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Chapter 4: “What Do You Mean My Ex-Boyfriend Had My Child?”
Every word Leon Voltane said sounded like a story about someone else’s life in some distant world.
I thought about Emil.
He really was a lovely child. He also seemed very smart.
But…
“My goodness. I’d rather get divorced than accept that child. I have absolutely no intention of raising him!”
“I don’t know how your family convinced you. But I personally saw you raising Oker’s illegitimate child. You probably became soft-hearted again, like always.”
“No way!”
“You like pretty things.”
“That is true, but…”
When I thought about it, the future Leon described wasn’t completely impossible.
Before returning to the past, I had been very close to giving up.
If I had decided to accept the humiliation and fight desperately to keep my position as the legitimate wife…
Then the future Leon described would probably have happened.
But Leon Voltane didn’t give me much time to process this ridiculous information.
He smiled slightly and casually dropped another shocking piece of information on me.
“How long do you think it took Lea Bestin to become Lea Oker after your funeral?”
“…How long?”
“Three months.”
“Those two bastards!”
“It was my mistake to just stand by and watch what happened to you.”
For someone who was usually so shameless and carefree, his voice sounded incredibly tired.
The Leon I was looking at today seemed strangely worn out.
He was still young.
Still beautiful.
And obviously still powerful.
Yet somehow, he looked like an old man who had lived through too much.
His beautiful eyes looked down at me.
“You were a very good mother.”
“I can’t imagine myself doing that at all…”
“Then you’ll probably raise my child very well too.”
“Wh… what?”
What the hell does that mean?
“You have a child?”
“Four years old. That’s the age when they’re especially cute, right?”
I quickly calculated the years.
Four years ago.
Four years ago would mean…
“You’re saying the child was born while you and I were dating?”
“I suppose so.”
It felt like I had climbed over a mountain of garbage only to find an entire ocean of garbage waiting for me.
What is wrong with my life?
Am I some kind of collector for men who already have children?
“I guess that’s how it is.”
My vision went dark.
It wasn’t enough that Pascal had cheated on me.
Now my ex-boyfriend had apparently done the same thing.
I couldn’t control my anger anymore.
I grabbed the bottle of alcohol on the table and threw it at him.
“Get out of here right now!”
Leon easily caught the bottle.
He answered in an exaggerated, offended tone.
“My goodness. You say such hurtful things so casually.”
“You! Do you even know what it means to be hurt? You’re exactly like Pascal! Why are you doing this to me?”
“You said it yourself.”
“What did I…?”
“You said you didn’t want to have children.”
His voice was strangely pleasant.
Even ordinary words sounded almost like a song when he said them.
“You said pregnancy was painful, unpleasant, and frightening. You also said that if a man really loved a woman, he should have enough determination to have her child for her.”
That…
I really had said that.
But it had only been a joke.
I had said it shortly before leaving the Magic Tower, to a man I already knew I would soon break up with.
“But you said it was nonsense back then!”
“I thought about it later and realized I could probably do it.”
I looked into Leon’s eyes.
There was something frightening in them.
Something that almost looked like madness.
“I gave birth to your child.”
Leon Voltane smiled brightly.
It was the most beautiful and radiant smile I had ever seen on him.
And then he said something completely ridiculous.
“So shouldn’t you take responsibility for me?”
“I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
Leon Voltane had arrived like a storm, caused enormous chaos, and then left just as dramatically.
The invitation he casually tossed onto the small table had one sentence written in golden ink:
“Come see me sometime.”
There was no date or location.
I folded the invitation and hid it underneath the small clock on top of the dusty fireplace.
If my family saw it, they would completely lose their minds.
Also, unlike the robes provided by the Magic Tower, my dress didn’t have any pockets.
After the Duke’s carriage left the house, Mother and Schle came rushing over.
Their faces were pale, their eyes red, and they were making frantic noises like hungry baby birds demanding food.
“What did he say?”
They didn’t even seem to care that Leon Voltane had left without properly greeting the head of the household.
Well, they were Mother and Schle.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had pressed their ears against the door and listened to our entire conversation.
“We just talked about our days at the Magic Tower.”
“That’s impossible!”
Schle shouted loudly while trembling.
Mother quickly pushed him aside and spoke.
“My daughter, are you saying that a young unmarried man and a woman of marriageable age were alone together and talked about nothing but that?”
“If you’re so suspicious, why don’t you contact the Duke’s residence and ask him yourself?”
Whether they actually had the courage to do that was another matter.
While the two of them continued talking beside me, only one sentence kept echoing inside my head.
I gave birth to your child.
I gave birth to your child.
Your child…
No, seriously, what the hell is he talking about?
Of course, there was no magic that allowed a man to give birth to a child.
Our kingdom was basically a male-dominated society.
Women were the ones who gave birth.
Why would precious noble men willingly attempt something so difficult and dangerous?
But there was one fact that made me extremely nervous.
If it’s Leon Voltane, he might actually be able to do it!
He might really have succeeded.
He was exactly the kind of person who could do something that ridiculous.
The fact that Leon and I had no opportunity to have a child together at this point wasn’t very important.
Leon Voltane was a genius mage and also a legendary alchemist.
Was there anyone in this world who actually knew what he could and couldn’t do?
I desperately hoped that the “child” he was talking about was just a metaphor for one of our joint research projects.
Or maybe he had simply made up the whole thing to annoy me.
Honestly, even if it turned out to be some strange and embarrassing sexual joke, I would accept that too.
Anything would be better than meeting some kind of monster-like chimera that could only call me:
“Mom…”
Please, let it not be that!
“Now that things have turned out this way, you’ll have no choice but to hold onto Pascal!”
Mother’s sharp voice interrupted my already confused thoughts.
I immediately answered.
“I’ll say it again. I’m not marrying that man!”
“Then what? You expect me to find another, better marriage prospect for you now? I can’t do that! Unless you want to marry a man twenty years older than you.”
Mother muttered something horrible.
Then, like a fox saying “Those grapes must be sour anyway,” she added something she didn’t need to say.
“Well, the Duke of Voltane is the Crown Prince’s cousin, isn’t he? Someone with dragon blood would never officially become engaged to a poor baron’s daughter like us. He’s the perfect man to have as a lover, though.”
That was exactly the kind of thing you would expect from Baroness Otreha, a woman who had never lacked lovers throughout her life.
“You’ve already seduced him once, haven’t you? I’m sure the Duke hasn’t completely forgotten you either. If you marry Pascal and secure your future, while maintaining a… good relationship with the Duke, wouldn’t that be a huge advantage for our family?”
Mother casually said this while gently holding my chin.
Her hand was soft.
Other than occasionally holding account books and pens, she had never done any hard work in her life.
“If your face looked a little more like mine, your life would have been much easier.”
I slapped her hand away.
How could I not know?
Even if I listened to Mother and married a wealthy man, my life wouldn’t actually become easier.
Whether I become a debtor to this family or a debtor to another family, those are my only choices.
I thought about Leon’s invitation hidden underneath the clock.
If I put aside his completely confusing declaration about “my child” for a moment, Leon might actually be one of my possible choices.
In fact, he might be the best choice available to me right now.
But that would probably only mean changing who I owed my life to.
Then… there really is only one choice left!
As far as I remembered, there was still one huge investment opportunity waiting for me in this life.
At least…
If I could call it an investment.
