Madam and the Stable Keeper (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 3
Click.
The door opened with a soft click. Edith carefully scanned her surroundings.
Whether they hadn’t anticipated she’d pick the lock and escape, or whether it was simply Sophia’s carelessness, there was no guard nearby.
‘It doesn’t seem likely that someone who planned to use me to seize the entire fortune would be this careless.’
Although this reasonable suspicion arose, she had no intention of meekly staying locked up.
Edith ran swiftly, holding her breath.
The mansion, built during House Portrion’s golden age, surrounded an absurdly vast garden and forest.
She dashed madly toward the estate wall, which she hoped would appear at any moment. Dew from the bushes soaked the hem of her dress. Each time a stray branch scratched her cheek, it left a thin cut.
Still, Edith ran with all her might to keep from plummeting her life into ruin.
When she finally reached the wall, she immediately stretched out her hand to vault over it.
“……!”
But an invisible force blocked her. She abruptly halted and felt along what seemed like a transparent, solid wall.
Every time she touched it, a sharp tingling sensation ran through her whole body as if struck by electricity.
Only then did Edith realize why the guard had seemed so lax.
“They must have come to their senses by now, Madam Sophia. Your orders were well executed.”
She recalled the mercenaries who’d passed through her village once, boasting about how common such magic was in the capital. A wave of despair washed over her.
‘So they cast a confinement spell—no need for guards at all.’
No matter how hard she pounded the transparent barrier, she only hurt herself; there was no sign it would let her out.
Just as she stood there, disheartened, a mocking voice rang out. Sophia had appeared, accompanied by several burly servants, clearly having anticipated this outcome.
“You really don’t seem inclined to cooperate peacefully, do you?”
“……Sophia.”
“Take her away.”
In the end, Edith was seized by the men and dragged off somewhere, leaving Sophia behind, smiling as she watched.
“There’ll be a woman inside. Do as you please—just make sure she becomes pregnant…….”
This time, Edith was locked not in a proper room but in a brick building. She bit her lip as a horrifying voice drifted through the wall.
Sophia and her lackeys worked astonishingly fast; apparently, their desperation stemmed from having no suitable heir to present as the viscount’s successor.
‘They’d stoop this low just to get me pregnant?’
The viscount had been mad, but Sophia’s madness was no less severe. They were already shoving multiple men in after less than an hour—a bestial notion indeed.
She had to prevent these men from touching her at all costs.
As Edith desperately gripped a sharp brick shard, determined to escape somehow, the men’s snickering grew closer—then the door swung open.
Four men, seemingly hired for menial tasks around the estate, stood before her.
Their four pairs of eyes, gleaming with desire, slowly and thoroughly roamed over Edith’s face and body before locking back onto her eyes.
“Wow… she’s a stunning beauty!”
“We really can do whatever we want with her?”
Three of the men advanced toward Edith like wolves who’d found fresh meat. The fourth man snapped at them.
“Are you trying to die? Didn’t Walter say not to lay a hand on this woman?”
At the mention of “Walter,” the men hesitated.
“Well… yeah, but…”
“Ha! But even that bastard Walter would think the same as us if he saw her!”
“He’s just another stable hand like us—what’s the big deal!”
The bold man stretched his hand toward Edith’s leg, which lay sprawled on the floor—
“Didn’t I politely ask you not to touch her?”
“Ugh—!”
Along with a low voice came a sickening crunch as the man’s hand was instantly stomped into the ground.
‘Who is that?’
Edith had been about to slash the man’s reaching hand with the sharp stone hidden in her bosom.
But this newly arrived man had crushed the servant’s hand as easily as snuffing out an ember.
“W-Walter, please… urgh!”
“Hans. Didn’t you just agree minutes ago when I told you not to touch her?”
Walter didn’t stop stomping, even as Hans groaned in agony. His punishment was merciless, like crushing a bloodsucking insect underfoot.
Just who was this man to act so ruthlessly?
Edith’s eyes, which had been fixed on Hans’s mangled hand, slowly lifted upward.
What first caught her attention was his sheer physicality—broad, rugged bone structure wrapped in thick muscle that dwarfed the four men who’d entered before him.
She’d assisted many knights and mercenaries at the clinic, but none had possessed such imposing stature. Yet his attire seemed too shabby for a knight employed by House Portrion.
Curious, she looked up to his face—and her eyes widened as far as they could go.
Jet-black hair, a straight nose, clear-set eyes, and even the familiar line of his jaw and shape of his lips.
His features weren’t unfamiliar at all, and as if entranced, she spoke without thinking.
“……Isaac?”
Isaac had been a mysterious boy who stayed briefly at her house when Edith was eleven years old.
“Since we need to cover our modest living expenses, we’ve decided to take in a guest for a while. The lady needs somewhere to recuperate, and you’ll gain a playmate—good for everyone.”
When her mother, Lady Lowell, had said that, Edith had been overjoyed.
Until then, her only companions had been constantly changing or disappearing servants and her parents.
She’d later learned that, some fifty years prior, the Lowell family had once lived quite comfortably as a baronial house—but Edith only discovered she was a baron’s descendant much later.
Despite selling off both their estate and title due to her father’s incurable congenital illness, they’d never managed to live comfortably.
A few days later, the boy and his mother arrived.
Madam Leah and Isaac. Their presence had at least partially filled the void left by her father’s passing after his long illness.
Especially Isaac, who was just a year older—his presence had been a great comfort.
When her mother worked late into the night at the clinic to earn money.
When the anniversary of her father’s death drew near and melancholy set in.
And even when Edith secretly witnessed her mother coughing up blood while insisting it was just exhaustion.
The first time young Edith realized her mother was hiding an illness, she’d been too shocked to utter a word.
Was she about to lose her mother, too, just like her father?
Overwhelmed by despair and fear, her heart pounded exactly as it did now. Afraid of hearing heavy truths if she faced her mother, she’d dashed out of the house without thinking.
She only realized she was lost deep in the dark woods far from home when dark clouds began pouring down a sudden rainstorm.
“No… Mama isn’t… sniff… not sick… she’ll be okay…”
Beneath a large tree, Edith cried until her throat went raw.
Already heartbroken and terrified, losing her way and getting caught in the rain made her tears flow endlessly.
Just as she worried she might be attacked by wild animals, she sensed movement in the bushes.
“Edith! I’ve been searching forever.”
Isaac appeared, drenched despite his raincoat, leading Cream, his ever-present white pony.
The moment she saw the twelve-year-old boy grinning as he handed her his raincoat, an indescribable sense of relief washed over her.
“If something’s wrong, you should talk to me first. Why run off like a silly kid all alone?”
His scolding face wore an expression of exaggerated annoyance, yet he opened his arms—clearly inviting her in.
Shivering uncontrollably from the cold, Edith instinctively burrowed into his embrace. In that instant, she noticed his soaked black hair clinging in strands to his forehead and his amber eyes, curved like crescent moons.
Warmth spread through her from their contact, and for a moment her breath, even time itself, seemed to stop.
“Once the rain stops, we’ll ride Cream home. Until then, tell me what happened. I’ll listen to everything.”
“Isaac…”
“You’re such a fool. Just tell me what’s wrong. Being scared together makes it a little easier, doesn’t it?”
Though he spoke gruffly, Isaac gently enveloped Edith’s icy hands between his own to warm them, then affectionately stroked her hair.
Even now, at twenty-three, Edith still couldn’t understand what magic that mere twelve-year-old boy had cast upon her.
When she looked into his golden eyes, the cold vanished as if it had never existed, and her heart pounded as if it would leap right out of her chest.
Matching the rhythm of her heartbeat—thump, thump—she felt herself pulled into an unknown world.
Even an eleven-year-old girl with no experience of life at all could recognize it clearly: that was love.
‘I assumed Isaac must have felt the same way.’
But the boy who used to blush when looking at her had eventually returned to the capital—his so-called hometown—and cut off all contact, coldly and without explanation.
Having since come of age, Edith had cleanly abandoned any notion of marriage, accepting her circumstances.
Yet now, for some reason, the boy who’d left her with bittersweet, despondent memories overlapped with the man before her—Walter.
Even though there was no reason he should be here of all places.
‘Now that I look closely, even his eye color is different.’
Perhaps her mind was desperately trying to summon pleasant memories so as not to drive her mad.
As Edith secretly swallowed a self-mocking smile, Walter asked her again.
“…Did you just say ‘Isaac’?”
Male lead says he’s pregnant — and it’s female lead’s child
Something seems a bit off about this world.
Wang Zhao thought as she watched a pregnant man walking towards her…
Intro
Female lead finds herself in a world where the men who possess the ability to bear children.
As she navigates this unfamiliar reality, she is caught off guard by the sudden appearance of her boyfriend, who reveals that he is pregnant.
Is this truly her boyfriend?
Why can’t she recall any details about their time together?
She begins to doubt whether the child her boyfriend is carrying is even hers.
Is there a hidden reason behind her amnesia, or could it be a side effect of her sudden arrival in this strange new world?
Just when it seems the protagonist’s life couldn’t become any more entangled, her ex-boyfriend makes an unexpected appearance, raising questions about the protagonist’s past.
__________
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