After Story 16: Mother (12)
Peace has returned to Louvremont once again after the fuss made by the appearance of a fake birth mother.
Invented by Roxa, the video record orb recording of what had happened at the Magical association announcement was revealed and Hades was able to remove his false bad name.
And what had happened to the con artists?
That… have been kept secret from everyone. Even when Aisha asked what punishment they had, Hades wouldn’t say.
He merely said…
-Don’t worry. They are alive.
…and that was it.
It was a shame, but they couldn’t announce that Aisha was the birth mother either.
Considering all kinds of situations informed to the Crescentians, the announcement that ‘the truth is the 25 years old duchess is the real birth mother of the Childe!’ would bring a gigantic impact on Hades image.
Since Abel, who knew the real truth was actually quite happy, it was not a bad ending for everyone all in all.
And a month later,
After getting through the bad weather, Louvremont became busy once again.
It was because of Abel’s birthday coming in a week.
The grand joyous occasion of the Louvremonts, who at the top of the world, and made the empire shudder shuddering in fear.
It went without saying that aristocrats from across the empire had gathered with expensive birthday gifts for Louvremont. The duchy did not have a day pass without an event and was bustling with crowds.
“Ugh, kill me now.”
Word came out of Hades’ mouth, who never shows how tired he is for most cases.
Accepting the audience requests of the aristocrats who had come earlier, he was recently too busy to even keep his eyes open.
To be precise…
He was busy during the day fulfilling his duty as Duke Louvremont and during the night fulfilling his duty as a husband.
When he was working on Abel’s birthday gift, it felt like he actually had stamina to spare, but he looked too tired out when he had to handle chatty Aristocrats.
He had a tight schedule today as well.
Today was the monthly baptism day for Michael and the priests of the temple to visit once again after leaving Deborah behind last time.
“That grand priest keeps coming over and over again every time I am about to forget about him…”
Because they needed to have lunch with the people from the temple, he wouldn’t be able to have a nice quiet dinner with his wife and son on each side.
Boom, boom, boom-!
Hades was muttering as he was getting changed, but got startled by the footsteps ringing across the hall from the distance, approaching closer.
A knock that was as rude as the footsteps followed.
Boom, boom, boom-!
“Ye Grace! Ye in there?! Ye are, right? I’m comin’ in~!”
“Dude, you are so loud!”
Indifferent to Hades’ yelling, Roxa opened the door wide with excitement in his face.
“Do you really have a death wish?”
Looking at Roxa barging in, Hades gritted his teeth.
He looked to have bags under his eyes and dirty greasy white hair that doesn’t seem like it was washed for days, tied in a ponytail.
‘All the people of the empire should know what he really is like,’ Hades thought, trembling in anger.
Roxa had invented ‘the magical artifact of biological relations confirmation,’ bringing a wave of revolution across the empire.
He had now become more famous than the Imperial grand magician Wignor Maidow.
Since Roxa barely showed his face to the outside world, he even gained an image of a mysterious elementalist hidden under wraps.
Though in truth… he was just holed up in his room because he was provided with food to eat, a warm place to stay, and even a comfortable research environment to work in and had no reason to go outside…
Right now, the empire was overturned from people wanting to see Roxa’s face in person, and even among the aristocrats who came to congratulate Abel’s birthday were quite many curious individuals.
“Ye Grace Ye Grace Ye Grace! Ye wanna see wot Calten an’ I came up with dis time?!”
“What’s the fuss about?”
Tired Hades found Roxa to be a bother but kept it to himself.
Because if it’s ‘something’ made by Calten and Roxa, the two geniuses, it was worth keeping ears open despite the fatigue.
“Heh heh heh…”
Roxa laughed wickedly as he took out something he kept cautiously within his robe.
What he took out was a crystal orb made just like a magical artifact of biological relations confirmation, except a little smaller.
“Now dis, is another revolutionary new invention. Tis a magical artifact dat can check da element an’ mana amount o’ children who aren’t even born yet.”
“A magical artifact that can check the amount of mana of unborn babies?”
“Aye! We can check da mana amount by seeing how vibrant da color is when ye add mana ter it! Grab a hold!”
Receiving a crystal ball the size big enough to just hold in the hand, Hades added a light amount of mana to it. The transparent thing was drenched Red at once.
The crystal continued to turn red, then lost its transparency completely and dyed completely red.
“Ye see dat? Amazing, innit?”
“So the more transparent would mean lower the mana amount. Sure, well, not bad.”
Hades gave a nod like it wasn’t a big deal.
Usually, the only way to see how far a person has awoken their mana was through the type of magic they could perform.
For example, one could only assume the person to have awoken their secondary ability when they use the ability of ‘ignition’.
In truth, even the Crescentians who had succeeded in awakening their secondary abilities all had different mana amounts, so this magical artifact that could estimate a correct amount was quite a nice invention.
But whether it was as impressive as ‘the magical artifact of biological relations confirmation’ which was made by translating the genetic traits, then, well.
Looking slightly crestfallen, Hades has lost interest. Roxa flared up.
“Come now! Dis isn’t jus’ something ye can call ‘not bad’!”
In some aspects this was a more revolutionary invention than the magical artifact of biological relations confirmation!
Looking at Hades’ indifferent reaction, Roxa pouted.
“Wot makes dis so impressive is…”
“Honey~ Are you ready? The people from the temple just arrived. My, you were here too, Roxa?”
As Aisha stepped in just in time, Hades waved his hand to sign Roxa to leave.
“Yes, I’m done. You get going now. Don’t you know how busy I am today?”
“Ohh! Perfect timing, duchess!”
Ignoring Hades’ words, Roxa went running over to Aisha.
“I have created another amazing invention dat will go down in empire’s history again! Tis a powerful magical artifact dat could allow one ter check Crescentian’s mana amount with our very eyes!”
“My, really?”
“Aye, duchess. Hold on ter dis an’ imbue a little bit o’ ye mana.”
Aisha held the magical artifact with interest in her eyes and Hades clicked his tongue as he looked at excited Roxa with discontent.
“To be honest, it’s nothing much. What are you going to do with knowing the mana amount in advance? It would be obvious from the magic they unleash.”
“Tis not, tis not. Though it would be difficult ter confirm now, but da real reason why tis a revolutionary artifact is, because it shows in advance da amount o’ mana da children can wield even before they’r born.”
“You mean the mana amount of the child in the womb could be checked? What would you do with knowing that in advance?”
“Tis mighty useful~ Though Ye Grace won’t need ter worry about it now dat ye already have an heir, dis would be sold like pancakes among empire’s aristocrats. It would help with deciding on an heir in advance, and…”
“How am I supposed to look at this?”
Roxa was busy explaining the use of the magical artifact when he turned his head at hearing Aisha’s question and answered.
“Ah, if ye look, since da duchess is a light elementalist, da orb would be filled with white color…”
Roxa was explaining then stopped mid-sentence as he saw the orb in Aisha’s hand.
“Roxa?”
“What’s that? A defect?”
The orb was split exactly in half in two different colors.
One side white, the other side red.
It seemed that they both displayed the maximum mana amount, with no transparency.
“Ugh, you dim wit. What, Aisha has a fire element now? And that’s the kind of stuff you create… tsk tsk.”
Tying cravat around his neck after picking it up from the desk, Hades clicked his tongue.
Even when Hades out loud looked down at his creation, Roxa didn’t answer as he continued to blink as he looked at the orb in Aisha’s hand, dazed.
Aisha was tilting her head too but then soon lost interest and handed the orb back to Roxa and approached Hades.
“I’ll tie it for you.”
Hades asked Aisha as he brushed back her hair affectionately while she took the cravat and tied it for him.
“Aren’t you tired? Did you get about 4 hours of sleep even?”
“I slept some more after you left. Where did you go this morning?”
“I went to talk to Count Portnen. He was shoving a deadly schedule at me starting in the morning.”
“Ugh, you must be exhausted. Should we have held back the baptism schedule at least? No, we should not have messed around in the evening and just go to sleep.”
“That can’t be done. We need to work on Abel’s birthday gift.”
“Aw, come on…”
Fired up by how Aisha was tapping his chest with her cheeks red, Hades was about to hold her and halted.
He just recalled there was an uninvited guest still in the room.
But Roxa was so shocked, nothing the couple were saying was audible to him. He merely stood there nailed to the place.
“…Dude! I said leave!”
Hearing Hades’ angered shout, Roxa got back to his senses and gulped with a tense expression.
Roxa Tribolt.
He was a genius.
He had created many useful magical artifacts through his power of creation and not once did he fail.
That applied to this magical artifact as well.
His revolutionary invention… was never faulty.
A magical artifact that could even show the amount of mana and the element of the child in the womb.
When it’s held in the hands of a ‘pregnant woman’, it was supposed to react to both mother and the child’s mana at the same time like this.
Roxa thought for a long while and let out a laugh. Hah, hah.
“Has he lost his mind?”
Hades stared at Roxa, wincing.
He simply ignored Hades and spoke looking at Aisha.
“Duchess… I-I may not be a doctor, but somehow… I found out befer anyone else…”
Roxa’s voice was heavy for some reason. Unable to understand him. Aisha tilted her head.
Roxa licked his lips once with tension on his face and slowly approached to kneel and bow.
“I truly congratulate ye.”
“F-for what?”
Looking at Roxa giving a sudden bow, Aisha hesitated not knowing what it was about.
Looking at the two curious faces, Roxa slowly raised his head.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs in an overwhelmed voice.
“Ye gonna have a second child~!”