart had not yet accepted it.
“Butler, go rest yourself now.”
Racalt dismissed him with the finality of a decision made.
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
As the Butler withdrew, he gave Adlen’s shoulder a solemn pat.
“We are Sigelion! Onward!”
“……”
Even Sigelion’s rallying cry could not stir Adlen to respond.
He still hadn’t adjusted to any of this, and he had no desire to.
Once the Butler had left and Adlen found himself alone with Racalt, he shifted the sleeping baby slightly, his eyes darting with anxiety.
What would his master say now?
“Sit.”
“……Yes.”
Unlike before, Racalt offered the seat with courtesy. This alone suggested something grave was to follow.
Adlen settled carefully onto the sofa across from Racalt, his heart trembling.
Not until his body was fully settled did he realize the baby had remained asleep, utterly peaceful throughout.
Racalt watched the scene unfold to its end, his interlaced fingers pressed against his lips.
“The baby certainly does follow you well.”
“I—I think it’s simply because I had quite a few younger siblings, so caring for children is somewhat familiar to me, my lord.”
“I see. So that’s why…….”
Racalt nodded slowly, then fixed Adlen with an unwavering gaze. His eyes burned with extraordinary intensity and heat.
They gleamed with the resolve of one who would never let go.

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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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