episode_0457

As I searched high and low for the twins playing hide-and-seek, I couldn’t find them anywhere. I wondered why, only to discover that they were hiding in the shadows.

Establishing a rule that hiding in the shadows was cheating allowed for a more normal game of hide-and-seek.

Of course, even after that, they used all sorts of tricks, like using shadow animals to see the seeker coming and running away in advance, making it quite a challenge.

I felt a bit concerned that the kids weren’t able to enjoy the game purely, but since they were having fun, I decided to let it go.

It was a tough job to scold the girls who had developed a habit of using any means necessary for survival.

“Thanks to them, I’ve become the designated playmate.”

It was impossible for the inexperienced Nekisi to compete with the twins playing with shadows.

Of course, there was no need to exert effort to win when playing with the kids.

But is there a difference between pretending to let them win and actually not being able to win?

So, in the end, I became their playmate by default.

“It’s not playtime, why are you here?”

“There was a suspicious intruder!”

“So, a stranger suddenly appeared and out of curiosity, hid in my shadow to eavesdrop secretly?”

“I’m guarding the house.”

I should be grateful that the kids quickly accepted this place as their refuge.

“It’s impolite to eavesdrop by hiding in the shadows when a guest arrives.”

“Was it something I shouldn’t have heard?”

I nodded at Danya’s innocent expression.

“Yeah. It was an important guest. Not a suspicious intruder, but an invited guest.”

“Got it! I’ll do better next time!”

There was no need to do better, but…

Anyway, I didn’t know the kids were guarding the house.

There was no need to guard it, but I didn’t want to unnecessarily make them worry.

The kids should just play and eat without any worries.

“Have you always been used to guarding the house by taking turns?”

“Yeah. Danya and I take turns guarding.”

“You don’t need to do that here. Danya and Ruya don’t need to guard.”

“But what if someone breaks in and steals something?”

“That won’t happen. Because the uncle is guarding.”

“The eccentric uncle?”

“Yeah. Daemon always guards the house. So, you don’t need to work hard to guard the house.”

“Still, wouldn’t it be better if more people were guarding the house?”

“Your job is to eat, play, and study. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“…”

Danya seemed confused.

It seemed strange to the girls who had to solve everything on their own to receive someone’s protection.

“Thanks for today. You wanted to protect me from the suspicious person, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Thank you for protecting me. Now you can go back to playing.”

“Yeah!”

As I told Danya she could go, she left as if she had been waiting.

It seemed that she had hidden in my shadow because a stranger had appeared, not with any other intention.

It seemed like it would take some more time to understand that this place was a safe haven and what it meant to be protected by me.

But compared to when I first came here, things had improved a lot.

“If it weren’t for Nekisi, what would have happened.”

Living together with kids of that age was not an easy task.

While I never felt uncomfortable when spending time with Fran, taking care of a child who needed a lot of attention was challenging.

I realized that taking full responsibility for and caring for children was not something to be taken lightly.

I had been saying that I was raising SSR characters, but it was truly an unreasonable expression.

I shouldn’t have said that I was raising them to that extent.

Nevertheless, there was a sense of fulfillment.

“I thought I had fully adapted, but some old habits lingered.”

As the time spent worrying about the children increased, smiles began to bloom on their faces.

Moreover, the addition of a child to the household brought about more changes to daily life than expected.

“There are more days filled with laughter now.”

In particular, Negi enjoyed living with the twins.

Rather than counting how many times a day he laughed, it was faster to count the moments when he didn’t.

The addition of Ruya and Danya was providing a new stimulus to my life.

※ ※ ※

“Where have you been?”

“I was hiding in the shadow of the old man.”

Ruya, who had her hair braided beautifully, asked where she had been.

So, I honestly said I was hiding in the shadow of the old man.

“Why?”

“There was a suspicious intruder.”

In the end, the suspicious intruder turned out to be a guest of the eccentric old man, but I wanted to boast to my sister that I had protected the house.

“So?!”

Ruya was surprised.

“Of course, I handled everything. The house is safe.”

“Was he a bad person?”

“Well… no? But he thanked me for protecting the house.”

“Good job.”

Living with the eccentric old man made me realize that expensive things are good things.

I couldn’t understand who would buy and use such expensive things.

If it were me, I would have done other things with that price.

But now I understand.

Expensive things are good because they perform well for the high price paid.

“But from now on, we’re not supposed to guard the house. The eccentric old man will protect us.”

“He said not to guard the house? Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Eat, have fun, study.”

“Again with that?”

“Yeah. That’s all we have to do. How about it, sister? We don’t have much to do while living here.”

“True…”

It’s not familiar to have nothing to do.

After playing around for a while, I suddenly come to my senses.

Oh? Can we have this much fun? It’s like that kind of thought.

“I thought parents raised children to give them difficult tasks…”

“Nobles don’t do that.”

“Right, now that we have a status, we’re nobles.”

“Yeah yeah.”

We, who used to wander the back alleys, have now become nobles.

All thanks to meeting the eccentric old man.

Meeting him changed our lives completely.

“If we don’t guard the house, we really have nothing to do. This is quite serious.”

“We need to find something to do.”

“Yeah. We can’t just do nothing.”

“Should we help out at the store?”

“That’s your sister’s territory. She wouldn’t like it if we invaded her territory.”

Invading someone’s territory is a very disrespectful act.

If you invade someone’s territory on the street, you could end up dead.

“What if we create our own territory here?”

“Territory?”

Ruya’s words were quite intriguing.

The problem was that even if we wanted to create our own territory, we couldn’t see a suitable place to do so.

“We’ll have to look for it ourselves.”

From then on, my sister and I wandered around looking for a place to create our own territory.

Near Nega’s territory, I didn’t even dare to look.

“We really suit the streets. It’s the most comfortable, right?”

“Yeah! I like it. From now on, this will be our territory.”

After much deliberation, we finally found the perfect place.

The place chosen by Ruya and me.

It was the street around the eccentric old man’s building.

“I thought this street was always clean, but I heard it wasn’t like that before…”

It was after hearing from Nega that the streets around had been cleaned recently.

I thought this street must have belonged to someone, but if what Nega said was true, there couldn’t have been an owner.

In the end, we decided to claim the streets around our shop as our own.

“From now on, you have to patrol this area regularly. Got it?”

The shadow knight in human form nodded.

Although small in stature, he was a reliable figure as a ‘knight.’

“When I become stronger, I’ll create companions for you.”

Unfortunately, the knight had to follow orders alone.

Perhaps due to our weak power as owners, it was a bit embarrassing.

I expressed my apologies, but the knight sent back a nonchalant expression of reassurance.

“You’re a great guy!”

“I made you. Remember that.”

“Yeah!”

From now on, we will protect the streets around us!

※ ※ ※

“What are the kids doing?”

“They’re playing pretend over there.”

“They’re cute. But they’re making dolls out of shadows to play with. Should I buy them some dolls?”

Because they were 13 years old, I didn’t think they would still enjoy dolls, but seeing them play with shadow dolls for pretend play made me feel sorry for them.

“They love it. They might like animal dolls too, or even knight dolls like the one they have now.”

“Got it. I’ll go out for a moment.”

“Okay~”

Leaving the general store in Nega’s care, I went outside, and the twins who were playing pretend with the knight shadow approached me.

“Where are you going?”

“Where?”

“Oh, just stepping out. I’ll be back soon.”

I was about to leave because I had something to attend to.

Since it wasn’t far, I planned to quickly take care of it and return.

“We’ll see you off! The knight will protect you.”

“Oh… really? Thank you. Then, please escort me to the end of the alley.”

“Okay!”

I couldn’t help but look at the shadow knight that reached up to my knees with a strange expression, but I couldn’t resist the children’s bright eyes and had to play along.