Chapter 117: Love At First Sight

After helping Marie delivering her babies, it was decided that the girl, Lana will be raised by the butler, Ian, and will live together with me in Cassau.

Now I have a butler and a maid! Yay! Is not how I feel right now.

Everyone has decided without my agreement that they will help raise the girl.

Just because Albert wanted to hide the fact that his children is twin, so that no one from the cult will find out about it, he had his own baby girl to be taken into my house.

It was me who told him to make sure that the cult doesn't know about the twins. First it was because the doctor who checked on Marie's condition before can only detect one heartbeat. It would be a shocking event if she suddenly gave birth to two babies.

And we don't know if the doctor is part of the cult or not. If his children somehow got marked by the cult, Albert can't do anything about it. So at least he want one of them to survive in case something like that truly happened.

Sound evil as a parent to let his own child taken care of by someone else, but as a king, that's seems to be a sound plan to secure his heir. In case something happened to his son, he will still has a daughter.

But he told me to secretly come to the capital from time to time so the twin can recognize each other.

The world will only know that the king only has one son. But only several of his trusted people will know that he also has a daughter with ice element innate ability.

…and I will be the one to take care of her. Well, not me. But she will live in my house so she's also my responsibility.

It was still noon when we reach the inn. And everyone is waiting for the new members of our family.

"Is that Lana? So cute! Let big sister carry you."

Angela seems excited to see the baby. She even ignored Ian who carried Lana and just took her from him.

Everyone ignored Ian and just focus on Lana. Everyone except one person. Lina.

Lina sized up the old man before her, and Ian also checking on her as well.

"Butler?" Lina said as she pointed her index finger at Ian.

"Hmm. Maid?" Ian nodded and asked Lina.

Lina nodded. Then the two of them bowed to each other.

Is that some sort of secret code only maids and butlers understand?

"Hey, old man? What's that?"

"Just acknowledging each other. After working as a butler for decades, I can tell that she's a maid and a capable one."

"You can tell just by a glance?" I'm curious since Lina doesn't wear her usual maid outfit. She's wearing casual clothes today. As for Ian, he's still wearing his butler's outfit.

"I can see if someone is a butler or a maid at once. It's an ability I gained after being a butler for a… long… time…"

"Hmm?"

Ian suddenly speak slowly and looked somewhere else like he just saw someone he recognize here. Is it a noble who knows about him?

I followed his glance and I only see Ruby who also interested in seeing Lana.

Feeling that someone is looking at her, Ruby turn her head over here and the two of them locked their gaze.

"Do you know each other?"

"No. but we can get to know each other from now on." Ian said as he walked toward Ruby.

Feeling someone is approaching them, the girls also stopped playing with Lana and look at the shocking event that's about to happen.

Ian knelt down and grabbed Ruby's right hand as he introduced himself.

"Excuse me. I am Ian. I know it's unbelievable but it seems like I fall in love with you at first sight. We just met today, but I want to ask you if you would marry this old man?"

…

…

…

""WHAT?!""

Everyone was shocked by Ian's sudden proposal. Ruby just stood there in silent while everyone, even the other guests, was so surprised. Some of them who's still eating, spit out their food.

"What the hell?!"

Of course the most surprised one here is Sam. As Ruby's daughter, she would never have thought of seeing someone proposing to her mother in front of her own eyes.

"Really?" Ruby also seems surprised, but she looked happy.

"There is no word I can use to explain it other than love at first sight. I don't have a ring at the moment, but will you marry me?" Ian proposed to Ruby again.

"…sure! I'd love to have a gentleman by my side." Ruby accepted Ian's proposal.

"What?!"

"Wow!"

"MOM!"

Everyone shocked again to hear Ruby's answer. And Sam tried to stop her mother from making a rash judgment.

"What's wrong, Sam? It's not like I need your permission to marry anyone. You have grown up and an adult already. You don't need to care about my love life."

"But but but! This is too rash!"

The mother and daughter pair is arguing. Although it looks like Ruby left her daughter in the past and let her be a gang leader, the two of them are still looking out for each other.

"She's your daughter? I'm sorry that I acted rashly. I forgot to ask you what's your name and your daughter's." Ian stand up straight and asked for Ruby's name.

"My name is Ruby. And my daughter's name is Samantha. Don't worry about it. Her father died a long time ago. And I feel the same with you. I also fell in love with you at first glance. Sam's opinion doesn't matter so let's get married."

"MOM!"

"…alright, this is absurd." Angela said that to me as she's still carrying Lana.

"Really? I thought you have seen absurdness with Kayla, Sophie, and Candy becoming my girlfriends. That's not enough to get you used to it?" I teased Angela.

"They became your girlfriends! Not your wives! And this! This is a proposal at first sight! Haaah… seems like I'm the only one here who knows nothing about love."

"Well, love comes in different shape for anyone. You just haven't found yours yet. Just take it slowly." I said to Angela.

"…I guess you're right. It's not like I have to have a lover already."

"For now, let's celebrate Ian's and Ruby's engagement. And I'm hungry. What about you, Daniel?"

Daniel and Hannah who looked at Lana joyfully, turn their heads to me.

"Food!"

"I'm hungry! Mom, let's eat!"

Hannah pulled her mother's arm and take a seat in the dining hall.

Me, Angela, Kayla, Sophie, Daniel, Hannah, Penny, Ruby, and now Ian. We have nine people here but there's no table big enough for us to eat. So I had Victoria to turn into a table fit for all of us after getting the owner's permission.

We had a feast. Everyone is wondering how Lana was born. Well, most of them are women so they are curious about it. Although thanks to Penny and Ruby who has experience in childbirth, they told everyone the hardship of a parenting.

"How's the situation look for the king?" Kayla asked me after they have a chat about childbirth.

I used magic to make an Air Barrier so that no sound will be heard by other people.

"Both babies are healthy. But he will only shows the world that he only has one son. As for Lana, he thought it would be best if she's safe. So he won't tell anyone about her."

"Isn't that cruel to just abandon his own daughter?" Angela asked.

Since we're just having a meal, Angela didn't carry Lana anymore. It's Penny that carried her. Daniel and Hannah sit next to Penny and played with the newborn baby who is fast asleep.

"Wasn't it you guys who agreed to it? And you're blaming on the king?"

"I thought that it would be great if the king owe us. I was the first one to agree, but everyone followed my decision." It was Kayla who answered.

"Sigh… what happened, happened. Angela, Lana has innate talent in ice element magic. She was born with it. So she will sleep with you and you will take care of her most of the time. Are you prepared?"

"Me? I know I said I will help, but I…" Angela hesitates.

"Of course the others will help as well. Albert sent Ian to us for that reason. But she has awakened ice magic and you're the only one with it. So I want you to take care of her and prepare in case anything happened. I'll tell you this. When I helped with the labor, Lana able to make the room freeze. Everyone in that room risk their lives just to see her born. That's how powerful her magic is at least. If you can't do it, it's better for us to return her to Albert. Can you do it?"

"…I can only say I'll try my best. Of course I will ask everyone's help to raise her." Angela answered.

"Good. There will be a parade for the king's newborn baby in a week. You all will return to Cassau after that."

"Us? What about you?" Sophie asked.

"Depend on when Candy will brought back the other agents. I said I will help Albert eliminate the untrustworthy ones. After that, I'll return. Let's hope Candy will return before the parade."

Sonia is with Albert right now and didn't join us in the feast. If there's any news, she will tell me.

But damn! I know that love at first sight exist. But I never thought I would witness a proposal at first sight. And the two newly engaged pair are pretty chill about it. Except for Sam who seems to be listless.

Oh, well. She'll recovered soon.