I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother – Chapter 46

Author: isuzuuy

“V-Vanilla. What’s wrong? What happened?”

It was nine o’clock at night.

Vanilla appeared in the room where Axion and I were, tears streaming down from her large eyes.

She had followed me once before when I was taking Axion back to his room. It seemed she remembered the way.

“Waaah…… Cilia…….”

I quickly brought the sobbing Vanilla inside.

Axion had only just fallen asleep in the small room attached to mine. Carl, who had been watching over him as he slept, had already returned to his own room.

Which meant that, for now, it was just Vanilla and me in this room.

“Come sit here first.”

I sat Vanilla down on the sofa and covered her with a blanket. Then I warmed some milk and brought it over.

“Drink this, Vanilla. It’s warm milk.”

“Mmm…… hic.”

Vanilla held the milk-filled mug with both hands, but she didn’t bring it to her lips.

I quietly waited until she had calmed down, and eventually, the child spoke.

“It’s, it’s…… my Puppy…….”

Puppy?

Her beloved puppy doll?

“Puppy disappeared…… I think he doesn’t like me anymore. Did Puppy leave me like my mommy did?”

“……Vanilla.”

Tears trickled down her flushed cheeks, making her look unbearably heartbroken.

Like her mother had left her?

Could it be that Vanilla’s biological mother had abandoned her?

There had never been any mention of Vanilla’s biological parents in the original story. That was why I knew nothing about what had happened to them.

I had only learned here that her biological father had been killed by Dazar.

Vanilla…… must have quite a story of her own, too.

I carefully took the milk from Vanilla’s hands and pulled her into my arms.

“Waaah. Or maybe Puppy was taken away, like that person Dazar had….”

Vanilla clung to me, tears continuing to stream down her face.

That person of Dazar’s.

It was something Vanilla had mentioned once before.

I pretended not to hear that part and spoke gently, in a soft and comforting tone. I felt that was what Vanilla needed right now.

“It’s okay, Vanilla. Shh…… Puppy probably didn’t run away. He’s just gone somewhere for a little while. Maybe he got lost and is waiting for you somewhere.”

“Uu…… really?”

“Yeah. Shall we go look for him together?”

“Mm…… hic. Y-You’ll come with me?”

Her tear-stained eyes trembled anxiously. I stroked Vanilla’s hair and nodded firmly.

“Of course. We have to go together.”

I gently coaxed Vanilla and led her out of the room. She must have cried all the way here, because there were tear drops scattered here and there along the hallway she had walked through.

We were getting close to Vanilla’s room, but at the intersection, I turned in the opposite direction.

I felt that we shouldn’t leave Dazar out of this. After all, he was her guardian.

“Vanilla. The more people we have, the better, so let’s go with Dazar, too.”

“D-Dazar.”

Vanilla stopped dead at the mention of Dazar.

She fidgeted with her lips, looking completely intimidated. But it didn’t seem like she disliked Dazar.

“Why don’t you want to? Is it because you don’t like Dazar?”

“That’s not it!”

“Then?”

“Uu…… th-that’s……”

Vanilla lowered her head and spoke in a tiny voice.

“P-Puppy…… Dazar gave Puppy to me…….”

“Hm? Dazar gave you Puppy as a present?”

“W-When Daddy hated me, Dazar…… Dazar gave me Puppy.”

Sniffle. Vanilla continued in a trembling voice.

“If I lose Puppy…… Dazar will hate me too…….”

Her father hated her?

I stared at Vanilla in shock.

There was a faint trace of fear in her golden eyes.

Reading the child’s expression, I realized something I hadn’t intended to notice.

Her biological father……

He didn’t exactly cherish Vanilla.

Realizing that I had brought up a painful memory for her, I bent down and gently comforted Vanilla.

“It’s okay. Then, do you just want to go with me?”

“Uungg….”

Vanilla seemed a little confused.

Her head began to nod, but then she suddenly stopped, as though she didn’t know what to decide.

And just then—

“Of course I’m coming too.”

A curt voice, but one that somehow carried a hint of warmth, rang out.

How he had known that we were heading toward him, I had no idea, but Dazar was standing against the wall in light clothing.

He casually crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side.

“D-Dazar! Waaaah…….”

“Don’t cry, you little brat. And since it was a present I gave you, don’t I have the right to look for it too? So I’m coming.”

“……R-right?”

Vanilla seemed not to understand the word right, so Dazar uncrossed his arms and ruffled his hair roughly.

“No. That’s not what I mean…… I want to look for it too. With you, Vanilla.”

“……You’re not gonna hate me?”

“……Of course not, you little brat.”

Dazar approached the hesitant Vanilla in a single stride and scooped her up with one arm.

Somehow, the gesture looked strangely familiar.

“Th-Then…… you can look with me…….”

“Honestly, you’re such a handful.”

Dazar let out a deep sigh and started walking, while I quietly followed behind.

For some reason, I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation between the two of them right now.

Once we entered Vanilla’s room, we searched everywhere for Puppy.

“Maybe this little guy is under a pile of clothes or something. That’s probably why you couldn’t find him.”

“A pile of clothes?”

Why would there be a pile of clothes in a ducal lady’s room?

Weren’t the servants always supposed to put her clothes away? They even helped her get dressed.

At my question, Dazar glanced awkwardly at Vanilla.

She was still calling out for Puppy as she searched underneath the bed.

Dazar spoke in a very quiet voice.

“This kid has scars on her body. She doesn’t want anyone to see them, whoever they are. The servants are always careful about it, but she gets very sensitive.”

In other words, whenever Vanilla changed clothes to go to bed, all the servants had to leave and were not allowed back in.

As a result, the clothes she took off remained scattered across the floor until morning.

“……So I stayed with her for a while. But she’s gotten a little more accustomed to the estate, and independence is important for a child of a great noble family from a young age.”

In other words, she now changed and undressed all by herself.

Hearing that, I immediately headed toward the dressing room attached to Vanilla’s bedroom.

And there, I finally found Puppy lying underneath the dress she had worn today.

“Found him!”

“R-Really?”

Puppy was stretched out flat on his back, using the dress as a blanket and sleeping peacefully.

I told Vanilla that, reassuring her that Puppy had simply been taking a nap.

When Vanilla saw Puppy, tears welled up in her eyes again, but Dazar simply said, “Enough,” and she tightly pressed her lips together and held them back.

After soothing the child and making sure she had fallen asleep, the two of us left the room.

Click.

The door closed.

“……What a whirlwind of a day.”

“Tell me about it. And whose fault is it that I’m this exhausted from the morning onward?”

“Whose fault could it be? Obviously yours.”

“Why is it my fault?”

As Dazar narrowed his eyes, I proudly lifted my chin.

“Because Vanilla is your daughter.”

“…….”

“You worked hard playing daddy all day today. Keep up the good work from now on, too.”

I lightly punched Dazar on the shoulder.

As we walked down the hallway, we remained silent for a while.

Dazar didn’t say a word until we reached my door.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“Thank you.”

“……Huh?”

What did I just hear?

Was I hallucinating?

While I stared at him with wide eyes, Dazar quickly walked away.

Before I could even react, I was left standing alone in the hallway.

“…….”

Feeling as though I had just encountered a ghost, I blinked several times before entering my room.

I lay sprawled across the bed and pinched my cheek.

It hurt.

Pfft.

For some reason, I felt like laughing.

What the hell? I thought he was just an unpleasant bastard. Turns out he actually knows how to say thank you.

Somehow, I felt a strange tickling sensation in one corner of my heart.

After rolling around on the bed and giggling for a while, I suddenly stopped moving.

Because I remembered the “that person” Vanilla had mentioned in connection with Dazar.

Who could that person be……?

***

“Lady Cilia! Sir Silvestain has sent a letter!”

The next day, Carl came rushing in and handed me a letter from Silvestain.

It was a reply to the question I had asked him before.

“Oh! Does Sir Silvestain say he’s doing well?”

“Just a moment, Carl.”

Perhaps I had overexerted myself yesterday, because my entire body was aching.

I groaned as I rolled out of bed.

Ugh.

I was incredibly tired, but I was desperate to check the contents of the letter, so I quickly unfolded it and began reading.

[Why did you suddenly become interested in books, Cilia?

I don’t know what brought about this change…… but you used to have absolutely no interest in my books, and would even burn them to use as fertilizer when you were farming. To see you change like this…… it fills this older brother’s heart with emotion.

Your big brother is very happy.]

I skipped over all the parts where Silvestain went on about how happy and delighted he was.

[……There is an ancient text I’ve been searching for and translating. The book you saw was probably an unfinished translation of that text. I’m still working on it, but the temple requested it, so I compiled only a portion of it into a book.

I’ll send you some of the parts I’ve translated.]

The temple had requested it?

Then Silvestain must have known about my investigation into Ruben as well.

I continued reading his translated notes.

[Ruben is born human. They grow by feeding on misfortune, and this is an unavoidable fate.

As Ruben grows in this manner, they inevitably come to hate the world, and eventually bring about its destruction.]

Eventually bring about the destruction of the world?

For some reason, the description sounded all too familiar.

……It sounds far too much like Axion in the original story.

I felt a chill creep up the back of my neck.

No. Surely not.

I shook my head and continued reading.