The Baby Isn’t Yours

Not far away, the sea stretched out before them.

Multicolored balloons, released from a child’s grip, floated into the sky, while the pleasant smell of delicious food filled the bustling square.

In the midst of it all…

“Oh? You can’t sleep like that, no matter how comfortable the cushion is!”

Kalia, who was sitting on a makeshift chair with a soft cushion, was dozing off.

The painter looked at Kalia, who kept closing her eyes, and playfully scolded her.

No matter how heavy her eyelids were… Kalia slowly forced herself to open her eyes, as if struggling to overcome the heavy eyelids that weighed more than anything else in the world.

Although she hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night and had slept soundly, her body felt heavy.

Despite just having had a dream, she felt an inexplicable weariness that made her body feel exhausted.

Kalia, with her groggy eyes, asked in a voice that lacked enthusiasm:

“How much longer do we have?”

It wasn’t a yawn, but it wasn’t a voice that had fully regained consciousness.

The man apologized, seeming to feel guilty for urging her. He said with a smile:

“We’re almost finished, but it’s quite challenging with your eye color. Your eyes are so beautiful that the color combinations are difficult.”

Kalia smiled in response, as if she had no choice, mixing compliments and understanding in her words.

To her right, Hemmie had already tilted her head back 90 degrees, completely collapsed on her back.

“Hmph. Hmph. Hmph. Huh, huh!”

The sound of her snoring loudly with her mouth wide open was anything but ordinary.

Her breathing seemed difficult due to the way her neck was bent backward.

Kalia looked at Hemmie somewhat awkwardly and reached out to lift her head slightly to adjust the posture.

The painter, who was drawing Hemmie, didn’t even lift his head to make eye contact with her. He seemed to have given up on her and was completely focused on his artwork.

Kalia briefly worried about what would happen if someone else appeared in the portrait instead of Hemmie.

But she decided not to wake Hemmie. She should get some sleep while she can.

Lately, Kalia had been thoroughly reviewing Hemmie’s sword practice whenever she had the time. Since settling in Lua, she had only been able to start at 21 weeks due to Allen’s concerns about safety, but before that, she couldn’t do anything at all until the 20-week mark.

However, as her due date approached, Kalia intensified her teaching of Hemmie.

From what she heard, after giving birth, she would need to focus on recovery for at least a month.

Since Kalia wanted to take care of her child herself instead of hiring a nanny, finding the time for sword practice would be even more challenging.

On the other hand, Hemmie had been taking on more tasks in Kalia’s presence. She was quick-witted and talented, so she often handled tasks that Kalia didn’t even instruct her to do.

She changed Kaia’s slippers for her swollen feet, always prepared a cold plum juice for her due to her increasingly heavy belly, and took care of anything that made her uncomfortable. Kalia was unaware of most of the tasks that Hemmie handled without being told.

Kalia felt grateful to Hemmie but also guilty. Even though Hemmie had come to serve her as her squire, she had become more like a personal secretary.

Despite that, she never complained and was always wearing a bright smile.

‘What can I do for Hemmie?’

Kalia thought. She decided to start by reviewing her sword practice. Then, she would gradually teach her everything he needed.

If Kalia couldn’t return to the capital for a long time, she could even hire a master for Hemmie in the capital.

Or she could have Hemmie admitted to an advanced class at her Academy.

‘Anyway, I need to give her everything I can. Hemmie has been so helpful.’

She was very grateful to have Hemmie by her side.

Hemmie had told Kalia that she had accidentally helped her a few years ago, but Kalia couldn’t remember much.

Apparently, she was passing through a certain province and had scolded a corrupt lord, and at that time, Hemmie had been in his custody… Hemmie had embarrassingly confessed that it was all due to Kalia’s help that she had followed after her, wanting to repay her somehow.

Hemmie had weak muscle strength but had a small body and quick hands.

Although she didn’t have much combat experience, she was very quick-witted and intuitive, so she had good instincts on how to respond depending on the situation and had a good gauge for circumstantial variables.

She thought long-range attacks would be a more fitting fighting style for Hemmie compared to close-range attacks; that way, the weapon she wields would be lighter than a heavy weapon, but she could swing it around more freely and easily.

‘Is there a good sword among the rapier types? If I remember correctly, a few years ago, I won a good rapier as a war reward… I put it in the weapon warehouse. I’ll have to find it for her when I get back.’

Anyhow, Hemmie followed Kalia’s guidance and practiced daily the way Kalia had taught her.

Seeing that she was quite serious about wielding the sword until dawn, Kalia didn’t think she was simply learning because of admiration or gratitude anymore.

Kalia tilted her head to look at Hemmie who had fallen asleep with her mouth open, thinking she was quite cute.

Yum yum, Hemmie seemed to be thinking. Her head tilted to the other side and she smacked her lips deliciously.

As they were enjoying their time around the festival, Allen had rushed to see an emergency patient on his way back. As they waited for him to return, Kalia suggested that Hemmie’s portrait be drawn, and that’s how they ended up sitting here.

“We’re almost finished now. Once we complete this…”

The painter’s words trailed off.

It was at that moment.

“Mommyyyy!”

The child’s piercing scream pierced Kalia’s eardrums.

Her lingering sleep fled, and her eyes snapped open.

“Huh? Why are you so startled? Oh, did you remember you left something at home?”

The painter, who had been focusing intently on drawing Kalia down to the last detail, spoke lightly as if it were a joke.

But it was a scream loud enough to be heard only by Kalia, emanating from a distance.

Kalia’s gaze turned toward the north of the square, where the sound came from. Soon, the square became busy, filled with commotion and noise.

“Mom! Mommy!”

A child of about ten years old, covered in leaves and dirt, came running frantically.

The child immediately clung to a middle-aged woman selling flowers in a corner of the square and spoke.

“Sa, Sa is… Mom! Sa, Sage and Johan!”

‘Sage?’

It was a name she had heard somewhere before. Kalia perked up her ears, trying to recall.

“Why, what’s wrong, Aila? Didn’t you say Sage would be playing at her house? Did something happen?”

The woman selling flowers comforted the crying child.

The child stammered and soon burst into tears.

“We, we were just going to watch and come back. But Sage… Sage went inside!”

“What? Inside where? Calm down, Aila, and tell me.”

“Sag… Sage… went into the Fairy Forest!”

“What?”

In an instant, the air surrounding the child and her mother was filled with tension.

The Fairy Forest! Even adults couldn’t easily come out once they went in. It was a place where you might never return from if you made even a small mistake.

The child’s mother, with a pale face, spoke sternly to her crying child.

“You… you go and tell Aunt McCanna right away. Mommy will go to the Security Office. Hurry!”

‘…McCanna!’

At that moment, Kalia stood up without even realizing it.

She had heard that name somewhere.

‘Sage.’

It was the name of McCanna’s youngest daughter.

* * *

Kalia woke up Hemmie, who was dozing off, and immediately rushed back home.

Luckily, she didn’t run into Allen on the way.

Upon returning home, she found that Mrs. McCanna was already dressed and had a pale face as if she had heard the news.

“Miss Lia, something urgent came up at home, so I think I need to go in first today. I’m sorry, but I have to go now.”

“It’s okay. Please go right away, McCanna.”

After sending Mrs. McCanna off, who had long broken out in cold sweat, she headed out again to look for Allen and Hemmie.

After regrouping, she immediately ordered, “Hemmie and Allen, run to the security office right now and see what’s going on. Find out when they entered and how long it’s been since they went missing.”

Unlike Hemmie, who immediately ran to Kalia’s horse, Allen hesitated and looked at Kalia.

“You’ll stay here, right? Promise me you won’t go anywhere. You can’t go anywhere with that body.”

“I’ll be waiting for you Allen, so be right back.”

“Promise me.”

“Promise!”

Still a little hesitatingly, Allen headed out, following after Hemmie.

One hour of restless waiting followed, and fortunately, Allen and Hemmie returned quickly.

“The children have been missing for just over two hours. The kids were holding balloons as they were admiring the flowers, and when the balloons got caught on the trees in the forest, they went over the fence to retrieve them, and then they went inside the forest. The child who stayed behind was going after her friends but immediately ran back to her mother.”

Two hours.

Two hours was too early to give up on searching for missing people.

But if the children went too deep into the ‘Deep Forest,’ it would be difficult to find them.

“The Fairy Forest is a place where even adults don’t have a high chance of returning.”

Allen, who sensed something, rushed to add to his explanation. Kalia stared at Allen and then nodded.

“Right. Even if adults go in, there’s a low chance of returning. In this case, there’s almost no chance of the children coming back, and they have to rely on their own abilities.”

“The Bureau of Protection is sending people to find the children.”

Hearing Allen’s stiff tone, Kalia gently replied.

“But in just two hours, the sun will set. The Fairy Forest becomes more dangerous than the monsters’ territory after the sun goes down. We can’t force people to enter the Fairy Forest, so they’ll probably be looking for them until the parents themselves go in tomorrow, including Mrs. McCanna.”

“But, Miss Kalia, you don’t intend to go in, do you? The Fairy Forest is too dangerous.”

His words were correct. The Fairy Forest was an excessively perilous place for ordinary people.

But there was one difference between them and Kalia.

The fact that the ‘Fairy Forest’s Illusion Mist’ didn’t affect Kalia.