I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 26

I handed him a dish I had made as soon as I returned to the Siastor estate.

“What is this?”

A red bird, which I hadn’t seen in a while, was sitting quietly on his shoulder, while a steaming dish sat on the table between us.

The red bird seemed curious about the food I had brought as well, tilting its head to the side. It looked quite cute despite its fierce appearance, but I was facing a serious situation, so I straightened my shoulders.

I pointed dramatically at the dish with my finger and said,

“This is soy sauce egg rice.”

A fried egg was gently placed on top of white rice, covered with a glossy sauce resembling soy sauce.

I called it soy sauce egg rice, but it wasn’t actually made with soy sauce.

Although this world was basically a K-romance-fantasy-patched world, soy sauce didn’t exist here. Fortunately, there was a sauce that tasted similar to soy sauce.

It was a shame, but there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe I should try making soy sauce myself next time.

He gulped. His face lit up with an expression I had never seen before.

He looked ready to immediately scoop some into his mouth.

Just then, I quickly covered the bowl with both hands.

Ping! The spoon he had reached out with bounced off.

“Wait. Before that. If you want to eat it, repeat after me.”

Dazar’s lips twitched.

“What?”

“‘From now on, I will serve Lady Cilia with all my heart.’”

“……”

“Don’t like that? Then how about this? ‘I will become Lady Cilia’s footstool.’ The term will last until Lady Cilia leaves this place.”

Dazar’s golden eyes trembled pitifully. Even the spoon in his hand was shaking.

He lightly bit his lip, then closed his eyes tightly before opening them again.

After hesitating for quite some time, he looked once at the spoon in his hand and once at the soy sauce egg rice I was guarding. Then, slowly and carefully, he began speaking one syllable at a time.

“…Foot… stool…”

“Pardon? What did you say? I can’t hear you very well. Could you say it louder?”

“……”

“Knock, knock~?”

“Who would… Who would say such a thing?!”

Whoosh!

At that moment, he suddenly stood up and hurled the spoon in his hand far away.

The spoon flew gracefully through the air before landing on the marble floor with a loud clang! He must have thrown it incredibly hard, because even after hitting the floor, it continued sliding away like a skater.

It kept sliding for a while before finally hitting the wall with a ping! and coming to a stop.

I gazed, deeply moved, at the spoon’s brief journey to freedom after escaping its master’s hand. Then I quickly came to my senses when I saw Dazar fuming in front of me.

“Who in their right mind would say something so ridiculous?!”

He shouted at the top of his lungs before storming out of the room.

As a result, the red bird sitting on his shoulder abruptly took flight and landed with a soft thud on the sofa in front of me.

The back of his neck was bright red with anger as he walked away.

He had even left his own bird behind like this. He must have been pretty furious.

“Hmm.”

Well, I had already expected him to refuse, so his reaction didn’t surprise me.

I sat facing the red bird in the now-quiet room and pulled the bowl toward me.

Then I picked up the spoon I had hidden behind the tray for myself, mixed the soy sauce egg rice thoroughly, and took a bite.

“Mmm!”

As expected. Soy sauce egg rice never disappoints, no matter when you eat it. Ahh.

I happily polished off the entire bowl.

“Your master is really petty, isn’t he?”

The red bird seemed to nod slightly in agreement.

I grinned, feeling wonderfully satisfied.

Ah, this feels great.

 

***

 

A few days later, I returned to the shop called “Give Me Three Seconds and I’ll Poison You” to return the strange stone Morocanil had left behind, but he wasn’t there.

“Lady Cilia, you seem to be in an exceptionally good mood today.”

“Oh, do I?”

I tore my gaze away from the stone lying on the desk and looked at Carl.

Still carrying the sleeping Axion on his back, Carl seemed to have been about to bring me some fruit.

He placed a silver tray piled high with apples carved into little rabbits on the table.

“Yes. Is it because of the letter that arrived today? Ahem. This person is named Letti… ahem, is she perhaps a gentleman?”

Carl kept sneaking glances at the letter in front of me while pretending not to look at it, repeatedly clearing his throat as he asked.

I shook my head indifferently.

“No, she’s a woman.”

“My goodness.”

“Hm?”

Carl’s voice trembled. His reaction was strangely familiar. I could already guess what he was about to say.

“Lady Cilia finally has a female friend…!”

Carl suddenly covered his mouth and lifted his head. He took a deep breath and blinked rapidly.

His eyes, turned toward the ceiling, began to glisten with tears.

“Is she a friend you made at His Majesty the Emperor’s ball? Ohhh… I was so worried that you might never make another friend besides Sir Cedric, but I have finally fulfilled my dream before I die. Sob, sob. It’s all thanks to His Majesty Emperor Scarlet’s foresight.”

“Uh, y-yeah… Carl, Axion’s head is tilting with yours…”

“Ah! Lord Axion!”

If he ever found out that she was referring to His Majesty Emperor Scarlet, he’d probably faint.

After confirming that Axion was still sleeping peacefully, I ignored Carl’s now-familiar reaction and finished writing my reply.

Letti had written a brief greeting and said that the garaetteok we had eaten that day was incredibly delicious.

[…And Sir Hael is still limping. Every time I see him like that, I burst out laughing, which makes it difficult to look at my official duties (scribbled out).]

I told Letti that I was glad to have given her something to laugh about and wished Sir Hael a speedy recovery.

After putting the letter into an envelope and sealing it with my signet, I sent it off with a servant before heading out into the front yard of the annex where we were staying.

How on earth did that man know my name?

More than a month had passed since then, with several additional days on top of it.

Yet that dandelion angel, Morocanil, was still floating around in my mind.

Could he have been one of the nobles who attended that ball?

I remembered the nobles who had avoided me.

If that were the case, it would make sense that he knew who I was.

I am rather infamous, after all…

Hmm.

But why would he go out of his way to show me such kindness?

I thought back to the reactions of the nobles I had encountered at the ball. Hadn’t they all fled from me as if I were some kind of cockroach?

Even Dazar tried to use my reputation as a shield.

Would someone really show such kindness to a person like that? It was strange.

Ah, whatever. I don’t know.

I clicked my tongue as I patted down the soil in the garden bed with a small hand hoe.

I was still an absolute farming fanatic, and my body felt restless if I went even a single day without tending to crops, so I had made this little garden as a temporary solution.

He said we’d meet again someday, so I suppose I’ll see him eventually.

Having roughly settled on that conclusion, I pushed my thoughts about Morokanil aside and welcomed the next visitor.

“Cilia! How was your trip to the Imperial Palace? How are you feeling?”

“Ah. C-Cedric.”

It was Cedric.

Seeing his fluffy pink hair and round glasses made memories from the past threaten to resurface again.

Ciliaaa… Waaahhh…!

Gasp!

I immediately focused on the present with all my might.

Life was about living in the present.

If you become entangled in the past or future instead of grounding yourself in the here and now, you would be swept away by thoughts, worries, and anxiety and end up living an unhappy life.

I calmly composed myself and, with steady eyes, set down the tools I had been holding one by one before welcoming him.

“Come in. I’m feeling very refreshed.”

“Yay! That’s great. I knew sending you to the ball would work!”

He whispered the words and gave me a little wink. His expression was so sly that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had been bullied by the former Cilia.

What he meant was probably that beating someone up at the ball had made me feel better.

But the reason I was in such a good mood was because I had gotten one over on Dazar.

There was no reason to explain that, though, so I simply nodded.

“Well, it wasn’t bad.”

“Hehe. See? No one knows Cilia better than I do.”

Well, he had spent more than half his life being bullied by Cilia. Cedric probably considered my former self the most vicious person imaginable.

“But what brings you here?”

Cedric adjusted his round glasses and smiled brightly.

“I thought I’d spend some time with a friend. You’ve been working all this time, haven’t you?”

“Hmm.”

Was today some kind of Friend Day?

I glanced at Cedric’s face, which practically seemed to say I am a very good and kind person, and finished taking off my gloves.

“Come inside.”

“Yay!”

Cedric followed behind me with an excited, cheerful gait. We soon entered the drawing room and sat across from each other with the tea Carl had brought between us.

“Was that a separate garden you were making outside?”

“Yeah. Just as a hobby.”

“That’s very productive, Cilia.”

“Whaaat…”

His bright, smiling face made me feel strangely pressured, so I subtly looked away. For some reason, faces overflowing with goodness always made me uncomfortable.

After Cedric spent quite some time bringing up topics and me answering them, he suddenly brought up an unexpected subject.

“The Day of the Rift is coming soon, you know.”

The Day of the Rift.

That was what Letti had mentioned to Dazar a few days ago.

It had also appeared in the original novel, so I knew what kind of day it was.

But the fact that Cedric knew about it was quite surprising.

That was because the Day of the Rift was something ordinary people didn’t even know existed. Only Transcendents and high-ranking officials of the Imperial Family were aware of it.

Wait.

High-ranking officials?

Come to think of it, Cedric said he came here as an instructor for the food development project.

Was his position actually pretty high?

I tilted my head inwardly and casually asked him,

“Come to think of it, what’s your position?”

Cedric smiled gently as he answered. His pink eyelashes lowered beautifully along with his smiling eyes.

“Me? I’m the Prime Minister.”

“……?”