episode_0038

When I bought this house, having made up my mind as a new mother, I brought out fabric, cotton, and sewing tools that I had found at a nearby market, sat down across from me, and started making something. Hannah saw that and came forward.

“Um… Paula? What are you doing now? If you need a doll… you don’t have to make it yourself, just say a word to me and I can make it using magic…”

Hannah’s point is correct. What I am currently making is nothing else but a rabbit doll with long ears, and it is a labor that is unnecessary when you have an all-powerful maid who can do many things with magic.

If you’re just playing with Bryn, it would be enough to ask Hanna to make you a toy, and that’s what she’s done so far. But for today, I decided to give Bryn a doll I made with my own hands, not a magic product or factory-made toy, so I started sewing.

Why did you think like this? The reason is simple. Even if Hannah takes care of Bryn during the day while I am at school, there are clear limits to that.

This is a question that can be answered just by looking at the fact that Bryn, who, unlike her friends of the same age, is smart enough to communicate her thoughts to others in clear language, was not satisfied with Hannah’s care and came to me and asked me to be her mother.

It would be difficult for anyone with a human heart, not even me, to come to the conclusion, ‘If I give a doll that touches the mother’s warmth to a child who likes her mother so much, wouldn’t it be a great help in overcoming the absence of the mother that occurs during the day?’ I should be able to pay less… Hannah is hitting the candle. Even if it has a human appearance, isn’t it inevitable that it has limitations due to being born as a hummingbird? I need to keep it quiet.

“Shh. Try not to talk to me. This is the first gift I’m giving Bryn, but it’s difficult if she keeps distracting me.”

“…Okay.”

When Hannah closed her mouth, silence fell again in the living room where everyone was sitting, and I concentrated on sewing again, feeling the ruby eyes of Bryn, who was sitting across from me, shining brightly with anticipation.

To be honest, cutting fabric with scissors, sewing it with a needle, then stuffing it with cotton and tying a knot to prevent the stitches from bursting or falling apart even when a child plays with it a little too vigorously is not my specialty, but in the real world, handguns are made as home-made crafts. I was the one who made rifles, machine guns, and even tinkered with TNT and anti-tank rockets.

Unless the dexterity gained from handling various firearms goes nowhere, creating a cute white rabbit doll the size of a 1-year-old baby is not an easy task!

“Wow! It’s the first time mom gives it to Bryn!!!”

When I placed the finished rabbit doll in Bryn’s arms, as expected, Bryn was very happy and ran around. If I had known you would like me this much, I would have given you something as a gift a long time ago.

I can’t help it. The person who left the newborn Bryn in an orphanage and often visited and played with him was not the present me, but the past ‘me’ before possession. In fact, if I had possessed this body in the past and had the opportunity to meet Bryn, who is still a mite, when she was younger, I did not think of the idea of giving a gift because I thought that the child would not properly understand the concept of a ‘gift’. I guess.

I looked away from Bryn for a moment and asked Hannah, who had said something to me earlier.

“So… Hanna, do you still think that my labor was a meaningless waste of time for the convenient means of magic?”

Hannah, who received my question, looked embarrassed as if she had been hit by a dodgeball, but answered steadily.

“Well, I never said that much, but… it wouldn’t be right to lower the value of labor even after seeing that the young lady likes it. I’ll admit it. The fact that labor is sometimes better than magic.”

A statement to the effect that instead of blaming one’s own mistakes, one acknowledges that one’s opinion is ‘sometimes’ right. There was something I wasn’t satisfied with, but it wasn’t right to fight over whether I was right or you were wrong with the child in front of me, so I took a step back.

“Well… you didn’t do anything major wrong, so I’ll just look at it this way this time.”

The conversation with Hanna ends at this point, and I turn my attention to Bryn again. Bryn, who had been running so fast that the floor shook (it was on the first floor, so there was no chance of anyone coming up from downstairs), had just sat down and was laughing heartily, rubbing her cheeks against the soft cloth used to cover the outside of the rabbit doll.

“Ear…cute…”

A word that flowed out of my mouth unconsciously. At that very moment, a self-luminous heart that I didn’t even know was in the house appeared from somewhere and flew quickly towards the rabbit doll, and was absorbed into the doll.

The doll that absorbed the heart, presumed to be some kind of magic, glowed brightly with its own color and then spewed out smoke, transforming into a baby with a similar appearance to Bryn, and the baby that had been held in Bryn’s arms since it was a doll is still Bryn. While being held in his arms, he showed his curiosity about things around him by pricking his rabbit ears above his hair.

I was just trying to give him a doll to play with when I was gone, but it ended up being like giving him a living, breathing little brother.

Elysia, who had been watching my actions with a bored expression until now, muttered with a blank expression.

“Huh? A rabbit doll transforms…? A hummingbird became a person, and now a doll that is not an organism at all has become a person?”

That’s what I thought after listening to Elysia. What would be more difficult: giving animals and plants, which are not intelligent life forms but capable of independent life activities even in their original state, the ability to transform into humans, or breathing a human soul into a completely inorganic substance? No matter how great a wizard he is, wouldn’t the latter be something he takes lightly?

While I was thinking this, the new baby, who had hair that was unusually thick for a newborn, a body a little smaller than Bryn’s, and chubby cheeks, was greeting me warmly with Bryn in her ruby-colored eyes.

“Wow?”

The first greeting of my new baby, whom I met in an unexpected place. Bryn, who was greeted, shouted at me with an expression as if she didn’t know how to react to the sudden situation.

“Uh, uh, mommy! This doll turns into a baby!”

Then the new baby’s gaze also turned towards the direction where I was sitting.

“Mom…Mom…?”

The baby, seeing me for the first time since birth, tilted her head, but then, as if she was convinced, she stretched out her small arms and smiled brightly.

“Mom!”

For some reason, I felt like I had to hug him, so I handed over the new baby from Bryn, but I was equally confused by the situation. All I could think was that when Gyeoreum came out in ten months, she would be able to play happily with Bryn, the eldest daughter of our family. I never even imagined that I would have a second child in this way.

But it’s not my fault that I couldn’t predict this situation. Unless you have a very strong imagination, you probably wouldn’t be able to come up with a situation where ‘human-like doll’ would be a fact rather than a figurative expression.

“This warmth… this breath… this is a real human baby. I’m sure I’m not dreaming…”

Whether you believe it or not, it is clear that the new baby in my arms is nothing more than an inorganic object. In that case, it would be reasonable to give it a proper name, not something like ‘Rabbit Doll’ or ‘Kjangchongi’.

Now that I think about it, isn’t Bryn’s real name, Brünnhild, taken from the Valkyrie in Norse mythology? Then it would be a good idea to get a name for your new baby from Valkyrie.

Freya. Her real name is FreyjaHausser, and her nickname ‘Free’ would be appropriate.

“Hello, baby? I’m my cutie’s mom… I can’t keep calling you cutie, so I’ll give you a name. From now on your name is Freya Hausser. What do you think? Do you like it?”

When I said this, to my surprise, Free copied exactly what I said, even if his pronunciation was bound to be inaccurate since none of his baby teeth had grown.

“Mmm…eh…ah…?”

“Yes, that’s our cutie’s name.”

After receiving confirmation of the facts once again, Free responded with a wide smile. Rather than properly understanding the meaning of what I said and smiling, it seemed closer to reading my emotions and returning the smile because I spoke with a smiling face.

Anyway, our family grew to a total of five people, including two adults, two babies, and a maid who was born as a hummingbird. If Winter comes out into the world, the family will become a family of six, and if Elysia can’t control her sexual desires, the number will increase again.

This and this… I’m already worried whether 4 rooms will be enough. However, it would be better for the house I just purchased to be filled with the warmth of cute babies than to be cold and empty, so I decided to think as positively as possible.