Volume 7 Chapter 3 Part 10

Fiancée of the Wizard

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Translation by burnt.marshmallows
Editing by Team Foxsunes


「Here, now let’s go. We shouldn’t let our guest wait for too long.」

「Ah, I’ll hold it」

「I’m fine with something like this, you know?」

「Just give it. It’d be bad if you fell again right?」

With that, Noct took the tray from my hands. As I looked at Noct’s back view while he started walking, a heartwarming feeling arose in me. As I sprinted slightly to walk beside Noct, he looked at me as if slightly annoyed.

「What are you laughing about?」

「It’s nothing.」

I said as I continued giggling. Noct looked like he wanted to say something in response, but it seemed that he chose silence in the end. We both kept quiet on the way to the reception room, but that was by no way an uncomfortable silence. 

When we finally reached the reception room,  I stood in front of it and made a fist with my hand. Here we go. As I was about to knock on the door, I heard a voice.

「ーーSo? What happened?」

It was the Head Knight’s voice. Reflexively, I stopped myself from knocking and opened the door ever so slightly, with great care, ever so gently, as I peered into the room, I was very well aware that I shouldn’t be peeking in, but my curiosity got the better of me. 

The reception room looked completely the same as when I had left, with that man and the Head Knight each sitting on the sofas facing each other with the low table in between them.

「Why would you think that?」

That man asked the Head Knight in a deep voice. He spoke with a sort of lisp, so it was obvious that he was still quite drunk. Seeing that man like this, the Head Knight let out a sigh, as if he were shocked. 

「Isn’t it obvious? I was the one who invited you, but for you to drink this much, I can only guess that something must’ve happened. Look, there’s no one around now anyway, even Flimina and the rest aren’t here. Let it out so that you can feel better. 」

Of course I don’t mean「vomit」when I say「let it out」. The Head Knight said, laughing. In response, that man glared sharply at him, with his body still on the sofa. But it seemed that the terror that he gave out was reduced by half because his eyes were watery from the alcohol.

……Heyyy, with those eyes, you wouldn’t be able to deny it even if someone said you were asking for it you know? As I secretly thought those things, that man lifted his body up from the sofa, and covered his face with both his hands. 

What was it? I stared intently into the crack in the door. Finally, that man let out a small whisper from between the gap in his hands.

「If I told you I was scared, would you laugh?」

That voice of his sounded as the voice someone made if they forcibly scraped off the scab of a wound that had not fully healed. It was a voice that was overflowing with pain.

Hearing those unexpected words, my body froze. Noct, who was standing beside me, seemed to have heard that man’s whisper too. He widened his eyes in surprise, but I was too preoccupied to have noticed that. 

「Scared?」

The Head Knight screech. He peeled his eyes looking at that man, as if he never thought those words would come out of this man’s mouth. I too made a similar expression to the Head Knight and stared at that man with the same feelings from the crack in the door.

What could he be scared of? Relative to the Demon Lord, the object of fear for the entire world, what could he still be scared of? It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who thought so. The Head Knight bent his neck with a face that said that he didn’t understand either.

「Scared of what?」

「The child.」

I could feel my own body tremble as I heard that short, immediate answer of his. The Head Knight knitted his eyebrows forcefully. 

「What? Your child?」

「Yeah. I’m so scared of the child that’s about to be born.」

「What could you possibly mean by that?」

The Head Knight asked doubtfully. His words spoke for those in my heart. He’s scared of the child, our baby? What did he mean by that? Just wait a moment.

ーCould I have possibly been overlooking something very important up until now?

The words that he was saying sounded so foreign to me. But those words of his definitely pierced through my eardrums. From the pierced hole, questions like those suddenly started to surface. 

I had been so happy that we had a child, and even happier that that man was happy about it too. I had been spending this entire time floating in cloud nine. But I must have been spending this entire time missing something that I should not have missed.

Thinking that, I couldn’t help but start to get really scared. My body would not stop trembling. Before I knew it, both my hands were placed on my lower belly. I could feel Noct look at me anxiously. But I was unable to respond,  and just listened to the conversation on the other side of the door with strained ears and bated breath. 

With a door in between us, that man didn’t seem to notice us in the hallway. He then continued to speak. I felt as though I could loudly feel the heartbeat of the baby in my belly. Of course, it wasn’t possible, since it wasn’t that time yet. My, our precious baby. Do you hear the voice of the man who is your father?

「I don’t know what the love of a parent is. I never doubted my stepfather’s love, but that also made me realize. Even if it were a parent and child who were connected by blood, there is no guarantee that there will be love in between them.」

I gasped at that man’s words. I couldn’t help but want to raise my voice, so I desperately sealed my own mouth.

It was obvious from anyone’s eyes that Uncle Lancent loved this man boundlessly. Uncle Lancent was filled with affection for this man, to the point of envy. And this man also admired the person he called his stepfather. There was a tightly bound bond between the two of them. 

But that gentle love was not the only type of love that this man knew. This man’s birth was evidence of that. 

That man’s birth was by no means blessed. Tragic, wouldn’t be enough to describe it. Having been born in exchange for his mother’s life, and estranged from his real father. It was a past that he went to seal away. For everyone else, it was supposed to be love that we naturally received, but that man used to be completely deprived of it. 

It seemed that the opposite of love was apathy. But that didn’t mean that the only thing that could hurt someone was not caring about that. Hatred, repulsion, detest. Those were all feelings that were enough to hurt someone, be it a little or a lot. That man had experienced that himself and he understood that very painfully. And I too, knew that for a fact. I knew. Yet, I, what on earth have I been doing?

That man didn’t notice my gaze as I desperately tried to stay silent, holding my trembling body. As that man continued to speak, he didn’t sound like himself at all. It sounded so helpless, so tormented. 

「How should someone like me love a child? 」

It was a question that sounded like what an innocent child would ask an adult, where the child asked「Why?」while tilting their neck, about something that was completely obvious to an adult. It wasn’t a question aimed at me. Yet I couldn’t help but panic. What should I do? How should I answer?

The way to love a child. I had never thought about something like that before. I would just instinctively find them hopelessly adorable, instinctively treasure them, and instinctively love them. What was obvious to me was not obvious to that man. 

The really obvious expressions of love this man has shown ever since my pregnancy was detected. Him bringing up the baby at every single opportunity. And, oh yes. That man said it out loud, didn’t he?

ーIn your eyes, do I really look like「it」?

I finally noticed what he meant by that. 

ーIn your eyes, do I really look like「I love our child」?

That was what that meant. I should have noticed sooner. I should have noticed. Yet, I didn’t. I didn’t even try to notice. That fact now weighed heavily on my chest.

「It is none other than Filmina’s child. There was no way that I wouldn’t love the child. That’s how it should be, yet, I don’t know. What does it mean to love a child? If I properly act like I love the child, will that someday lead me to really love the child? Up until now, I’d been working hard to express love or whatever, but is my attitude really for the sake of the child? Am I just projecting my own selfish wishes of wanting the child to make me a parent? 」


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