I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 15

***

 

“Oh! Look at this sofa, Lady Cilia. Perhaps because it belongs to the Duke of Siastor, it’s incredibly soft! It’s on a whole different level from the sofa in our mansion.”

The one who greeted me when I trudged back with a hollow expression was Carl, who had piled up the empty bottles of bungeo juice on the table like a mountain, his eyes overflowing with admiration and emotion.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Carl after arriving at this estate because I had immediately gone to meet Dazar.

I plopped down into the chair in front of him and muttered,

“Why. Are you that happy, old man?”

I probably looked like a boxer who had lost a match, with a white towel thrown over my head as I panted away, but Carl, completely immersed in emotion, seemed unable to see me.

He bounced his body as though he were about to dance.

“Of course I am. This is Siastor, after all. Ah, the day has finally come when Lady Cilia’s abilities are being recognized!”

“Haha……”

I gave an awkward laugh.

Carl lightly wiped the corner of his eye and said,

“I firmly believed that a day like this would come someday. Hehe. Ever since Lord Axion arrived, good things have been happening one after another. Perhaps Lord Axion is a lucky charm?”

Although I had been dazed by the shock and horror of those irredeemable pieces of trash, seeing how happy Old Man Carl was seemed to calm me down a little.

He smiled warmly. The wrinkles around his eyes folded pleasantly.

“It solves the money problem you’ve been worrying about, and it solves Lord Axion’s education problem too!”

“……”

“This old man will also do his very best to help Lady Cilia!”

As Carl clenched both fists and struck a fighting pose, I noticed the mountain of bungeo juice piled up behind him.

I lowered my gaze slightly and asked,

“So, did you really drink all of that in one go?”

“Hehe. If I’m to serve the young Lady Cilia, I must provide my old body with the proper fuel. A little at a time simply won’t do.”

“……”

I glanced once at Axion, sleeping peacefully on my bed, then at Carl, who was smiling affectionately, and sighed.

Sigh.

Right. I was basically the head of the household now.

I was the one responsible for these two.

‘Those pieces of trash. I’ll just stomp on them properly and make them recyclable somehow.’

But they had refused because they were “busy,” hadn’t they? Damn those bastards.

How was I supposed to persuade them?

While I was deep in thought, Carl clasped his hands together like a young girl and whispered,

“B-but did you happen to see the Black Hawks here? You know, ‘Run wild, Black Hawks!’”

Those pieces of trash? I’d certainly seen them.

I’d even seen them rolling around on the floor and running wild against their will.

“Uh, y-yeah. S-somehow?”

“Oh my goodness! Don’t tell me you actually joined the knights?”

“Yeah……”

Carl put both hands on his waist and gave me a reproachful look.

“You didn’t go empty-handed, did you?”

“I did……”

“You should have taken a gift with you.”

A gift? What gift, my foot.

“You’ll be staying here for quite some time, after all. It’s practically like you’ve moved in. It’s only proper to greet your neighbors with a gift……”

Carl’s nagging voice seemed to drift in from far away.

Moving. Gift. Neighbor.

Those three words suddenly reminded me of something.

In Korea, when you move, you hand out rice cakes to your neighbors.

‘♥3040 Gourmet Eating & Drinking Club♥’

The words on the tapestry flashed through my mind at the same time.

‘Oh?’

Should I lure them with food?

“Carl. Where’s the rice we brought from the Evanroar Viscountcy’s warehouse?”

“Pardon? Why are you suddenly looking for that? We sent it ahead by carriage before we left. It should be piled up in the warehouse of this annex by now.”

As soon as I asked for the rice, Carl’s face became clouded with anxiety.

His eyes briefly grew hazy.

He was definitely recalling what had happened a few days ago.

Soon, beads of cold sweat appeared on his forehead. He gave me an awkward smile and stared at me.

His eyes seemed to be saying, No, right? Please tell me it isn’t. Lady Cilia, you’re not planning to put me through that backbreaking work again, are you? There’s no way!

I cruelly crushed his tiny glimmer of hope.

“Let’s go. Time to work. You need to earn back the bungeo juice you drank.”

 

***

 

We worked until the sun set and the moon rose.

Just as the words “cruel employer” were about to come out of Carl’s mouth, we finished the threshing and milling work we had done together last time.

We produced far more grains of rice than before.

It was in preparation for another sudden need like this one.

When all the work was finished, Carl raised both arms in victory.

Last time, I think he collapsed onto the floor as soon as we finished, but perhaps because he had consumed a mountain of bungeo juice, he was still full of energy even after finishing.

“I’ll be back.”

“Uu, are you sure you’ll be all right without me accompanying you?”

“Of course. I’m not a child. I’m just going to the mill for a little while.”

Apparently Carl had overexerted himself despite everything, because he suffered from muscle aches the next day.

If I worked the poor man any more while he creaked like a broken machine, my conscience would probably grab a knife and commit, so I decided to go to the mill myself.

“Still, for this sort of thing, one of the servants should……”

“Ah, it’s fine.”

He seemed to be suggesting that I ask one of the servants at the Siastor estate, but I couldn’t do that.

I didn’t want to owe that crazy in-law anything. It was an instinctive warning.

“Get some rest, Carl!”

I quickly left the Siastor estate.

The reason I was going to the mill was to get rice flour to make rice cakes.

I had loaded a carriage full of rice that had been soaking in water for more than half a day yesterday.

There was no way they would have a machine for making flour here, so I had to go to a mill.

After traveling down the mountain road for a while, we entered the city closest to the Duke of Siastor’s residence.

Naturally, it was probably part of the duchy.

Thanks to the coachman, the carriage headed straight to the mill without stopping.

The mill was located on the outskirts of the city.

“I’d like to have this turned into flour.”

The workers who had been busy at the mill blinked at the rice I handed them.

“What’s this?”

“Dunno. Is it?”

“Doesn’t look like miar.”

Apparently unable to bring themselves to ask someone who clearly looked like a noblewoman, they whispered among themselves, eventually gave up trying to figure it out, and started up the machine.

The machine normally used to make miar flour welcomed rice today.

After easily receiving the rice flour and paying the fee, I was just leaving the mill when—

“Huh?”

I had just begun climbing into the carriage when a strange question mark came flying from behind me.

I nonchalantly placed one foot on the carriage step.

Cilia’s social circle was painfully small, so there was no way someone would recognize me this far from home.

The possibility was about as low as an ant suddenly growing wings one day and flying around with a giggle.

“Uh?”

“……”

“Uhhhhh?”

But that reaction, which was practically announcing its existence right next to my ear, made me think that perhaps even ants could someday fly……

No, come to think of it, ants could already fly. There were ants with wings. Right.

I gained a profound realization and quickly turned around.

“Cilia?”

“?”

The man who had been repeatedly making those “uh?” noises was a rather friendly-looking man.

His clothes clearly marked him as a noble. He stood there with his mouth hanging open, pointing at me with his index finger.

What an incredibly un-noble-like display of rudeness.

I slightly raised my chin and looked down at him with as haughty an expression as possible.

Since I was standing on the carriage steps, our heights were roughly equal, making this possible.

“Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in your viscountcy? It’s amazing that you’ve come this far.”

He seemed to know me quite well.

I narrowed my eyes and slowly examined him.

After meeting the Black Hawks the other day, I had already given up half my expectations of ever meeting a decent person, so my face as I examined him became as ugly as a freshly pulled potato.

Hmm. Who was he again? He looked somewhat familiar.

“W-why are you looking at me like that?”

“Gasp.”

“Cilia?”

I searched through this body’s memories and was utterly stunned.

This man!

Cilia’s childhood friend,

her academy classmate,

her first love,

and the man she had secretly loved.

Gasp!

“Cilia! Wait! Where are you going?”

“Y-you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

I trembled like a machine that had suffered a massive shock and hurriedly shoved myself into the carriage.

I ignored him calling my name from outside with a dazed expression and locked the door tightly.

“Let’s gooo!”

“Ciliaaaaa!”

Neigh!

The horse cried out, and the carriage began to move.

Along with the horse’s cry, I let out a groan of my own.

“This is insane.”

What finally burst from my mouth wasn’t a scream of sorrow or joy at meeting the man this body had once loved.

It was a curse filled to the brim with shame and embarrassment.

The moment I remembered who that man was, all the insane things the former Cilia had done to him came flooding back from this body’s memories.

‘Hey. I picked this up on the way. Eat it.’

‘Mmph! C-Cilia! I’m allergic to carrots……! S-save me! Blech!’

‘Shut up and eat.’

‘Sniff. Cilia, why are you doing this to me? Sob.’

‘Yeah, cry like that. Cry some more. Huh? Hehe.’

She had deliberately fed him things he couldn’t eat just to watch him cry,

humiliated him for always coming in second,

and made him run errands for her every day.

I shuddered at these shameless memories, completely overwhelmed by embarrassment.

Why was there absolutely nothing normal about this body?!