I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother – Chapter 31

Author: isuzuuy

Agriculture needs fertilizer.

If you wanted the crops to grow well without pests or diseases, fertilizer was absolutely necessary. But simply dumping fertilizer onto the fields didn’t mean the crops would grow well.

“What? Fallen leaves and grasshoppers… I can understand that, but a-animal feces?”

Cedric slowly backed away, his face turning pale.

He had jumped for joy upon hearing that I hadn’t left this place during the ‘Day of the Rift,’ and had readily agreed when I asked him to take the opportunity to gather fertilizer with the Black Hawks.

“Why? You said you’d get the fertilizer.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. A-Are animal droppings really necessary for this thing called fertilizer…?”

“No. Not necessarily.”

Cedric let out a deep sigh of relief. He lightly rubbed the corner of his mouth with his index finger before saying,

“Waaah. What a relief. Then we can leave out the droppings…”

“It doesn’t have to be animal droppings. Human waste works too.”

“……!”

Scurry.

In the blink of an eye, he had backed away to a distant spot.

Like a pitiful man who had just been told that his beloved lover had contracted a terminal illness, Cedric let out a shrill cry with a deathly pale face.

Hiiiiieek.

“C-Cilia. Y-You’re joking, right?”

He awkwardly laughed before continuing.

“Y-You may be an adult now, but you really haven’t lost your talent for pranks.”

I wasn’t joking.

With an indifferent expression, I gave him the answer.

“If you don’t like human shit, bring animal shit instead.”

“C-Cilia! You shouldn’t say such bad words……”

“What’s so bad about it? Axion absolutely loves that word. Babies usually…… Ah.”

“Axion……?”

Cedric tilted his head.

“Who’s Axion?”

Perhaps proving that he really was a genius character, the moment his curiosity was piqued, Cedric came back to life with an inquisitive look and approached me in one stride.

I pushed his pale face away with my palm when it came so close that our noses nearly touched.

“Ouch!”

“Curious? You really want to know?”

Cedric took a step back as he watched me crack my wrists.

His frantic waving of his hands was quick and natural. Almost as if this body had been through situations like this with him many times before.

“N-Nooooo. A name I’d never heard just slipped out, so I was wondering who it was. Ha! Ha!”

“Really? What a shame that you’re not curious.”

I had been keeping Axion’s existence hidden from Cedric, largely because of Carl’s advice.

‘Ahem. Perhaps it would be better to inform Sir Cedric after some time has passed?’

‘Huh? Why?’

‘Considering the feelings between the two of you, I believe that would be…… Why are you looking at me like that? I know there’s nothing between you two. I was just teasing you a little. Hahaha.’

‘…….’

‘More importantly, Lord Silvestain, the current head of the family, has not yet returned. And the family has not officially announced that Lord Axion has been adopted.’

In other words.

Since my reputation was already at rock bottom, if I suddenly appeared with a child in tow, I could become the subject of all sorts of rumors. So until the adoption was officially announced, it was better to keep quiet.

‘Though Dazar and Elston already know.’

Neither of them was the type to go around spreading news, so it should be fine……

‘No, wait. Elston is a little suspicious.’

Dazar had also told me to keep the fact that I was unaffected by the barrier a secret.

‘Should I silence them soon?’

While I was deep in thought, cracking my neck from side to side, Cedric apparently interpreted my actions differently and nodded rapidly with a frightened expression.

“Goodness, why am I not curious at all? What a shame, but I suppose it can’t be helped! Then I’ll go and gather some animal shit!”

“Sure.”

Whether he realized he had just used the very word he had called bad moments ago or not, Cedric was already far away, waving his hand as he said goodbye.

I waved back, then remembered something I had forgotten.

“Come to think of it, do you already know the Black Hawks?”

They would be spending the entire day gathering fertilizer together.

Well. Hmm…… Since he was the Imperial Chancellor, they probably knew each other.

I shrugged and returned to my room.

“Don’t you think he’s suddenly been sleeping a lot lately?”

“Children normally sleep at all hours of the day. Perhaps he’s preparing to grow even more vigorously now.”

Is that so?

I gazed down at Axion, who was sleeping soundly, making soft, fluttering breaths.

Axion was still small, and still adorable.

I gently stroked the child’s white cheek and murmured,

“I wish he would hurry up and grow big and healthy.”

I still hadn’t figured out exactly why Axion wasn’t growing.

I had discovered the existence of Ruben, who supposedly grew by feeding on misfortune.

But the book had been obscured here and there as though someone had spilled ink all over it, making it difficult to understand its contents. The only complete passage I could find was this:

[If you encounter Ruben, run immediately if you want to live. But even running will be useless. If you have encountered Ruben, that world is already walking the path toward destruction. You will soon become his prey.]

Dazar, Elston, and even Retsi all seemed to already know about the existence called Ruben, but none of them seemed willing to tell me anything.

Judging by that, Ruben was probably information that ordinary people were forbidden from knowing.

‘Well, if you told ordinary people that an existence capable of bringing about the destruction of the world coexisted with them, they’d be terrified.’

The Empire would fall into chaos.

The ‘Day of the Rift,’ which occurred only once a year, wasn’t even disclosed to ordinary people. Something like that would obviously be kept even more secret.

Just as I reached that thought, I suddenly shook my head at the idea that flashed through my mind.

The thought that Axion might actually be Ruben.

‘There’s no way Axion is Ruben.’

An existence that brought about the destruction of the world. An existence that grew by feeding on misfortune.

There were many similarities between Ruben and the Axion from the original novel.

‘But Ruben was never mentioned at all in the original story.’

No matter how deeply I searched my memories, nothing came to mind.

Yet strangely, the name felt familiar because of Cecilia’s memories. Cecilia must have encountered Ruben somewhere in passing.

I just didn’t know where.

‘Is it because I’m living in an era twenty years before the events of the original novel?’

The original story I knew wasn’t particularly useful to me anymore. And even that original story was changing because I had refused to abandon Axion.

***

If Cedric ever took an MBTI test, he would undoubtedly get an extremely extroverted result.

“Hahahaha! Brothers, let’s go together!”

Whether his skin had gotten tanned from climbing the mountain in that short amount of time, or whether he had gotten drunk from drinking, Cedric appeared with a flushed face and was already calling the Black Hawks his brothers.

“Welcome, little brother! Come walk the path of gastronomy with us!”

“Sounds great! I’d love to!”

Each of the Black Hawks had a sack filled with fertilizer slung over his back, and they had their arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders.

Cedric was included among those ‘one another’ as well.

Leon, whether he knew that the man he was holding tightly was the Imperial Chancellor or not, was enthusiastically preaching the beauty of garaetteok, spraying saliva everywhere.

“You have to try garaetteok! Huh? It’s a hundred times better than lamb skewers!”

Then Leon’s eyes turned toward me.

“Oh! Sisterr!”

At the same time, every Black Hawk’s gaze landed on me, followed by a booming chorus.

“Sisterrrr! Did you have a good day at work?!”

The sudden shouting made Cedric hiccup.

“Did you bring the fertilizer back safely?”

“Yes!”

I barely listened to their thunderous response as they stood at attention and checked the sacks of fertilizer they had set down.

There was more than I had expected…… Ahem, there was quite a mountain of results.

“Good. Then put all of this into the pits we prepared beside the fields.”

The fertilizer needed to ferment properly over the winter.

“Yes!!”

When the Black Hawks answered loudly once again, Cedric, who had been looking back and forth between me and the Black Hawks, had eyes that sparkled.

For some reason, his gaze was overwhelmingly burdensome.

‘Cilia really is amazing!’

After sending Cedric and the Black Hawks back, I had to suffer for quite some time from Cedric’s voice echoing in my ears.

‘To think she’s made those amazing brothers into her hands and feet! So she really hasn’t been wasting her time all these years! They’re much more impressive than the lackeys she had back at the academy!’

I had no idea what this body had been doing at the academy. But seeing Cedric’s admiring gaze made me so uncomfortable that I hurriedly sent him away.

‘I’ll work harder too, Cilia!’

I had absolutely no idea what he intended to work harder at.

I erased Cedric’s admiring gaze from my mind and continued walking.

I was heading toward the library.

‘Come to think of it, I never checked who the author of that book was.’

I intended to take another look at the book I had found that day.

No matter how much of its contents had been smeared with ink, the author’s name should still be written on the cover.

If so, I might be able to find other books written by the same author.

I hurried toward the library. The very same library where I had discovered the book about Ruben before.

“Misfortune, misfortune…… Ah, here it is.”

Just like last time, I quickly found the book on the shelf dedicated to the subject of misfortune.

I hurriedly pulled out the book and checked its cover.