I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 68

He had his eyes on what was his……?

I glanced at Dazar. There was no particular expression on his face, but his eyes had darkened.

He continued in a low voice.

“Don’t get too close to that guy.”

“……Why?”

Normally, I would have bristled at his interference, but his voice was so serious that I hesitated.

“Because he’s not a good person.”

“Hmm……”

I didn’t know what exactly that “mine” was that Morocanil had supposedly set his sights on, but it seemed the two of them really had been on terrible terms in their previous lives.

The music playing in the ballroom gradually slowed.

The song was coming to an end.

“So, did you end up losing that ‘mine’?”

The arm Dazar had wrapped around my waist gradually loosened.

As the force pulling me toward him disappeared, I slowly moved away from him.

At my whispered question, Dazar answered immediately.

“Of course I didn’t lose it. I never let anyone take what’s mine.”

“Then you won. Because you protected that ‘mine.’”

“……Protected it, huh.”

Dazar fell silent for a moment before muttering bitterly,

“No. I didn’t protect it.”

“……?”

He hadn’t lost it, but he hadn’t protected it either.

I couldn’t quite understand what he meant.

‘This isn’t some kind of riddle. Why is he being so cryptic?’

For some reason, I felt like I shouldn’t ask any further.

My instincts were telling me that from this point onward, I would be intruding too deeply into his innermost thoughts.

My goal was to survive for as long as possible while keeping my lifeline long and thin, all while protecting Axion’s happiness.

I didn’t have the luxury of getting involved in other people’s lives.

“Thank you.”

The song ended.

He slowly stepped away from me.

To signal that the dance was over, I lightly gathered the hem of my dress and bowed my head.

Normally, when I bowed, my partner was supposed to give me a similar farewell at roughly the same time.

But Dazar remained silent, as if he were lost in deep thought.

The man who had been pretending to be so polite and refined was now standing there blankly, and I could feel the gazes of the others turning toward us.

“Dazar?”

“Ah.”

Only after I called his name did he hurriedly offer the closing greeting.

“It was a pleasure, my lady.”

He then quickly escorted me back to my original spot, where he saw Morocanil waiting for me and raised an eyebrow.

“I danced with you, so now I can’t dance with anyone else. You can tell why if you look at my swollen feet, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dazar crossed his arms and snorted.

“You’ve had enough victims with me. Don’t go wrecking anyone else’s legs.”

I almost told him that the whole reason I’d agreed to dance was to wreck his feet, but I stopped myself.

“Otherwise, several people are going to be carried out of here.”

After casually tossing out that infuriating sentence, Dazar walked away quickly, as though he had somewhere urgent to be.

Hmph. As annoying as ever.

Just as I was pouting and desperately trying to erase his bitter words—I didn’t protect it—from my mind, Morocanil, who had been standing silently, smiled slightly.

“It’s a shame.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because, as Dazar said, it seems you won’t be dancing anymore.”

“Uh……”

I hesitated, my feet that had been subtly moving away from the dance floor coming to a stop.

He wasn’t wrong.

There was no one else I wanted to punish.

“Why don’t you dance with another young lady instead? I think I’d be too much trouble.”

“If it’s not you, I don’t want to. Ever.”

“……?”

He didn’t want to if it wasn’t me.

And he meant ever?

‘This man……’

As it turned out—

‘Is he just really bad at socializing?’

……I couldn’t quite settle on that conclusion, especially since I was unusually good at reading the mood, so all I could do was laugh awkwardly.

What was this? What was this atmosphere?

Why was he looking at me with such an intense gaze?

Was yet another person falling for my irresistible charm?

Thinking that, I scratched my cheek awkwardly.

‘That might be taking it a little too far.’

Judging by how Morocanil didn’t interact with anyone else at the banquet, he really might have been extremely shy around people.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to keep his distance from high society.

But something about that explanation still left me feeling uneasy, so I casually asked,

“Why do you want to dance with me?”

Perhaps he hadn’t expected me to ask such a question, because Morocanil’s eyes widened slightly.

Then he answered with a soft laugh.

“Because it’s you.”

“……?”

After saying that, Morocanil didn’t answer any more of my questions.

Were all the Transcendents around here this cryptic?

Well, it had nothing to do with me.

I shrugged and left the unresponsive Morocanil alone.

‘Whatever. I don’t know.’

I knew that getting any more involved with these people would only make things troublesome.

With my stomach starting to growl, I wandered around the various tables with Morocanil trailing behind me like a tail.

By the time I was done, the ball had ended.

The rest of the scheduled events followed, and the first day of the Hall of Rest came to an end.

Since the main attractions wouldn’t begin until tomorrow, I spent a reasonable amount of time there before leaving the ballroom early.

“See you tomorrow, Cilia.”

Morocanil gave me a simple farewell before leaving.

 

***

 

“Welcome back, Lady Cilia.”

Carl greeted me with an extremely tense expression.

“Why are you so stiff?”

“Well…….”

Carl hurriedly lowered his voice and glanced around.

I followed his gaze.

We were in a guest room provided by the Imperial household.

‘Calling this a guest room is a bit of an understatement, considering how enormous and lavish it is.’

Carl covered his mouth with one hand and whispered,

“We are in the Imperial Palace, after all. Somehow, I feel pressured to become an even more formal butler.”

“Hmm.”

What a pointless pressure.

I nodded along just to humor him, then let my weary body collapse onto the sofa.

Ahh, now I can breathe.

I kicked off the shoes that had been tormenting my feet and stretched out on the sofa.

“Ahhh. I thought I was going to die. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. I didn’t know it would be this exhausting.”

“Ah! Lady Cilia! Young Master Axion is watching you. Ahem. Please maintain your dignity.”

Carl hurried over and blocked me from view, firing off his words like a machine gun.

“What dignity? This is what you see every day at Siaster Manor.”

I went completely limp like a slime and sprawled across the sofa.

Carl had been blocking my view earlier, so I hadn’t noticed, but now I could see that Axion was sprawled across the sofa opposite me, playing with his hands.

Hehe. Look at that pose. That’s my son, all right. He takes after me.

“Ahem. Still……”

“Carl, you had a hard time today too, didn’t you? You must have been exhausted dealing with those attendants. Let’s sit down and rest.”

“…….”

Just as I’d said, Carl must have had a rough time dealing with the two attendants who had committed the crime of insulting a noble.

The tension he’d been holding in his shoulders gradually eased at my words.

Then, like a deflated balloon, he plopped down onto a small chair.

“You’re right. It was exhausting.”

He loosened the tie around his neck slightly and let out a long sigh.

“The Imperial Palace is quite different from how it used to be. Ahem. I was rather famous back then, you know.”

He began chattering away about the past.

Being broad-minded like the sea, I even clapped for him and empathized with everything he said.

“Wow. Amazing. Incredible. And then? What happened next?”

“……What do you mean, what happened next? I haven’t even started telling my story yet. I’ve never seen such soulless responses before, Lady Cilia.”

Carl seemed to be looking at me as though I were pathetic.

Surely I was imagining it?

After bickering with Carl a little more, I finally calmed down and looked toward the window.

The view outside, beginning to glow red with the sunset, was probably beautiful, but I was far too lazy to get up and look at it.

“Tomorrow is the second day.”

“Yes. There should be plenty to see tomorrow.”

As Carl said, there would be plenty to see on the second day.

“There will be several salons, and lectures as well. I heard that artists such as minstrels and dancers will also be gathering.”

“Right. That’s what I heard too.”

It was also written on the schedule Cedric had given me.

“Tomorrow, I can walk around with Axion, so we should go together.”

“Let’s do that.”

Carl smiled and nodded.

“Then get some sleep.”

Perhaps because he wanted to be considerate of me, Carl didn’t ask about the nobles’ reactions.

He must have been worried about what the atmosphere had been like after I revealed that Axion was my son, or whether I’d heard anything unpleasant.

“……Thank you.”

I don’t know if he heard my words of gratitude, but Carl closed the door with a click and left.

In many ways, I had come to rely on Carl quite a lot.

In fact, after I possessed Cilia’s body, it was none other than Carl who helped me adapt to this world when I struggled for quite some time.

Because I received his warm affection, I had come to feel that I should repay him in kind.

“So, I’m going to raise Axion well and make sure this world doesn’t fall apart.”

So that what happened in the original story wouldn’t happen again.

At first, it had simply been about preserving my own life.

But recently, that scope has begun to expand.

Carl, of course, but also Vanilla, and……

That irritates Dazar, too.

‘We’re family. We have to go together. Cilia and Sion and Dazar and me, we’re all family! Right?’

Why did Vanilla’s words suddenly come to mind?

Perhaps because I was tired, my eyes gradually grew heavy, and that night, I dreamed.

It was a dream where Vanilla, Dazar, Axion, me, and even Carl were all gathered together, running and playing on a beach.

The sun was warm, and the sea was blue.

We smiled brightly at one another.

Chirp, chirp.

Before the lingering feeling of the dream had even faded, morning came on the second day.