Is it a blessing or a tragedy when two people who know each other too well get married?

Two years ago.

Dorothy Javier married Caden Bessler.

And exactly ten days after the wedding ceremony, Caden left home and set out on a long journey to Kirusha, the desert city. He accepted an important construction mission to build a new water source and canal system there.

Most people, hearing something like this, would probably react the same way.

‘Wow, where did this brilliant *sshole come from?’ would likely be the thought.

The nerve of a husband, not even bothering to cherish his new bride before bolting off in a hurry!

At the mildest, they would criticize his indifference. At the worst, they might narrow their eyes and wonder if he was cheating or keeping a second household somewhere.

But Dorothy’s case was a little different.

The reason being: she was the one who pushed Caden out the door herself.

A full twenty years and ten months.

That was how long Dorothy and Caden knew each other before the marriage was decided.

Wait. If both the bride and groom were twenty at the time of the wedding, how does ten months get added on top of that?

Have you ever heard of it?

The term “womb-mates.”

To properly explain Dorothy and Caden’s relationship, one first had to go back a generation.

* * *

The two children’s mothers were very close friends.

From the young ladies who attended their debutante balls with trembling, fluttering hearts, to becoming the mistresses of great noble households and raising several children each. The world around them changed dramatically more than once as they grew, but their friendship never faded in the slightest. If anything, it only grew more solid.

Then one day, as chance would have it, the two of them discovered around the same time that they were both pregnant with their third child.

Right then and there, the two mothers joined forces and decided to go through their pregnancies together.

They were side by side when preparing baby supplies, when suffering through morning sickness, when going in for regular checkups. The long, exhausting months of pregnancy became, almost magically, a joy shared with a friend.

The family physicians on both sides, after several examinations and angle-reading methods, offered their opinion that Marchioness Bessler appeared to be carrying a girl, and Countess Javier appeared to be carrying a boy.

But when the babies were actually born, the genders were reversed.

The Marchioness delivered a boy, and the Countess delivered a girl.

Marchioness Bessler looked at the sizable thing hanging between the baby’s legs and despaired.

‘Good heavens, a pepper¹고추 (pepper) is a slang for a man’s genitals. The Marchioness is basically saying she gave birth to another boy.! I gave birth to another pepper!’

She already had two sons who tore through the entire estate like demons possessed, smashing everything in sight.

‘Every doctor I saw was so certain it would be a sweet little girl this time, and I got my hopes up so much…. They were all quacks!’

The heartbreak was so severe that the Marchioness wrapped her head in a white towel and took to her bed.

But her seemingly irreparable state of despair was, a few days later, cured in an instant when her friend walked in carrying her daughter.

Soft, chubby cheeks and hair as fine and downy as cotton, the color of strawberry blonde.

Just then, the baby bundled snugly in her swaddle let out a wide yawn and opened her eyes.

Blink, blink. Framed by long, curling lashes, a pair of sweet, gentle honey-colored eyes gazed up at her.

“Goodness, she’s absolutely precious!”

“Hehe. Cute, isn’t she? Say hello to baby Dorothy.”

The Marchioness stifled a happy shriek and scooped Dorothy up into her arms.

Dorothy moved her tiny toothless mouth in a little chewing motion and smiled without a sound.

“Oh my goodness! Did you see that? Did you just see that?! Dorothy smiled at me!”

“My, she must like you.”

“Would you look at this little darling. You must be the reincarnation of an angel, a fairy, the spirit of a rose….”

She was so unbearably adorable that there was simply no holding back from kissing her.

“Ahh….”

The Marchioness let out a sound of blissful suffering. She smothered Dorothy’s cheeks with loud, enthusiastic kisses, and Dorothy scrunched up her nose at the tickling sensation.

Any ordinary baby would have fussed or burst into tears from the discomfort, but Dorothy was gentleness itself. She would scrunch the corners of her eyes slightly, and the moment someone rocked her swaddle gently to soothe her, she would break into a gummy smile, just like that.

Marchioness Bessler lost all track of time watching Dorothy change day by day.

But as it always goes, the dreamlike days ended in the blink of an eye.

Weeks passed, and the time to return home finally arrived.

The postpartum recovery was long finished, and she couldn’t very well spend her days laughing and chatting idly with her friend forever. As the mistress of a great household, a mountain of affairs waited on her approval.

On the day of departure, the Marquis of Bessler came to the estate himself to collect his wife. He presented Count Javier’s household with generous and heartfelt gifts, and took his beloved wife and son home.

Inside the carriage on the way back.

When the carriage door shut firmly, and the figures of the friends who came out to see them off shrank until they were no longer even visible as tiny dots.

The Marchioness could hold it in no longer and let the tears stream down her face.

“Sob, sob! I already miss Dorothy.”

They were only parting for a few hours, and yet the Marchioness was trembling, hands and all, like someone suffering serious withdrawal.

“Darling, calm down….”

The Marquis of Bessler flustered about trying to comfort his wife.

He tried to reason with her, pointing out that the baby she herself gave birth to was also very, very well-behaved and adorable, but….

“Ngh-ngh, hiyaaa.”

“…….”

“Gyaaaa, hawuu! Ayaaa. Bwaaaa.”

Caden made sounds like a baffling wild animal.

Already thrashing his limbs in every direction with impressive vigor, straining with all his might. It was truly something else.

And the crying. The sheer volume of it! When he started wailing at a pitch that put a wyvern in mating season to shame, the roof of the carriage rattled and both eardrums were on the verge of bleeding.

‘Well.’

The Marquis was at a loss. Even with his mouth split to his ears, he could not call this child well-behaved and adorable.

He raised the two older boys himself, so he knew.

Boundless, uncontrollable strength! A voice like thunder!

A body of iron that could not sit still for even a second!

Years of experience told him plainly: this was the early sign of a demon taking root. It was only a matter of time.

Whether you were raising two little devils or three wasn’t much of a difference, since it was equally hellish either way, but the Marquis genuinely worried that his wife might fall into postpartum depression at this rate.

Seized by a sense of urgency, he wracked his brain desperately.

“Oh, I just remembered something!”

“…What?”

A realization struck him like a bolt of lightning, and the Marquis slapped his own thigh with a sharp thwack.

“Now, darling. Hear me out.”

The Marchioness looked less than interested, but the Marquis paid no mind.

He knew his wife well.

‘Once you hear this all the way through, you will absolutely be pleased!’

He explained, earnestly and warmly.

“When the children are a bit older, we can arrange a betrothal. If you’re that taken with little Dorothy, what do you say we betroth her to our Caden? The families are well-matched in standing, and we know the Javiers better than anyone. The Count and Countess are both broad-minded and gentle in character, and the family’s values are admirable. Where else would we find a match with all these qualities? And once the betrothal is settled, you’ll be able to see Dorothy as often as you like, without limit….”

“……!”

Before he even finished speaking, the Marchioness’s sobbing cut off completely. Her eyes, dark and dead as burnt ash moments ago, began to sparkle brilliantly, like a hundred-carat diamond catching a radiant light.