The Baby Isn't Yours

At that moment, Buford gestured forth Lirik’s new toy at the man without hesitation. The black robe flew off and white hair fluttered in the dark. A being with skin, slippery with moisture, looked at the Fairy King with hazy eyes. The being had already lost its overall brain function. ‘It’ jumped at the Fairy King without fear.

The Fairy King’s eyes widened as he looked at it.

“Louin!” Buford immediately called his guard.

The man following him from the shadows appeared in front of Buford. He had darkened skin and eyes as black as the night sky. Even the whites of his eyes were black.

“I can feel the devil’s energy,” The voice of the Fairy King, who immediately saw through the being’s nature1, was heard.

But his words were half right and half wrong. And the Fairy King seemed to know it too.

“That’s not it…Did you summon demons2 and put them in the chimaera?” His voice, usually so filled with life, was drawn low as if dumbfounded.

But Buford  couldn’t afford to respond to that. He immediately retreated behind the two dolls flying at the Fairy King and ran away. Fortunately, he was not far from the entrance of the forest.

It was known to the public that the Fairy King did not leave the forest. The matter was because of his own oath, made due to his abhorrence of being entangled with humans. The idea was that, since he expressed his will not to go into the human realm, then the humans should not enter the fairy realm either.

Thus, Buford gritted his teeth and ran out of the woods. Despite facing off against his guard and new toy at the same time, the Fairy King did not miss Buford. With a wave of one hand, a tree in the forest moved to stop Buford.

It wasn’t just that.

One by one, dark fairies appeared from thin air and surrounded him. The number soon reached dozens. Not only that, but even light fairies that had been awoken by the commotion began to harass him.

– You’re weird.- 

-It’s an enemy! It’s an enemy!-

-Should we capture him alive?-

-Am I not supposed to eat him?- 

– The king told me not to kill him.-

-I want to kill you. Strange. I’m getting angry.-

-I want to kill… I want to kill you! I’m gonna kill you!-

The little fairies’ hands came at him and scratched him. A few imaginative ones tried to squeeze his brains out. He felt suffocated from the pouring fairy dust. The dark fairies had drawn out their nails and aimed them toward his heart.

“You damn things!”

With his teeth exposed, he randomly bit away at the fairies who approached him.

The fairies screamed when he grabbed onto the fairy’s small body and bit off his head. 3

He tapped into his dark magic. In the air, a black fire blazed in the form of a foreign language. At that moment, dozens of pillars of fire rose to burn the fairies.

-Kyaaaaaak!-

-Oh my god!-

Amidst the howling and wailing screams of the fairies and spirits, Buford ran frantically without looking back and got out of there. The green Fairy Forest was burning in the flames.

Every time he recalled what had happened, all he could see was red, even with his eyes closed. The feeling of being scratched and torn by the fairies was still vivid. As soon as he returned, he devoured the captured spirits with rage. Despite eating them raw like, his wounds did not heal easily. It seemed that he needed Lirik’s medical treatment.

“….Dimon,” He hoarsely called out to the empty room.

A wizard with blue eyes and dark skin appeared. She approached Buford with an expressionless face. With one move, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Dark energy oozed out of both their bodies, filling the whole room.

“You went out while I was resting, and got hurt like this… poor man,” Dimon murmured in her unique, raspy voice, gently biting on Buford’s earlobe.

As if he found this kind of Dimon cute, Buford pulled her close and kissed her deeply on the nape of her neck. Groaning at the sensation, Dimon laughed and burrowed deeper into Buford’s arms. Her lips, painted red, stretched into a smile.

She was the only mage who practiced black magic in the Empire. 4 She secretly learned black magic, a type of magic that had been forcibly buried, and as such, she was loved by the demons.

And Dimon loved Buford.

“I’m tired. I need to go back and see Lirik for treatment.”

“Don’t do that. Make a contract with me. You’ll have more power than you do now.”

“And I’ll play in your hands for the rest of my life. You’re a greedy woman.”

“I’ll play with you. With joy. Hmm, how about it?” With a giggle, she licked her tongue all over his skin where the fairy’s nail marks remained.

Buford didn’t mind the sticky approach, so he was enjoying himself. His tired body seemed to melt beneath her touches.

“Oh, right. The shadow planted in the lord’s castle told me interesting news.”

“Hmm?” Buford answered casually, with his eyes closed, his attention clearly elsewhere.

His hands gripped Dimon’s waist, fingers stroking her bare skin. The fingers stroking her waist were met with her soft and tender skin.

She groaned and whispered in a sweet voice that didn’t hide her joy, “A living, um… dragon egg was brought into the lord’s castle.”

At that moment, Buford ‘s hand stopped. He slowly opened his eyes, a question lingered in his pupils.

“Someone picked it up near the Fairy Forest…”

Looking at him as if he was cute, Dimon lowered her voice even more.

“What do you think? Doesn’t it interest you?”

“If it’s real.”

She smiled like a real devil and whispered seductively, “…Shall I go and steal it?”

Buford’s ruby-like eyes looked at Dimon. Mirth flashed across his half-lidded eyes as a slow smile spread across his face. Dimon thought the smile was breathtaking. The black beauty mark under his right eye was perfect. A perfect yet chilling devilish beauty.

“This is why I like you, Dimon,” Smiling deeply, he ravished her lips without hesitation.

Between the sound of their lips and saliva, Dimon’s coquettish voice broke the darkness.

Below them, the bodies of the spirits had completely returned to the wind and soil.

***

At that time, in Loa’s central square.

A round, shiny brown head was raised high, swivelling left and right. Her black eyes, like stone, darted around, looking at the surroundings strangely. After looking around so many times, the ground mole tilted her head, as if she had just realized something was off.

–Kyu? Kyuuu? ……..Kyuu. Kyu!

The black eyes of the ground mole shook urgently as she belatedly realized that she had gone the wrong way. Tierra, the ground mole, was sweating profusely, not knowing what to do and with a squeak, bit the magic bead that Simon had given her.

A moment later, his mana spread like a spider’s web around the square.

** *

At the same time, outside the drawing room of the lord’s castle.

Allen and Humming had brought the dragon eggs and were waiting for the lord to come out of the drawing room. A fire in the Fairy Forest last night had caused the lord to rush out this morning. The lord’s castle was about half an hour’s time away from the town’s square. It was about time he returned.

“But you said it yourself, Allen. The wizards probably won’t be able to get here soon.”

“Even if they come as soon as possible, it will take about a month. That’s how long it took us.”

“If you travel normally, it would take about two months, right? But won’t wizards travel faster than us if they use movement magic?”

“Anyway, one month. Three weeks at the earliest.”

“…Well, then what do we do about this?” Humming glanced at the dragon’s egg in her arms.

“We’ll have to temporarily move it to the magic branch of the closest city. Because we’re unable to do that so we’re asking the lord. We’re in a state where we can’t leave this place right now.”

“You said that Kalia’s due date has been pushed forward, right?”

“Mhmm,” Allen, who nodded heavily in reply, was lost in thought.

Usually, a woman has a gestation period of 40 weeks which is about 10 months’ time.

Currently, Kalia is 37 weeks and five days along. However, the baby had been growing at an unexpectedly fast pace. The baby already weighs well over 3kg and there is a high probability that the Kalia would be in danger when she gives birth if the baby grows any taller. At this rate, Shasha’s estimated weight on the due date is about 4.7kg. Giving birth to such a large baby will be extremely difficult for the mother.

He was still contemplating on whether he should perform a cesarean section, but this morning, he had noticed that Kalia’s baby was dropping. 5

“The number of contractions is alarming…”

All the signs pointed to her body hurriedly preparing to release the child, as if she was about to give birth right away.

“Given the condition, I think we should be ready to give birth in a week. The baby can’t grow any “Will Miss be alright?”

Allen nodded at Humming’s worried question and smiled slightly to reassure her, “Yes. Fortunately, there isn’t anything wrong with her body. She even said she slept very well last night and was feeling very refreshed. The movements yesterday helped for her swelling to subside for the first time in a long time.”

“She’s someone who has always been very active over the course of her life. She must have been very frustrated to suddenly be so still because of her pregnancy. Now that I think about it, we’ve been overprotective, Allen.”

“What?”

When Allen looked at Humming in astonishment, Humming continued with a slightly raised face, “Miss was so cool. You’ll never know how wonderful she was yesterday, Allen. To be honest, it’s amazing how lightly she can move her body about even though she’s this late in her term. Anyway, yesterday in the forest, her movements were like the wind. At that moment, I really felt that Kalia was the wind! The God of Wind!”

Humming, who was shouting passionately, spun around on the spot, unable to contain her excitement.

Please, Humming. Don’t do that. She has to take good care of herself for a while after giving birth, and she can’t just be wind just because that’s what you want.”

Humming’s eyes sparkled, already lost in her dream, not really hearing Allen’s words as he pleaded with her.

At that moment.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. You brought the dragon egg?”

The long-awaited lord had returned.