As I wiped those errant thoughts away, I looked upon the four that stood before me.
Strangely, all four of them were frowning.
"So that black sphere was you then?"
"Ah, yea. Sorry if it scared you."
I had my suspicions, but it figured that the ones who were checking it out were these four. There weren't many reasons for people to come into the dungeon when it was still dark out. Dhampires didn't sleep as much as the other races, though they did still need to unlike us full blooded vampires.
Just like us vampires though, if they chose to live with the clock of other races, they did need to do something in the different hours their biology caused.
Frankly, I felt a bit bad for their mothers. While I had experienced it to a certain degree myself, but parents of newborns had their attention in constant demand all day and night due to their babies.
For me, it was simply not having much time to myself as Alicia and Fate required near constant attention all day and night. But for the mothers of the dhampires, not only did they need to sleep far more than their children due to their racial differences, but they didn't have a spouse to help ease their burden.
Well, it wasn't like I was married myself, but I did have lots of people with plenty of free time to help care for Alicia and Fate when I became too busy to care for them constantly.
Perhaps that was a contributing factor to why the former prisoners had such good relations with each other, having helped raise each others' children.
That would be a decent reason why the dhampires had trouble connecting with people outside of their tight circle, but it's been years since then. I doubted that it could have continued this long.
I hadn't heard of any particular issues regarding the dhampire children, but it was easily possible that it was kept from me if their mothers thought that it was something that would resolve itself over time. If that really was the case, there really wasn't much for me to worry about.
But it didn't hurt to at least be more aware of the situation just in case.
"I was watching, but it looks like the four of you are pretty good at hunting."
It didn't look like they wanted to talk that much, but now that I had noticed this attitude of theirs towards me, I was getting curious. At the very least, it was important to break the ice so I could learn about it, even if it took a while.
While talking to their mothers was an option, it would likely sour their mood even further if I went behind their back to do so. Even if they were kids, it wasn't good to look down on their intelligence.
Children were naive, not stupid.
"The way you all moved, your abilities are far above this floor's level. If you don't mind me asking, how come you're here rather than one of the deeper floors?"
Looking at how they fought, it was clear that any one of them could've beaten the monster on their own. Most likely, even the floor's boss wouldn't pose a problem despite it being stronger and several monsters at once.
From the perspective of experience as well as drops, the deeper floor monsters were far preferable to the ones on this floor.
"Because of you, that's why!"
For some reason, all four of the kids looked at me with even more hostility when Iaso gave me an answer that lacked context.
"Eh?"
"You made that stupid rule! That you have to be at least ten to enter the dungeon without an adult!"
The human dhampire next to her, Podalirius, added for clarification.
"Ah, I guess I did."
Thinking back, I had made such a rule. It didn't really make sense to allow kids to enter the dungeon unsupervised after all. Even though the first floor was pretty easy, it was still deadly for lower or even mid level people if they weren't paying attention.
"But I also remember that the Hunter's Guild allows exceptions on a case by case basis. The fact that you four are here is proof of that."
Personally, I wanted the age restriction to be higher than ten, but Peitho convinced me that even ten was pretty high for such a thing. Dungeons were relatively safe compared to outside of a city's walls, even if the same monsters inhabited the place.
At least in a dungeon, you could control how many monsters you fought against.
Due to this, and the common sense of this world, I relented and accepted the lower age restriction, along with a clause that allowed the guild to test and accept those even below ten to enter and use the dungeon to hunt without adult supervision up to the fourth floor.
Of course, we couldn't actually stop people from sneaking off to the deeper floors, so instead we controlled what materials could be bought by underage hunters at the guild while sending out a general advisory to the crafters and merchants to not buy materials from children without the proper guild documents.
From the best we could tell, this seemed to be enough to stop most kids from trying it. Though the economic situation of the Commonwealth meant that there was little monetary motivation for kids to break this rule in the first place.
We could only hope that the lack of reports from active hunters regarding seeing unsupervised children on floors deeper than the fourth floor was accurate.
"Only for the first four floors!"
The fifth floor had a noticeable jump in difficulty, so I stood my ground on that point. I didn't want my carelessness to result in the death of children.
"What's wrong with that? If the first floor's too easy, just hunt on the fourth floor. It should be easy for you four."
"That's not the point!"
Machaon slammed his club against the ground, the rough weapon cracking under the stress.
Alicia and Fate jumped at the sudden burst of violence and I placed a reassuring hand on their backs. The boy pulled back when he saw my expression and it was only then I realized I was glaring at him, hence I relaxed my muscles.
"The reason, is because the only good place to make money on the first four floors is in the boss room. But we've got a party doing each floor since the boss resets in the amount of time it takes to clear a floor."
That mechanic was something which I wasn't aware of. I didn't really bother running the same boss twice as any rewards from the boss could be gotten in abundance further in the dungeon. Even the equipment found only in the boss's treasure chest could be found as regular treasure later on.
But for these four, that wasn't an option as they were restricted to only operating on these four floors. And considering how quickly they could clear the floor, the respawn time probably wasn't that long in the first place.
So their strategy made sense. The strategy at least.
On the other hand, it raised a different question.
"Why are you kids so keen on farming the dungeon anyways?"
"It's to earn money and get stronger of course!"
Rather than Iaso, it was the bearkin Machaon who answered this time.
"You're all still kids. It's the duty of children to play and learn, not work to earn money."
"Just because you say that, doesn't make it true."
For the first time, the final member, Aceso, spoke up in a quiet voice.
"No, I mean, it's the duty of the adults to earn the living for their children. From what I heard, most of your mothers should have decent jobs as well."
Back when I first brought the refugees to the Commonwealth, this was something I had worked hard on...by delegating it to the right people of course. Finding employment and housing to hundreds was beyond he work of one person after all.
"So there's no need for you kids to work."
"It's like Aceso said. Just because you said it, doesn't make it true."
I couldn't help but feel like we were just talking past each other.
No, rather, I had no idea what these kids were even saying despite having lived several times their lives.
"No, but..."
I felt a tugging on my robes from either side.
"She's the one who lied and said bad things about Mommy!"
"So we fought, and we won!"
I could feel my eyebrow twitching as I heard Alicia and Fate's words.
(So she's the one they had a fight with?)
"I didn't lie. Elder Scarlet hasn't been helping people! She just does whatever she wants and doesn't care about us!"
"That's not true! Mommy helped everyone over and over!"
"Even you get to live here thanks to Mommy!"
"It's not like we wanted it!"
Podalirius yelled back in Iaso's place.
"That's called ungrateful!"
"Only bad people are ungrateful!"
"Okay, stop now."
I lightly chopped Alicia and Fate's heads just as they started to rush the other group, their fists raised in the air.
Despite it definitely being light enough that it barely made a sound so it shouldn't have hurt, the two put their hands on their heads and turned to me as one, eyes teary. The very sight of it tore at my heart making me want to take it back.
But of course, you couldn't unring a bell.
Or rather, this was a lesson they needed to learn.
"It's not good to get into fights so easily. You need to talk things out rather than come to fists."
""But...Mommy...!""
"Don't get riled up just because someone said something you don't like. Instead, try to listen to the other side and if you still don't like it, try to convince them why you think they're wrong."
"Hmrph! You can only barely keep your babies on a leash when you're with them."
"I.A.SO. It's not good to insult others for no reason!"
My fists tightened until my gloves squeaked as I did my best to keep a smile on my face. Though with every muscle in my face tightened up, I wasn't sure I was doing a very good job of one.
"Hiii!!! Y, yes Ma'am!!!"
"...Haaa..."
But seeing the face of terror on the four, I forcefully let out of slow breath, and with it my rage, before taking in a slow, calming breath.
"Anyways. So how come you four seem to be so intent in farming in the dungeon if you don't mind answering. I would understand if you just came to practice fighting monsters, but you seem to be pretty intent on earning money as well."
"It's because that's who we are."
"...Come again?"
Iaso's answer was so short it completely flew over my head. It definitely wasn't because there was more clearance between my head and the ceiling compared to most other people.
"After you abandoned our mothers, everyone had a difficult time having enough food to eat and homes to sleep in. It was to the point that the four of us lived together with our mothers and another three pairs in a single home."
I had difficulty even imagining that. While my apartment in my previous life was pretty small, I lived alone. Living in a small house with thirteen others sounded far more cramped than what even Philia and her orphans had to deal with.
"Not only that, but because we were so poor, we helped our mothers earn money however we could just so we could eat."
Epione had mentioned that. There was a distinct lack of support from the local lord, and the other villagers that immigrated afterwards treated them coldly despite having come afterwards.
Once again, but for a different reason, my fists closed up and I clenched my teeth. I understood that the lord of the village Epione's people came from was having a hard time having to deal with all the issues around them, but the lack of support, and how they were treated by the other villagers...
No matter how many times I heard it, new details that pissed me off kept coming up.
"A bunch of us helped our mothers when they went to hunt for monsters in the surrounding areas."
"They took you on their hunts?!"
The very idea shocked me. When the refugees came to the Commonwealth, the kids were still very young. About five years old.
Taking such young children with you when you went hunting...
"They were out of their minds..."
"They weren't!"
My head snapped up as my softly leaked words were immediately refuted by the quiet Aceso.
"That's right. Our mothers were being overworked. As many of them as they could worked wherever they could while those that were left cared for us. But our mothers couldn't bring back enough money to feed us all. Since we couldn't help with work in the village, some of us came to help with the hunts, to help carry meat and any fruit we found."
I've heard that Epione's people had a hard time, but even being told this so directly, I couldn't imagine it. It was just too far out from my own experiences.
There were a few times when I've suffered difficulties in this world, not to mention my previous life, but all that was incomparable to our recent immigrants.
"And of course, sometimes our mothers would let us help make the kill so we could gain levels. Even a child who could barely hold up a spear could be of use fighting a monster with a few levels."
Iaso said such a thing so casually, but I couldn't imagine it being anything but desperation at the time. I thought I understood it at the when Epione had told me originally, but no wonder they risked everything to get my help if things were this bad.
"It was hard. We were cold, we were hungry..."
Various emotions swirled around inside of me as new information kept coming up.
"...But that doesn't mean we wanted your help!"
My eyes widened at the furiosity of Iaso's sudden words.
"You...you keep tricking our mothers! You keep extending your hand only just enough so that they would worship you! It must feel so good, doesn't it? You helped a bunch of people just enough that they see you as some goddess, then you go away and leave them without the ability to restart their lives so they pray for you to save them again!"
"I...I never did any of that meaning to get something back."
All four of the dhampires had looks of pure fury as Iaso wiped the tears from her eyes.
"You...didn't mean to...? How are we supposed to believe that! Every day our mothers give thanks to you! They practically worship the ground you walk like some living god!"
"I can't stand it anymore! My mom tells me to pray to you before every meal!"
"And we were so close too!"
"Just a little more, and we would've been strong enough to take care of our moms! But you had to ruin everything!"
Just in case, I held Alicia and Fate against me as they, one by one, each started to vent their frustrations at me.
But frankly, I had no idea what I could say in turn.
On one hand, I could understand that these kids were striving for strength so they could relieve the burden on their mothers, which got snatched away. On the other, this all felt like undeserved resentment, as it wasn't like I was the one who made the decision to make the entire group migrate.
"Rather than ruin everything, your mothers came to me so that, you, their children, could have the opportunities to live proper lives. They probably believed, since I'm a vampire, that I wouldn't discriminate against you who were dhampires."
I understood that these kids had their own thoughts, but the exact same could be said of their mothers. It was a little sad that they conflicted so fundamentally when all they both were doing was just thinking of the ones they loved.
"Look, I understand I've been pretty hands off when it comes to dealing with you kids, but that's not my job, it's your mothers'. But if you want my opinion, it's to properly study in school."
"Of course we're doing that much!"
"I'm not saying you aren't. Just...that, like I said, the duty of children is to study and play. Everything else can come after you grow up."
I looked down at Alicia and Fate, giving them warm smiles as I caressed their heads.
"But...but..."
"I'm not saying that you have to like me or anything. You can blame me all you want for the circumstanced that your mothers faced. Just remember. Your mothers want you to live better lives than they were able to."
"You don't have to tell us that!"
"I know. But I still wanted to say it."
Patting my babies on the back, I turned around.
"Let's go back you two. We can continue this another day."
Leading the way, we headed back towards the dungeon entrance.
...
"What are you doing Claret?"
But when we turned the first corner, my ever faithful familiar was hiding there for some reason.
Before I knew it, she was off doing something rather than working as Alicia and Fate's bodyguard. It was fine since I was there keeping an eye on any presences nearby, but this really made me wonder if I could really rely on her to protect them in the future.
"M, Master...!"
Her shoulders were scrunched up making her look positively tiny as she looked away.
"Umm...you looked...really scary back there, Master..."
"Oh that. Sorry. I guess I lost control a bit. I'm not mad anymore. let's go back."
I presented my dear familiar with a small mana treat as an apology. Claret hesitated for a moment before receiving and popping it into her mouth. All at once, a smile erupted onto her face as all traces of fear melted away.
Ninetailed_Furball
Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (^o^)丿
Sorry for a shorter than normal chapter, but I couldn't find a way to extend it without ruining the nice cutoff point.
That aside, I hope that everyone enjoyed this latest edition! What's going on with the dhampires and how they feel about Scarlet?
How does everyone feel about this differing of perspective? A bit much, or maybe finally? （´-`）
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