When I said that and patted him on the head, little Fuku let out a cute little baby sound and nodded with his eyes still closed.

He responded to me while asleep?! This kid... he might be a big deal when he grows up. While I was thinking that, Liscia peered closely at my face.

“Wh-What?” I asked.

“Other people’s babies are nice and all, but having our own baby would be so much cuter, right?” she asked, shooting meaningful glances in my direction.

Ahh, yeah... That probably meant exactly what I thought it did. Hakuya and Marx were telling her we needed to produce an heir already. Now that the country had stabilized, they were probably pressuring her even more.

“Yeah... You’re right,” I said shyly. “We have the method for births by Cesarean section established, and there are more and more obstetrics and gynecology specialists. It’d be safe for you to give birth any time now.”

Liscia’s eyes went wide. “I thought you were going to wimp out again.”

“Now, listen... Okay, yeah, that’s part of it,” I said. “Because I’m prepared to be your husband, but I’m not ready to be a father yet, y’know.”

“Oh! R-Right... I see...”

I wanted to get all lovey-dovey with Liscia and the others. But, in order to increase the number of royals which had declined precipitously in the succession struggle after the death of the king before the last one, the chamberlain, Marx, had insisted, “I won’t stand for you using birth control until you produce at least one child!” You can see why I would be cautious.

“Well, aside from that, this high rate of death during childbirth in this world had been concerning me, too,” I said.

When I looked into the population of this country, I was surprised how high the death rate was for newborns and pregnant women. In modern Japan, while we might worry about whether the baby would be born safely, we hardly ever thought about the mother potentially dying in childbirth. However, it seemed that, in this country, pregnant women died sometimes. If there were a thousand women pregnant, a handful of them were going to die. In this country which lacked a formal study of obstetrics and gynecology, pregnant women were literally putting their lives on the line to give birth.

As the king, I was being told to produce many children with multiple women. If a child were born to Liscia, Aisha, Juna, or Roroa, and I were to lose one of them during the birth... I couldn’t stand that.

“In order to make sure that doesn’t happen, to keep the risk of losing any of my family to an absolute minimum, I’ve pushed forward with medical reforms,” I said. “It might be abusing my authority a bit, though.”

“It’s fine, isn’t it? The result was that you ended up helping everyone.” Liscia wrapped her arm around mine. “H-Hey, Souma. If making babies is okay now, do you want to try working on that tonight?”

When Liscia said that, fidgeting shyly, I couldn’t help but love it. But, as I’d said earlier, I wasn’t able to convince myself I should be a father yet, so I had to turn my head and look away.

“Oh! Um... do you think you could wait a little longer, after all?”

“Geez! You still wimp out in the end!” Liscia shouted.

When Liscia raised her voice, it startled Fuku, and he started making a fuss. “Wah... Wahhhhhhhh!”

We handed him back to his mother and tried to amuse him with funny faces. Owen tried to join in and do the same, but his face startled Fuku again, causing him to cry loudly and make a big scene.

Someday, we’ll make a big, noisy scene like this in the royal castle, too.

In the midst of that noisy happiness, that was what I thought.