186. A Way to Save the Mother
The tone was as overbearing as if he were speaking to a beast he had raised.
For a brief moment, anger surged through her.
She wanted to snap back at him, but the problem was that she no longer had the strength to engage in a sharp exchange with the man standing before her.
Suppressing her rising anger with great effort, Deborah replied to the man in the calmest voice she could manage.
“I’ll… eat it later.”
But there was no way those words would work.
If they had, he would not have personally brought the food upstairs.
“Eat it now. In front of me.”
As expected, not a single word strayed from what she had anticipated.
Faced with the man’s attitude, utterly devoid of even the slightest consideration, the anger she had been desperately suppressing finally exploded.
“I said I’ll eat it later!”
Every single moment of every day was already filled with fear and hardship even if she was simply left alone.
The excitement of meeting her child had gradually turned into the anxiety that the child might be taken away from her at any moment, and her mind was becoming more and more exhausted.
Moreover, the fear of having to give birth here, where there was not a single person she could lean on emotionally, was beyond words.
So how could he be this cruel?
How could he keep suffocating her like this every single time…?
The resentment and bitterness she had accumulated over time burst forth all at once like a dam breaking.
Unable to control her overwhelming emotions, she swung her hand, sending the bowl crashing violently onto the floor.
Just as the loud sound of shattered fragments echoed through the air.
“Ah…”
With a short groan, Deborah suddenly froze.
Her face instantly twisted in pain, and her eyes trembled anxiously.
Unable to understand what had happened, Raymond’s gaze remained fixed on Deborah’s face.
Then, at last, Deborah lowered her eyes.
The hand that slowly pulled back the sheet covering her trembled violently like that of someone suffering from severe tremors.
When the sheet was finally pulled away, both Deborah and Raymond were left speechless by what they saw beneath it, their faces filled with shock.
A dark wet stain was spreading in a circle across the white sheet.
The moment Deborah realized it was amniotic fluid, her face turned deathly pale with fear.
Her trembling golden eyes slowly lifted to the face of the man looking down at her.
Her quivering lips were trying to speak.
“It’s still…”
“……”
“Not yet…”
Barely audible, so faint that one had to strain to hear it.
Yet that whisper sounded like thunder in Raymond’s ears.
Thump-! Thump-!
In contrast to his rapidly beating heart, his face instantly turned cold.
***
An invisible tension settled heavily over Elpengreen, which had always been full of life.
The enormous mansion was so silent that not even breathing could be heard.
There was only one place where any sound came from.
The delivery room, where agonizing screams echoed endlessly.
Several hours earlier, the midwife and the maids had rushed into the delivery room.
Although it had happened unexpectedly with more than twenty days still remaining until the due date, fortunately, under the leadership of the midwife who had already been staying at the mansion for several days, the delivery room was quickly brought under control.
The problem was the prolonged labor.
Fortunately, contractions had begun within a few hours after her water broke, but even after half a day had passed, there was still no sign of the baby being born.
A first pregnancy, a premature delivery, and prolonged labor.
The longer the delay continued, the more the mother’s strength, which she desperately needed, was being drained away.
As proof of that, the agonizing screams that had continued until dozens of minutes ago were gradually becoming less frequent.
The first child of the House of Cheister.
Everyone anxiously waited outside the delivery room for the child’s birth, but one person alone—the Duke of Cheister, the child’s father—gave off an atmosphere entirely different from everyone else’s.
Radiating a chilling aura and saying nothing, he had remained standing motionless before the delivery room ever since Deborah had gone inside.
The only time he reacted was whenever another horrifying scream came from within.
It was a sound he had never heard before.
He could not even begin to imagine such pain, yet it was a scream so desperate that anyone could understand how unbearable the suffering was.
Each time those horrifying screams continued long enough to make the listeners’ hearts sink, the veins beneath Raymond’s tightly clenched jaw throbbed as though they were about to burst.
As that hellish time dragged on endlessly, the sound of the door opening finally came from inside.
Everyone’s eyes immediately turned toward the midwife as she stepped out.
Ignoring the countless gazes upon her, the midwife quickly walked toward Raymond.
“How… is she?”
Although those horrifying screams had echoed only moments before, the complete silence that had followed left him deeply uneasy.
In response to his question, the elderly midwife answered in a heavy voice.
“The… situation is not very good.”
“……”
The moment those words left the experienced midwife’s mouth, the sound of people gasping spread throughout the room.
Words spoken by a veteran midwife who had delivered hundreds of babies.
That was precisely why they felt even heavier.
After cautiously observing the silent duke’s expression, the midwife calmly continued.
“Her pelvis is much too small, but more importantly, her cervix is opening far too slow-”
“So?”
In the Kingdom of Ruvake, childbirth was considered a burden that women had to endure entirely on their own.
Since it was regarded as improper and even sacrilegious for a man to involve himself in childbirth, there was little a man could do except wait outside while the woman gave birth.
That was why the midwife had come outside for a brief moment to explain the situation while catching her breath.
Based on her long years of experience, she had sensed that the situation was becoming dangerous, so she had come to explain the current circumstances to the duke, the child’s father.
But the duke cut her off before she could continue.
“’So?’ What on earth does he mean…?”
The midwife stared blankly at the duke in confusion.
“The mother.”
“Ah… If the baby cannot be delivered… naturally, both of them will be in danger…”
“Not the baby-.”
“…Pardon?”
“Not the baby. A way to save the mother.”
At his firm words, the midwife became even more confused.
A way to save only the mother, not the baby… Somehow, those words sounded chilling.
Of course, such a method did exist.
However, because it was so dangerous, it had become almost completely taboo in recent years.
Moreover, she took great pride in her work as a midwife who delivered babies, so such a thing was absolutely impossible for her.
The midwife firmly shook her head.
“I am sorry, but there is no such method.”
“There is no such method-”
At the eerie voice quietly repeating her words, the midwife involuntarily swallowed.
At that desperate moment, when the conviction she had upheld for sixty years wavered as precariously as a candle in the wind—
That sound came once again from inside.
That horrifying scream that sent chills down one’s spine.
The contractions, which had briefly subsided, had started again, and the midwife quickly straightened her bent back.
Thinking she had to return to the mother’s side as quickly as possible, she was just about to turn around when something large suddenly blocked her path.
No, rather than blocking her, it felt as though something had swept right past her in an instant.
Everything had happened so quickly that the stunned midwife could only stand there blankly when someone’s desperate shout reached her ears.
“D-Duke!!”
At that cry echoing through the corridor, the midwife realized that the one who had rushed past her was the duke himself.
Bang-!
Watching his back as he threw open the door and strode inside, a gasp of horror escaped the midwife’s lips.
“Heavens…”
***
Every time those heart-wrenching screams echoed from inside, the blood throughout his body turned cold.
It felt as though his heart were melting.
It was a sound he had never imagined that she—the woman whose voice had never once carried beyond the door, even when she was angry—could ever make.
Everyone had told him it was normal.
That giving birth was always like this, that bringing a new life into the world was naturally such a painful process, so there was nothing to worry about.
Someone had said those words to reassure him.
But not a single one of those words reached his ears.
She was suffering so terribly, screaming as though she were on the verge of despair—how could anyone possibly remain calm?
Even so, he waited.
Although every scream that burst through the door made it feel as though all the blood had drained from his body, he believed that if he simply remained outside that door, everything would truly be alright, just as they had said.
But then.
The words spoken by the midwife, who stepped outside during a brief lull, shattered that belief into pieces.
If things continued to be delayed like this, both the baby and the mother would be in danger.
The moment he heard those words, the first person who came to mind was the woman.
No, there was not even any need to think about it.
Someone might condemn him for being heartless, but a child whose face he had never even seen could never be compared to the woman’s life.
A child that endangered the woman’s life was a life he had never wanted from the very beginning.
Ten times—no, a hundred times, a thousand times—if he were asked, the woman’s safety would always come before the life growing inside her.
Yet when he asked for a way to save the mother, the answer he received once again completely shattered his hopes.
After the midwife firmly declared that there was no such method, the woman’s scream rang out once more.
To Raymond, that scream… sounded like a desperate plea for someone to save her.
Then what was there left to wait for?
Like a fool, he could no longer stand outside this door and watch the life inside her womb slowly steal the woman’s life away.
Bang-!
As Raymond threw open the tightly shut door, a suffocating wave of heat rushed over his face.
