Dane (2): Suddenly Father to Three Peculiar Girls
“This is driving me crazy.”
“What's 'crazy' mean?”
“You wanna know? Should I tell you? Huh?”
“Both of you, cut it out. You're making Dane uncomfortable.”
The girl with her pretty purple hair neatly braided stared at him with wide eyes as she asked her question. Behind her, the blonde elf doubled over, clutching her stomach in laughter. Meanwhile, the white-haired girl with horns sprouting from her head—about the same height as the others yet acting like the big sister—tried to rein them in by grabbing their napes.
These three girls were the kids I'd been put in charge of just a few days ago.
Philbert, you old man...
Philbert, the leader of the resistance army against the kingdom I'd once belonged to—a man as good as a father to me—had shown up out of the blue one day and asked me to look after them for a while. And I mean really out of the blue.
If they were just normal kids, I wouldn't have minded.
But these three girls, who looked ordinary at a glance, each harbored secrets that defied imagination. The moment I learned about them, any stress from raising kids or surprise visits from old comrades felt trivial. Truly, it was nothing.
“Whoa, what's this spotted rope?”
“That's not a rope—it's a snake. Triangular heads mean it's a venomous carnivore that's downright terrifying...”
“Stop scaring her! Not every triangular head means venom, and not every round head means it's safe! But don't touch it anyway!”
...Maybe it wasn't nothing after all?
“Uncle Dane, can I touch it?”
“You're immune to poison anyway, so go ahead.”
“Huh? I'm immune to poison? Why?”
The first child Philbert had introduced to me was named Liwin. When we first met, her purple hair was a tangled mess, and she was filthy all over. She was a half-demon, with demon and human blood mixed in her veins.
“She's a demon hybrid. Demons shrug off most deadly poisons.”
“Whoa.”
“Liwin, don't get startled like that.”
The Demon Realm, where demons lived, was far from the kingdom and mostly treated with fear, so half-demons like her were rare. Apparently, a resistance fighter had been exiled from his hometown, wandered around, and secretly gotten together with a demon woman. Since it was his first time seeing a half-demon, even within the resistance, opinions were divided on what to do.
“Anyway, Liwin, how did you grow up without knowing the difference between ropes and snakes?”
“Uw... sorry...”
“I just can't understand you inferior races...”
“Me! Me! I can tell you! Liwin said her parents died, and she got dragged around by slave traders for a while, so she hardly ever saw the outside world!”
“Aha, so that's— No, you didn't have to say that in front of her, did you?!”
Sad but true. During a kingdom purge operation, Liwin's father—who held a high position in the resistance—had been executed, and her mother too. Liwin barely survived and, being a rare half-demon, was dragged around and overworked by slave traders. Luckily, the resistance comrades united, insisting they had to save a fellow member's child, and rescued her.
“Liwin, how old are you again?”
“Um, five!”
“Got it.”
“How old are you, Uncle?”
“...Twenty-five.”
I looked at Liwin with complicated eyes. She'd been raised under Philbert's care, and our upbringings weren't that different, so I felt a strong affection for her. That's why I couldn't refuse and took her in. As you can see, she's kind, spirited, brave, and smart to boot. If I could, I'd pass on my skills and have her carry on my legacy.
—
“You have to raise a kid like you once to understand how I feel.”
Philbert's words about Liwin stuck with me. He must have entrusted her to me so I could experience that exact feeling of raising someone like myself. Lately, he'd said the resistance was incredibly busy on all fronts, so I was probably the only one he could trust with a young child like her.
I looked down at Liwin, who was tugging and shaking my sleeve while chattering away.
“T-Twenty-five... um... that's four times Liwin!”
“No, no. Liwin, it's six times. If you have six boxes each with five apples, that's twenty-five.”
“...Did someone sneak in and eat some in the middle?”
Then there was the girl who kept butting in with excited explanations she barely understood herself. Her name was Elfin. Like Liwin, she had no family name or clan—and that made sense, since she was an elf. Elves didn't have the complex family structures humans did.
“Elfin, how old are you?”
“Twelve! I'm only thirteen years younger than you, Uncle!”
“That's a huge difference.”
“Is it? My dad is fifty years older than my mom?”
To a normal human, that would sound insane, but to Elfin, it was perfectly ordinary. She was an elf who loved the forest and cherished nature, so their sense of time differed from humans'. Elves lived about ten times longer on average, so a wife fifty years younger was like a human wife five years younger, right?
Fifty years is fifty years—what's this human-scale nonsense?
I decided to stop playing around with time units. Humans and elves simply perceived time differently, making it impossible to grasp with human logic. Elves were said to live a thousand years, but their mental age at twelve was no different from a human's. Elfin was the perfect example of a bratty twelve-year-old. Her personality was a bit nasty, but that wasn't an elf thing—it was just Elfin being Elfin.
“...Talking about Mom and Dad makes me sad. I hate you, Uncle. I'm not talking anymore.”
“Why are you suddenly sad?! Your mood swings are way too extreme!”
“I dunno, I hate everything.”
“Liwin will pat-pat you.”
“Sniff, thanks...”
As Elfin herself had just said, her parents were alive and well. Unlike Liwin, who lost hers shortly after birth and became an orphan, Elfin's situation was completely different.
Anyone hearing this might mistake me or Philbert for kidnappers, but of course, that wasn't the case.
A cursed child...
Elfin had her own dark circumstances. Small, isolated villages with little outside contact tend to be extremely insular. Their culture and language evolve uniquely, and superstitions often get deified. Elfin's elf village was the same. Most believed unquestioningly in prophecies—what humans might call holy knights or priests blindly following divine oracles, elves did the same with their noble seers' predictions, committing irrational acts.
For example... yeah. Exiling their own child from the village based on a single prophecy calling her cursed.
“...Uncle.”
“Yeah?”
“If I grow up strong here, Mom and Dad will come looking for me again, right?”
“...”
“The curse will lift someday, so surely...”
Elfin's mumbled words, clutching my pinky with her tiny hand, stabbed my heart like a dagger. What must it feel like to be suddenly abandoned by the entire village—even your parents?
She can't be okay.
Her heart must be shredded to pieces. I wasn't sure if I could comfort her, but after hearing her story, I wanted to do whatever I could. Beyond her past, Elfin had value even as an elf: exceptional physical abilities and sharp combat instincts. She might master my assassination techniques even better than Liwin.
—
“If Elfin grows up well like this, she'll make an excellent fighter.”
That seemed more pragmatic than with Liwin—the reason Philbert entrusted Elfin to me. Liwin was still too young, but in a few years, Elfin could be deployed as a combat agent. With no home to return to, but talent to match, even in retirement, he wanted me to train her.
Not a bad deal.
Whether my assassination plan succeeded or failed, the resistance would need to keep fighting to finish off the declining kingdom. It wouldn't hurt to leave behind a successor who'd fully mastered my skills for the time I'd be gone. I'd always had a romantic notion of raising disciples and nurturing the next generation anyway.
“Kids these days are just incomprehensible. I try to be nice, and they make it so complicated. Tsk tsk...”
Finally, the white-haired girl who looked Elfin's age but spoke like a worldly old crone—her name was Yustina. I still couldn't fully believe what Philbert had told me about her. The scale was just too massive.
A dragon, seriously?
I'd encountered dragons before—not never. I'd bumped into one out on a whim once, and stumbled on a lair while lost in the mountains. But when Philbert said one of the kids he wanted me to raise was a dragon, I was floored.
Me, raise a dragon?
Absurd.
As I stared blankly at Yustina, her face flushed red, she whipped her head away and yelled haughtily.
“What are you staring at, lowly human? Have you fallen for this Yustina-sama?”
“As if. I don't fancy getting captured.”
“What? What do you mean by that?”
“It's a thing.”
“Ugh... I don't know what, but use honorifics! This one is hundreds of years older than a child like you!”
Unlike Elfin or Liwin, Yustina didn't seem to have any special sob story. Philbert hadn't said much, and at a glance, she looked like a noble young lady fascinated by the world's wonders, carefree. My guess: a young dragon out on her first excursion.
No idea how she ended up with us, though.
The reason Philbert handed her to me was simple. Very apologetic, but unavoidable—
—
“It's good to have connections with dragons, right?”
I understood his desire to impress the immensely powerful beings. Since Yustina had shown interest and approached, building friendly ties was necessary, but the resistance was swamped, and she was like a walking bomb. Entrusting her to me was his best option.
“But Uncle, where are we going?”
“Hunting.”
“Yay, huntiiing?”
“Whoa.”
“Oh, meat for dinner tonight?!”
Even as we headed out hunting amid the kids' noisy excitement, I kept second-guessing if this was the right choice. The game fleeing from their racket was a problem, but minor compared to the real issue.
I was supposed to infiltrate the palace soon, per plan.
I'd ultimately accepted, but I'd initially planned to refuse Philbert. No matter what, within a month, I'd assassinate key figures in the palace and face summary execution. No means or time to raise kids.
But I couldn't spill everything to him.
Even if he knocked me out and confined me to bed, Philbert wouldn't let me go on a suicide mission like that. Besides, the resistance seemed even busier than me. If neither of us could take them, what about Liwin and Elfin? Yustina aside, how were those two supposed to survive without guardians?
—
“Understood. I'll look after them for a bit, then.”
—
“Thanks. Really, thank you. As soon as our situation improves, I'll contact you and take them back.”
And so, somehow, I ended up with three kids on my hands.
The plan to infiltrate via secret passages hadn't changed, but I could delay a little. More solid prep, and passing my skills to the kids for the resistance's future—it might even be better.
So...
“Uncle, I'm hungry!”
“Liwin too.”
“Hrm... hrm, the children are urging you. Serve the meal at once!”
“Whoa, Yustina's stomach just growled.”
“How impertinent!!!”
...First, feed the kids, then think.