The Maid With a Child

4. Blue Cyanide Lake.

 

The butler looked at the door and muttered as if praying.

Due to the nature of the family and the master’s occupation, ambushes were a daily occurrence.

The servants below did not know, but as the butler, he had encountered bloodshed many times.

However, it was not something he had become accustomed to.

The two people, terrified, stood speechless, like frozen pillars.

After a while…

“Come in.”

The sounds from inside soon died down, and the master’s order was heard.

Adelen took a deep breath. Only then did she realize that she had not been able to breathe properly.

Just before opening the door, the butler met Adelen’s eyes.

“Are you ready?”

I did not know why, but it was strange that the butler, who had devoted half of his life to Sigelion, would be so nervous while asking this question.

Adelen braced herself so that she would not drop or throw the baby in surprise no matter what happened.

“I am ready…”

The butler took a deep breath like Adelen and opened the door.

The heavy door to the master’s room slowly opened.

“Ugh!”

The smell of blood wafted out.

Adelen hesitated and took a step back.

Blood.

There was blood everywhere.

The master’s room was a sea of blood.

“The butler is working hard.”

And in the middle of that sea of blood stood the master, holding a sword dripping with the crimson fluid.

He looked like a blood-soaked lump of flesh in the shape of a person.

Around the master, there were some people who looked like corpses.

“Ugh!”

Adelen’s eyes went completely black, then white, then red, then blue, and swirled with all sorts of colors.

Bright red blood. Corpses. Swords.

All sorts of things popped out randomly in her eyes and moved away like dots.

She didn’t even realize that her own legs were shaking like aspen trees.

“A-Adelen.”

I heard the butler calling me from the side, but I couldn’t answer.

Adelen, who had stepped back without realizing it, sat down on the spot. Her own panting breath echoed in her ears.

Then, suddenly, in her hazy vision, the master, who was cleaning his blade, approached.

‘Why…?’

The master didn’t just look at me. He picked up the sword he had put down and ran towards me.

“!”

I was so surprised that I didn’t even have time to scream.

Adelen, who was frozen in place and could do nothing, watched him coming right up to her nose then he swang his sword.

Whoosh, the sound of the knife cutting through the air brushed the tips of Adelen’s hair.

At the same time, a large, firm palm wrapped itself around Adelen’s stiff back and pulled her in.

“…!”

She was pulled into the master’s arms.

It was a warm embrace that didn’t match the smell of blood. And before the smell of blood could penetrate her lungs, she felt something being cut behind her back and a warm liquid pouring into her body.

She didn’t even need to check what it was.

It was blood.

It was no longer something that Adelen could handle and her consciousness began fading.

“How dare you crawl into my house. If I could, I would have brought you back to life and killed you again.”

The angry growl of her master was transmitted directly through her body.

A sea of blood, corpses rolling around and the master’s murderous intent.

There were countless reasons why she had no choice but to faint.

Adelen could no longer endure it and lost consciousness.

 

* * *

 

Adelen was particularly afraid of blood.

According to the teachers at the daycare, she had been like that since she was a newborn. This was often the case among children picked up from the battlefield.

Experiencing someone dying up close can be traumatic for anyone, whether they are a parent or a child.

Even if this happened to her when she was a newborn that didn’t remember anything, it was engraved in her instincts as fear.

That’s why the teachers guessed that Adelen, who would become light-headed at the sight of blood, must have been a war orphan.

But even if I knew the reason, I couldn’t fix my instinctive fear.

The blood that came from my own body was less disruptive, but when it came from someone else…..

I can’t even stand the mosquitoes that return to me after I swatted them, and run away.

But what I just saw was real blood, on a different level from the blood from my knee that I cut while playing, my nose that I got from overwork, or the blood that splattered from the pieces of fish I cut. Of course, I would faint.

 

***

 

“Are you awake, Adelen?”

My eyes opened dimly at the voice of the butler.

My vision was blurry, so I focused my eyes and through my narrowed vision, I could see the butler’s worried face and my master’s cold face…

‘Master?!’

The moment the master’s face came into view, all of her senses came rushing in at once, as if she had been underwater then emerged to land.

“I….”

“Those fools are so stupid as to follow me here, get them out of Sigelion.”

Before Adelen could open her mouth, Rakalt’s cold voice dug into her skin. Adelen’s blood ran cold at the voice that was transmitted directly through her body.

She closed her mouth, swallowing dry saliva, as a loud voice rang out.

“We will correct this!”

Startled, she turned around to see knights standing with one side of their faces flushed red. It looked like they had been hit with a fist.

The room had been cleaned up in the meantime.

Slowly, the current situation became clear.

The knights had come running when she had passed out, and they must have been getting scolded by their master after cleaning up the room.

If that was the case, then the dangerous situation was over. However, Adelen’s frozen body could not thaw. The scene she had seen just before fainting was so shocking that she couldn’t move her body even after waking up.

“If you’re awake, then get up now.”

Adelen, who had been in a daze, suddenly widened her eyes at the command directed at her.

It made her discover the condition she was in. Covered in blood, she was leaning against her master’s blood-covered arms.

“…”

For a moment, she couldn’t decide whether to be more surprised by the blood or by the fact that she was in her master’s arms.

Adelen looked up at the master while still in his embrace, unable to believe the reality of the situation.

The master’s unrealistically blue eyes, which she had only heard of in rumors, were looking down at her.

It wasn’t like a blue lake where birds would sit and play, but a legendary cyanide lake that could even melt rocks.

“…hiccup.”

Adelen froze stiffly in her master’s arms, like a deer that had fainted in front of a predator.

“Waaah! Waaaah!”

If the baby hadn’t raised its voice to emphasize its presence at that time, her head would have wandered off again, wondering when, where, and how to move.

“T-the baby!”

The baby who was carried in the butler’s arms after she had fallen down, cried almost as if it was having a fit, not happy with the situation.

Adelen hurriedly got up. No, she tried to get up, but It seemed that her body was more surprised than her mind and she collapsed again in the same position in the master’s arms.

“Waah!”

“T-the Baby!”

“Waah! Neh!”

“Calm down! Let’s calm down! Okay?”

In that short time, Adelen lost her mind as she watched the baby kicking, biting, grabbing, and using every means and method at its disposal to push the butler away.

This was the first time in her life that she had seen such a vicious baby.

“Aww! Adelen! Save me!”

Then, the moment the butler’s thinning hair was caught in its hand, she came to her senses and ran to the butler who was screaming.

She had to save him. It was the right thing to do, humanely.

“Uh, uh, please.”

“I am coming right away.”

“Okay, baby, I’m here. Can you stop crying? Calm down.”

Adelen, who had received the baby, used her whole body to shake him rhythmically. The baby cried so hard that she wondered if it could be comforted. She had never seen a child cry so loudly among her siblings. But Adelen did her best.

At this moment, she only had one goal in mind: to comfort the baby, and she forgot about the master and everything else.

“Sniffle, sniffle…”

“Suddenly?”

“…..?”

But the baby stopped crying so easily.

She…did it?

Adelen blankly shifted her gaze between the baby and the butler.

Even the butler, who was stroking his hair with both hands while trembling, stopped and looked at them.

“…You’re a genius at raising children, Adelen!”

The butler let out an exclamation that leaked of astonishment.

“For someone with such a natural talent to come to Sigelion, which has no

children…What a waste of talent…”

It was a talent that would never shine in Sigelion, which had no children.

Until now.