The Duchess's Slap and a Mother's Fractured Pride
In my entire life, I had never once been slapped by a woman. Today, that perfect record was shattered by a full-swing slap that nearly spun my head around. What the fuck…! I stood there stunned, pressing a hand to my cheek.
Thankfully Sena’s body was ridiculously sturdy. Despite how hard my head had whipped to the side, the actual damage was minimal. No broken teeth, no split lip. Just the stinging sensation of a particularly vicious mosquito bite. The physical pain, however, was nothing compared to the sheer mental shock and disbelief.
She’s definitely done this before. That wrist snap was fucking artistic.
It was the hand of someone who had reached the absolute peak of hysteria. Experiencing firsthand the power of that signature slap she used to deliver to the heroine in the original story left me feeling utterly fucked.
“You vulgar creature.”
Carla’s hand trembled as she glared at me, teeth clenched. Her emotions had already moved past simple anger into pure hatred and contempt. Apparently unsatisfied with just the slap, she took another step forward and suddenly grabbed the collar of my dress with shocking force. Then she viciously clawed at my exposed breast right through the fabric.
“Hic!”
Shit. That was a very female sound. I quickly corrected myself.
“Ouch! M-My lady! What are you—!”
I tried to stumble backward in panic, but Carla kept her grip iron-tight as she snarled at me.
“Is this… is this really that good?”
Molly, you bitch! Hey! The milk’s leaking! But more importantly it fucking hurts, you crazy bitch!!!
“Are a lowly wet nurse’s tits so sweet that they can blind my husband and steal my son’s soul?! Is that what you’re telling me?!”
“……!!”
“They say there isn’t a single man in all of Gestein who hasn’t sucked on your breasts! You sow! You bitch in heat!”
A torrent of degrading insults poured from Carla’s mouth. The words were so crude and vulgar it was hard to believe they were coming from a noblewoman. I simply stared down at her in a daze.
Carla already knew. She knew about the secret affair between her husband Lumikan and her son’s wet nurse, Sena. The original story had described her hatred for Sena, but actually witnessing this explosive, direct humiliation left me with complicated feelings.
Wow… she really is pitiful.
Watching Carla scream while clutching my breast, I actually felt sympathy for her. She had grown up as a proud, high-nosed noble lady only to become the mistress of the Gestein family. Yet her husband wouldn’t even glance at her, choosing instead to bury himself in a wet nurse’s embrace. Even the son she had given birth to preferred that same wet nurse…
Her pride as a woman and her position as a mother must have been completely trampled.
It made sense why her eyes had rolled back as she shrieked like this. Because my core was still male, it didn’t feel like a catfight between women so much as a wounded stray cat howling in pain. It actually made my heart ache a little.
Yeah, go ahead and hit me. It’s not even my body, it’s Sena’s. I’ll just take one for the team. Curse me all you want. I’m just a possessor anyway, so none of it actually lands.
I decided not to resist, simply hoping this situation would end quickly. Once the lady had vented her anger, I planned to quietly withdraw. But then—
Twitch—!
My body—more precisely, Sena’s instincts—began reacting again. Danger. Lucian’s breast milk was being threatened.
Wait, hold on. Hey! Personal space, you crazy bitch!
The maternal instinct inside me responded to the pain radiating from my breast where Carla was viciously squeezing. Because she was wringing it so hard, the milk stored inside had begun soaking through my clothes. The sacred daily ration I had been saving for Lucian was being wasted!
The moment Sena’s body registered that fact, it completely ignored my rational judgment as the possessor and switched into combat mode.
Swish—!!
“Ah…!”
My left hand cut through the air and seized Carla’s slender wrist with absolute, merciless force. It was the grip strength of a knight-captain. A short scream escaped Carla’s lips.
“W-what are you doing?! Let go this instant!!”
Carla panicked and tried to shake me off, but my hand clamped down on her wrist like a vise. Sena’s body stared at her without the slightest tremor, exerting silent pressure.
Wow… this body really is insane. She’s completely lost it over Lucian.
I was genuinely shocked. No matter what, this woman was the Grand Duchess. She was also the victim here. After all, I had been the one having the affair. Yet the second milk started leaking, this body was ready to crush the mistress’s wrist. Sena’s priorities began and ended with Lucian alone. Grand Duke, Grand Duchess—it didn’t matter. Anyone who touched Lucian’s food would never be forgiven.
While I desperately tried to loosen my own grip, Carla’s face twisted with humiliation.
“I told you to let go…! A lowly thing like you… daring to lay hands on my body…!”
She tried to hit and scratch my arm with her free hand, but to a body at knight-captain level, it was no more threatening than a mosquito buzzing around. Perhaps it was the helplessness of realizing nothing was going her way that finally broke her.
“Hic… sob… ugh…”
Huh? The lady’s crying.
Carla’s captured wrist went limp as she collapsed right there on the spot. Her shoulders shook violently as she failed to control her emotions. Perhaps because some last scrap of noble pride remained, she didn’t cry out loud. She only bit her lip hard, letting out suppressed, choked sobs. Her skirt and golden hair spilled messily across the floor, and tears dripped steadily from her lowered head onto the disheveled strands.
“……Sigh.”
I released Carla’s wrist, feeling a headache coming on. This was driving me insane. Being struck by lightning and waking up in a woman’s body was already tragic enough. From the start I’d been forced to breastfeed a one-year-old brat, then I’d had to knock out a horny Grand Duke and drag him away. And now I had to watch a pitiful legal wife who’d lost both her husband and son cry her heart out.
Why the hell do I have to play emotional trash can?!
Still, abandoning Carla here would only make things worse. I wanted to somehow ease this heavy, sticky atmosphere and escape back to the nursery. There was only one best way to comfort this mentally shattered woman.
Remind her of the one right she had lost—her position as a mother.
I crouched down beside the weeping Carla and spoke as gently as possible.
“My lady… shall we go see Young Master Lucian?”
“……What?”
Carla looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. I didn’t avert my gaze, speaking with genuine sincerity.
“He just fell asleep. His sleeping face… is truly like an angel. He resembles you so much, my lady. If you could just go see him, even for a moment…”
But my good intentions never reached her scarred heart. She violently slapped my hand away.
“Let go…!”
Carla scrambled backward, clawing at the floor.
“That child… that child doesn’t love me! He doesn’t want me!”
For fuck’s sake, why are you like this now!!!!
I wanted to tear my hair out. A mother going to see her son should be the most natural thing in the world. I couldn’t understand why she was throwing such a fit and rejecting the idea. The original novel had shown Carla gaslighting and tormenting her son Lucian, but there hadn’t been any descriptions of her being this terrified or avoidant.
Panting heavily, Carla suddenly grabbed her own flat chest with both hands.
“He never looks at my breasts…! That child, the Gestein bloodline, only wants… only wants something abundant. Only wants the milk of a sow like you…!”
The moment I saw her action, I realized my mistake. Flat-chest complex. It was one of the few comedic settings in the original novel, and Carla’s only weakness. She had a severe complex about her unimpressive breasts and had especially envied and tormented her daughter-in-law’s bountiful chest. Now I understood the root of that complex wasn’t just aesthetic inferiority. It was a deep trauma born from the physical traits of her husband’s mistress combined with the deprivation of not being able to nurse her own son.
Ha… this is actually driving me crazy. Since the original story only covered past events, there are way too many hidden truths I don’t know. What the hell actually happened to make this family such a complete mess?
A sigh escaped me from pure frustration. My shallow plan to somehow soothe Carla, take her to the nursery, and improve their twisted mother-son relationship even a little had been smashed to pieces.
Waaaah—!!
At that moment, from far down the silent corridor of the Grand Duke’s residence, a baby’s faint cry echoed once more. Lucian had woken up.
“……!”
At the sound, Carla’s shoulders jerked violently.
“Lu-Lucian…!”
She reflexively tried to stand, lifting her head. Like a mother. She had reacted to her son’s cry. But—
“Hic…!”
In the end she couldn’t rise. The hand she had reached out into empty air trembled, then curled back toward the floor with a look of pure terror. She had even lost the courage to approach her own son.
Watching the collapsed woman before me, I thought, She’s so fucking pitiful… No wonder she goes crazy toward her son later.
And while Carla hesitated, Lucian was crying. He wanted milk. He needed to be fed right now. Sena’s body began having convulsions.
Sena, you’re a terrible person too. Even if the original story glorified you, is this even human? Hic!
The command to run to the nursery immediately was stabbing my brain like a maniac. The moment I heard Lucian’s cry, I even felt my breasts begin to tingle and swell.
Ah, fuck. Fine! I’m going, I’m going!
In the end, I gave up on trying to comfort the mentally shattered Carla. Besides, as the mistress’s rival, anything I said would only poke at her wounds. Moreover, I was terrified of what this insane body might do if it didn’t reach Lucian immediately.
I gave a polite bow toward Carla, who remained sitting on the floor sobbing.
“……I shall take my leave now.”
Carla didn’t answer. I turned my back on her pitiful weeping and left. My body raced down the corridor toward the nursery like the wind, but my soul felt as if it had rolled through a field of shit—disgusted and utterly miserable.
I thought possessing a romance fantasy heroine would be all honey and rainbows. Instead the Northern Grand Duke is a horny lunatic, the lady is a trauma patient, and my own body is a goddamn baby milk dispenser.
Just how long could my mental fortitude last in this trash-heap of a Grand Ducal household?
“Haa…”
The closer Lucian’s cries grew, the deeper my sighs became. I threw open the nursery door and rushed inside to find Lucian flailing in his cradle, crying his heart out.
“Waaaah! Uwaaaah!”
I went straight to the cradle and lifted the sobbing baby into my arms. The body didn’t hesitate for even a second. With practiced, almost mechanical movements, I yanked open my top and brought my breast to his mouth.
Chup, chup-chup!
Having found the nipple, Lucian—face covered in tears and snot—began babbling and suckling vigorously. Every time those small, hot lips touched me, that strange, tingling sensation spread through my body. My core was still that of a pathetic virgin boy, yet I was forced to play the role of a loving, maternal mother. The dissonance was brutally violating my sanity.
Haa… Yeah, drink up. Just go ahead and suck my soul out while you’re at it.
I stroked the head of the nursing Lucian with a sense of resignation, staring out into the darkness beyond the window.
Let’s think. How can I escape this wretched nanny life, the forced breastfeeding, and that insane horny Northern Grand Duke to become completely free? I’ve already learned through experience that running away is impossible. This crazy body will strangle me if I try to leave Lucian behind. That leaves only one answer.
Normalizing the relationship between Lucian and Carla.
Only when Carla reclaims her position as a mother and reconciles with Lucian will this insane body’s maternal instincts have a reason to subside. If his real mother is right there taking care of him, there will be no need for a wet nurse to step in. Moreover, if Carla firmly establishes herself as the true mistress of the Grand Duke’s residence, even that perverted Grand Duke won’t dare act like a horny dog toward me.
Rather than suffering while waiting for the heroine’s appearance like in the original story, it would be faster if I stepped in directly and fixed the balance in this godforsaken household myself.
“Chuu… chuuu…”
Looking down at Lucian, who was obliviously nursing and making lazy sounds, I strengthened my resolve.
Alright, I’ve decided. For the sake of my own freedom… I will absolutely awaken Carla as Lucian’s true mother!
Not for the male lead. Not for the villainess mother-in-law. Solely for the preservation of my own mental health and my escape from this dairy cow lifestyle.