Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 117
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 117
Golden Branch and Jade Leaf, the children of Mudu.
Their days—the days of “Golden Branch and Jade Leaf”—followed a certain rhythm.
For starters, they woke up around the time their mother, Leah, finished preparing breakfast.
“Haaaah.”
“Fuaaah.”
With matching expressions and hair so disheveled it stuck up as if a bomb had gone off, they stretched and yawned. They got up energetically, then… didn’t tidy their blankets.
Tidying blankets was just such a bother!
“Now, now. What did Mommy say about this?”
Leah, still in the middle of setting the table, said in a deliberately stern voice without even turning around. The two children, who had been trying to sneak out, froze mid-step, then scurried back to stand in front of their beds.
“Ugh, what a pain.”
“Hmph. Why does Mommy always make us fix our beds?”
“Right! We’re just gonna use them again tonight!”
Despite their grumbling, they didn’t back away from the beds.
If anything, their expressions grew more and more solemn…
“Well, now we have no choice but to bet on it.”
“Yeah!”
As if on cue, they put their hands on their hips.
“Brother. Ready?”
“Of course! We’re betting again today.”
“The loser…”
“Has to make something for the winner!”
At the exact same time, their tiny, fern-like hands grabbed the blankets.
Fwoop!
The small blankets, which were more like play cloths, were deftly spread open and neatly folded corner-to-corner!
Then, as if in a race, they fluffed and aligned the pillows with a few pats, and placed their two differently colored dolls gently back in their usual spots.
Finally, once they smoothed out every last wrinkle… the bed-making was complete.
They were so perfect that you’d never believe children had done it.
It seemed they hadn’t inherited dwarven blood for nothing.
“Done!”
“Aw!”
The two children’s victory and defeat were decided by a very narrow margin—and today, Jade Leaf won.
“Hee hee.”
Jade Leaf giggled, covering her mouth with both hands, clearly thrilled at the thought of getting something new.
“So close!”
Golden Branch, already used to this kind of “bet,” graciously accepted his little sister’s win.
“Alright. Then I’ll give you the wooden doll I made last time.”
The moment he finished speaking, Golden Branch pulled a roughly carved wooden doll from his own treasure box and handed it to Jade Leaf.
“Yay! I’ve really wanted this one!”
Jade Leaf hugged the doll tightly and beamed.
Having chased away whatever drowsiness remained with their bet, the two washed their hands and faces clean and sat down at the table.
“So, who won today?”
“Me!”
“Honestly…”
Leah smiled, her eyebrows sloping downward as if she found them hopeless.
She wondered if it was right to let them keep making bets like this.
Still, they seemed to be deepening their sibling bond in their own way, so she figured it was fine for now.
Besides, according to her husband, young dwarves played by each making their own creations and comparing them to see whose was better.
Back in the homeland, they even took it a step further and smashed the loser’s creation…
Compared to that, these two seemed to be getting along pretty well.
‘At least they’re friendly when they’re making something together.’
Leah couldn’t always understand them, but the two siblings, born a year apart, were each other’s closest friends and most reliable support.
‘We haven’t even given them any special lessons, and they’re growing up so well—what a stroke of luck.’
Leah smiled as she set breakfast in front of the children.
“Eat slowly, and chew every bite well.”
“Okaaay!”
The two children clutched their spoons and forks and scarfed down their breakfast.
Today’s breakfast was an omelet made with eggs and mushrooms that the neighbors had shared, along with carrots and potatoes.
“But I hate carrots…”
“I hate potatoes…”
“Now then! Good children don’t fuss about their food!”
“Okaaaaaay.”
The children, who had answered so obediently, quickly fed each other the foods they each disliked the moment Leah turned her back.
They were giggling at whatever they found so hilarious, when—
“Huh?”
With their mouths full of carrots and potatoes, Golden Branch and Jade Leaf pointed at the window, their already-large eyes going perfectly round.
And then they shouted at the same time:
“It’s the young master!”
* * *
“Did I come too early?”
“For the young master’s visit, we’d welcome you any time, day or night.”
“I’m grateful to hear you say that.”
Leah greeted Lion with a bright smile.
To her, Lion Asteri was a dependable young man.
First of all, he had completely resolved her husband’s worries, and he also played well with the children.
And that wasn’t all.
‘I was really shocked when he volunteered at the orphanage.’
The day her expectations—that he was just a slightly unique but kind person—were betrayed in the best possible way!
‘The look in his eyes toward Peter was sincere.’
That was not something he could have done without genuine sincerity.
Most nobles avoided children from orphanages out of fear that they might carry some illness.
Yet Young Master Lion had sat beside Peter and waited as long as it took for the boy to open his heart.
Even Leah, a mother of two, had not been able to approach Peter so readily.
That unyielding distrust.
The look in his eyes that said, ‘I don’t trust people.’
It had made her keep her distance without realizing it, unlike with Golden Branch and Jade Leaf, who always looked to her and clamored for her love.
‘When I realized that, I was so ashamed.’
Even after the young master had left, Leah continued to volunteer at the orphanage.
As a mother herself, she felt guilty for having recoiled from a child’s pain first.
Of course, Peter’s personality brightened with each passing day, and before long he was even chatting with Leah, so their awkward relationship quickly progressed.
“Anyway, the reason I came today…”
“Is it about Peter, by any chance?”
“You knew?”
Leah just smiled without explaining the full story.
If she told him it was all thanks to him, the young master would pretend he didn’t know, pretend he hadn’t done anything, but secretly he’d feel a little burdened.
‘Because you just acted as your heart led you.’
That ingrained goodness was truly remarkable…
“Yes. Though not all the volunteers know, of course. Just me and Nicholas, I’d say.”
“Right. So I thought I’d give him a present.”
Lion glanced at Golden Branch and Jade Leaf as he said that.
He’d been a little worried they might feel left out.
Fortunately, they seemed too busy playing with each other to notice.
“I originally planned to give him something really expensive, but it really didn’t feel right.”
He added that it seemed better to look at it from a child’s perspective rather than an adult’s.
“Ah!”
Leah nodded as if she understood and rested her chin on her hand, deep in thought.
“Something children like, you say…”
Leah recalled her children’s hobbies and her expression turned a little troubled.
“My children don’t exactly have normal tastes, so I’m not sure if I’ll be of any help.”
“Not normal?”
“Well…”
Leah covered her mouth with her hand so the children wouldn’t see and mouthed silently:
Just listen to what they’re talking about now.
“…”
Lion pricked up his ears as Leah suggested.
“What should we make and play with today?”
“How about a slingshot? Or what about those wooden soldiers we made last time?”
“Daddy told us not to use the carving knife for that, remember.”
Listening to their friendly chatter, it was hardly normal.
‘Come to think of it, their house too…’
Lion slowly looked around the house.
There were new decorations here and there, and even more scribbles than that.
And that wasn’t all—there were even drawings that looked like they had been carved into the walls with something!
‘Is it because they were born with dwarven blood?’
In any case, one thing was certain: this probably wasn’t the right sensibility to help him pick out a gift for Peter.
“Hmm.”
While Lion was mulling it over,
Leah, who had been lost in thought, came up with an idea.
“Young master, what about you?”
“Me?”
“O-of course, you must have wanted for nothing, even as a child, but wasn’t there a toy you were particularly fond of?”
“…A toy I was fond of?”
“Yes! It might be hard to remember since you’re older now, but if you think back carefully, one or two might come to mind. I think it would mean more to Peter if he received a toy that was meaningful to you…”
Leah trailed off after rattling on for a moment.
“Oh my. I was being awfully presumptuous.”
But still, he was the young master of the Asteri house—of course he must have grown up with no shortage of toys!
“…”
Lion couldn’t answer Leah’s question right away.
Before the possession, and even in the memories after possessing Lion’s body…
he had almost no memories of playing with toys.
Lion Asteri had been frail, and Baek Yi-hyeon… had never had the time.
The concept of having to give something up had come to him before the concept of “mine.”
The only hobby he’d ever had was playing <In the World> after he’d already grown up a bit.
‘But… right. She’s right.’
Wouldn’t a gift with meaning behind it—‘why I gave you this gift’—be more meaningful than something meaningless?
Seeing Lion deep in thought, Leah quietly took the two children out to the yard.
It looked like the young master needed a moment to think.
“Twee.”
Seeing the look on Lion’s face, Nature flew up and nuzzled his cheek.
“I’m okay.”
Yes. Lion was fine.
He was living a happier life than he’d ever known.
Little by little, he was filling that warm, fluffy something that had been missing inside him.
He thought he’d healed enough, but seeing his mood sink at the mention of the past, it seemed the young Baek Yi-hyeon was still stuck in that cold room.
“…Alright.”
Lion clenched his fist as if coming to a decision.
Something had come up that he needed to do while giving Peter a gift.
It was about himself.
Doing what the young Baek Yi-hyeon had wanted to do most when he was little.
The things he’d been most envious of as a child.
‘What was it that I wanted to have the most?’
Lion closed his eyes and thought, then opened them wide.
Yes.
‘I wanted to play with blocks that you could make anything out of.’
You could stack them to build a castle, or snap them together to make a car or a monster.
His own blocks that he wouldn’t have to worry about scratching or losing, even if they came crashing down.
Lion immediately put his plan into action.
Moving to the workshop, he pulled a log as thick as an adult’s thigh from his inventory, along with the small saw and carving knife Mudu had given him.
Scree! Scree!
First, he used the saw to cut the log into rough shapes.
Perhaps because Mudu had put so much care into making the tools, the hard wood cut easily with just a little force.
Once he’d completely removed the curved surfaces, he sawed again, creating dozens of small, rectangular cubes.
Sawdust piled up around Lion as he worked single-mindedly.
‘The basics of blocks are rectangles.’
Even as they were, they’d be a decent toy for children.
But considering Peter’s age, it felt a little lacking.
So a more careful process was needed.
He picked up one of the small rectangular blocks he’d just made and started carving the top and bottom surfaces with the carving knife.
The top got two round studs carved in relief.
The bottom got recesses so the studs could interlock.
He’d thought about trying to make something similar to modern toys.
‘But since it’s wood, I’d better make it as durable as possible.’
Scrape, scrape—
The wood shavings piled up.
It was a relatively simple job—just carving the top and hollowing out the bottom.
But with so many pieces to make, it could get quite tedious.
And yet, strangely enough.
With every block he finished, with every wood shaving that fell away, Lion felt the discomfort inside him growing lighter and lighter.
“…”
Some time passed, and when the small wooden cubes had formed a little mountain,
Golden Branch and Jade Leaf, back from their walk with Leah, discovered what Lion was making.
The two looked at each other, nodded, and hurried into the house with a pitter-patter.
After some loud noises and urgent footsteps,
Golden Branch and Jade Leaf approached Lion, hiding something behind their backs.
“Young master.”
And that item was…
“If you paint them with this, they’ll be even prettier!”
It was colorful dye!