by CHIROLU
It was then that the men at last realized that this slender fellow before them was not the weakling he appeared to be at first glance. However, it was already too late.
Smaragdi was always gentle and kind in front of Mov, and that held true for how he acted in front of most people as well. He was certainly a very patient man, and caring as well. That could also be seen in the way that he wasn’t bothered by teaching children, generously accepting even the unreasonable outbursts of emotion characteristic of them.
However, that wasn’t all that there was to him.
As one who made his living providing children with guidance, he hadn’t ever neglected to sharpen his fangs for the sake of protecting his pupils. And he was also a man who believed it was an elder’s duty to protect the young, and was prepared to take the full brunt of whatever he needed to in order to do so.
As he judged these men to be enemies of both himself and Mov, he didn’t hesitate to launch a counterattack, lacking even a hint of mercy.
By the time Mov learned that because she had chosen Smaragdi, he faced all sorts of attacks, starting with slander and harassment, from the other “candidates,” they had altogether lost their will to fight.
Those who found fault with the low level of mana he was born with...
Those who were prideful due to their lineage...
Those who boasted of their sturdy physique...
The arrogant self-conceit of those men varied in form, but Smaragdi neither flattered any of them nor kept his head down around them.
As someone who knew he was born lacking any great gifts, through sheer effort he had clawed his way to a place where he could stand alongside those with talent, making Smaragdi no ordinary man.
Furthermore, those pupils who studied under him all reached a rather high level when it came to their magic studies. However, that wasn’t just limited to that field of studies. No matter what position they may find themselves in, any devil would assuredly have a chance to study magic. When including his fellow instructors, his connections both inside the temple and out granted him a great deal of influence.
When Smaragdi was truly angered, he became a rather dangerous individual.
A number of those self-proclaimed “candidates” were ruined socially, and some were forced to return to their family homes. There were even those who were stricken with a fear of people, no longer able to even leave their rooms.
With some thorough “aftercare,” Smaragdi completely wiped out the possibility of others saying things like “Such a feeble man dares call himself the father of a king...?” The personality of that methodical, serious man showed in his actions.
By the way, those calling themselves “candidates” who were actually fittingly clever enough to accurately read the situation knew from the start that it would be foolish to stand against Smaragdi. Before considering anything like becoming father of a king, it was absolutely essential for anyone who wished to serve in a position of influence in the temple to have a friendly relationship with the Lady Oracle, Mov. As such, acting antagonistic towards her lover who she trusted so deeply would only serve to act greatly against their own interests.
Around that time when Smaragdi was being recognized as such a presence in the temple despite not even being a priest, Mov became pregnant. At full term, she gave birth to twin girls.
The prophecy was that Mov’s child would become king, and there was only one open throne amongst the demon lords, but two children were born. That fact rocked the people of the temple greatly.
After much thought on the matter, the simple conclusion reached was that one of these two girls would become the ruler of the nation.
It was decided that Mov’s children, who had become candidates for the throne, were to be raised in strict secrecy in the depths of the temple. Based on the painful memories of the Second Demon Lord once slaying the former candidate for that position, it was necessary to use even more caution, hiding their very existence as they were being raised. That was because if they were found out, it was likely they would become targets in the same manner as the last king.
Even knowledge of Mov’s pregnancy was kept known to the bear minimum of those serving by her side. While it was an auspicious event for the nation, the fact that she had given birth to twin girls was a fact known only to a portion of the elites of the temple. Those debating the situation also had a shortage of information on which to judge the situation. As a result, all they could do was wait until information presented itself, which made it difficult for those top-ranking officials with their closed-minded ways of thinking to immediately hand down a decision.
Smaragdi, meanwhile, was in a separate, quiet room and was utterly detached from that commotion, seemingly having no interest whatsoever in the thinking of those concerning themselves with a power struggle. But what he showed on the surface and what he was thinking inside were different matters, as he had laid the groundwork to immediately make a move if the decision made by those elderly troublemakers threatened to cause trouble for Mov and his daughters.
However, he didn’t let the recuperating Mov see that in the least. In her postpartum confinement, Mov lay listlessly atop the bed, looking utterly exhausted. Smaragdi gently smiled, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“I don’t care which one of them becomes king. I just want them to grow up healthy,” he said in a kind voice that relieved the one listening to him, telling Mov his true feelings. Hearing that, Mov smiled, then brought her cheek up against Smaragdi’s palm, which had just finished wiping her sweat.
“I hadn’t ever considered... that there would be two of them...”
“Even though you’re called the all-seeing Lady Oracle, there are still things you don’t know... You did good.”
“Yeah... It was tough.”
“Thank you, Mov. I never imagined I’d be able to have two adorable daughters like this.”
Hearing these frank words of appreciation, Mov broke out in a smile.
When she had thought on the task of child raising, which she was unaccustomed to, she hadn’t even imagined that she would suddenly be doing it for two. But when she saw her daughters sleeping peacefully side by side, she didn’t feel the need to worry about such concerns.
“Their hair is the same color as mine, isn’t it...? And their horns are still small, but they have your shape, Mov.”
“I’d heard that horns were soft right after being born, but... it really was surprising, seeing it for real.”
“Yeah, it’s enough to make you feel afraid to touch them too firmly... Looks like they inherited their horn color from me, too... It really is a strange feeling, looking at them. I really am a father now, aren’t I...?”
After checking that his daughters’ small fingers all had tiny little fingernails, he broke out in a wide, bashful grin.
The lips of one of the girls started to twitch. When the other did the same a moment later, Smaragdi wasn’t able to hold back a broad smile from erupting forth. He hadn’t been able to say he felt a powerful, deep passion for Mov when they first got together, but now that she had given him these two daughters, he felt very differently. He felt even more affection for the girls than he had expected before their birth, and his feelings towards their mother, who had safely carried out such a great task of bringing them into this world, couldn’t be expressed as mere gratitude.
“Thank you, Mov.”
The new mother happily squinted her eyes as Smaragdi said those kind words and lovingly caressed her head, a right that was hers and hers alone for the moment.
When the twins had just been born, they looked so identical that you couldn’t tell them apart, but when they soon opened their eyes, their parents learned that their eyes were different colors.
“Golden eyes... So should I consider this the same sort of mana trait that you have, rather than genetics...?”
“Probably... I had heard it wasn’t impossible for a parent and child to end up with the same mana trait, but still...”
> “This girl has gray eyes. There are a lot of green eyes in my family... Maybe it’s the natural color for your bloodline?”
He tapped his daughter’s cute, chubby little hand with the tip of his finger, and she grabbed onto it. Finding that adorable, he broke out in a smile and kept on doing so. For some reason finding that unamusing, Mov came over and sat down by Smaragdi’s side, still cradling their golden-eyed daughter in her arms.
“What should we name them?”
“The temple won’t have something to say about that?”
“I won’t let anyone complain about their father naming them.”
“You’ve gotten a lot stronger than you used to be, haven’t you, Mov?” Smaragdi said with a laugh, then gazed off into the distance while feeling the warmth of his daughter.
“Chrysos and Asími... No, rather than Asími, Platina... maybe?” Smaragdi soon muttered, offering those two words.
“Chrysos and Platina... What do you think?”
“I’m fine with whatever you decide, Smaragdi.”
“I wanted to hear your opinion, though...” Smaragdi replied with an awkward smile to Mov’s assertion, then reached out to the girl that Mov was holding. He ever so gently stroked that platinum hair, which was the same color as his but far more soft.
“Chrysos.”
Then he pointed his gaze to his other daughter, who was still playing with the tip of his finger.
“Platina.”
They were his precious, utterly irreplaceable daughters.
“I may be an unreliable father, but... let’s take care of each other, alright?”
He smiled, wondering all the while if he’d be able to leave anything behind for these girls before his promised end arrived. But more than that, he realized it hadn’t taken long at all for him to come to think that he wouldn’t mind risking his life if it was for their sake.
Smaragdi came to live with Mov and their daughters together in the depths of the great temple. In devil society, it was the mother’s family’s role to raise children. However, Mov had been entrusted to the temple when she was very young and separated from the world at large, so she had no such family to rely on. And neither Smaragdi nor Mov approved of the idea of entrusting a chamberlain to raise their daughters.
However, at the same time, that child-rearing had turned out to be more involved than expected, making it too much for Mov alone.
Mov had a slender figure by nature, but in order to carry out her duty as a mother, she bulked herself up. Therefore, there was no lack of milk when breastfeeding, but it still took twice as long and twice as much because she had two children instead of just one. Day by day, Mov was filled with concern that they would suck her dry.
In order to support her, Smaragdi ended up changing his place of residence. A big reason behind that was because he decided that if his time was limited, he wanted to spend at least a little more time together with his daughters. There was no helping that he ended up thinking that way, though, as his daughters were just too cute. He was already walking the path towards becoming a full on doting idiot.
The first one to learn to hold her head up properly and sit up straight was Chrysos. Platina learned to do so too just a little later, but she then tumbled over. That fall was properly cushioned so it shouldn’t have hurt, but perhaps out of surprise, she blinked her big gray eyes and then started bawling loudly. Chrysos then got caught up in the flow of things and cried as well, only to lose her balance and fall over, then flip over on her back.
“That’s a healthy crying voice. They’re both doing well, wouldn’t you say?”
While watching Mov silently panic as her gaze darted all over when faced with their daughters who wouldn’t stop crying, Smaragdi casually scooped up Chrysos in his arms. In an accustomed motion he patted her back, and while Chrysos’s eyes remained teary, she regained a bit of her composure. Smaragdi handed her to Mov, and then picked up Latina.
“Why are you able to get them to stop crying so easily, Smaragdi...?” Mov said with a frown while thinking on the matter.
“Who knows?” Smaragdi replied, shifting his gaze from Mov to Platina, who had stopped crying.
“Agoo.”
It seemed that the point of Platina’s interest as she reached out her tiny hand and clenched it again and again was Smaragdi’s horn. He happily looked back at his daughter. No matter how much he looked at them, he never tired of doing so. They were never making exactly the same expression, even for an instant. Even in the instant of seeing them blink, he spied the wonder of seeing them grow.
Smaragdi had lived for a long time, but this was his first experience raising his own children. As someone who was naturally curious and inquisitive, he found this life with his daughters, in which each and every day was overflowing with new experiences, incredibly satisfying.
“Agoo.”
“Are you all calmed down now, Latina?”
“Aa, aa.”
“You want to come to me too, Ryso?”
Chrysos was reaching out from Mov’s arms towards Smaragdi. Seeing that caused him to break out in a smile, and he picked her up too. Both of his arms were occupied with one of his daughters, but that didn’t seem to worry him at all.
Devils called young children by nicknames, and had them do the same. This custom originated from the fact that many names in the language ended up being rather long words. Their parents called Chrysos Ryso and Platina Latina, which they found adorable.
The two twins looked at one another from within Smaragdi’s arms and started making pleased sounds. Their moods had completely recovered, it seemed.
After taking that adorable sight in, he looked over at Mov, who had a bit of a bored look on her face.
“...I’ll handle these two, so you can head back to work, Mov.”
Seeing Mov make a slightly lonely looking expression, Smaragdi couldn’t help but get a bit of a sense of superiority. He was well aware that this new mother was feeling lonely now that her daughters were monopolizing the man who usually doted on her.
“Latina and Ryso are both telling you to do your best at work, Mov... Hey, I’ll be here waiting for your work to be over, too.”
It was different from what he felt for his daughters, but he also felt a deep affection for Mov, who he had watched over since she was a child. While looking at her with a loving gaze, he took his daughters’ small hands in his own and had them give a little wave.
Those two girls were deeply, deeply loved.
“Moh?”
“Oh? Moh?”
“Mov, Latina and Ryso called your name, didn’t they? Hey, what about my name?”
“Gah?”
“Ga?”
“...”
Both of the twins remembered their mother’s name, Mov, first, rather than Rag.
This was the first time that Smaragdi had received such a shock in all his life.
†
Even when they were babies, he couldn’t help but find them incredibly adorable. They had spent the majority of the day napping and couldn’t speak, instead expressing their emotions by crying. Their moods shifted freely, and they could be heard crying at any time around the clock.
He couldn’t help but cherish even such rough days as that.
To Mov, who was utterly worn out by raising children for the first time ever, Smaragdi’s ability to adapt was utterly incomprehensible.
However, that had only been the very start of their work.
“Rag.”
“Rag, tew us a stowy!”
“A stowy!”
The adorableness of his daughters pitter-pattering over and talking to him in that awkward, childish manner was no joke.
“A story, is it?”
“A stowy!”
“Stowy!”
The girls, Platina and Chrysos, standing side-by-side and talking to him, were always holding hands. With identical motions, they looked up at their father, Smaragdi.
While thinking that these young girls may not ha
ve fully understood yet that they were separate beings, Smaragdi squinted his eyes at the adorableness of his daughters.
Just one of them would be plenty cute, but there were two. On top of that, they made the same movements as if in perfect alignment. It would be impossible not to find it precious.
Smaragdi himself had no idea that he was such a doting idiot. That was because he found the fact that his daughters were adorable to be an absolute truth.
“Then how about for today, we go with the story of a hero from a far off land?”
“Yeah!”
“Rag, hug!”
Platina was hopping up and down with both hands on the knees of her father, who was sitting in a chair with a smile on his face. It would seem that she wanted to get up atop his knees, but couldn’t manage so herself. Apparently his gray-eyed daughter demanding to be picked up was quite a pampered child, just like her mother.
“Ryso too, Ryso too!” the gold-eyed girl called out while hitting the back of the chair Smaragdi was seated in, having seen what her sister was doing.
“Don’t get all flustered, Ryso. You’re right, I know it wouldn’t be fair to just pick up Latina,” Smaragdi said with a strained laugh, then picked up the girls and seated them atop his knees, as per their requests.
“When you two get a little bigger, it may become tricky to pick both of you up at the same time.”
“No!”
“Together!”
“I see. Then I guess I’ll just need to try my hardest, huh?” Smaragdi responded to his daughter’s protests, giving a nod while wearing a serious look on his face. As if mimicking him, they let out a sound of agreement and nodded back. While holding back the urge to break out in laughter, Smaragdi dredged up the story he intended to tell from his memory. That fable he told, which was simplified to be easier for children to understand, was actually a part of history.
His daughters listened to his story with wide grins on their faces, not thinking too deeply on it. Simply listening to Smaragdi’s gentle voice made them happy. That kind voice of his echoed throughout the dreary temple room, filling it with a warm, peaceful atmosphere. Perhaps in response to that pleasant air, the two girls occasionally looked over at each other and shared identical, overjoyed smiles.