Hachinan tte sore wa nai.., p.1
Hachinan tte, Sore wa Nai Deshou - Volume 17, page 1
Chapter 01: Wendelin Becomes a Father
* * *
"Uuuuugh... it still hasn't been born...?"
Soon after the graduation of Agnes' group and the talk with Doushi about his past, Elise finally went into labor. As a soon-to-be father I wanted to stay by her side, but in this world men are not allowed to enter the room where the child is being born.
Even the midwife and healers, who Cardinal Hohenheim had arranged for, were all women. The only men involved with childbirth were doctors, but even they were surprisingly not allowed to enter the room of the laboring woman during the birth.
"Still not...? Not yet...??"
I've been single-mindedly waiting outside the room where Elise was giving birth.
Since I've gotten too bored and extremely frustrated, I open a nearby window to get some fresh air. Thereupon, I spotted a huge tree. Since I can see many leaves continuously falling to the ground after being shaken off by the wind, I repeatedly shoot minuscule 『Fireballs』 at them.
If you're asking why I'm doing something like that, the answer would be that I couldn't endure worrying without doing anything as my emotions are too riled up. Given that it calms my mind and also serves as special magic training, I'm killing two birds with one stone here.
There's no other meaning to it.
"I'm going to call it 『Fire Gun』. Are any more leaves going to fall...?"
Quickly running out of targets, I sit down on my chair again, and begin to nervously tap a foot. I never had the habit of doing something like that in my two lives, but I feel like it allows me to calm down a bit.
"Uhhh."
However, I quickly lose my composure again, so I take Master's book out of my magic bag this time, and begin to read it. I scan through everything Master has written down, wondering whether I might have missed any knowledge or magic useful for childbirth.
"Nothing... a spell helping with childbirth... ah, Master was a man... besides, he was single..."
Since it's a book I've received more than ten years ago, I've read it to such an extent that I remember each and every single word in it, so it's impossible for me to discover anything new.
"Next is..."
Because I've become irritated again, I take out an empty magic gem and try to store some mana in it...
"The magic gem twinkles so nicely! How beautiful, Yay! —bah, that's only natural, isn't it!?"
It's common knowledge that a magic gem glows if you pour mana into it.
"Vel, give it a rest and calm down, will you?"
"Well, but, you see..."
"Nothing will change even with you getting flustered."
Eru, who's waiting for Elise's delivery with me, cautions me to settle down.
"Isn't it somewhat late?"
"Only two hours have passed so far. Won't it take some time since it's Elise's first child?"
I guess Eru got some knowledge about childbirth. During my life so far, I never got in contact with childbirth... In my previous life I had a brother who was one year younger than me, but of course it's impossible for me to remember the time of his birth.
In this world, I was the youngest child, and since the men were chased out even more fervently than now when Amalie-san gave birth to her children, I don't know anything about it.
"Eru, you sure are well-informed."
"There were many childbirths back home. It's not like I helped out with those, but there were many cases where it took the midwife half a day or a day to come running. Though some of them were quite fast."
I see, so he's watched childbirths by the residents of his parent's territory. I was busy with my magic training, so I never paid any attention to that.
"Vel-kun, drink this and calm down a bit."
As I'm chatting with Eru, Amalie-san hands me a cup filled with mate tea.
"At times like these, it's bad if the father isn't a tower of strength."
"Meaning?"
"It'd be best for you to simply sit here in silence."
"Got it."
My mind finally calmed down after I got cautioned by Amalie-san.
"Oh man, it's good that you're here with us, Amalie-san..."
* * *
A lot of time has passed... I wonder how many hours it's been...? Eru and I continue to wait stoically. I wonder, does smoking a cigarette at such times distracts one better?
I tried one during my time at university in my previous life, but it didn't do me any good as I ended up choking horribly. Since this world has no cigarettes, I'd need to produce it from scratch by myself.
No, if I search, I might find some, but I don't really know what tobacco leaves look like. It didn't pique my interest so far since it's no food... though I might have know the full account if I got a job over at ○Ｔ.
Well, I wouldn't have had any chance with such an elite company anyway... oops, I'm digressing.
"Since Burkhart-san isn't here, there's no way to drink some wi..."
"Even if he was here, this isn't the time to drink alcohol, is it...?"
"No clue."
Burkhart-san loves his booze above all, so I wouldn't be surprised if he were to start a drinking bout in this place either.
"Wait, the move to distract your mind with alcohol..."
"Stop it. The idea is retarded!"
Immediately after I get warned by Eru that it's wrong to have a drinking bout when your own child is being born, I can hear a baby loudly crying from the room where Elise is giving birth.
—My child has finally been born.
『Ogyaa———a! Ogyaa———a!』
"Vel!"
"Eru!"
"It was born!"
"Yeah!"
I try to open the door in a hurry, but it's still locked.
"Heey! You can already open up, can't you!?"
『Ah, yes. We're going to open it right away.』
Once I tell them to open the door, I hear the midwife answering from within. As expected of a true veteran, she isn't perturbed at all. I guess it's the proper attitude since everyone would likely become anxious if the midwife panicked during the birth.
She opens the door's lock while answering carefreely. And in the instant a small crack appears as I pull on the door, a dazzling light floods out from inside the room.
"Magic light?"
"What's with this radiance?"
When I hurriedly enter the room with Eru, a shining baby enters our field of view. The one emitting the dazzling light is the baby that was just born by Elise.
"Nothing less of my child. It's already shining. No, it's got a wonderful charisma that doesn't resemble me at all!"
"You're already acting like a doting parent, or what!? But, do babies shine like this normally? It's definitely got something to do with magic."
The baby's glow disappeared after one hour, but when I checked its mana, it had an amount of mana at the level of an elementary magician, despite having just been born.
It was at this very moment that Arnest's claim about my babies very likely all becoming magicians unexpectedly turned into reality.
* * *
"Elise, it's a shining, healthy boy. You did awesome."
"Thanks, I'm happy that he's healthy."
Since the baby is safe and sound, I first talk to Elise while casting healing magic on her to alleviate her exhaustion somewhat. It's the healing magic I don't use overly often since it's inferior to Elise's, but now it's a good help after a long time of not using it.
"I'm relieved that it's a boy."
Elise must have been expected to give birth to a boy by her family. Because she managed to accomplish this, she now looks very relieved. Though I'm simply happy that it's been born safely without a care about the gender.
"Earl Baumeister-sama, considering it is Elise-sama's first child, I am relieved that it was an easy delivery. It finished almost without the need to use healing magic to soften the labor pains."
The veteran midwife Cardinal Hohenheim sent here informs us that it was born a lot faster than planned. Just for caution's sake, several priestesses capable of using healing magic have been waiting here on standby as well, but it looks like they didn't have much to do.
It's common knowledge in this world that healing magic will be frequently used by priests if it's a long and complicated delivery. However, it has the condition that it's limited to people of status who can afford to call healers over. Ordinary people bear their children while shouldering the risks, just as it happened in ancient Japan.
"I see, that's wonderful."
It means the perfect superwoman Elise has demonstrated her perfection even during childbirth.
"How adorable. His hair color resembles mine, huh...?"
His face still looks like that of a monkey, but the baby has inherited the strong, light brown hair color, characteristic of the Earl Baumeister House. I'm sure this boy is going to become a handsome guy. It's said that boys resemble their mothers. so he probably won't become a loner like me.
"Dear, please give this child a name."
"Oh right... I had many candidates, but I'll make sure to decide properly."
I've been preparing to name my children for quite some time now, but in the middle of it I got quite confused about what name to go with. I ended up brooding over it on end as I felt like I'd find a better name as soon as I decided on a specific one. This has continued for the entire last week.
"Please go ahead then."
For the sake of his beloved granddaughter he dispatched priestesses capable of healing and an excellent midwife who's likely contending for number one or two in the capital. Those women seem to be superb enough to even assist with the birth of royalty.
Having gone this far, he might have asked to be allowed to name the child.
"Grandfather told me that you should be the one to name it, no matter what. Because this child is going to become the heir of the Earl Baumeister House."
Even if this boy might be his great-grandson, it's still going to be the next patriarch of another Earl House. I guess it wouldn't make any sense for Cardinal Hohenheim to name it.
"Vel, you still haven't decided?"
"Somehow I can't quite narrow it down to one name."
"It's fine to name the child in a few days, but this child is shining very brightly, isn't it?"
It's already a written fact that this boy is going to become the next Earl Baumeister. Rather than that, the point about it having inherited the trait of being a magician, which shouldn't normally be hereditary, stands out as odd. The mysterious phenomenon of its dazzling glowing at the time of its birth — did the same happen when Wendelin was born?
I'm kinda scared to ask father since I feel like I'd unnecessarily stir up a hornet's nest...
"Elise, have you ever heard about a phenomenon like this?"
"No, it's my first time to encounter it."
Elise immediately places the baby at her breast to allow it to suck some milk. It looks like the baby quite readily accepts the offer to drink.
Eru had left the room before that. After all it would be improper for him to see the breast of his lord's wife, and as Elise's friend, he took her feelings into consideration.
* * *
"Is it fine now, Vel?"
"Yeah."
Right after Elise finished feeding the baby its first milk, Eru returns while bringing someone with him. It's our dangerous guest from afar, the archeologist and demon Arnest.
As he has been writing a thesis about a new underground ruin he's explored around one month ago, he has holed himself up in his room until now.
"Earl Baumeister, Mrs. Wife, congratulations on the safe delivery."
Unexpectedly — although it might be rude to phrase it like that — Arnest seems to have enough common sense to at least congratulate us. Even if there's the precedent of him having caused quite a bit of chaos by pointing out my special characteristics without any hesitation before that.
If Arnest's deduction had been wrong, all would have ended as some random, fictional theory brought up by a scholar, but as a matter of fact, the baby does have mana.
It might lead to many difficulties for this child as the next Earl Baumeister, but I have a hunch that it'll bring me a lot of troubles as well.
"It's just as you've said, Arnest... though it would have been better if it had stayed a silly theory by some scholar..."
"Earl Baumeister, no matter how much of a genius I might be, it is still possible for me to sometimes come up with wrong theories. However, the theories concerning artificial magicians have been researched by experts over many, many years, and thus can be regarded as proven facts. It would be best for you to accept it for what it is since there is no mistake in the theoretical foundation."
"I see..."
If I'm going to believe Arnest, the research related to the artificial magicians of the Ancient Magic Civilization has long ended in the demon country.
"The researchers of the Ancient Magic Civilization have tried to artificially inherit magic ability as it is inborn for us demons. However, there is too much of a difference between humans and demons, and therefore they failed in changing it into a permanently inherent component. Our research results tell us that this is owed to the inheritance ability of the blueprint of life related to magic being too weak in humans."
Still, blueprint of life, eh...? You really can't underestimate the scientific level of the Ancient Magic Civilization, seeing how they've been able to identify genetic structures. The genes influencing magic have a dominant heredity in demons, and a recessive heredity in humans, I guess.
"What about halves then?"
"Our records tell us that they existed in the past."
Going by outward appearance demons aren't all that different from humans as they've only got slightly longer ears, so I'd think it should be possible for humans and demons to make children with each other.
"However, halves cannot give birth to children amongst each other."
Giving birth to children between halves would be the most efficient method to affix the genes related to magic in the following generations. However, it looks like that option doesn't exist.
"If a half makes a child with a human, the child will be a human, and if they make the child with a demon, the child will be a demon."
I suppose this is the reason why no halves between humans and demons exist on this continent. Currently the demons live in the far west, avoiding exchange with the humans, but I already considered it strange for there to not exist a single descendant of their blood in this land.
"The detailed method has not been handed down, but the researchers of the Ancient Magic Civilization have worked out a method to create magicians up to many generations into the future through some kind of special process."
No artificial magicians survived the collapse of the Ancient Magic Civilization, but it looks like the genetic traits have revived in me through atavism by chance.
"What a strange story. But, how can you say that it's true for me? If this was truly the case, wouldn't it have been noticed by my family right after my birth?"
It's unthinkable that the parents wouldn't notice a baby shining as bright as a signal flare right after its birth. But then again, it's unclear whether Wendelin possessed magic right after his birth.
"It is impossible for the blueprint of life to change after the birth, but I have heard that you have become aware of your talent in magic at an age of around five or six, Earl Baumeister. Did something happen around that time?"
"No, nothing in particular."
"Hm———m, that makes it a riddle then."
The age mentioned by him is just the period of time when I transferred into Wendelin. Did Wendelin's genes change in some way when the souls were swapped? Considering it like that, it'd make sense, but either way, it's just a guess, and it's not like knowing the truth would actually change anything. Also, there's something else I've got to do first.
"Names... there's way too many candidates..."
"So that's the part worrying you!?"
"The name is important. After all, it's going to stick with this child for the rest of its life."
There's no way that I'm going to use some silly, vogue name. I take Helmut Kingdom's biographical dictionary out of my magic bag, and begin to flip the pages.
Anyway, I must name my son as soon as possible.
"Didn't you say something about having many candidates?"
"It might contain another good name..."
I end up worrying deeply about the child's name once again.
"——Oh, it was born, Elise~!"
"——A boy, huh? That's great news."
Ina and Luise, both close to giving birth themselves, enter the room, and seem relieved seeing that Elise's child is a boy. If this child had been a girl, and Ina or Luise gave birth to a boy afterwards, the number of family members trying to meddle with the succession right might have grown in number.
"I think it'd be impossible going by family status, but there's always people kicking up a fuss in order to force things..."
"Like a part of Margrave Breithilde House's retainers..."
It was conceivable that they might start some political maneuvering, believing that it'd be easier to control the child of Ina or Luise than that of Elise. Of course that's utter nonsense, but not all of Margrave Breithilde's are decent, and it's not like the Margrave can perfectly control all of them either. Since people causing trouble would definitely show up one way or the other, you can call Elise giving birth to the heir a huge relief.
"I tell you, nobles are truly annoying..."
"Rather than that, are you still troubled with the naming?"
"Eru, how about you?"
Since Haruka is going to give birth soon as well, Eru should be in the same position as me with having to come up with a name for the child.
