I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother

Author: isuzuuy

“Sniff… Lady Cilia has finally come to her senses. This is all thanks to Lord Axion. Ooooh…”

After I kicked Elston—who had been enthusiastically reciting every single one of this body’s embarrassing black-history moments—right back to the Mage Tower.

I’d barely finished comforting the crying Axion when someone else started crying instead.

It was Carl, the butler of this household.

“Waaah… Lady Cilia, who refused to inherit the position of family head, praised the beauty of farming, and spent every single day working in the fields…! To think you’re actually receiving guests now!”

“…”

“And when I heard you were adopting Lord Axion, My Lady, do you know what crossed this old man’s mind? I thought perhaps you needed another pair of hands for farm labor!”

Was I really that bad? Ugh.

Just how obsessed had the original owner of this body been for him to say something like that? Once again, I was appalled by the sheer depth of her farming fanaticism.

“F-from now on, I intend to devote all my efforts to raising Axion. So… let’s cut back on the farming schedule a little.”

Otherwise, I’d end up dead seven years from now.

“Good heavens…! This old man can now die without regrets. To hear Miss herself suggest reducing the farming schedule!”

Every time I said something, Carl looked ready to cry out, Oh Lord! Watching him was starting to give me a headache.

Ignoring him, I fell into thought.

My future would depend entirely on how I raised Axion.

If I raised him unhappily, I’d meet a gruesome death.

If I raised him into a kind and healthy young man, I’d get a happy ending.

In that case, my goal from this moment on was to raise Axion well.

With everything I had!

Exceptionally well!

I clenched my fist and declared,

“Anyway! Axion comes first! Got it, Grandpa Carl?”

“Yes, My Lady!”

That bold declaration had been made only yesterday.

And yet the very next day, I ran straight into my first obstacle.

“Waaahhh!”

“Oh dear, dear, don’t cry, little one…”

“Waaahhh!”

“Axiooon… Peek a boo…”

Raising a baby was anything but easy. From the very first day, Axion refused to sleep and cried nonstop, to the point where I was seeing stars.

Was I worried something might happen to him from all that crying…?

Actually, no.

He’s protected by the Demon Dragon. There’s no way anything bad would happen to him.

What worried me more was whether he’d start resenting my terrible parenting and slowly nurture that hatred.

Am I already earning points toward the gruesome-death route one mistake at a time…?

After wrestling with Axion for what felt like forever, I collapsed onto the floor beside him like the tragic heroine of a melodrama, feeling utterly pathetic.

“My Lady, that’s why I keep saying we should hire a wet nurse.”

“No.”

About a week later, Carl cautiously suggested hiring one, but I refused without hesitation.

In this world, it was considered practically mandatory for noble families to employ a wet nurse. Even Cilia’s memories treated it as common sense.

But I was Korean.

I was the kind of person who used to watch American TV dramas where newborn babies slept in separate rooms and gasp, ‘Oh my goodness, how could they?!’

And the author of this novel was Korean too!

Since this was written by someone who shared the same cultural mindset, hiring a wet nurse felt like exactly the kind of choice that would rack up points toward the gruesome-death route.

In a Korean romance fantasy novel like this… hiring a wet nurse?

Absolutely not.

After all, in a K-romance fantasy novel, when it comes to a wet nurse…

“The kind who abuses the male lead when he’s young, brainwashes him into obeying only her, and drives a wedge between the female lead and the male lead….”

That was the role an evil nanny always seemed to play.

Trapped by that stereotype, I simply couldn’t bring myself to hire one.

“Waaahhh!”

Sniff… “Peekaboo…”

“M-My lady… Please don’t cry. If you cry too, this old man will… sniff….”

There I was, carrying the crying Axion on my back while crying myself and playing peekaboo with him. Watching me, Carl burst into tears as well.

Inside the room that had become both my bedroom and Axion’s nursery, the sound of crying never ceased.

After struggling like that for about another week, I found myself desperately homesick.

Sob… If this were Korea, I’d have joined one of those mom communities online by now and asked for all kinds of advice….

Wait.

A mom community?

Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

***

I had Carl gather every childcare book he could find, but they were nothing more than instructional manuals that lacked the hard-earned experiences of actual parents.

What I needed was practical advice from veterans!

Before dawn, while Axion was asleep, I put on a shabby farmer’s outfit, a straw hat, grabbed an old sickle, and headed to the fields behind the manor.

“Damn it.”

The moment I slung a towel around my neck and strode toward the fields, I could feel vitality and energy surging through me.

My mind cleared as though I’d downed two cups of coffee in one go, my heart pounded wildly, and my whole body trembled as if I’d just received the greatest gift imaginable….

The joy of this farming fanatic.

Every time I felt that overwhelming passion for farming, curses slipped out of my mouth before I even realized it.

A noble lady addicted to farming? Seriously, what kind of character is this?

The place I was heading to belonged to the baron’s estate, but it was a communal field managed by the villagers.

The baron lent them the land, they were free to keep whatever they grew there, and in return they helped the estate whenever extra hands were needed.

Since there hadn’t been any work requiring their help until recently, I’d never paid much attention to it.

Despite the early hour, quite a few people were already working in the fields. They all wore worn-out work clothes and straw hats.

The same outfit as mine.

I approached one of the groups and greeted them.

“Good morning.”

“Hm? Haven’t seen your face before. You’re new around here?”

Several women who looked to be in their forties looked up from pulling weeds.

“Yes. I only recently moved to Baron Evanroar’s territory, so this is probably the first time you’ve seen me. Haha.”

“Oh my, I see. You’re still so young, yet you’re already hard at work before sunrise! Are you married?”

If I had actually been a noble, they never would have dared ask such personal questions.

But to someone like me, who had grown up in Korea surrounded by adults who even wanted to know how many spoons were in other people’s houses, it felt oddly comforting.

Especially considering the plan I had in mind.

“Haha. Yes. I even have a child.”

“Oh my! A boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

The women immediately gathered around me as I shyly smiled.

“This newcomer sure knows what she’s doing! Just look how fast she’s pulling those weeds!”

Knowing this body’s farming skills were already maxed out, I eagerly showed them what I could do while pulling weeds.

Only after impressing them by effortlessly yanking root vegetables from the ground and earning their cheers did I casually bring up the real reason I’d come.

“Um… actually…”

“Yes, yes. Go ahead, pretty newcomer.”

“Well… I’m raising a child by myself.”

“Oh my goodness! Really? That must be so hard.”

“Yes…. It’s my first time raising a baby. And like I said earlier, I just moved to Baron Evanroar’s territory, so I don’t really know anyone around here.”

Hearing where the conversation was headed, the women stopped pulling weeds and gathered around me.

Their faces were filled with sympathy.

“My baby keeps crying. Even when I soothe him, he still cries… sniff. He won’t sleep either. And I’m not even sure if I’m changing his diapers the right way.”

The women nodded vigorously, their expressions full of understanding.

“That’s how it is. Oh dear, you’re a first-time mother. My first child was just like that. I really suffered back then.”

“Exactly, exactly. Whenever my baby cried, I cried right along with him.”

One of the women, whose eyes had grown watery from remembering those days, gently patted my shoulder.

“Oh dear, if you don’t know something, just ask us. We gather here around this time every day. Everyone struggles at first. We couldn’t afford noble nannies either. That’s just how it is.”

“That’s right, that’s right. We’d love to have you join us too. We really like you already!”

“W-Would that really be okay?”

Although I asked shyly, inwardly I was grinning.

Heh. They took the bait.

Hidden from view, I flashed myself a little V-sign with my fingers.

“Of course! So then, what’s your name?”

“M-My name?”

“Mhm. We’ll all introduce ourselves too.”

Looking at their sparkling, expectant eyes, I swallowed nervously.

A name! I never came up with one!

“U-Um, my name is….”

“Yes?”