Chapter 439: A New Home
The next day, very early in the morning, Qiong Xing noticed a small knock at the door.
He opened it and looked outside.
"Good morning. What brings you here so early?"
It was just after dawn.
Naturally, the other children were still asleep, so he tilted his head at the girl who should still have been exhausted from everything that had happened the previous day.
"G-good m-morning. I, I th-thought since it’s m-morning, I sh-should w-work..."
From her past experience, it was probably normal to start working early in the morning.
"Kira is a very diligent girl. Well, the other children are still asleep, so it is fine if Kira also rests..."
"B-but, I, I probably won’t be able to do things as well as my sister..."
Qiong Xing appreciated her eagerness to learn quickly, but he had no intention of demanding that she handle all the work immediately after arriving.
Given the time, he suggested she could still rest, but she showed no sign of backing down and full of motivation.
"Is Tasha awake?"
"E, um, a-about that, m-my sister is still..."
She had cried so much the day before that it would not be strange if she had fallen asleep from exhaustion.
However, when she panicked and tried to go wake her, Qiong Xing stopped her.
"If she is sleeping, that is fine. Please let her rest. Instead, Kira, let’s talk for a bit with me."
He moved to the next room while holding Hui and sat down beside Kira near the sleeping Tasha.
"Before we talk about work, there is something I want to explain first."
"Y-yes!"
Her voice grew loud from nervousness, so he gently patted her head to reassure her.
"First, the children living here are not related by blood. They are children with no parents and no one to take them in, so I gathered them here to live together."
Each of them had different circumstances, but all of them were children without families.
"They are not slaves. They had no home or place to stay, and were surviving alone day by day. Of course, Ars, who bought you two, is one of them as well."
"E? He’s not... your child?"
It seemed, as expected, she had misunderstood their earlier conversation.
"Unfortunately, no. But he is a very important child to me."
He was not his own child, but someone he sincerely wished happiness for.
"And this child is mine. Her name is Hui. Cute, isn’t she?"
"Eh!? H-Her... ears..."
When he removed the cloth wrapping Hui, Kira was surprised by the cute beast ears that peeked out, inherited from Leander.
Seeing her tilt her head in confusion, Qiong Xing explained without hiding anything.
"I am a human male, but I have become the partner of a beastman man. This child is someone I gave birth to myself."
"..."
Kira widened her eyes in shock.
Qiong Xing asked if she found it unpleasant, but she quietly shook her head.
"The person I love is a beastman. The child I gave birth to is also a beastman. And the children who grew up seeing me like this do not hate beastmen. You were wondering about that, weren’t you?"
While each of them introduced themselves one by one, Qiong Xing had already noticed that the two girls were confused by the unusually warm attitude of the children.
"The children here never say things like ’because you are beastmen.’ They even smiled and said her ears are cute."
"I, I, they, they said that at the bath yesterday too..."
Hearing that was genuinely reassuring.
"We bought you two as slaves, but we have no intention of working you to exhaustion or raising a hand against you because you cannot do something. We want you to live together with the other children, just like everyone else here."
"B-but... why... is that?"
Kira seemed to understand it in some way, but she could not accept why they would do such a thing.
"To me, Kira and all the children living here are the same. If you had done something like committing a crime such as killing someone, then it would be different, but that is not the case, right?"
"I, I would never do something like that!"
She desperately shook her head, insisting she would never do such a thing, so he gently stopped her.
"You have been working hard alongside your sister even while being called a beastman. Because of that, I think the hardships you’ve experienced living alone can help you understand the others here as well. And I believe you can all work together and support each other. What do you think?"
"...b-but, I... I wonder if I can really do it..."
"If you want to try your best, Kira."
No matter what Qiong Xing said, in the end it depended on her own effort.
There was no need for her to look down on herself just because she was a beastman or a slave.
"M-My sister won’t be beaten anymore because of me?"
"Yes."
"Y-you won’t get angry at my sister?"
"I won’t."
"E-even if I cry?"
"I won’t get angry. When you want to cry, then cry. Cry as much as you need, cry and cry and cry, and if that is still not enough, then cry even more. This is already your home. No one will kick you out or hit you just for crying."
Above all, who would ever get angry at a younger sister worrying about her older sister?
When he told her there was no need to worry, the tension finally broke, and she began to cry loudly, with a face very similar to the one Iris had shown the day before.
A cry right next to his ear made Tasha bolt upright.
"Kira!? W-what? What happened?"
"Uwaaah... s-sorry, sister..."
"What? What is it, Kira? Are you hurt? Did something happen? Are you injured?"
Still half asleep and trying desperately to get his thoughts together, Tasha immediately checked for injuries.
However, aside from th old scars, there was nothing that looked like a wound.