By Zephyria It seemed the Goddess had decided to bestow upon me hardship and adversity.
My name is William Ernhardt. I was born the late, only son of Count Ernhardt.
My father and mother cherished and loved me dearly, but I didn’t entirely welcome that love. Due to my parents’ overprotectiveness, I had no friends my age. When I was young, they kept me confined within the mansion, citing my frequent illnesses, and it wasn’t much different even after I grew older and enrolled in the Capital Academy.
Earldom Ernhardt was far too close to the capital.
Four days by horse, a week by carriage. My parents, who would diligently travel to the capital to check on me and then return, were a source of gratitude but also stifling. Others went sightseeing around the capital with friends every weekend, but for me, weekends were for filial piety. I ate food my parents liked and watched plays my parents preferred.
However, I couldn’t complain.
Why? Because my parents were much older than the parents of my peers.
The thought that I needed to spend more time with them before they passed away was enough to suppress the occasional surge of dissatisfaction. I studied diligently for succession to the title, and since I had no partner or friends, I didn’t even participate in the Debutante. Immediately after graduation, I returned to the territory and inherited the position of Viscount, learning the affairs of the domain.
And so, I turned twenty.
“You should get married too, shouldn’t you? I want to hold my grandchild before I die.” Unable to withstand my father’s nagging and my mother’s tears, I was haphazardly pushed into attending a New Year’s party. Perhaps I was a bit flustered by the unfamiliar New Year’s party customs. That’s why, right there, it all began…
“⋯Are you alright?”
“Yes, ⋯yes. I must be alright. What happened to Mikael⋯?”
“The young master is… a bit… strange… I haven’t seen many children, but usually, no child is this quiet. He’s already over a year old…”
“…Has it been that long? No, no. Alright. I’ll go see him.”
The fact that Mikael was over a year old meant I was in my second year of marriage.
Honestly, I still couldn’t believe I had married Seiren Valencia. Oscar Valencia, whom I had only heard of through rumors, was terrifying. When he grabbed me by the collar and lifted me fifty centimeters off the ground, I thought I was going to die. And when I was dragged away to be married immediately, I thought I would faint. Of course, the wine I drank that day was quite sweet…
It still feels awkward to me that Seiren Valencia, no, Seiren Ernhardt, is now sitting in Young Count Ernhardt’s Residence. That noble and beautiful woman… came to me pregnant. Well, if not for that, she was a woman I could never have dared to aspire to…
Creak. I carefully opened the door to the nursery.
In the Viscount’s Residence I received upon marriage, there were no parents constantly barging in. Instead, there was a beautiful woman with a heart ailment, who always wore a sorrowful expression and gazed into the distance, and the child she bore… a tiny infant who was not of my blood.
No matter how much the wet nurse and maidservants spoke to him, he paid no attention. If I shook a toy, he closed his eyes. If I offered food, he ate; if I didn’t, he didn’t. A baby who neither cried nor threw tantrums.
I still didn’t know how to treat this child. My best effort was to stand there blankly whenever a maidservant or the wet nurse asked me to come see him. Like today.
Mulling over my troubled thoughts, I stood by the baby’s cradle.
Mikael’s cheeks had become plump, and his eyes were clear. When had he grown so much? I couldn’t recall how many weeks or months had passed since I last saw him. As I looked at Mikael, the child also turned his gaze towards me. He was a beautiful child, so much so that a gasp escaped me despite my unease.
Is this really a baby? Truly? Not a doll?
Mikael strongly resembled his mother, Seiren. His water-colored eyes of a lovely hue, his soft pink hair, his round eyes, and even his already prominent nose and lips. Still, I had seen him smile a few times in the days after the wedding, but since coming to this Viscount’s Residence, I had never seen her smile.
As I stood beside the child, the maids on duty bowed and withdrew. They knew that with them present, I couldn’t even speak to the child and could only stand there stiffly. But even without them, I had never spoken to Mikael. Facing such a small child was frightening… and above all, Mikael…
Hesitantly, I gently placed my index finger on the child’s tiny hand. As I had heard, the child did not cry.
Instead, he spoke.
“Are you my father?”
“…Yes?”
Goosebumps erupted all over my body.
Was there anyone else in this room? Startled, I looked around, but it was still just me and the one-year-old baby in the room. As I stepped back hesitantly, the baby, about the size of my forearm, turned his head and looked at me over the wooden bars of the crib.
“Where are you looking?”
“…Ah, no. That, um.”
“You are my father. Aren’t you?”
“Huh? Yes. Yes, I, I, I am.”
Then the child waved his arm. I instinctively caught his hand and gently tucked it back into the blanket. The baby found my finger and grasped it. As I looked up at the child, who was clinging to my index finger with a warm touch that felt so foreign, he smiled again. Was I dreaming while standing?
“Alright, see you again.”
“Huh? Yes…”
Then he fell asleep…
How long had I stood there? The wet nurse and maidservants, who entered by carefully opening the door, clapped their hands in hushed excitement.
“Oh my, he’s holding hands? He usually avoids us, even running away when we get close.”
“…The baby avoids hands?”
“Yes! He makes a face like he’s seeing something terrible and runs away. So we have to use cushions to feed him milk…”
No, is it normal for a baby to avoid hands? Is everyone like this?
But I wouldn’t know, as I had no experience with children around me. I was the youngest among my family, and the retainers of Earldom Ernhardt were all around my father’s age. Their children were mostly ten or twenty years older than me.
“The young master must recognize you, Viscount. Please visit him often, won’t you?”
“Uh… He did recognize me.”
“Really?”
“Mmm. He told me… he was my father…”
I had never seen maidservants laugh so heartily in my life.
“Even though the young master can’t even babble yet?”
“Oh, Viscount, you must find the young master adorable now. It’s wonderful, truly.”
“Please take good care of the young master, Viscount, as much as Madam cannot. Alright?”
It was strange.
Truly… it was truly strange. Very much so.
The tasks in Earldom Ernhardt and the Viscount’s domain were not significantly different.
The main source of income for the Ernhardt territory was grapes. Since grapes are perennial plants, they required careful attention throughout the four seasons, depending on the weather and the time of year. As people cannot live on grapes alone, other crops were planted according to the season, and sheep and goats were raised in the pastures.
Sitting in my office, I usually calculated the taxes based on the inflow and outflow of those numerous creatures. I paid the salaries of retainers and knights, looked after the farmers’ inconveniences, and resolved their disputes. Why were there so many people fighting in the world? If they just yielded a little, there wouldn’t be such issues…
I was reading a document about a territorial citizen who had vandalized his neighbor’s field out of spite, after a love triangle escalated into a fistfight.
“Viscount. You don’t seem to have slept well?”
“Huh? Ah… Ah, yes. The list of witnesses… where is it?”
“You left it on the sofa on the right.”
“Thank you, Gilbert. I can always count on you.”
“Yes, yes. That same old line.”
Gilbert Kruger was the son of my father’s retainer, and since he was the closest in age to me among them, he was placed under me. He was exactly six years older than me and was now a father raising an eight-year-old child. As I listlessly looked at the document I didn’t want to read, I sighed again.
“Hey, Gilbert.”
“Yes, Viscount. Please speak.”
“Yesterday… I went to see Mikael.”
“Ah, you were too scared because he was so small to go near him? How was it? He’s cute, isn’t he?”
I never mentioned my wife’s infidelity anywhere. Therefore, Gilbert only knew that Seiren and I were arranged marriage partners, as nobles sometimes did. He thought our lack of closeness was due to the clear difference in status, and that it was my duty to serve her.
So, he often spoke with joy about how the child born between us was naturally an Ernhardt and that his own son might one day serve him. If it weren’t for the strict rule that young children under five should not be exposed to outsiders frequently, I would have opened the nursery door as often as Undines visited a watermill.
In any case, Gilbert was the only one I could consult about this.
“…He called me father.”
“Yes?”
Gilbert, like the maidservants, burst into uncontrollable laughter. I was speechless, overwhelmed by his boisterous laughter.
His gaze, looking down at me as if I were something pitiful and precious, made me sweat. He, who had never placed a hand on my shoulder since I turned eight, patted my shoulder kindly and said in a strangely gentle voice,
“If you miss the baby that much, you can go visit. I’ll write it down for you and report it later.”
“No, that’s not it… It’s real…?”
“A one-year-old baby calling you ‘father’? He must have said ‘aba’! My son, Derek, said that first too. If you miss him that much, go see him. Honestly, I never imagined the Viscount would become such a doting parent.”
“That’s, no, really. He really spoke to me…”
“Yes. Haha! My word, truly… Still, you are happy, aren’t you?”
“…Yes, …yes, I suppose…”
“It would be nice if we could go horseback riding together when the young master grows up. We used to go riding together sometimes, but you rarely go out of the house these days… That’s all because of the child, isn’t it?”
“…Mmm.”
Is that so?
Is it truly my delusion?
However, when I went to see Mikael, who was sleeping, and the child blinked his eyes open and looked straight at me with his blue eyes, I finally knew.
“You’ve come.”
“…Uh. I’ve come…”
“It’s a bit better when you’re here. Why are all the people taking care of the child women?”
“Yes. Um, uh… Can I hold you?”
“Who would object to a father holding his child?”
This is not a dream, nor anything else.
Mikael smelled of warm milk. The round body clinging to me was slightly heavy and sufficiently soft. As I buried my nose in the crown of his head and took a deep breath, tears welled up slightly.
Seiren Valencia gave birth to a genius. And that child calls me father.
I am this child’s father.