Chapter 64

***

The “Night of the Arts” networking event hosted by Marchioness Disson concluded in resounding success.

Though the keynote speaker, Baron Haklan, looked as if he might keel over and die at any moment, he managed to finish his lecture without vomiting blood or collapsing, leaving no room for criticism.

Most of the attendees were laying eyes on Castillion Luz Grondil, introduced as a Duke of the Cartia Empire, for the very first time. Yet, because the sheer elegance and commanding presence of high nobility radiated from him head to toe, not a single person doubted his identity.

From start to finish, the event was punctuated by palpable tension and overwhelming excitement. Under the sworn testimonies of Baron Haklan of the Hestin Kingdom and Duke Castillion of the Cartia Empire, Yuneria was officially validated as a Letia—a sacred existence previously thought to be nothing more than a myth from ancient theology.

The mere revelation that a Letia actually existed was staggering enough, but upon hearing the title bestowed upon Yuneria, countless nobles fell to their knees in tears, offering fervent prayers as if they had just come face-to-face with a living deity.

Regardless of the spectacle, Yuneria had made a wildly successful debut as a Letia. All that remained was to shove him into a car and ship him off to the Empire.

Because Marquis Disson and his eldest son had not attended the event, they remained completely ignorant of Yuneria’s newly minted status. This was exactly what the Marchioness had intended. Had they known, they would have been blinded by greed, frantically trying to auction Yuneria off to the highest bidder. Having suffered endlessly under their avarice in the past, her ironclad determination never to endure it again allowed her to temporarily conceal Yuneria’s monumental value from her own family.

“I will dispatch the vehicle for your departure at 2:00 AM tomorrow,” Grondil informed them. “Enoch will escort you, so you may simply travel in the car without worry.”

Grondil had slightly amended his original plan of traveling alongside Yuneria and handing him over to the Emperor midway. The change was purely because Yuneria still harbored murderous intentions toward Lino.

“Your Highness. That rat might only be a thorn right now, but he will inevitably return as a dagger,” Enoch had advised. “Wouldn’t it be better for the future if we simply disposed of him now?”

Grondil completely agreed with the sentiment, but having already promised to hand him over to the Emperor, he couldn’t execute the man himself. It would be wonderful if he just conveniently died on his own or at the hands of someone else, Grondil thought, simmering with internal annoyance.

Noticing his foul mood, Erin leaned in and whispered slyly, “Lord Castillion, I actually have a rather fantastic item on me.”

What Erin presented was a chimera’s egg sac—not just an egg, but the entire sac—salvaged during their annihilation of the Baron Merchant Guild’s new headquarters.

It was the grotesque culmination of a deranged biologist whose ethics had plummeted straight to hell, synthesized from a horrifying amalgamation of species. After failing to produce any meaningful results until the age of ninety, the dying scientist had stumbled backward into success, creating a sac whose primary ingredients included eels, flamingos, and intact fetuses still floating in their amniotic membranes.

Its sole, horrific purpose was to force a human body to gestate something entirely non-human. With zero consideration for what the resulting lifeform would look like or whether the host could even survive the birth, Erin presented this nightmare-inducing creation with an expression of barely contained anticipation.

“When the slime I inserted into him earlier comes into contact with this, it will undoubtedly produce utterly fascinating results,” Erin giggled softly. “Ah, I would love to see it with my own two eyes. Lord Castillion, may I accompany Sir Disson as his attending physician? I could enjoy watching the Emperor’s face crumple in horror while I’m at it. I promise to record it all beautifully.”

Naturally, Grondil rejected the request without a second thought. Where does Isberg’s greatest healer think she’s going, leaving the real Letia behind? After burying his swollen cock deep into Lino’s womb and thoroughly knotting inside him multiple times, his seed had undoubtedly taken root in that flat stomach by now.

Meeting Grondil’s icy glare, Erin dropped her shoulders in a pout of profound disappointment. It was a thought that crossed Grondil’s mind occasionally—no, quite frequently, actually: one wrong step, and Erin would be standing firmly in the line of absolute lunatics. In fact, she wouldn’t just be in the line; she would be leading it.

Just before Yuneria boarded his prepared vehicle, Erin secretly pulled him aside and handed over the chimera’s egg sac. To the naked eye, the sac merely looked like a shriveled, dried-up black seed.

Providing meticulously detailed instructions to insert it three or four hours before sleeping with the Emperor, Erin made sure to heavily emphasize the word ‘Crown Prince’.

“It’s much smaller than the last one, so insertion will be easy, but you might experience abdominal pain or nausea afterward,” she warned with faux concern. “It’s just a mild side effect, so don’t take any medication and just endure it. Doing so will strengthen your womb, ensuring you give birth to a perfectly healthy Crown Prince.”

In truth, Yuneria was the type of person who would be swiftly and ruthlessly handled by the Emperor even without the chimera’s egg sac. Erin had only brought it because of Yuneria’s intense hostility toward Lino, but considering his blinding obsession with status and his bottomless greed, it was painfully obvious he wouldn’t last long in the imperial palace before bringing about his own ruin.

Still, it never hurt to be prepared for the ‘what ifs’.

Ironically, that very concept of ‘what if’ exploded from an entirely unexpected person at a completely unforeseen moment.

As dawn approached, a sleek, dark charcoal sedan arrived at the Marquis’s estate to collect Yuneria. Because the Marquis and his eldest son were drowning in an all-night gambling binge, they had absolutely no idea Yuneria and the Marchioness were leaving the Zetina Kingdom. Grondil had already tipped off the Emperor so the pair could settle into the Empire, and by supplying the Marquis and his son with enough gambling funds to keep them glued to the tables for at least a week, the sedan was able to speed toward the border without a single obstacle.

Grondil had intended to leave about thirty minutes after Yuneria. This delayed departure was partly to thwart anyone attempting to kidnap the newly revealed Letia, and partly because he absolutely refused to let the waiting Emperor catch even a single glimpse of Lino’s hair.

He was just about to finalize their departure when he noticed something.

“What’s wrong?” Grondil asked, his eyes narrowing at the sight of Lino subtly rubbing his stomach as he prepared to board the limousine.

“Hmm… Your Highness. My stomach feels a bit tight.”

“Your stomach?”

“Yes. It’s giving me these sharp little twinges…”

Closing the distance in a flash, Grondil placed his massive hand flat against Lino’s abdomen and applied gentle pressure.

“Ugh.”

“Does even this much pressure hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

Lino couldn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be mentally calculating the dates, trying to remember if he had ever felt this specific type of pain before.

Grondil let out a low vibration in his throat. Rather than speaking, it sounded far more like a feral growl. “Lino. I believe we had a promise.”

“Ahaha… Well, you see, my stomach has been so thoroughly upset lately…” Lino stammered, frantically trying to explain himself. But seeing the blue-gray hues of Grondil’s eyes darken dangerously, he let his words trail off, instinctively realizing that shutting his mouth was the best course of action.

Dropping the bag he was holding, Grondil pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Something has come up. I will depart later. Contact me after you hand him over to the Emperor. If the situation still doesn’t permit me to leave by then, return immediately.”

Judging by the words ‘Emperor’ and ‘hand over,’ he was clearly speaking to Erin, who had departed with Yuneria. Hanging up, Grondil immediately dialed Enoch.

“The departure is temporarily suspended. Stand by.”

Having decisively halted their travel plans, Grondil stepped up to the bewildered Lino, slipped his arms under the boy’s thighs, and hoisted him effortlessly into the air. Suddenly finding his feet dangling off the ground, Lino frantically threw his arms around Grondil’s neck, his heart hammering wildly from the fear of falling backward. A second later, a deep flush stained his cheeks as he realized he was being carried face-to-face like a toddler.

Having never been held like this even as a child, the profound awkwardness hit Lino belatedly, but he remained perfectly still in Grondil’s arms. It was mortifying to be carried this way at his age, but the broad, rock-solid chest was so reassuring and cozy that even his cramping stomach seemed to settle.

Grondil carried him straight to his own bedroom. Though his strides down the hallway had been swift and unhesitating, the hands that lowered Lino onto the mattress were incredibly gentle.

“How does it feel now?”

“I-It’s fine.”

“Truly?”

Narrowing his eyes, the Beast scrutinized Lino, trying to gauge if the boy was telling the truth or lying through his teeth. He looks so soft, yet he bears pain so stubbornly. Unless he’s actively vomiting blood or bleeding out, he won’t show a hint of suffering. How am I supposed to take him at his word?

While Lino was enduring Grondil’s piercing glare, a knock sounded at the bedroom door.

“Your Highness, I brought a mana stone just in case,” Enoch announced.

Granted permission to enter, Enoch handed Grondil a plain brown cloth pouch.

He definitely said mana stone, Lino thought, marveling at how a priceless artifact—something impossible to buy even with endless wealth—was casually stored in such an aggressively ordinary pouch. The rumors that Isberg was overflowing with mana stones were apparently entirely true. Forgetting about his stomach cramps for a moment, Lino eagerly waited for Grondil to reveal the stone.

The mana stone Grondil pulled out was a smooth, polished pebble radiating a soft, pale orange glow. Roughly the size of a child’s fist, the oval stone was slightly flattened.

“Erin was actually worried about early symptoms and left this with me before she departed,” Enoch explained, relaying the instructions he had received. “She said the process of the fetus settling into the womb can cause the stomach to pull and ache, so one needs to place the warm stone on their abdomen and rest.”

Enoch referred to the mana stone as a ‘warm stone.’ She really is Isberg’s greatest healer, Lino marveled anew at Erin’s terrifying competence. However… it seemed a piece of faulty information had slipped into her diagnosis.

“Excuse me… What do you mean by fetus? I just have some mild cramping and a little ache…” Lino trailed off, his face twisting in utter bewilderment. He firmly believed that pregnancy between a man and a woman was difficult enough, and even for a Letia, it would be no different. Surely it required meticulously tracking cycles, maintaining absolute peak physical condition, and reverently preparing one’s mind and body—

“You are pregnant,” Grondil stated, ruthlessly shattering Lino’s misconceptions.

“…Excuse me? H-How is that possible? I was told you had to prepare extensively to get pregnant!”

Lino tried to deny it again, desperate to brush it off as an impossibility, but Enoch delivered the final blow. “Sir Cliff, you are indeed pregnant. Our gestation period is significantly shorter than a human’s, which means physical changes manifest much faster. Had I known it would happen this quickly, we should have ignored the networking event and returned immediately.”

“Exactly,” Grondil agreed. “Isberg provides a far superior environment for a pregnant mother than this place… But moving him right now seems too risky, so it appears we will be staying here a while longer.”

“I concur. Please contact Erin. Do not hire any local staff; bring personnel directly from my palace. I cannot trust the humans here.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Ensure you bring the dessert chef.”

“We must also consider his morning sickness. Wouldn’t his cravings align with Your Highness’s palate?”

“Hmm… Then bring the entire kitchen staff from the main palace.”

Lino listened blankly to their rapid-fire exchange. He had vaguely assumed he might become pregnant with Grondil’s child someday. He had even fantasized about having a daughter who looked just like him—but that was the extent of it. To think he was already pregnant? How did that make any sense?

“How long do you intend to stay, Your Highness?”

“We will return to Isberg before the summer ends, at the absolute latest.”

“Then I will also prepare maternity clothes for Sir Cliff.”

“Prepare a generous size. We don’t know how many pups he’ll be carrying.”

“Understood.”

“…”

Wait… don’t humans usually only have one baby at a time…? Twins are supposed to be rare. Why was Grondil speaking as if a whole litter was an absolute certainty?

Having flawlessly memorized every single one of Grondil’s demands, Enoch exited the room, leaving behind a heavy silence. Lino desperately needed to ask about the sheer lunacy he had just heard, but unlike Enoch, his brain simply couldn’t process the information fast enough to formulate a coherent question.

“Lino, lie down first and place the warm stone on your stomach.”

Guiding the half-catatonic Lino to lie back against the pillows, Grondil gently placed the polished stone on his abdomen. True to its name, it was neither scalding nor lukewarm; a soothing heat, just slightly higher than body temperature, radiated gently outward from the point of contact.

Perhaps it was the comforting warmth of the stone, but Lino’s chaotic mind slowly began to realign. With his scattered sanity finally returning to base, he barely managed to move his lips.

“Lord Grondil… earlier, when you two were talking… what did you mean by ‘how many pups’?”