In This Life I Will Be The Lord Novel - Side Story, Chapter 41

And the moment I saw him, something surged up within me.
“Why… are you only just now here?”
Tears flowed without me being able to stop them.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Perez, covered in rain and mud, couldn’t even enter the delivery room and just kept repeating “I’m sorry.”
But that seemed to be enough.
The tension drained from my body, and my hands began to tremble slightly.
Only then did I understand the meaning of what Shanannette had said.
Ah, I wasn’t alright after all.
I had just been holding on until Perez arrived.
“I waited for you, Perez.”
Every time I said I was alright and looked out the window, I had been waiting for him to come.
Estira stepped between me, who was crying profusely, and Perez, who stood rooted to the spot, watching me.
“We can’t leave the door open for long, so please get ready, Your Majesty.”
“…I’ll be back quickly, Tia.”
Perez kept that promise.
He must have rushed so much that the buttons on his new shirt were haphazardly fastened, and he hadn’t even put on his shoes, so he was barefoot.
“Pfft.”
Even as I finally stopped crying, a laugh escaped me.
“You can go put on your shoes.”
“No. I won’t leave your side now.”
Perez quickly grabbed my hand and said.
He must have quickly washed with hot water, as his skin felt warm to the touch.
I worried if his skin would be damaged, but that warmth also put my mind at ease.
“I really feel alright now. Because you’re by my side.”
Perez kissed the back of my hand instead of replying.
His eyes were filled with worry and anxiety for me.
I smiled brightly at Perez.
“I really think I can do this.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.
Soon after, the full-blown labor pains began.
No, that’s what it seemed like.
My memory was fragmented, so I could only infer that.
What remained in my mind was:
“Lady Lombardi, just a little more!”
Estira, who kept shouting that, and.
“Ugh!”
Me, who couldn’t even properly groan in pain, and.
“Tia, please. Tia.”
Only Perez’s presence, who never left my side for a moment.
And I thought I heard a baby crying from far away.
As my consciousness flickered in and out like a blinking light bulb, I was thinking blankly when.
“Tia.”
Perez’s voice called my name, and something was placed in my arms.
I pushed open my eyelids, heavier than after an all-night work session, and barely opened my eyes.
“Ah…”
Words failed me.
A baby was in my arms.
Every time its tiny limbs wiggled, my breath caught.
I carefully stroked its head, and the delicate curly hair felt softer than a feather.
“H-hello. Hello, baby.”
As I barely managed to greet it with a trembling voice, its round eyes looked up at me.
They were green eyes, just like mine.
Perez kissed my hair and whispered, “Our daughter is so beautiful. She looks exactly like you, Tia.”
“…Daughter?”
“Yes. She’s our daughter.”
Drip.
Tears flowed down.
Fearing that tears might fall on the baby, I quickly wiped them away and asked, “Are all her fingers and toes ten each? Is she healthy?”
“Yes. She’s very healthy.”
“That’s a relief. What a relief…”
As long as she was healthy, that was all that mattered.
“You worked hard. You suffered, Tia.”
His voice, saying that, was also trembling.
I barely tore my eyes away from my daughter and looked at Perez; his eyes were wet.
I tilted my head and kissed his red-rimmed eyes, then gently rested my forehead against his.
“Perez, I’ve decided on a name.”
After deciding that I would choose the baby’s first name and Perez the middle name, we thought of countless names.
We even made a large chart, dividing names for a boy and a girl, but it was hard to narrow down the candidates.
“I was worried about what to do if I couldn’t name her for days.”
As if to mock my worries, the name was decided the moment I saw the baby’s face.
I carefully pronounced it, looking at her bright, clear eyes still gazing up at me.
“Merdin.”
Did she know it was her name?
Merdin blinked her eyes slowly once.
“Merdin.”
Perez smiled gently and stroked Merdin’s tiny head with his large hand.
And then he said in a low voice, “Merdin, I will give you the land of Tigria.”
Tigria.
It was the largest and most fertile grassland among the imperial lands located in the south.
I kissed her soft forehead, then called out my daughter’s full name, syllable by syllable.
“Merdin Tigria Lombardi-Durelli.”
So that you can be healthy and happy.
So that you can be a welcomed presence in this world.
“Mommy and Daddy will work hard.”
I quietly promised, speaking to my daughter’s name.

“She seems to resemble you more and more each day, Perez.”
On the seventh day after Merdin’s birth, I said, looking into the cradle.
“I wonder.”
He said that, but Perez was already shaking his head.
“In my eyes, she’s looking more and more like you, Tia.”
“No, look. Look at her mouth. She resembles you more than me, Perez.”
They say a newborn’s face changes every day at this age.
That saying was true.
“I really can’t take my eyes off her.”
Merdin was beautiful, not just because she was my daughter, but objectively speaking.
Her smiling baby expressions were cute, she hardly cried, as if she had so much curiosity, and her round eyes looking around were also beautiful.
“Yawn.”
But despite that, yawns escaped me.
It was unavoidable, as I had to wake up every few hours to breastfeed.
“Get some rest, Tia.”
Perez said, stroking my cheek as I lay in bed.
“What about you, Perez?”
“It’s Merdin’s bath time.”
“Ah. Okay, go ahead.”
He had taken so many lessons from Estira throughout my pregnancy and never put down childcare books.
Perez was doing most of the childcare by himself.
Without even hiring a wet nurse, which was naturally used in imperial and noble families.
He barely even asked for my help.
All I did was breastfeed and dote on a full-bellied Merdin.
When I asked if this was okay and if there was anything I could do, he just replied, “You gave birth to Merdin.”
Perez, holding the still tiny Merdin, who was growing rapidly each day, disappeared into the bathroom.
I listened for a moment, confirming that Perez was completely out of earshot.
And I didn’t forget to deliberately raise my voice and talk to myself.
“Shall I rest a little?”
Fortunately, he seemed to have gone through the connecting room and fully into the bathroom, as there was no sign of his presence.
Finally.
“Hehe.”
I chuckled under my breath and approached the desk in one corner of the bedroom.
“The documents I secretly took from Clerivan earlier must be here somewhere…”
Maternity leave, where I did nothing but lie down and recuperate, was torture for me.
So I had called Craney and asked him to bring a bundle of documents from Clerivan’s office.
I had been looking for an opportunity to read those documents all day, and now that Perez had gone to bathe Merdin, it was the perfect chance.
If I started working again after only a week, I didn’t know what kind of scolding I would get from Perez.
I carefully opened the drawer so that it wouldn’t make any noise, and a familiar notebook appeared.
It was Mother’s diary.
“Ah, it was here.”
I had forgotten about the diary for a while after giving birth to Merdin, due to being so busy.
I put off looking for the documents for a moment and picked up the diary.
“Where did I read up to…”
I racked my brain and opened the book.
Coincidentally, it seemed I had left only the very last entry.

「 Imperial Year 256, March 3
Today is the last day I will write in this notebook.
From tomorrow, I plan to focus entirely on preparing for childbirth.
Last night, I had a dream.
A dream where I gave birth to the child and ultimately didn’t last even a month.
That cannot be.
I want to greet summer with my child, who will be born in spring, and feel the cool autumn breeze.
And if possible, I want to be by their side until the first snow and the spring after that.
Just today, a physician sent by Sir Rulac visited.
I asked that person for medicine and food to aid my recovery after childbirth.
Premonitory dreams do not show unavoidable fate.
They merely show the results of a decision I have made.
The future is not set.
It can change depending on choice and effort.
So I will fight.
To recover my body after childbirth, somehow, so I can stay by my child’s side for even one more day. 」

Mother kept the words written in her diary.
She stayed by my side for almost a year, not just a month.
She fought fiercely for me.
“Thank you, Mother.”
My throat inevitably tightened.
“Ahem.”
I’ll cry again at this rate.
My tears had increased significantly since giving birth to Merdin.
I hastily tried to close the diary, but by chance, the very first page of the notebook opened.
It was a place I hadn’t thought to glance at when I first received it.
And there, a short message was left.

「 To celebrate the brilliant lives of my daughter, Florentia Lombardi, and the birth of Merdin.

From Mom. 」

“…”
For a long time, I endlessly caressed that phrase.
Brilliant lives.
Mother had called my previous life ‘brilliant.’
Even that life, which was full of hardship and pain, a life I didn’t even want to recall myself, she called brilliant.
It wasn’t a failed life.
“Tia?”
Perez’s voice reached me; I didn’t know when he had approached.
I lifted my face from the diary.
I saw Perez and Merdin, who was sleeping soundly in his arms.
I didn’t cry.
Instead, I smiled brightly at the most precious beings I had gained at the end of my brilliant lives.