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[AI CENSORSHIP BLOCKED THIS CHUNK - RAW ENGLISH RETAINED]

And so, with all of the responsibility laid squarely on Paul, we got through things without further issue. By the end, Zenith was looking at him with the cold dispassion of someone who was about to slaughter a pig. My balls tensed up in anticipation of what punishment she might unleash upon him. With that look still in her eyes, though, Zenith simply returned to her room.

Lilia was crying, her face blank and expressionless, but tears streamed from her eyes. Paul looked conflicted about whether he should put his arms around her or not. For the time being, I was going to let the playboy do his thing.

I followed after Zenith. If this situation wound up with her and Paul getting divorced, that would create its own host of problems.

I knocked on the bedroom door, and Zenith poked her head out. “Mother,” I said, deciding to just cut right to the chase, “the stuff I said earlier was a lie I just made up. Please don’t hate Father.”

For a moment, Zenith was taken aback, but then she grimaced and gently patted my head. “I know, sweetie. I would never have fallen in love with a man who was that terrible,” she said. “Your father’s got a weakness for women, so I’d prepared myself for the day something like this might happen. It was just a bit sudden, is all.”

“Father has a weakness for women?” I asked, playing ignorant.

“Yes. Not as much in more recent times, but back in the day he was pretty indiscriminate. You might have older brothers and sisters out there that we don’t know about, Rudy.”

She exerted a bit more pressure with the hand that was ruffling my hair.

“Make sure you don’t grow up to be someone like that, okay, Rudy?” She rubbed—no, gripped the top of my head even more firmly. “Make sure you treat Sylphie real nice, okay, Rudy?”

“Ah, ow! Of course, Mother! Th-that hurts!” It almost felt like she’d nailed down what I was going to go on to do in the future.

Still, things would be all right if they stayed like this. Where they went from here—that was all on Paul now.

Still, it was tough knowing that my dad was such a damn hedonist. No more second chances from me, señor.

The day after that, sword practice was exceedingly rough.

I was able to keep pace with him and all; I just wished he wouldn’t take it out on me like that.

Lilia

I’ll just come out and say it: I was the one who seduced Paul.

I had no intention of doing such a thing when I first came to this house. But to hear them moaning night after night, to clean a room that smelled of a man and woman who were very satisfied—I had my needs, and they were building up.

At first, I was able to deal with those needs on my own. Watching Paul practicing swordplay in the yard every morning, however, stoked the fire inside me that had never completely died.

Watching him reminded me of our first time. We were still so young, back when he was staying at the training hall where we practiced. Paul snuck into my room at night and forcibly had his way with me. I didn’t dislike him, but I certainly didn’t love him back. It wasn’t exactly the most romantic encounter. I’d cried, at first.

The next person who made advances toward me, though, was that bald, fat minister. That certainly put into perspective how much better things with Paul had been. Also, when I heard that Paul was hiring a maid, I figured I could use what had happened back then as leverage in my negotiations.

Paul was a much manlier fellow upon our reunion than he’d been back then; any trace of boyishness had disappeared, replaced with the look of a man who’d refined himself both physically and mentally. At the sight of him, one of the first thoughts to cross my mind was that the past six years had certainly been kind to him.

At first, Paul didn’t try to make any moves on me. Every so often, though, he’d treat me to a sneaky grope that just got me all the more worked up. I was able to resist, but I was fully aware that I was walking a very thin line.

All of that came crashing down when Zenith got pregnant.

Knowing that Paul had an abundance of libido, I got it in my head that this was my opportunity. I saw my chance, and I invited Paul into my room. So, this really was my own fault. I thought of my own pregnancy as punishment—my punishment for giving in to my lust, and for betraying Zenith.

But I was forgiven. Rudeus forgave me. That clever child, he managed to correctly deduce what had happened, lead the conversation precisely where it needed to go, and even bring things to an elegant compromise. He was so level and calculating about it, as if he had some similar prior experience to go on.

It was an unsettling—no, best to quit while I was still ahead.

Rudeus weirded me out, and so I made a point to avoid him as much as I could. The boy was smart; he probably realized I was avoiding him. Even so, he had saved me. I couldn’t imagine that felt good for him, but he chose me and my child over his own feelings.

I would owe him for that for the rest of my life. He was someone who deserved my respect.

Yes, he did deserve it. I would owe him a debt for as long as I lived. So, once the child in my belly was safely born, and once they were grown up, I would see that they made their way into young Master Rudeus’s service.

Rudeus

Several months passed without anything especially major happening.

Sylphie was growing remarkably fast. She was now able to cast Intermediate-level spells without incantations, and she was reaching the point where she could pull off some pretty subtle effects. In comparison, my skill with the sword was relatively unchanged. I’d gotten decent, but I hadn’t managed to win a single round against Paul so far, so it was difficult to get too excited about my progress.

Lilia’s attitude had softened as well. Previously, she’d always been on her guard around me—but since I’d been messing around with magic since I was a little kid, that was only natural. While nothing had really changed about her lack of overt emotion, I felt her words and her mannerisms now bore an overwhelming sense of reverence for me. I got that she was happy about my help, but I wished she’d tone it down.

If nothing else, ever since that incident, Lilia had begun to talk to me a little—mostly old stories about Paul. Apparently, they had both studied swordplay at the same training hall many years back. She told me things, like how Paul had been very talented back then, but hated to practice. Or how Paul would skip training in order to gallivant around town. Or how Paul had forced himself on her in the middle of the night and taken her virtue. Or how Paul had eventually fled the training hall.

Bit by bit, Lilia opened up to me about all that. The more she told me about the past, the more my opinion of Paul dropped. He was a rapist and a cheater. He was trash.

Still, it wasn’t like he was rotten to the core. He was childish, irresponsible, and something about that seemed to tickle women’s maternal instincts. He tried to be a good, strict father to me, but he wasn’t good at keeping up that facade; when he set his mind to it, he mostly just came across as frank and straightforward, and I knew for sure he wasn’t a bad guy through and through.

“C’mon, look at me,” Paul said, pulling me out of my daze. We were in the middle of sword practice. “Don’t you want to grow up to be a cool guy like your dad?”

The nerve of this guy, honestly.

“Is it cool to be a guy who cheats on his wife and risks tearing his family apart?”

“Ngh…” Paul grimaced.

At the look on his face, I resolved to be a bit more careful. I was supposed to be young and oblivious. I didn’t cheat on anyone—girls could come to me of their own accord. That’s how I’d handle things.

“Look,” I said, “if that bothers you so much to hear, could you please keep your hands off of anyone who isn’t Mother?”

“O-other than Lilia, right?”

This man had learned nothing.

“Next time, Mother might move back in with her family without saying a word, you know.”

“Guh.”

Was this guy hoping to build himself a harem? To have some secret retirement out in the sticks, where he had a beautiful wife, a maid he could get handsy with whenever he wanted, and a son to train in the way of the sword?

Huh. That made me kind of jealous. That was probably the best ending from his perspective. It’d be like winding up with both Louise and Siesta at the end of that one light novel series. Maybe, rather than being oblivious, I should try to learn from his example?

No, calm down. I remembered the look in Zenith’s eyes when that family meeting of ours came to a close. Did I want someone to givemethat look? One wife would be plenty, thanks.

“I mean, you’re a guy,” Paul said. “You know how it is.” He was still refusing to back down.

I knew what he meant, but that didn’t mean I agreed with him. “What would a six-year-old boy know?”

“Well, take Sylphie; you’re into her, aren’t you? She’s going to be gorgeous when she grows up.”

Well, I sure couldn’t disagree with him there. “I guess you’re right. Though I think she’s pretty cute right now.”

“So then you do understand.”

“I guess.”

Yeah, Paul was trash, but we seemed to be on the same level here. I might look like a child, but mentally, I was an unemployed bum over forty years old. A classic example of trash, right there.

When it came to video games, if nothing else, I was fond of girls, and loved harems. Perhaps, on an intrinsic level, I was the same sort of womanizer that Paul was. Maybe the incident where I’d yanked Sylphie’s underwear off was where we’d started to see eye-to-eye. Ever since then, I’d felt like Paul was more willing to compromise, to open up with me. Maybe seeing my weak points had made him lose that drive to be an unreasonably strict father. He was still growing, too.

“Heheheh…”

I looked to see Paul grinning and chuckling. His gaze wasn’t directed at me, but rather behind me. I turned around and saw Sylphie standing there. It was rare of her to come to our house.

Daha yakından bakınca, yüzünün hafifçe kızardığını ve elleriyle oynayıp durduğunu fark ettim. Beni duymuş olmalıydı.

"Hadi bakalım, az önce söylediklerini onun için tekrar et," dedi Paul.

Burnumdan hafifçe soludum. Bu adamı hiç mi hiç anlamıyordum.

Paul'un daha kat etmesi gereken bir yol vardı sanırım. En içten sözler bile, o kadar sık duyulunca alışkanlık yapar ve sonunda etkisini kaybederdi. Şimdi o sözleri yinelemek olmazdı. Bu yüzden Sylphie'ye sadece sessizce genişçe sırıttım ve el salladım.

Hem zaten Sylphie henüz altı yaşındaydı; böyle bir sohbet için on yıl çok erkendi. Bu kadar küçük yaşta ona sürekli ne kadar sevimli olduğunu tekrarlarsam, şımarık ve bencil birine dönüşürdü. Geçmiş hayatımdaki ablam bunun en iyi örneğiydi.

"Ş-şey, yani… Ben… Ben de seni havalı buluyorum, Rudy," dedi.

"Öyle mi? Teşekkürler, Sylphie!" Genişçe sırıttım, beyaz dişlerimin göz kamaştırıcı bir parlaklıkla parlamasını umarak (ki elbette parlamadılar).

Sylphie diplomasi konusunda harikaydı; gözlerini yukarı dikerek baktığı o ifadeyi neredeyse samimiyet sanacaktım. Onun sevimli olduğunu söylerken elbette içtenliğimi korumuştum, ama bunun arkasında romantik bir his yoktu.

En azından şimdi değil.

"Pekala, Baba. Biz çıkıyoruz," dedim.

"Orada samanlıkta yuvarlanıp durmayın sakın, tamam mı?"

Aman canım! Sanki ben yapacakmışım gibi! Bahsettiğin kişi benim, sen değil.

"Anne!" diye seslenmeye başladım. "Baba—"

"Höh! Hayır, dur!"

Ve böylece, bugün evimiz yine huzurlu bir yer olacaktı.