abcnovels
Book 15
Book 15: Chapter 1.1
Wahhhhhhhhhh! There was crying in the distance.
If we could hear it at this volume when we were seemingly so far away, it must have been incredibly loud. When that kid started crying, she absolutely wailed. I was in the governmental affairs office handling paperwork, but I could never ignore that voice.
“Hey... Can I go take a look?” I asked Hakuya, who was working with me, and he let out a sigh.
“There are already plenty of other people looking after her, so you joining them isn’t going to do any good. Focus on your work.”
“B-But...she’s crying so loudly.”
“Princess Enju is loud to begin with.”
The cries belonged to my recently born daughter with Juna. She was my third, following Cian and Kazuha, but she was Juna’s first...and a girl too. Her name was a mixture of Juna and her grandmother Excel’s: Enju Souma.
She was a cute girl, taking after Juna, but with darker hair, and her loud voice was no doubt inherited from the Prima Lorelei. She cried loud enough that, had we lived in a residential area back in my old world, we’d have been reported to the police for potential child abuse.
That said, normally, she didn’t cry that much; only when she was hungry, wanted her diaper changed, or was sleepy. The essentials, so to speak. Despite this, she was actually surprisingly easy to take care of. I sensed Juna’s parentage in that natural consideration for others too.
“If you want to go check on them, then finish your work quickly. Sir Julius is taking time off to be with his wife as she’s soon to give birth, so we don’t have enough hands around here.”
“Roroa’s just about to give birth too...”
“I am sure she is more than prepared. You’ve already ensured everything is in order, sire. Now, please, focus on your work.”
“Okay...”
I used my Living Poltergeists ability to its fullest in order to sort out the mountain of paperwork in front of me.
Things were unstable with the Great Tiger Kingdom running wild up north, but we weren’t publicly opposing them. We had alliances with the Empire, Republic, and Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, and our relations with them were good. If you looked only at the Kingdom itself, things were remarkably stable, and I was able to focus on internal policy.
Because of that, there were no major problems, and work went smoothly.
Working at an even higher pace than usual, I made it to Juna’s room, stumbling a little due to overtaxing my spiritual energy. Juna was there, holding Enju, and so was Liscia, watching them warmly.
Liscia looked at me, pressing her index finger to her lips. That meant, Be quiet.
I looked at the rocking chair where Juna was sitting and saw that she was sleeping too. The way she held Enju lovingly with her eyes closed was so divinely beautiful that I wanted to capture it on video, in a photograph, and have the court artist paint it too.
“She just fell asleep,” Liscia said in a whisper when I got closer. “Juna nodded off with her.”
Lowering my voice so as not to wake them, I said, “Good work. How are Cian and Kazuha?”
“Aisha and Roroa are looking after them in the nursery room. They started crying too when they heard Enju’s wailing.”
Cian and Kazuha could already stand by pulling themselves up, and could waddle around on unsteady feet or crawl around surprisingly quickly. Kazuha, in particular, would move all over the place if you let her, even trying to leave the room, so we couldn’t take our eyes off her. I was glad she was growing up healthy, but it was troublesome that she was as much of a tomboy as her mother.
“Thanks, Liscia. For being supportive of Juna.”
“She was there for me, so this is the least I could do.”
With that said, Liscia clapped me on the shoulder, adding, “Well, I’ll leave the three of you alone now. I need to check in on Cian and Kazuha.”
Liscia was probably trying to be considerate of Juna’s mental state after giving birth by making time for me, Juna, and Enju to be alone together.
“Thanks, Liscia.”
“Hee hee, this is part of my job as first primary queen.”
“Oh, come to think of it, you didn’t mention her, but where’s Naden gotten off to?” I asked as I remembered.
“Oh...” Liscia nodded. “Naden’s at the Magna domain today. They’ve got one too, remember?”
“I see...”
That made a lot of sense to me.
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A baby was sleeping quietly in its crib. When she saw its little baby hands were formed into fists, and its mouth was hanging just a little open, Naden couldn’t help but say, “I-It’s so cute.”
“Heh heh, I know, right?” Ruby agreed, puffing her chest up with pride.
“Wait, what are you so proud for...?” Naden looked at her dismissively.
This was Halbert’s parents’ home, the House of Magna’s mansion. The baby had wisps of red hair, and tiny little fox ears spurting out of its head. This was the child that had been born to Halbert and Kaede. And Ruby, the second wife of the family, loved it too.
“She’s Hal and Kaede’s. That makes her practically mine too.”
“Yeah... I know how you feel.”
Naden loved Liscia and Juna’s children like they were her own as well.
Because dragons were one of the long-lived races, they were not very fertile. Also, because dragons were naturally inclined to highly value propagating their species, their love for their families was intense. That was why, even if the children were born to another wife, they adored them all the same.
“It’s a boy, right?”
“The long-awaited first son of the House of Magna. They call him Bill.”
“Bill Magna... That’s kinda cool. He’s a mystic fox, I see.”
Because Halbert was a human and Kaede was a mystic fox, their children could be born with the traits of a human, a beastman, or a half-beastman. However, the mystic fox race’s defining traits were only those of half-beastmen (ears and a tail), so the only difference was if the baby had fox ears and a tail or not.
“He gets his red hair from me,” Ruby chimed in.
“More like he gets it from his father. If you get carried away and start making him call you momma, Ruby, his real mom’s going to get mad... Real mad.”
“You’re...speaking from experience, huh?”
“It wasn’t just me. All four of us (excluding Liscia) did it.”
“What is our royal family even doing...?” Ruby said in dismay. Then Bill started moving his hands and feet around in his sleep.
““.........””
They both grinned and returned to watching Bill.
“Babies sure are great, huh?” Ruby said.
“Yeah, they are,” Naden agreed.
“I want one.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll need to make Hal work hard at it.”
“Souma too.”
“If you look at him with hungry eyes like that, your husband’s going to get put off by it, you know?” said Kaede, who had just returned, and was clearly weirded out by the way the two of them had been talking. She’d been having them watch Bill for a moment while she went to fetch some of his baby clothes.
Naden cleared her throat loudly, possibly out of embarrassment. “By the way, are you returning to the military, Kaede? Or will you be staying here in your domain?”
Kaede grinned at Naden’s question.
“Let’s see. I think I’ll return as a staff officer when Bill’s more grown. Sir Ludwin, the vice-commander of the National Defense Force, and Julius are both in the castle, and His Majesty has told me I can leave Bill in the nursery there.”
“With me around, Hal can commute to his post from anywhere, after all,” Ruby added, thumping her chest—which had grown considerably in the last few years—with one hand.josei
It was true that with a red dragon, they could join the National Defense Force from the Magna domain, Parnam, or anywhere else.
Kaede giggled. “We can trust Father Glaive to handle the domain in our absence too.”
“So you two and Bill are going to live in the capital? Won’t his grandpa be lonely like that?”
“Well, yes, but Mother will keep him company... I expect Father will still come visit us in the capital regularly, though...” Kaede’s smile was a little strained as she said that.
It might have been part of the national character in this country that the father doted on his family, and the wife kept him firmly under her thumb.
That’s what Naden and Ruby thought as they remembered their own husbands.
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