I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother – Chapter 95

Author: isuzuuy

Although I had sent a letter summoning Silvestain, he wasn’t a mage and couldn’t simply fly here in an instant.

‘It’ll take time just for the letter to arrive, and there’s no guarantee he’ll check it right away…….’

It would take a while for Silvestain to come. In the meantime, I decided to take care of what I needed to do first.

“Axion, shall we take a little walk around the estate?”

“Uaah?”

Axion, who had been sitting in his cradle and playing with his own feet, tilted his head. I gently stroked his soft, perfectly white cheek before picking him up.

“Up we go. Let’s go see Dazar!”

“Kyah!”

Axion beamed as though he had actually understood Dazar’s name.

It was a change that had appeared after our trip to Ruben’s island—or, more precisely, after I got sick. While I was bedridden, Dazar had no choice but to take care of Vanilla and Axion himself. Whatever had happened during that time, Axion had started to like Dazar quite a lot.

‘Before, he treated him like a rock rolling around on the floor.’

I had actually been quite worried about whether Dazar would be able to take care of the child without me. But it seemed there was no need to worry. The children had been eating well, sleeping well, and playing happily all this time.

Well, in any case, having someone besides me and Carl, his primary caregivers, whom he could rely on was a positive thing for his social development.

I started walking down the corridor with Axion in my arms.

‘Come to think of it…… it really is a little strange.’

Once it was confirmed that Axion was Ruben, I became plagued by questions. The reason was that the current situation was different from the original novel I had read in my previous life.

In that story, there was absolutely no mention of Axion being Ruben. No, the word ‘Ruben’ itself wasn’t even mentioned.

‘Is there something wrong with my memory?’

The novel had certainly been memorable because of how unusual its content was, especially since it was told from the male lead’s perspective. But quite a lot of time had passed, so there was no way I could remember every single detail perfectly.

Hmm. But the fact that the male lead was Ruben was a core setting of the story. There was no way I could have forgotten something like that.

‘Something really is different.’

Then again, the existence of rice in this world was strange enough. A food shortage had been expected, but rice itself had never appeared in the novel.

So even if this world had diverged from the original, there was no reason for it to cause an immediate problem for Axion and me.

As I headed toward Dazar’s room, I came to my own conclusion.

‘Let’s just say I somehow entered a parallel world of the novel…… or something like that.’

No matter how much I thought about the rice or Ruben, neither of which had appeared in the novel, there was no way to explain them. I didn’t even know why I had ended up inside Cilia’s body, so there was no way I could figure out why the story was different from the original.

‘Then that means there could be all sorts of settings that differ from the original.’

For example, a character who was kind in the original might actually be a villain in this world. Or perhaps they had a much deeper backstory than they did in the novel.

Just like the person right in front of me.

“……What?”

For some reason, Dazar was sitting at his desk looking over some documents. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me. His expression made it look as though he wasn’t particularly pleased.

“What do you mean, what? I’m a person.”

“That’s not what I mean. Why are you here right now?”

What, was I not allowed to come here? If he’d left the door wide open, he should have expected unexpected visitors. And after what happened with Ruben’s Tower, I had become considerably more familiar with him, so seeing him react like this made me a little disappointed……

“Shouldn’t you be resting more?”

“……Huh?”

“……?”

What was this? Some fake wearing Dazar’s face?

There was no way Dazar would look at me with such concern and speak to me like that.

“What’s wrong? Is there something here?”

Seeing me hastily retreat while clutching Axion tightly, Dazar looked around the room.

“Or are you still sick?”

“……Hmmmm.”

Dazar abruptly stood up and crossed the room in a single stride before placing the back of his hand against my forehead……

“Reveal your true identity. You fake wearing Dazar’s face.”

He looked so gentle that it was equally unfamiliar.

“You don’t have a fever.”

After checking my forehead for a fever, Dazar tilted his head.

“Did going to Ruben’s Tower shock you so badly that you lost your mind? No, no. The young lady of Evanroar has always been famous for being strange, so I suppose you might occasionally act like this…… Ow.”

“You’re the weird one! Why are you suddenly acting like we’re close?”

I lightly kicked Dazar in the shin as he spouted nonsense, and his face twisted.

Ah, could Morocanil be somewhere around here?

I remembered how Morocanil had clung to me and pretended we were close when we encountered him at Ruben’s Tower last time. I glanced around the room, but there was no one here except us.

“Abu?”

Axion grabbed Dazar’s black hair with his tiny hand while Dazar was bent over in front of us, rubbing his shin.

“Ow, ow. What’s with this little guy now?”

“Uhe!”

And thanks to Axion refusing to let go of Dazar’s hair, I had no choice but to hand Axion over to him.

After a brief commotion, we sat facing each other on the sofa as we had before.

“Ah. So you’re saying you’re in a good mood because spring has arrived?”

“……I don’t know. If that’s how you see it, then I guess that’s how it is.”

Dazar answered curtly with a sullen expression.

Hmmmm. To say it was simply because spring had arrived and put him in a good mood……

“Did you speak this gently to Morocanil too?”

“Of course not.”

Dazar made a face like he was about to throw up. Ugh. At the same time, he grimaced while staring at a section of the wall that looked slightly caved in compared to before.

I wondered why that wall was dented like that, but decided to deal with this issue first.

‘Is he the type who treats people well once he decides they’re one of his own?’

After learning that Axion was Ruben, we had somehow ended up in something resembling an alliance, after all.

You know the type. Someone who’s usually cold and unpleasant, but once they consider you one of their own, they take care of you as though they’d give you the shirt off their back.

Apparently, people like that could be surprisingly affectionate.

“Why are you suddenly curious about that? I think I’m acting exactly the same as usual.”

“Hmm. No, it’s nothing.”

I waved my hand as if it really were nothing and moved slightly farther away from him. Dazar narrowed his eyes and moved closer to me by the same amount.

Whenever I went swoosh and moved away, he went swish and moved closer.

Although we were sitting across from each other on the sofa, our positions had somehow become rather strange. I was pressed completely against the back of the sofa, while Dazar was barely perched on the edge of his seat.

And because he was holding Axion, who refused to move away from him, his position looked extremely uncomfortable.

‘What is going on……?’

Regardless of what he was doing, I was in a somewhat awkward situation of my own. The spot on my forehead where Dazar had placed the back of his hand earlier somehow felt hot, as though I really did have a fever.

This was definitely an allergic reaction caused by Dazar acting unnaturally kind. Thinking that I should keep my distance whenever he was in such a good mood from now on, I casually spoke.

“The rice has fully grown.”

“……Already?”

At my sudden remark, Dazar’s eyes widened. Surprise and something resembling delight appeared in his golden eyes. At the same time, I unintentionally sensed something like guilt flickering across his expression.

Apparently, having offered his previous world to Ruben, he couldn’t exactly be happy about having found a way to solve the food shortage without feeling conflicted.

I pretended not to notice his expression and held out my hand. No matter how much I had become an ally who shared his goals, I couldn’t understand and empathize with all of his feelings. Trying to empathize with something he had experienced when I hadn’t would perhaps be disrespectful to him.

I put on an innocent expression, as though I hadn’t noticed his emotions at all, and said,

“Give it to me.”

“……Give you what?”

Dazar, who had looked as though he was about to become slightly depressed, tilted his head while looking at my outstretched hand. Instead of complicated emotions, his eyes now held nothing but pure curiosity.

For some reason, I felt relieved by that. It seemed I had actually grown attached to this unpleasant, crazy in-law of mine.

But that was that, and this was this.

I said firmly,

“Money.”

“Ah.”

Dazar blinked twice.

“We agreed that I’d be paid once the rice had fully grown.”

We had definitely settled on that. Originally, I had considered supporting the sweet little romance between Axion and Vanilla, with their contract first and romance later, but I thought that might only backfire, so I had decided to take payment in money instead.

Dazar stared intently at my palm before snorting.

“It has grown fully, but the work isn’t completely finished yet, is it? It seems a little premature to pay you right now.”

Seriously, this guy?

“It’s practically finished. All that’s left is harvesting.”

“I saw it last time, and it looked like you’d need to go through another process to actually obtain the rice grains.”

When had he even seen that?

Dazar slightly raised his nose, wearing an expression that said, I’m right, aren’t I? It would have been quite intimidating if Axion weren’t currently pulling on his hair, making him look ridiculous.

“That process is going to be difficult with this amount of labor. There wasn’t this much rice before, but now there’s way too much.”

“……So?”

“I need that money to pay for the machines I ordered from Ralph.”

“Ralph?”

Explaining that Ralph was the owner of the shop called ‘You Can Build It Too—Bulging Muscles and All’ sounded like too much trouble.

I waved my hand dismissively.

“I’ve already ordered the machines I need for milling and threshing. I have to pay for them before I can bring them here.”

“……Hmm.”

Dazar then placed his hand firmly over mine. His large hand was still warm.

“If that’s the case, then I shouldn’t use the payment I’m supposed to give you for it. The Siaster family will pay for those machines. I’ll give you your payment once everything is finished.”

“…….”

Dazar added,

“Of course, the very last part of the whole process is tasting it.”

Ah, so he wanted to eat freshly harvested rice before making the final decision?

I picked up Axion, who still refused to let go of Dazar, and left his room.

A pouch filled with bundles of money he’d brought from somewhere was hanging at my waist.

‘Do I suddenly feel rich……?’

It was a much larger amount than I had expected. The rest of the money was mine to keep, right? It was, right?

A little excited, I quickly put the money pouch in my room before heading back outside.

It was already too late to leave for the capital today, so I decided to spend the remaining time playing with Axion.

“……If everything goes according to plan…….”

“Yeah. She…….”