The morning mist had yet to lift when Paul hurriedly pushed open the door to the house.
Leaving only the words, "I'm afraid I won't be able to come home for meals for the next few days," he hurried away.
Lately, the monsters deep in the forest had been going on rampages with increasing frequency. As the village's guardian, he had to be on the front lines.
Meanwhile, the number of injured villagers was growing by the day. Zenith had also left early for the clinic, taking on an ever-heavier burden of treating them.
And so, on this unusually deathly quiet morning, only Lilia and young Rudeus remained in the spacious house.
After seeing her master off, Lilia returned to the bedroom to check on Rudeus, as was her habit.
But when she pushed open the door, the bed where the baby should have been lying was empty, and even the bedding had gone cold.
Her heart clenched, and a sudden, inexplicable panic swept through her.
She searched the corridors and kitchen in a fluster, her footsteps sounding especially sharp in the empty house.
Only after searching her way up to the second floor did she finally spot the little figure through the half-open study door.
This child... he's only a little over a year old, and he can already climb those steep stairs by himself.
Lilia stopped outside the door, both amazed and touched by an indescribable sadness.
Just as she was about to step inside, the space around her seemed to warp slightly.
For an instant, an exceedingly faint ripple of mana brushed against her skin, making the hairs on her arms rise.
The sensation vanished in a flash, but it was unmistakably familiar. Back when she had served as a personal royal guard at the Asura royal palace, similar protective barriers had been placed around forbidden areas.
But why... would there be a barrier here?
She instinctively took half a step back and glanced warily around, but there was nothing unusual in the air except drifting dust.
Could I be imagining things because I've been too tired lately?
Lilia suppressed her doubts and turned her gaze back to Rudeus, who was sitting on the floor.
The little baby was staring blankly at her, several thick books lying open and scattered beside him.
Was he... reading?
Could a child this young really read those complicated words and even understand what they meant?
With a complicated mixture of scrutiny and curiosity, Lilia slowly stepped forward.
She picked up an open illustrated guide to plants from the floor, crouched down in front of Rudeus, and, breathing softly, asked tentatively:
"A radish?"
Rudeus blinked his large, clear eyes, and his chubby little finger immediately landed on the radish in the illustration.
"So-good!"
Lilia's voice trembled faintly, while a tender, bittersweet mist spread across her eyes.
"Then... what about a potato?"
Rudeus did not even hesitate. His little hand landed unerringly on another picture.
"So-good!"
This time, she could no longer hold back.
The child before her was almost cruelly clever, enough to make one a little afraid.
Yet his infant dependence was so real. She suddenly pulled him into her arms and held him tight.
If only he were my child...
The thought pierced her already battered heart without warning, like a poisoned thorn, drawing copious blood.
She buried her face in the child's soft hair and quietly told him what was on the pages, her gentle voice barely above a murmur.
But the warmth did not last long. The little one in her arms suddenly let out a wail, waving his little hands in distress as his face crumpled.
"Oh dear... you must be hungry, right?" Lilia soothed him tenderly, skillfully gathering him back into her arms.
Something similar had happened a few days earlier. Zenith had been kept away late into the night by an emergency, and Rudeus, crying to be fed, had wept his heart out. Lilia had been frantic, searching the whole village for a wet nurse but finding none.
Desperate to spare the child from suffering, she had remembered a folk remedy.
The milk of a creature called a Mana Beast could temporarily give a woman the ability to nurse after she drank it.
Later, through an acquaintance in town, she had managed to obtain some.
Steeling herself, she had drunk a large bowl of the beast's fishy, astringent milk and tried to let Rudeus suckle at her breast.
To her surprise, that powerful maternal longing had actually brought forth sweet, fresh milk.
Ever since then, whenever Zenith was too busy, Lilia had been the one to feed him in her place.
Looking at the little life crying urgently in her arms, Lilia's eyes brimmed with a mother's love, fierce as fire, yet held an even deeper pain.
The cold memory dragged her back to that desperate, rain-lashed night-
That night, Paul, drunk into a stupor, had taken everything from her.
Only much later did she learn that the one who had orchestrated that nightmare was her own father.
Her father had valued Paul's talent and prospects. To bind their interests together, he had secretly hidden Paul's sword in her bedroom, personally weaving that absurd "accident."
Paul had made the mistake every man in the world would make, while she had become the lowliest sacrifice in that exchange of interests.
Afterward, that cowardly, selfish man had fled the dojo in the dead of night without so much as a word of explanation.
She had been in such pain that she wanted to die. What she hated was not the loss of her virginity, but how, after taking everything from her, that man had abandoned her without a trace of regret, like a piece of trash.
She had thought she would never see that nightmare again.
Then, while serving as a guard at the royal palace, she suffered a hidden injury on the job and lost her livelihood.
Because she knew too many royal secrets, she had been forced to hide wherever she could, not even daring to return home. With nowhere else to turn, she had eventually made her way to this remote border village.
How ironic fate was. Here she had seen Paul's notice recruiting a maid-the man who had once ruined her was now not only married, but had a family whose happiness was dazzling.
She had become the maid of this household as a matter of course.
At first, her heart had been filled with a twisted desire for revenge. She had wanted to tear apart his facade with the truth of what had happened and force him to pay.
But when she stood before Paul, his eyes reddened, and he accepted all her resentment without trying to evade any of it.
And Zenith... was such a gentle, kind woman, like a saint, with no guard up around her at all.
Faced with such a mistress, Lilia's guilt snuffed out the flames of revenge within her.
In the end, she chose to keep her mouth shut and be a humble, lowly maid in this house, like a speck of dust, silently keeping watch over her broken, rotting fate.
But... she was a living woman, after all.
Whenever the night grew quiet and the sounds of Paul and Zenith's breathless lovemaking and their bodies colliding came from the master bedroom next door, the thin wooden wall could do nothing to hold back the surging tide of passion.
Her long-suppressed desire was like a hungry beast, tearing madly at her body and soul in the depths of every cold night.
She was mad with jealousy, yet could only bite down hard on the corner of her blanket and weep until she had no tears left in the darkness.
She did not know how much longer she could endure such torment. Her only hope was to wait until Rudeus grew up, then quietly pack her bags and leave, vanishing for good from this home that did not belong to her.
Yet the child in her arms shook her resolve time and again.
Rudeus was so clever, so well-behaved. Every time he looked at her with those pure eyes, her heart melted into a puddle.
But the more she loved him, the more jealousy gnawed at her. She envied Zenith, envied that woman for being able to bear Paul such a perfect child so openly.
"If only... if only this child had been born from my own womb..."
Whenever that dangerous thought rose from the bottom of her heart, an overwhelming tide of guilt threatened to drown her.
She was afraid she would go mad, afraid that one day she would destroy this family with her own hands.
Her feelings for Paul had long since changed with the passing years. She could no longer tell whether they were a hatred that ran to the bone or a twisted love.
Only when she held Rudeus and fed him with her own milk could her battered heart find a stolen moment of peace.
The suckling sounds from her arms gradually grew quieter. Rudeus smacked his little lips twice and fell fast asleep, a contented flush still on his face.
Lilia lowered her head to look at him, a sorrowful yet infinitely tender smile tugging at her lips.
She gently fastened her clothing and carefully carried the little body back to her own room.
She settled him in the middle of the bed, then lay down herself and turned onto her side, curving her arms protectively around him and drawing him into her embrace.
"Well... I'll go buy groceries this afternoon."
She murmured the words so softly that her voice seemed as though it would shatter in the air at a touch.
Outside the window, the midday sun shone bright, bathing the world in gold;
But when Lilia closed her eyes, her world remained shrouded in a deep, lingering gray.