I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 48

“You came back way too late.”

The one who greeted me when I returned from House Evanroar wasn’t my adorable little ones, but Dazar, who was wearing a sullen expression.

After what happened with Vanilla recently, I had promoted him from “human garbage” to something along the lines of “human-like creature,” but he was still just as annoying as ever.

What was his problem? Had I promised to meet him or something?

I looked at him without bothering to hide the bewilderment on my face.

“What? Why?”

The carriage had just made a wide turn around the enormous fountain and stopped in front of the mansion. The moment I poked my head out through the carriage door and came face-to-face with Dazar’s handsome features, my expression involuntarily soured.

“You came back too late.”

“Hah. Seriously.”

I stepped down from the carriage and walked right past Dazar, patting down the wrinkled hem of my dress from sitting for so long.

“I left a note through Carl. And you already know what’s going on, so why are you acting like this?”

“Of course I know. That’s exactly why I’m acting like this.”

Seeing the coachman take my luggage out of the carriage, I lightly picked up only the small briefcase from inside.

“Could you have everything else taken up to my room?”

“Yes. Understood.”

Normally, those were the sorts of things servants would handle, but perhaps because the Siastor ducal household had only the bare minimum of staff, the coachman ended up doing most of the work.

He must already have been tired from having to go all the way to the capital and back.

Thinking that he was suffering because of his wicked employer, I was just about to walk away when—

“Ah.”

“Where are you going? This is urgent.”

Dazar snatched the briefcase from my hand and slung it over his shoulder as if it were his luggage. The way he casually strode ahead made him look rather carefree.

“I’m already exhausted because I just used a brain I haven’t used this much in a long time. Does it really have to be now?”

Judging from what he was saying, it was probably about food.

With the food shortage having prompted the Imperial Family and nobles to open up their granaries, I had already expected this sort of conversation to come up.

But I’m sooo tired right now.

“It’s urgent.”

Ugh. Was it really that urgent?

I followed obediently behind him, furrowing my brow.

I didn’t expect him to come looking for me the moment I got back.

Judging by the situation, it seemed he had heard I was returning and had been waiting for me in advance.

“So, what is it?”

I asked as soon as I sat down on the sofa in the study, arranged so that we were facing each other.

The golden eyes looking back at me held a more serious light than before. They were the same eyes I had seen when I had first presented rice to him as a new source of food.

“You said it would take a year, right? Until harvest.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“That’s too long.”

But I had already told him it would take a long time.

My eyebrow twitched at the sight of Dazar speaking as though he had only just learned that it would take a year.

“We need to shorten it. And if we get meaningful results from this harvest, I’ll immediately have the Empire purchase it under the Imperial name.”

Why had he suddenly become so impatient?

I could understand wanting to use it as food immediately if this attempt went well, but realistically, that was impossible.

“We already talked about that, didn’t we? There’s a certain amount of time and a certain season required for rice to grow. How am I supposed to shorten that? I’m not a god.”

“Then we need to find a way.”

“Why are you in such a hurry? You weren’t this desperate just a few days ago.”

Reading the impatience in Dazar’s eyes, I narrowed mine.

The Imperial Family was acting strange, too, and so was he.

Has something happened?

At my question, Dazar hesitated for a moment before closing his mouth.

“You have to tell me the reason, or else how am I supposed to go, ‘Oh, I see!’ and get motivated?”

“……The thing is…”

Dazar hesitated before slowly crossing his arms and leaning back against the sofa. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were anything but.

“This quarter, there’s been a problem with the supply of Miar the Imperial Family was supposed to collect.”

“……?”

When I looked at him blankly, Dazar let out a small sigh before continuing.

“You know that the reason there have been problems with Miar supplies until now was largely because Miar suddenly stopped growing for some unknown reason.”

“Yes. Wasn’t it because of a disease?”

“For now, that’s what we believe.”

Some of the Miar grown in the Evanroar territory had also stopped growing, causing the harvest to gradually decrease. It was because of the crop disease spreading across the continent, and by now, every place that grew Miar was experiencing the same phenomenon.

Dazar’s expression turned serious.

“But there was one place that had been unaffected until now. A vast area directly managed by the Imperial Family. Although Miar production had dropped sharply, that area was allowing the Empire to barely maintain enough food to get by.”

“……Don’t tell me.”

“Exactly. Every Miar plant in that area has stopped growing.”

Good heavens.

I stared blankly at Dazar, my eyes widening.

So that’s why that letter suddenly came flying in.

“This is serious. So that’s why you’re opening the granaries in such a hurry. And the timing couldn’t be worse.”

“Exactly. They deliberately chose the ‘Period of Rest.’”

Chose?

The way he said it implied that there was someone behind this situation who had deliberately caused it.

My unnecessarily sharp intuition kicked in, and before I knew it, I blurted out,

“Who’s behind it? Are you saying there’s a group deliberately creating this disease?”

“……!”

Dazar’s eyes widened at my question.

As if realizing he had made a mistake, he lightly bit his lip and slowly turned his head away. His golden eyes held an awkward expression.

At the same time, I realized my own mistake.

I was supposed to live as an ordinary commoner whose only dream was to raise Axion well.

I was supposed to avoid getting involved in things like this.

And with the possibility that Axion might be Ruben, I needed to be even more careful about becoming deeply involved with them.

Uh-oh…… No, no, I shouldn’t.

I gave an awkward smile and lightly waved my hand.

Haha. Hahahaha.

“Wow. I must have been reading way too many novels lately. All of a sudden, my imagination is running wild. You don’t have to answer. Actually, don’t answer.”

I emphasized every single word, making it abundantly clear that I didn’t want him to answer.

But for some reason, the man who normally had absolutely no consideration for other people answered me very kindly today.

“Right. You’re the key figure in creating this new food source, so I shouldn’t hide something this important from you.”

“……No, wait.”

“The fact that they suddenly made a move like this despite never touching the Imperial Family’s fields until now might mean they’ve caught wind of this project.”

I waved my hands, making a face that clearly said I was perfectly fine, but Dazar refused to stop, as if he had made up his mind that he absolutely had to tell me.

And the words that reached my ears were something I couldn’t simply ignore.

“Then you could be in danger as well. And so could that little boy.”

“……What? Me and Axion?”

What had I done?

And Axion had absolutely nothing to do with this……?

“They’re the ones who deliberately brought about the food shortage in the Empire. They won’t welcome the emergence of a new food source. But if there’s only one person capable of creating that food? Naturally, they won’t leave that person alone.”

“……”

They deliberately brought about the food shortage in the Empire.

Then that meant they were deliberately creating misfortune.

Suddenly, I thought of the “followers of Ruben” Silvestain had mentioned in his letter.

Could those ‘followers of Ruben’ be them?

“And they could use that person’s weakness against them.”

My weakness.

He was talking about Axion.

“After the announcement seeking a new food source was posted last time, you came to me. But publicly, that announcement was considered a failure. I don’t know where the trail was picked up.”

Dazar looked somewhat apologetic.

It was an expression I rarely ever saw on him, and seeing it made my heart sink.

This is real.

I pressed my lips together, my expression hardening.

No matter how much this had happened twenty years before the events of the original story, the original novel had said far too little about Ruben or his followers.

Ever since I received Silvestain’s letter last time, I had been wondering whether Axion might be Ruben.

And now there were Ruben’s followers on top of that.

Ruben awakens by feeding on misfortune, and if he grows while harboring evil within him, he becomes an existence that will bring about the end of the world.

Ruben’s followers would want Ruben to experience misfortune.

At least, if their goal really was the end of the world.

Why on earth would they want the world to end?

I couldn’t understand it at all……

But if they discovered that Axion was Ruben, I had no idea what they might do.

“That would be a problem.”

When I muttered quietly, Dazar agreed.

“Exactly. It would be a problem. That’s why we need to grow that rice as soon as possible.”

“……How? Do you have some kind of method?”

As I said before, I wasn’t a god.

How was I supposed to control how quickly something grew?

“There might be a way.”

Dazar said it casually.