Who’s your dad?

Chapter 1 

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

What should I do? Cold sweat trickled down.

Tick, tock.

It was the first time the sound of the clock’s second hand was so loud. Swallowing dry saliva, I gulped.

“I’ll ask again. Viscount. No, Lady Cele.”

“…..”

“Is Valeri my child?”

Karl’s gaze relentlessly scanned my face.

“Celeste.”

Each syllable of the name was pronounced with force. His voice was ice-cold, yet strangely affectionate. However, under his piercing gaze, my shoulders involuntarily shrank.

When did he find out? No, when did he start to suspect? Had he been pretending not to notice all this time? My palms started to sweat as I clenched my fists.

“…I didn’t know either.”

After much contemplation, those words finally came out. They sounded absurd to anyone’s ears. An unmarried mother not knowing who the father is.

But it was truly unfair. It had only been a little over half a year since I was possessed by Celeste in the novel. How could I have known whether the real Celeste had a child or not?

I lost my original life and suddenly became Celeste, and now, as Celeste, a child appeared out of nowhere in the novel. All the wrongdoings committed by the original Celeste were being attributed to me, who was only Celeste in appearance!

“Are you trying to get away with saying you don’t remember this time?”

Karl’s condemning gaze intensified. Everything Celeste had done was now being held against me. But how could I have known whether Celeste had really given birth to a child or not?

“I really didn’t know! It’s not all a lie.”

Not all of it. Does that mean some of it is? Damn it. Realizing the ambiguity in my own words, I quickly shut my mouth.

Karl’s scrutinizing eyes narrowed even further. They seemed to ask, ‘You really don’t remember?’ or ‘You really have no recollection?’

“That night.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t say you forgot about that night. Celeste.”

What is he talking about? My eyelids moved rapidly.

“I haven’t forgotten a single moment of that night.”

It sounded incredibly strange to hear. What night? What was he talking about?

“Answer me, Cele. Is Valeri….”

I shouldn’t get involved with this man. Karl is the male lead in the novel I was reading, “The Rose of Rahart,” the one who kills the villainess Celeste. A warning bell rang loudly in my head. What should I say?

“Is she my child?”

I couldn’t say yes or no. As I swallowed dryly, Karl took something out from his pocket.

As soon as I confirmed what that something was, I made my decision for the next step.

I must flee. Absolutely!

* * *

About a month ago, Southern Urentum.

Our eyes met.

Two bright blue eyes that sparkled like inserted gems.

“Hmm….”

I was utterly perplexed.

“Abuuh.”

“No way.”

“Abu, abubu.”

“That can’t be.”

“Abubu. Bubu.”

“That’s impossible.”

I couldn’t understand what was happening.

As I exchanged meaningless sounds with an unresponsive counterpart, I suddenly felt a headache coming on and tightly closed my eyes.

“There’s no way. I have a child.”

I was just about to leisurely enjoy my morning tea, as usual. Putting tea leaves in, pouring hot water, then closing the teapot lid and waiting for 3 minutes. This has been my morning routine for several months now.

Even if someone had knocked on the door, I would have been calmly preparing my tea by now.

“Is this a dream?”

Although I went outside at the sound of knocking, there was no one to be found. Only a large basket with a blanket draped over it was there.

‘I hope it’s not a bomb or something,’ I thought cautiously as I lifted the blanket, and to my surprise, there lay a baby, sparkling with bright eyes.

Until that moment, I had thought someone had simply come to the wrong house. That is, until I found the letter attached to the baby’s necklace.

Miss Valerie, daughter of Lady Louisette and I am bringing her to you as promised.

The short note, written in a neat handwriting, was enough to clutter my mind with countless questions.

Celeste Aisha Louisette.

She was hailed as the most beautiful woman in the empire and at the same time dubbed the most wicked in imperial history.

In people’s memories, she was barely remembered and quickly forgotten, the prime villainess in a romance fantasy novel called “The Rose of Rahart.”

Yet, no matter how much I thought about it, there seemed to be no mention in the original story of Celeste having a child.

“Babubu, buu.”

The baby continued to babble, and I couldn’t understand a word.

The purple hair matched perfectly with the shining turquoise eyes.

The chubby cheeks looked like they needed to be nibbled on, and the large eyes, almost occupying half of the face, looked like jewels.

The plump arms and legs resembled stacked slices of bread. If you were to nibble on them, they might taste sweet.

“No, no. Snap out of it.”

Unwittingly, I was about to be enchanted by the baby’s cuteness. I shook my head vigorously. Snap out of it!

“I don’t have a child.”

Yeah, there was definitely some misunderstanding.

The last heir to the Countess of Louisette, who was one of the first to capitalize on the Empire’s mining industry and amassed vast wealth.

She was hailed as one of the Empire’s finest, but her greed for power led her to be executed for the murder of her own kin.

These were all the words that followed her name in the works.

But nowhere in those modifiers is there the phrase “married,” or “had children.

With a sense of embarrassment, I sighed. I had muttered at least ten times that I needed to wake up from this dream.

I wasn’t the “real” Celeste.

Although I resembled the villainess from the novel on the surface, inside, I was a completely different person. I was just an ordinary citizen of South Korea, living in the 21st century, far removed from the empire or nobility.

Even though my memories of modern life had become faint, my mind was like a messy blank slate that had been erased with an eraser.

I sighed in resignation. After all, I had escaped the predestined death as Celeste. I had chosen Urentum, the southernmost place even in the south, as my hiding place for a reason.

“Babupubu, buube.”

The baby continued to babble incomprehensibly, but it was undeniably cute. It stretched out its short arms as if asking to be held, and I briefly looked down at the baby before shaking my head vigorously once again.

Cute as it may be, it was ridiculous.

Oh, dear. My head is pounding.

It had been exactly six months since I became Celeste.

In the original story, Celeste was a beautiful woman who had everything, but ironically, she ended up facing death as a very one-dimensional villainess.

Was it because she would do anything to get what she wanted? Blinded by her insatiable desires, she committed regicide and was mercilessly executed by the newly crowned king.

It wasn’t exactly pleasant to think about my impending death as soon as I came back to life. So, I decided to start a new life and made a big decision within a week.

If you don’t want to die, just don’t create situations where you’ll die. I immediately left the capital and disappeared to the countryside.

You could call it recuperation.

Fortunately, Celeste, being the daughter of a wealthy count, owned villas and farms all over the country.

As long as I didn’t get greedy and didn’t run into the heroine, living as Celeste didn’t seem too bad.

Beautiful appearance, overflowing assets. And maybe a little bit of intelligence. Why did she only do bad things with such good conditions?

As an ordinary citizen, I couldn’t understand Celeste from the original story. Of course, she had to act according to the given character settings to make the story interesting, but still.

“Hey, little one, can you speak? Where did you come from?”

“Ba-ba.”

“Who brought you here?”

“Buu, bu-ba.”

“Who’s your mom?”

At the mention of “mom,” the child widened its eyes and looked at me, as if understanding the meaning of the word.

“Um… mu-ma.”

“What did you say?”

“Um-ma.”