Chapter 50
‘To think my mother was a genius at aura cultivation.’
By a knight’s standards, aura cultivation was only considered complete when paired with swordsmanship. But for my mother, aura cultivation alone was enough.
“Hooooo, haaaaaa…”
Her complexion cleared and her breathing stabilized.
Sensing the change in her own body, she clung even more earnestly to the breathing technique.
‘So it really works!’
The Lamazuri Aura Breathing Technique was proving to be incredibly helpful in childbirth. When I checked her pulse, her chaotic aura roads had smoothed out.
From that point on, the process moved quickly. The midwife bustled into action.
“The passage is open. Just a little more now. Push!”
The midwife had an impeccable sense of timing, born from experience.
I held my mother’s hand tightly, letting a gentle stream of aura flow into her to ease the pain. I summoned Inferno to warm the air in the room.
“Ohhh! A beautiful baby girl!”
The midwife shouted, holding up the newborn. Covered in amniotic fluid and blood, the tiny, squirming bundle was apparently my little sister, but it didn’t feel real.
For a moment, I even suspected the midwife had pulled a hidden child from somewhere and was now insisting this was my sister and my mother’s daughter.
Everything felt like a blur.
The baby was so small I wasn’t sure I could hold her with both hands. Her skin was all wrinkled, having been soaked in amniotic fluid.
“My lord, could you please cut this here with a blade?”
For a moment, I doubted my ears.
The midwife held out a long internal-looking organ that had been connected to my sister’s navel. Even with my medical training, it was an unfamiliar sight.
“You want me to cut my sister’s… insides?”
“It’s not her insides, it’s the umbilical cord. Once it’s cut and tied off, the remaining piece attached to her navel will fall off in time.”
“And it’s okay to cut something from such a small baby? It won’t hurt?”
“Of course. And this task is traditionally the duty of the head of the family. Do not be afraid, my lord.”
The midwife smiled gently, her gaze steady.
I couldn’t help but trust her. She had lived at least three times longer than I had, and the one she faced now was the viscount ruling this entire region.
Unless she had seven lives to spare, she wouldn’t dare say anything reckless.
I accepted the blade she handed me. It had been sterilized in boiling water.
My hand trembled as I gripped it.
Slice.
A shiver ran down my spine.
The first thing I did upon meeting my newborn sister was to sever flesh. Was this really the right way to welcome her?
The midwife grasped my sister’s tiny, thin legs in one hand, like handling a turkey, she was deft and unflinching.
Smack!
Without thinking, I drew up my aura. The energy that surged from me was enough to raise an army and start a war.
Startled, the midwife turned toward me and hiccuped.
Her hands, still holding my sister, began to tremble.
‘Right… I’ve heard of this. They make newborns cry on purpose so they expel the amniotic fluid and feces from their system.’
Suppressing my anger, I cradled my little sister in my arms.
And that tiny baby let out a loud cry from within my embrace.
“Ohhhhh!”
She was so small.
It was hard to believe that something like this could one day grow up to live her own life and bring new life into the world.
It wasn’t until I saw Mother’s belly had shrunk back down that it finally hit me, I had a little sister now.
“A daughter? I have a daughter? Hahaha! I knew this day would come. Oh yes, I always knew it would come!”
Father, surprisingly, went to my mother before his newborn child.
He held Mother’s hand tightly and wept.
It was the first time I realized how gentle my father truly was. With such a soft nature, it was hard to believe he had ever been a lord.
It was a blessing for all of us that I had succeeded him.
“Father, have you picked out a name for the baby?”
“I was considering Elenahaim, Svatskovskaya, Alexandravich, Sebastiavnia, Victoria, or Ilyeksandria. What do you think, as the head of the household?”
Father left the decision to me because I was the lord of House Hebron.
‘The names Father suggested…’
Victoria was the only one remotely easy to pronounce.
The rest seemed to be odd variations of famous figures from Xenon, which confirmed something I already suspected, Father had no talent for naming.
“Dina de Hebron.”
“That’s far too simple, isn’t it? Svatskovskaya carries the meaning of having a daughter in my old age. If you don’t like that, how about Sebastiavnia? You’re familiar with both Sebastia and Vnia, aren’t you? It means she’ll grow up to be a noble lady like the two of them…”
As I shut my eyes tightly, Father’s words began to trail off.
Sebastia was the wife of a marquis and the mother of twelve children. Vnia was twenty years older than her husband, whom she had nurtured into a great man despite his foolishness.
Both were remarkable women, but I didn't want my younger sister to live a life like theirs.
“This child’s name is Dina de Hebron. In the ancient tongue, Dina means freedom. She will carve out her own life. And I will do everything in my power to help her do so.”
“I will respect the wishes of Viscount Hebron.”
My father accepted my words without hesitation. Not just because I was the lord of the territory, but because I was his son.
I could feel the depth of his absolute trust.
“Dina, it’s Daddy. Say Daddy. Daddy.” My father kept repeating it with a gentle expression.
I stared at the tiny baby, hoping for a miracle that she might somehow say daddy. But, of course, no such miracle occurred.
The baby blinked slowly as she was passed into Father’s arms.
At first, she barely managed to open one eye. Then both eyes opened, and she frowned.
Her unfocused eyes rolled around aimlessly.
“Wh-What’s wrong with her eyes? Is she sick?”
“All babies are like this at first. She’ll get better over time.”
“Ah…”
Hearing that from the midwife put me at ease. At the same time, it reminded me how insignificant my medical skills really were.
“I’ve heard that many women die in childbirth, and that many babies die shortly after being born.”
I had seen some statistics, but noblemen rarely cared about commoner births. Even if they knew that those children would eventually contribute to population growth, they dismissed such deaths as the inevitable fate of dirty, uncivilized people.
Besides, it wasn’t realistic to use expensive priestly healing on commoners.
“What you say is true. I try everything I can, but it's beyond my abilities.”
“I’m not blaming you. I just want to hear the reality.”
“For mothers, two out of ten either die or become seriously ill. Of the babies, two in ten are stillborn, and five in ten die within a week of birth.”
The statistics I remembered said that about three or four out of ten died. That didn’t even include those born with illnesses. But the midwife was saying the opposite, that only three out of ten survived.
“Five out of ten? Are you certain of that number?”
“Yes, my lord.”
A midwife who delivers babies firsthand would know the truth better than anyone.
I began to imagine what would happen if that number could be reduced. If only one or two out of ten died and the rest survived, Hebron could increase its population without invading neighboring territories or hiring mercenaries.
‘It’s the surest strategy, but also the hardest to achieve. It’s not like the other lords ignore the deaths of commoners out of sheer stupidity.’
“Is there any way to reduce that number?”
“There’s no secret method. Feeding them well is the best we can do. During times of famine, more mothers and babies die.”
In other words, the common folk had no real solution.
But I, as the lord, did have options.
“Mother, are you all right?”
“Don’t worry about me, Viscount Hebron.”
She looked visibly relieved.
“Did the breathing technique I taught you help during the birth?”
She smiled gently and nodded.
“If you hadn’t taught me that breathing technique, I would’ve had a very hard time. Thank you, Viscount Hebron.”
I let her rest and went to find Amy.
“You’re here, my lord.”
Amy, as usual, was busy.
Especially now, with the Delgain barony newly annexed into Hebron, she had more work than ever. Hebron had become a viscounty, but its land was still relatively small and its economy was weak compared to other viscounties. Given the circumstances, Gaius had agreed to cut Hebron’s taxes in half for the next ten years to support us.
Within ten years, Hebron had to become strong enough to rival any other viscounty, or it wouldn’t survive.
“Today is a joyous day, my younger sister, Dina de Hebron, was born. Starting today, I’m enacting the Dina Law.”
“The Dina Law? All of a sudden?”
Amy was also involved in drafting territorial laws.
There was no one else as reliable at getting things done as she was.
“I’m going to give partial tax relief to families with a pregnant woman.”
“...Do you have any idea how many babies are born in Hebron? If you introduce a law like that, people will just keep having babies to lower their taxes.”
“That’s the whole point. It’s a good thing if Hebron’s population grows.”
“It’s not that simple. Even if babies are born, half of them die. Many die during childbirth, too.”
In other words, even if you support expecting families, few babies would survive.
“There’s an aura breathing technique. With it, we can solve the problem of mothers and babies dying during childbirth.”
“W-Wait a minute. Are you saying you want to teach the aura breathing technique to the commoners, just so they don’t die giving birth?”
It was an unthinkable solution.
The aura cultivation method was a secret treasure of the family, reserved for proper knights and elite soldiers.
In poor baronies, it was common to share the method only with a few selected knights.
“It’s just the breathing technique, but according to my mother, even that alone is effective. With consistent effort, it can even lead to the awakening of the aura cultivation. For the record, my mother actually awakened hers during childbirth. Turns out she had a natural talent for it.”
Amy stared at me with a look of disbelief.
But unlike her worries, I had over a hundred aura cultivation methods at my disposal. This wasn’t like a poor barony groveling and bribing just to get their hands on a single decent method.
And in any case, the authority to distribute aura cultivation methods lay solely with the head of the house. Amy couldn’t stop me even if she wanted to.
“W-Well, okay… But what about the babies who die after being born?”
“Save them.”
“Excuse me?”
“I hear five out of ten die. Bring that number down to two.”
“…What?”
Amy looked utterly dumbfounded.
She stared at me as if to ask why I was making a mess and leaving her to deal with the fallout.
“Prime Minister Amy.”
“Y-yes, my lord!”
Her response rang out loud and clear.
It was because I’d called her Prime Minister rather than administrator. The title of Prime Minister denoted the person in charge of managing a viscounty’s internal affairs. They were also the one to act as lord in the lord’s absence.
Amy had stabilized Hebron in a short time and earned my trust. I believed in her potential.
“I’m assigning the first mission to the Prime Minister of House Hebron.”
“B-But this is a tough one… Even combing through all of Xenon’s history, there isn’t a single case where the infant mortality rate among commoners was drastically reduced.”
It was something no one had ever attempted.
Which was exactly why it was meaningful. If we succeeded, Hebron would be ahead of every other territory.
“I believe in you.”
Amy didn’t sigh.
Instead, she looked up at me and responded with all the sincerity my trust deserved.
“Yes, my lord!”
