“Oh, father!”
The kids saw me as they came out of the guild. Elna spotted me first, alerting the rest of them.
“What are you doing here? Isn’t the party still going strong?”
“Oh, I was worried, so I left early. Looks like you guys got some extra money, huh?”
“Yes, though sadly, most of the materials went to waste.”
“Ugh...” Linne grumbled at Quun’s comment.
Hah, yeah... If you mess a monster up too bad, that’s bound to happen... No guild staffer worth their salt would let you trade in mangled stuff for the full price.
“So, anything you wanna buy with the money?”
“Yes! The Seablade Cutlass once wielded by the Dread Pirate Jolly should be in the Regulus Empire right about now!”
“No can do. Hilde said no weapons or armor.”
“Aww, dang it! I knew it!” Frei kicked the ground and cried to the heavens.
You know, I can’t help but feel you’re trying to use your jaunt to the past as a way to get weapons you missed out on in the future...
“Er, I’d like to put it toward development costs...” Quun stated as she raised her hand.
Her request seemed reasonable enough, so I told her exactly what Leen had told me: “So long as you tell us exactly what you’re planning to develop. If it’s not too strange, you can fund it.”
Quun patted her chest in relief. It seemed Leen was a little more lenient than Hilde when it came to encouraging her daughter’s eccentricities.
“Daddy, I wanna buy candy.”
“Huh?”
Yoshino’s suggestion took me by surprise. That sounded more like something Frei or Allis would’ve said. But really, candy of all things? Hadn’t she just eaten a ton of desserts at Parent? And it wasn’t like they didn’t serve sweet treats in the castle either.
“I wanna buy lots of sweet stuff and take it to grandma’s school. Then I can share it with everyone! I wanna see grandma.”
“Oh, I see...”
The grandma she was referring to clearly wasn’t Tokie. It was more likely to be Sakura’s mother, Fiana. Yoshino was the only girl who had a biological grandparent in Brunhild. Frei’s grandma lived in Lestia and Arcia’s was in Regulus, while Quun, Linne, and Elna’s biological grandparents weren’t around anymore.
“Grandmother Fiana is a fine and thriving headmistress in the future. We’ve all studied under her tutelage. She’s a lovely woman... I think we’d all be happy to see her.”
“Huh, interesting. Hmm...”
What Quun said made me think. The kids all wore magical devices that made them look different to outsiders. This was so nobody in the castle would notice how similar they looked to my wives, since it might end up causing a fuss. Though it wasn’t like I’d been actively hiding them or anything. Even Doc Babylon and Elluka knew they were from the future.
If I took the god part of the story out and only focused on the Space-time magic part, then maybe it’d be fine to tell Fiana... Though the matter of whether or not she’d believe the story remained to be seen.
“Hold on, I’ll ask Sakura about this.”
I figured the best person to ask would be the woman’s daughter, so I called up Sakura and explained the situation, which she responded to by teleporting directly to my position.
...I get that you can just use your spell like that, but was it okay to abandon the party?
“It’s fine... Most of the guests are drunk, so they won’t notice...”
“Oh, okay...”
Apparently, Suika had started a drinking contest, and she’d taken down every circus performer one after the other. Now I was definitely glad I hadn’t invited my kids.
“So, about Fiana...”
I wanted to introduce her to her grandkids, but I didn’t know if she’d believe me or not. Though, if she was like Babylon and familiar with magic, she might find it easier to swallow.
“My mother was raised in Felsen. She understands Space-time magic to some degree, so I think it’ll be fine... The only problem is the other person...”
“The other—? Oh. I see.”
She was talking about the overlord of Xenoahs. Yoshino was his grandkid too, so he’d probably kick up a huge fuss if Fiana got to meet her and he didn’t...which meant I’d probably have to introduce the two.
“Yoshino, what do you think of the overlord?”
“Grandpa? He’s lovely. He brings me sweets and treats all the time. But he definitely gets a little overexcited with us sometimes.”
It was something of a relief to know his granddaughter didn’t spurn him, but apparently, he was still as much of a doting dumbass in the future too.
“Save the overlord for later... Yoshino can meet my mother first.”
Sakura promptly cut off my idea before I could even bring it up. Seemed fair to me, though. I didn’t exactly feel like making a trip to Xenoahs anyway.
“Let’s go see Fiana, then.”
“What about the candy?”
“There’s no school today, so there won’t be any kids. We can treat them later.”
“Mmm... Okay.”
We gathered all the kids together and used [Teleport] to warp to Fiana’s house, which was not far from the school. It had a lovely garden in front of it, and it was generally a pleasant little cottage. We teleported right in front of Mr. Mittens, who was sweeping the pathway with a broom.
“Meow my goodness. What an entourage. Do you have business with your mother?”
Mr. Mittens was Sakura’s summon, but he basically served Fiana at this point. He commanded Brunhild’s cats and generally ran a pretty tight information network. In a sense, he was one of our nation’s intel specialists. Though you wouldn’t be able to guess that from the sight of him standing here in an apron, tending the garden.
“Where’s my mother?”
“She’s on a shopping trip with Athos and the others, but she should be back soon... Oh. There she is! Purrfect timing.”
I saw Fiana walking toward the garden with Athos, Aramis, and Porthos in tow. All three of them were cait siths like Mr. Mittens. Athos and the other three were carrying her shopping bags. I wondered if they lived on the school grounds as well. Fiana had ended up becoming something of a cat lady... But hey, at least her cats were useful.
“Hello there, Grand Duke. And you too, Farne. Who are these children? New students?”
“Grandma!”
“Huh?!”
Yoshino ran over and hug-tackled Fiana, who looked more bewildered than anything else.
“G-Grandma?! A-Am I that old?! D-Do I look that old?!”
She seemed more shocked about what she’d been called. Fiana had white hair, but she was only in her mid-thirties. This world tended to have young marriages, so she was probably a bit shocked and upset at suddenly being called a grandma. In my opinion, Fiana honestly looked a lot younger than her real age.
“Um...what’s going on here?”
“Oh, well...you see...”
Fiana looked at me with confused eyes, and I couldn’t really find the right words to respond with.
“This is Yoshino. She’s my child with the grand duke... Your grandchild...”
“Huh? What?!”
Uh, what?! Y-You’re just gonna up and tell her that, Sakura?!
“Er... Oh... Then...y-you adopted?”
Oh, yeah...that’s the logical conclusion. Sure makes more sense than time travel, anyway. And I don’t think anyone would buy Sakura having given birth to a baby this big either.
“No...she’s my birth daughter. Yoshino, can you show her your horns?”
“Oh, yes. Here.”
A pair of tiny silver horns jutted out above Yoshino’s ears. They were her manifestation of the overlord’s horns. It was proof she was related to the overlord, but it wasn’t actually evidence she was related to Fiana.
“Oh, Yoshino...take off your badge...”
“Oh. Right.”
Quun’s words made me realize part of the confusion. My kids were all wearing badges that had the [Mirage] spell baked into them. The badge didn’t affect her immediate family, so we all saw her as the spitting image of Sakura...but to anyone else, she’d look like a complete and utter stranger.
Yoshino removed her badge, which made Fiana jump back in shock due to her sudden change of appearance. There was no denying her similarity to Sakura now.
“What? Huh? Uh...? Wh-What?!”
I really had no idea where to begin.
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