I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 1

“Waaah!”

Chubby white cheeks as soft as a rice cake, cherry-red lips, and large round eyes.

The baby in front of me was my child.

And unbelievably adorable.

“Uuung?”

“……”

So adorable, in fact, that it was impossible to imagine this child would one day go insane and bring an entire continent to ruin.

***

It had been a little over a year since I transmigrated into this novel.

Everything had begun around then.

I definitely transmigrated…

The memories that flooded my mind the moment I opened my eyes told me I’d entered the world of a novel.

The only problem was—I had no idea which novel.

So… I’m a noble, right?

Straightening my aching back, I patted it a few times.

I’d spent the entire morning bent over working, and every muscle in my body felt stiff.

The memories I’d inherited clearly said this body belonged to a noblewoman.

But no matter how I think about it… what kind of noble does this sort of work?

I stared blankly at the vast sea of golden crops spread out before me.

I mean… even if I’m just the daughter of an insignificant baron, I’m still a noble, aren’t I?

Cilia Evanroar.

That was the name of the body I’d possessed.

The daughter of Baron Evanroar, a modest noble family.

Yet her daily life was… rather unusual.

Ordinarily, noble ladies spent their time attending salons to broaden their education, socializing with other aristocrats, preparing elegant tea parties, embroidering…

Wasn’t that how it usually went?

Then what exactly is this?

I rubbed my temples while looking at the shimmering golden stalks in front of me.

That’s rice… isn’t it?

Judging by the heavy grains hanging from every stalk, the harvest had clearly been so abundant that farmers ought to be embracing one another while dancing and shouting,

“It’s a bumper harvest! A bumper harvest!”

And the one responsible for growing it all…

…was this body.

Considering this was her everyday life, I became convinced I’d transmigrated into one of those farming novels.

Was it that novel…? Um… the title was… Farming… Farming…

Ah, right.

Even a Noble Lady Can Farm!

That had to be it.

I clenched my fist in triumph after finally identifying the novel I’d entered.

Only to deflate like a punctured balloon moments later.

Haaah… Farming? Seriously? My dream was to transmigrate into the body of some minor noble lady and spend every day leisurely drinking tea.

At the time, I had absolutely no idea what kind of place this really was.

I simply pouted while sorting through the memories of this body.

Hmm… Besides that…

There was one more peculiar thing.

She wasn’t married.

But…

She had a child.

Though I’d never actually met the child.

I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with my sleeve and looked up at the sky.

Unmarried…

…yet raising a child?

Sure, this was one of those Korean fantasy romance novels with plenty of K-romance twists.

But even so, the setting was still based on something resembling a conservative medieval world.

That shouldn’t have been possible.

Yet somehow…

This woman had made it happen.

Judging by the fact she’d already completed the adoption process before I transmigrated, she must’ve been pretty determined.

There was a reason behind it.

Her older sister, who had been living away from the Evanroar estate, died in a carriage accident.

Afterward, this body had adopted her sister’s child.

Today’s the day that child finishes treatment at the Mage Tower and comes to live with me.

The child had miraculously survived the accident, though badly injured, and had been rushed to the Mage Tower for treatment.

The only reason my sister—who was practically a commoner by then—had received the Tower’s help was because the accident happened near it.

To be honest…

There were still things that didn’t make sense.

Why had she been near the Mage Tower, so far from Evanroar territory, while carrying a newborn?

And why had the notoriously arrogant Mage Tower agreed to treat the child?

…Well, regardless.

Today would be the first time we met after the treatment ended.

“Are you Lady Evanroar?”

“Uh… Yes. That’s me.”

“We’ve come from the Mage Tower. Ahem!”

…Wasn’t showing this suddenly a bit much?

I narrowed my eyes at the man who had abruptly appeared in the middle of the enormous golden field, thick with the smell of fertilizer.

In every other novel, a servant would come running to announce the guests’ arrival, and everyone would enjoy tea together in an elegant drawing room first.

“What… where is this? I-It smells rather unpleasant.”

The man had appeared in a shower of glowing white particles.

Covering his nose with the robe that hung loosely over his body, he looked around in confusion.

Judging from the residual magic, he’d teleported.

Did he not even know where he was teleporting?

I answered flatly.

“Ah. You happened to arrive right on top of the fertilizer field.”

“W-What?!”

The man hurriedly stumbled backward.

He wore the robes that symbolized a mage of the Mage Tower.

Is this the one who was supposed to bring the child?

He looked…

…a little incompetent.

But where was the baby?

“The coordinates were correct… Strange. Is this because of that child again? Ahem.”

The mage muttered to himself in a flustered voice.

Then he noticed my icy stare and visibly flinched.

After a brief hesitation, he held out a small round basket.

A handkerchief covered its contents, making it impossible to see inside.

Is the baby in there?

“In any case! Axion’s treatment has been completed, so you may now take the child home.”

…I see.

So the baby’s in the—

Wait.

What did he just say?

“…Excuse me?”

The man tilted his head.

“Yes?”

“What did you just call the child?”

“I said you may now take the child—”

“No. Before that.”

“Ah… I said Axion’s treatment has been completed…?”

“Axion?”

Axion?

Why did that name sound so familiar?

And why did chills suddenly crawl up my spine?

“Yes. That’s the name of the child you adopted, my lady.”

“N-No way! That child can’t possibly be Axion! No—he can’t be!”

As I frantically waved my hands, the mage launched into an exasperated rapid-fire explanation.

“Surely you don’t think the child was switched? Impossible. The Mage Tower has never treated another infant besides this Axion. Look here—this mark on his neck. It’s the birthmark he originally had. We were told his mother was your half-sister, so you must already know about it.”

The mage quickly lifted the handkerchief.

Inside the basket slept an angelic baby, peacefully breathing.

And on the baby’s neck…

…was a black mark.

Gasp.

The moment I saw it, every hair on my body stood on end.

It was unmistakable.

The same symbol that had appeared on the cover of Axion, the novel I’d been reading before I died.

The very mark the male protagonist had possessed since birth.

As soon as I recognized it…

…my head began ringing.

“I wasn’t in a farming novel…?”

The freshly harvested bundle of golden rice tucked beneath my arm slipped from my grasp and scattered onto the ground.

Axion.

Axion?!

Not this novel.

Please…

Anything but this one.

Don’t tell me I transmigrated into that hopeless, utterly miserable novel?!

Axion.

The novel I’d picked up simply because I’d heard it was told entirely from the male protagonist’s point of view.

…No.

That’s not entirely true.

The real reason I’d read it was because everyone said it was one of the bleakest novels ever written.

I wanted to experience the strange comfort of wallowing in absolute despair.

…I really wasn’t in a good mental state before I died.

For some reason, that day I’d desperately wanted to curl up inside that metaphorical dumpster and feel at home.

So I’d eagerly opened Axion…

Only for it to surpass every expectation and become one of the darkest novels I’d ever read.

The male lead goes insane… and kills the heroine…

The male lead killed the heroine.

That alone said everything.

Afterward…

The entire continent was split in two.

Axion had been so horrifyingly ruthless throughout the novel that readers unanimously voted him the greatest villainous male lead of all time.

And the baby in front of me is that Axion?!

Completely oblivious to my silent despair, the mage apparently assumed I’d accepted his explanation.

He casually pushed the basket toward me.

“Well then, please take him. I’m rather busy.”

His words snapped me back to reality.

Smack!

I slapped both of my cheeks and shook my head violently.

Dear God.

If this really is the world of Axion…

I absolutely couldn’t let this mage leave.

I ground my teeth so hard they creaked.

Then I planted my feet firmly on the ground and lunged straight at the bored-looking mage.

“Y-You fraud!”

“W-WAAAH?!”

Setting the basket containing Axion safely on the ground first, I grabbed the mage by the collar.

The arms I’d built through years of farm work were more than strong enough to shake around a scholar who spent all day researching magic!

“W-What are you doing, my lady?!”

“Take that damned Dragon Heart out of this child’s chest right now!”

The single greatest reason Axion became the Number One Villainous Male Lead.

The Dragon Heart of the demonic dragon.

Secretly implanted into his body by the Mage Tower under the guise of medical treatment while he was still an infant.

Inserted solely for experimentation…

The Dragon Heart would later play the biggest role in driving Axion completely insane.

“W-Wh-what are you talking about?! W-When did we ever implant a D-D-Dragon Heart?!”

“The Dragon Heart of Rohad—the demonic dragon your Mage Tower slew a hundred years ago and kept in storage! You implanted it into this child’s heart! Don’t think I don’t know!”

“H-Hiiik! H-How do you know that…?”

Still dangling limply from my grip like a sheet of paper, the mage immediately threw both hands into the air in surrender.

“P-Please, hear me out first, Lady Evanroar! There were circumstances!”

“Circumstances my foot! Take it out right now!”

Otherwise, both you and I are going to end up dead!