The Baby Isn’t Yours

“I feel like I’ll die if I don’t find her.”

His voice sounded somewhat painful when she heard it.

“I’m suffering enough to feel like dying. It hurts so much because I miss her. I want to see her so badly I could die, but I can’t see her. I don’t know why she left, and I have no idea when she’ll return… How can I not look for her?”

Simon paused his words for a moment and let out a nervous laugh. It was a sound of laughter mixed with a sigh.

But in all this situation, he couldn’t really blame Kalia.

It would be hard for him to have the heart to blame her or even resent her now that he was going to meet her again.

Because he couldn’t let Kalia fall from him one more time because he can’t help but crave love…

“What if something happens while I’m not by her side? What if she gets hurt? Or if some crazy person bothers her because he loves her? Ha! It’s probably all because I’m not with her.”

If he met her, all he had to do from now on was pour out all of this overflow of heart-aching love into her.

Why would he ever hate her even when Kalia left without saying a word and flew away like that?

He couldn’t even speak a word of resentment. This was salvation. It couldn’t be taken lightly, and it couldn’t be rebelled against.

Kalia was his salvation, and he couldn’t dare to blame her.

The only person in this world who dominated him with such overwhelming emotions was her.

Simon contorted his face, looking like he was either laughing or crying.

The sound of rain outside was annoying.

Simon briefly exhaled and leaned forward.

“So, I have to find her. As soon as possible… I have to. So that I can’t have a moment of peace in my head as long as she’s not with me. If not, I might really go crazy.”

With his arms on his knees, he nervously twisted around his interlaced fingers for a moment before raising his head.

His eyes had a completely different look than before. One without even the slightest leeway.

‘…Dangerous.’

Hemmie and Allen had the same thought at the same time.

This man’s love was dangerous. It was so enormous that it could overflow and corrode the surroundings.

Already, he had sunk into that love. And at the same time, such love was what Kalia needed.

An overwhelmingly overflowing love. Such an enormous love that would make up for all the time she had grown up not knowing love.

Hemmie looked at Simon with a relaxed gaze. Then, as if determined, she spoke.

“I’ll tell you where Kalia is.”

“Hemmie! It’s not our decision.”

“But if we don’t tell him, Simon won’t let us go. Right, Simon?”

Listening to them, Simon raised one eyebrow and smiled calmly. His smiling expression conveyed only one meaning.

‘See’, Hemmie said again to Allen.

“Look, Allen. As you know, we’re not in a situation where we can afford to be so relaxed right now. So now that the situation has turned out like this, wouldn’t it be better to go back to Kalia and take care of her as soon as possible?”

“…Take care of her? Is something wrong with Kalia?”

Allen asked.

Simon asked in Allen’s silence when he could not refute Hemmie’s logic.

The nuance between these two people made Simon’s expression serious.

“From what I can see, you seem to be a doctor over there… So, you’ve been with Kalia for some reason?”

Allen bit his lower lip and glanced at Simon, hesitating to respond.

As if to put pressure on Allen, mana increasingly began to pour from Simon and radiate into the air around him. The enormous amount of mana emitted seemed to compress down the very concentration of air.

Hemmie and Allen, realizing that they were suffocating their throats, became tense and anxious.

“If something happens to Kalia while you’re wasting time like this… You better be prepared. Even if you’re Kalia’s people.”

Rumble!

Just in time, thunder struck outside, adding to the already suffocating and tense atmosphere. His eyes gleamed eerily in the near darkness.

Allen grabbed Hemmie and, with a trembling look, glared at Simon.

“Since you’ve been waiting, can’t you wait a few more days?”

Simon replied with a sly smile.

“…It seems like that won’t be possible.”

A tense confrontation arose between the two men.

Breaking the suddenly cooled air flow, a round-headed ground mole spirit suddenly rose.

-Kyuu?-

Startled, Hemmie and Allen took a couple of steps back in surprise.

“Tierra.”

Simon recognized the spirit and stretched out his hand.

“Why are you showing up now after all this time?”

-Kyuu!-

She raised her head as if she had something to say and jumped up into Simon’s hand. From there, the mole ran up his arm to his shoulder, seemingly a bit excited.

-Kyuu! Kyuuuu! Kyuukyukyukyukyuu! Kyuuuu!-

To Simon’s dismay, the mole spirit became animated and expressed something through the mole language.

The words of the ground mole spirit, which were not a language but conveyed meanings, crawled into Simon’s mind.

“I went to the Spirit Forest and met a strange human? But what’s the matter?”

-Kyuuuu! Kyuk! Kyukyuk!-

At the mole’s squeaks, Simon’s face, which had been calm this entire time, gradually changed.

“She smelled similar to the mana I showed you before?”

-Kyuu!-

As the mole nodded vigorously, Simon’s palm was extended over the mole’s head, and purified magic was injected into her.

“Now, try to remember. Try to remember the face of the woman you saw…”

As Simon instructed, an indistinct image spontaneously appeared before the mole, which had been listening to him. The blurry figure gradually became clearer, and the previously opaque colors became distinct.

At this point, Allen and Hemmie gasped and covered their mouths at the same time, surprised.

‘Why Kalia!’

While Allen and Hemmie were taken aback, Simon stared at the vision in silence.

After a while, he seemed to regain his composure and gently stroked the mole’s head.

“Well done, Tierra. So, do you know where this woman is now?”

-Kyuu!-

Tierra nodded vigorously, pressing forward. As a result, a different image arose before them.

A two-story house made of white walls and a red roof.

A beautiful and quaint mansion with a small garden.

It was the very mansion where Kalia was living.

* * *

Rumble! Crack!

Kalia was awakened by the sound of lightning striking. More accurately, it was the uncomfortable pain in her abdomen, combined with the thunder, that roused her from sleep.

Grrrr.

A sensation similar to the movement but subtly different in terms of contraction began to tighten her lower abdomen.

Kalia took a deep breath and got up from her bed.

“It seems that Allen should be coming tomorrow morning…”

Something felt off. She had been uneasy all afternoon yesterday, but now she was caught up in an inexplicable premonition.

A premonition that her child will be born soon.

Kalia got up and went to the kitchen.

The rain was still loud outside, but thanks to the warmth of the fireplace, the air inside was not too cold.

Fortunately, the pain had subsided as she walked out.

She added tea leaves that had a soothing effect to the warm water and tried to calm her mind. Checking the time was essential if it was a contraction.

‘I felt the contraction about three minutes ago.’

And it’s been about 10 minutes since the contractions began

According to what Allen had said, as long as the contraction intervals were wide enough, one could endure 24 hours.

When the baby was truly about to be born, the contractions would come at one-minute intervals. Allen had mentioned that they could be extremely painful, and he didn’t provide any further explanation.

‘Just a little more, if I can hold on a little longer, it should be fine.’

Kalia reclined in her rocking chair in front of the fireplace.

In about two more hours, it would be morning.

If Allen and Hemmie departed immediately and arrived when it was bright, it would be fortunate. However, if they arrived late, she needed to have a backup plan.

‘First, let’s inform the neighbors next door, and also contact Dr. Henry in the village. I should leave a message for Mrs. Collins, who mentioned having given birth before.’

She ruminated on these thoughts to keep her mind off the pain.

Just as the pain in her abdomen began to subside, she suddenly felt it tightening again.

Quickly checking the time, she noticed that about twenty minutes had passed since the last contraction.

The time intervals were much closer than she had anticipated.

Kalia tried not to panic and relaxed in the rocking chair.

Conveniently, an unfinished baby bonnet was placed on the small table beside the chair. 

Kalia, who had learned to knit from Mrs. Lana next door. The tiny hat was clumsily knitted with her own hands and was honestly a bit of a crooked and messy.

Nonetheless, no matter how sloppy the hat she’d made was, Kalia looked proud every time she saw it. It took a month just to knit this much of this little thing.

Due to her lack of dexterity, she had to unwind to re-knit with her needles over and over again even though she spent over an hour working on it every day. She worked on it whenever she had the time but she hadn’t been able to completely finish it yet.

She estimated that she could complete it by today or tomorrow if she held on but at this rate, most likely not. It was a pity. 

She had wanted to complete it beautifully, but…

Kalia gently touched it and spoke as if to gently soothe Sasha in her stomach.

“Mom also wants to see Sasha as soon as possible, but wouldn’t it be better for us to meet safely? So, Sasha, please don’t hurry. Wait just a little. Until Allen arrives. My good baby.”

When she spoke in a friendly voice as she stroked her clenching belly, the labour pains subsided.

Just that alone made her feel proud of her growing child.

Kalia took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and relaxed.

Rumble, crack!

Lightning flashed beyond the window, and the thunderclap that followed sounded as if someone was knocking on the door. Unusually, the thunder seemed quite loud today.

Kalia thought to herself that the thunder was very loud today as she turned to return to the kitchen.

Knock, knock, knock.

The unmistakable sound of knocking on the door reached her ears once again.