Chapter 24
After we named our baby 「Yeppi」, a peculiar change came over our daily lives as a married couple.
The biggest change, first of all, was me.
“Our Yeppi~ Did you sleep well in Mommy’s tummy today?”
“......”
Every morning, I greeted Kara’s belly, and a babyish lisp slipped out before I knew it.
It was completely at odds with my usual deep, low voice, sounding like a bear trying to perform a cute trick.
At first, Kara was disgusted, saying, “That’s creepy. Stop it!” but she seemed to have given up by now and merely snickered.
There was an unexpected effect, too.
Though I had grown close to Kara, my large size made me an intimidating presence to the relatively petite maids.
But after seeing me use a babyish voice with the baby, the household servants completely lowered their guard around me.
“My goodness, Lord Varg. Are you talking to the baby again?”
“I think Yeppi likes Daddy’s voice.”
The maids giggled and approached more freely whenever Kara was beside me.
Though Kara was not showing yet and there was no sign of the baby, everyone doted on Yeppi and offered their blessings.
Thanks to that, Kara’s morning sickness also became considerably easier to manage.
Of course, she still craved Norhaim cuisine....
But her repertoire of cravings had broadened.
“Hmm... I’m craving something sweet today.”
Kara began asking for tarts, fruit drinks, puddings, and other treats brought from famous dessert shops and cafés in Eisengard.
The problem was the quantity.
“Hmm, this is too sweet. I’ll have just one bite.”
“The texture isn’t very good. I’ll eat half.”
Kara tasted only a bite of each item like a gourmet before setting it down.
So what happened to the rest?
Naturally, it became my share.
“It would be a waste, so I’ll eat it.”
I became a human garbage disposal unit for the desserts Kara left behind.
After several days of this.
“Huh? Varg, hasn’t your jawline gotten a little blurry?”
Kara teased me while pinching my cheek.
“You’ve gained weight, husband. You’ve gotten so sluggish—could you even catch a snow bear?”
“...You’re hardly one to talk. Your cheeks have gotten pretty plump too.”
“What?! Don’t tell a pregnant woman she’s gained weight! It’s swelling, swelling!”
Kara puffed out her lips sulkily, but it was true.
Eating well and resting well had made both of us pleasantly plump.
They said it was proof of happiness, but I couldn’t deny feeling a sense of crisis as a warrior.
That was why this social dancing lesson held special meaning.
It was also exercise and a hobby meant to manage our growing bellies and loosen our stiffening bodies.
Of course, whenever Count Eisen wasn’t looking, Kara and I exercised by sparring as we had since childhood.
『Young Master Varg! Miss Kara! Sparring is fine, but how can you do it with real swords?!』
That was the scolding we ended up receiving.
* * *
The mansion’s banquet annex.
Count Eisen took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
“Well then, Mr. Varg. The appointed time has arrived.”
Then, his glasses flashing, he held out a hand to me.
“Lady Kara needs to rest, so match steps with me. I’ll lead.”
It was a horrifying image even to imagine.
A two-meter-tall barbarian and a relatively petite middle-aged gentleman embracing one another around the waist and spinning in circles.
My body was already heavy from gaining weight, and I felt as though my lunch might come back up.
I cried out in alarm.
“C-Count! Wait a moment!”
“Why? Are you trying to back out now?”
“It’s not that... Please let me dance with Kara.”
At my words, Kara, who had been resting in a chair, opened her eyes wide.
Count Eisen firmly shook his head.
“No. Lady Kara’s safety is the top priority. Vigorous spinning movements are not good for an expectant mother.”
“I’ll avoid any vigorous dancing too!”
I racked my brain.
I had to escape this crisis.
More than anything, I wanted to hold my wife, who had suffered through morning sickness, in my arms and comfort her.
“When the parents connect emotionally and give the baby a sense of security... What should I call it...? Ah! It’s a prenatal dance!”
“...A prenatal dance?”
Count Eisen furrowed his brow.
He looked as though he had heard a combination of words for the first time in his life.
The truth was, I didn’t know much about it either.
I felt as though I had glimpsed the idea somewhere in my memories from my previous life, though perhaps I hadn’t.
But I was in no position to be picky now.
I couldn’t get the sight of Kara lying limp and exhausted after vomiting up everything she had eaten yesterday out of my mind.
Though the food from her homeland had greatly eased her nausea, I wanted to do something for my wife, who suffered every night.
They said physical contact was good for expectant mothers. Would holding her under the pretext of dancing make her feel a little better?
‘Oh, whatever. I’ll just blurt it out and see what happens.’
With the most serious expression I could manage, I launched into a pitch like a snake-oil salesman.
“When the parents share their body heat through physical contact. When that is combined with sweet, harmonious music, it’s very good for the fetus’s emotional development.”
“Is that... something supported by evidence?”
“The Empire’s latest medical papers... No, actually, my tribe’s grannies said so. They say a child learns to dance from inside the womb.”
I shamelessly mixed a folk remedy that would be hard to prove on the spot but somehow sounded persuasive into my lie.
“I’m serious, Count. When Kara smiles, doesn’t the baby learn to smile too?”
Count Eisen wavered beneath my earnest gaze.
The word 「prenatal education」 seemed to him like a magical incantation.
After thinking for a moment, he began a thorough verification process, just as befitted a workaholic.
“Wait here.”
Eisen ran to the study and leafed through medical books.
“Hmm... It says that emotional stability and light exercise are beneficial for an expectant mother.”
As though that were not enough, he even summoned the head maid, who had extensive experience with childbirth, and asked for her advice.
“Oh my, of course they are. When a husband and wife show affection often, the baby comes out gentle too, Count. It grows up nourished by love.”
The head maid gave an entirely positive answer.
Finally, he summoned Lonas, who was working in the office, and asked for his opinion as well.
“Lonas, what do you think?”
Lonas looked up at his father with hollow eyes.
He was holding a bundle of receipts.
“Father... Please handle things like that yourselves. I’m dancing with receipts right now. The numbers are waltzing. Round and round....”
He was already completely out of his mind.
Count Eisen clicked his tongue, sent Lonas back to his office, and gazed at a framed picture set to one side of the room.
It was a magical photograph of his late wife, Dalena, their grown son Lonas, and Alina as a newborn.
The count’s gaze grew wistful.
‘Dalena....’
When she was pregnant with their child, he had been so consumed by work that he had not been able to stay by her side for long.
Not when she was suffering from morning sickness.
Not when Alina kicked....
He could count on his fingers the number of times he had danced with her, let alone pressed his ear to her swollen belly.
That regret had remained with him for his entire life.
Though Varg’s proposal seemed somewhat absurd, he could feel that the love it held for his wife and child was genuine.
“...We should have done this when we were expecting Alina too, shouldn’t we?”
Eisen quietly spoke to the wife in the photograph.
Then he turned around, looked at us as a couple, and nodded.
“Very well. I’ll allow it.”
“Oh!”
“However, there is one condition. We will proceed only to a very slow and gentle melody. If it places any strain on the expectant mother, we stop immediately.”
“Understood!”
I cheered in triumph.
I had avoided waltzing with a middle-aged man.
A short while later.
The annex ballroom glowed under soft magic-stone lights.
Count Eisen himself stood there with a violin.
Screeech—.
He began to play.
A waltz at an extremely slow tempo.
I carefully wrapped my arms around Kara’s waist.
“Are you all right? Are you dizzy?”
“Mhm. I’m fine.”
Kara placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled.
We slowly swayed our bodies to the music.
Our chests touched, and our body heat passed between us.
“Mmm... This is nice.”
Kara rested her face against me and closed her eyes.
“Dancing pressed against you like this, honey... makes my stomach feel calm. The nausea goes away too.”
“That’s a relief. I’ll hold you tight.”
We danced the slowest dance in the world.
It was peaceful, as though time had stopped.
Norhaim’s snowstorms kept us rushing, but relatively warm Eisengard allowed us this leisurely moment.
However.
“......”
Kara’s eyebrow twitched.
“But Varg... Isn’t this too slow?”
“Huh? The count told us to take it slowly.”
“No, if we keep dragging along like this, I think it’ll make my stomach churn. I’m getting motion sick.”
For Kara, who was a warrior by nature, this sluggish rhythm was more than boring—it was torture.
Tap!
Kara lightly stamped the floor with her high-heeled shoe.
Then she turned her head and cast a mischievous glance at Count Eisen, who was playing the violin in a trance.
‘A little faster!’
A signal with her eyes.
Then she whispered into my ear.
“Varg, hold on tight. I’m going to pick up the pace, okay?”
“Huh?”
At that moment.
Thud!
Kara’s steps quickened.
The sluggish waltz instantly transformed into a lively quickstep.
Kara’s movements were closer to an application of swordsmanship than dancing.
She guided me along delicate yet unpredictable paths, like a first snowflake that settled softly before scattering in the wind.
“Huh? Wha—?”
The sudden increase in speed made my balance waver slightly.
But just as I began to tilt, Kara swiftly changed her footing, supported my center of gravity, and spun me halfway around.
A perfect lead.
“Haha! That’s more like it!”
Kara spun around with a radiant smile.
Her skirt spread like flower petals.
Count Eisen, who had been playing the violin, grew flustered.
‘This isn’t the rhythm, is it? Am I playing too fast?’
But as though spellbound by Kara’s freewheeling dance across the floor, he too began naturally increasing the speed of his bowing.
Scree—kree—!
The music quickened, and our dance grew more intense.
I began to run out of breath.
But I felt refreshed.
My wife, whom I had thought was only suffering, was holding my hand and flying like the wind.
At the corner of the ballroom.
Alina, who had been watching, began wiggling her hips and eventually could not resist grabbing Lonas’s hand and pulling him along.
It seemed Alina had forcibly dragged Lonas over so he could take a brief break from sitting in the office and slowly dying at his desk.
“Big Brother! Big Brother! Let’s dance too! Let’s spin around like Sis Kara!”
“A-Alina... Big Brother really has to go approve things now....”
Lonas looked miserable as he thought of the stacks of paperwork.
“There’s a mountain of thank-you letters and settlement statements to send to the Grand Ducal House. Even if Young Master Kairon paid for it all, propriety demands... Aaaagh!”
Alina pulled Lonas along by sheer force.
“I don’t care! I’m going to dance too! I’m dancing with Big Brother!”
“Yaa-hoo!”
The lively footfalls of Kara and me.
Kyiing—kang—!
Count Eisen’s inspired violin performance, carried away by the excitement.
“Heeheehee!”
Alina’s laughter.
Lonas’s muttering was drowned out and dissolved into thin air amid those happy sounds.
No one listened to him talk about work.
No one could hear him.
Lonas stared blankly at the dance floor.
His younger sister Alina, smiling brightly.
His father, drenched in sweat and lost in his playing.
And the barbarian couple, looking utterly happy as they gazed at each other.
‘......’
When had this mansion ever been so lively?
Since his mother’s death, it felt like this was the first time laughter had echoed through the mansion after it had fallen cold and quiet.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of Lonas’s mouth.
“...Sigh. Yeah, this is nice.”
He tossed aside the stacks of paperwork crowding his mind as if they were flower petals.
Then he scooped Alina up into his arms.
“All right, let’s dance! Today is the day Big Brother’s back breaks!”
“Yay! Big Brother’s the best!”
Lonas began spinning around with Alina in his arms.
Their father playing the violin.
The siblings dancing.
And our married couple, holding one another dearly.
Even while playing, Count Eisen’s eyes grew moist.
The absence of his wife made him lonely, but his heart swelled at the warmth filling the mansion after so long.
‘Dalena, if you’re watching... are you smiling?’
I hugged Kara tightly as well.
Through our touching chests, I felt Kara’s heartbeat, along with the faintest pulse of another life.
‘Yeppi, can you hear me? This is happiness.’
And so we danced until the night grew late.
By then, it was one in the morning.
The happy dancing was over, and everyone in the mansion was asleep in the quiet.
But there was one room where the lights remained on.
“Aaaaargh! I haven’t even finished half of it! I have to send it by tomorrow morning!”
It was Lonas’s office.
A desperate scream pierced through the walls.
His body was exhausted from dancing.
But the work he had put off was still there.
And because he had thrown away the very thought of it earlier, the processing order he had decided on in advance had become hopelessly tangled.
“Someone save me... Somebody, please save me....”
Lonas pressed his head against the desk and let out a solitary cry of despair.