Chapter 1. Big News.
Silas poured the pancake batter into the skillet and hummed as it sizzled, his spatial awareness giving him an eerie 360° view of the kitchen. The knifes in the drawer, the creak in the third-floor step, the precise moment when his wife would round the corner—it all flowed through his mind like a stream.
“Honey!” Elizabeth’s sing-song voice announced her entrance. She hugged him. She always hugged him, a warm, full-bodied affection that made his world spin slower.
“Liz,” he replied, taking a deep whiff of the vanilla shampoo she loved. He dropped a kiss onto her temple as she sighed contentedly against his chest.
“I have big news today.” Elizabeth gushed, bouncing on her black heels.
Raising his eyebrow, he placed the skillet on the stove and pulled her close to grab a handful of her soft curves. He loved the way his hand melted into them like warm butter. “News? The girls are turning 18. We are officially the parents of two fully-fledged adults. What more could there be?”
He chuckled. Elizabeth was the type to make a grand reveal out of him forgetting to buy milk, but he indulged her, as always.
“Girls! Come downstairs. Breakfast is ready.” Elizabeth clapped her hands. Then she spun around, her eyes dancing as she watched Silas flip the pancakes in mid-air, never once using a spatula. “And... tell your father the good news yourself!”
After he finished setting up the table, the fork floated over to a chair by itself, and the plates moved to their positions. He was just showing off for his wife. But there was another, deeper reason for it—he was going to ask his wife if he could return to his S-Rank hunter position. He had already called his old friend, the Hunter Association President, to talk about the possibilities of his return.
“Do you think they take long to put on makeup?” Elizabeth whispered, already nibbling at a slice of bacon. She leaned on Silas’s arm, her emerald eyes sparkling.
Unlike other dad’s, he didn’t have to think too hard about the question. After all, his Spatial Magic allowed him to look directly into Victoria’s room and Katherine’s without even blinking. But now that they awakened to magic, they could sense his presence. And he wanted to respect their presence. Yes. Not that he was ever caught peeping on them a few days ago.
“As long as the make up is for beauty and not some boy. I am fine with it.” His voice lowered on the last word.
He still hadn’t forgotten when a boy knocked on his door two weeks ago, wanting to see Katherine.
“Oh yeah...” Elizabeth put a hand to her chin, “What happened to that boy who came to see Kathy again? He seemed like such a nice boy. I haven’t seen him around lately.”
“Really?” Silas tilted his head. “Hmm, maybe he went away to study abroad, somewhere far away, like another planet.”
The door upstairs creaked, and the girls’ footsteps echoed down the hallway. Katherine arrived first. She stormed down the stairs and grabbed the pancake stack from the center of the table, dropping two onto her plate with a loud clatter. She looked exactly like him, violet eyes and all, but with twice the defiance and none of his so called self-restraint.
“Princess is in a bad mood today, I see.” Silas raised his coffee mug and gave his daughter a smirk. “Morning, Katherine. Nice to see you up before noon.”
Katherine glared daggers at him. Then at her pancakes. Then, apparently deciding the pancakes were also his fault, she stabbed them.
“Good morning, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?” Elizabeth asked gently.
“Yes.”
Her reply was short and clipped, which was how she normally treated everyone, but Elizabeth didn’t seem fazed. She just smiled and brushed a stray hair out of Katherine’s eye.
“Mom...stop it. I can fix my hair on my own.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Elizabeth giggled and kissed the top of Katherine’s head before turning to the stairs.
Victoria appeared at the bottom of the staircase, dressed in a modest but elegant blue blouse. Her long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and she held herself with the kind of serene grace that would have made anyone think she was an angel. Silas knew better.
“Good morning, Papa.” Victoria glided over and kissed his cheek, then took her place beside him at the table.
Her fingers brushed his hand in a way that seemed innocent, yet Silas could tell where her gaze lingered. Her violet eyes glinted. He had a feeling that she would grow up to be exactly like him. But they were going to become doctors. Not hunters. That had been settled when the girls were still toddlers.
“So what’s the big news?” he asked as he placed a plate of pancakes in front of Victoria.
The three women looked at each other, exchanging knowing glances. Katherine scowled, Victoria smiled sweetly, and Elizabeth looked like she was about to burst from excitement.
A tingle of unease run up his spine.
“We’ve decided to enroll at Aethelgard Academy as hunters,” Victoria said calmly.
Silas spat his coffee back into his cup. Not his babies. They couldn’t be hunters.
Katherine snorted and crossed her arms. “We’re old enough to make our own decisions now dad.”
“Of course you are, sweetheart.” Silas set his mug down. The table shifted slightly, and the knives hovered half an inch above the surface, defying the logic of physics. “But we agreed that you two would become doctors, right? Not hunters. It’s way too dangerous. You don’t want a nasty scar like this.”
He pointed to small, barely visible vertical scar on his chin. A goblin did that to him.
“Papa, that scar is very distinguished,” Victoria said in her soft voice. She licked her lips. “Besides, the world has changed. It’s not as dangerous as it used to be, and we want to help protect people like you did.”
Protect people? Yeah that was definitely his top priority—not the fact that he wanted to be the strongest.
Elizabeth nodded enthusiastically. “I think it’s wonderful. And I’ll be right there, too, helping out at the Academy. They’ve even offered me a counselor position.”
His vision blurred. His wife and little girls had betrayed him; ambushed him right over breakfast. He felt like his whole world was falling apart, and his girls were taking the first steps away from him—into a world of dungeons, mana beasts, and danger.
Standing up, he stretched out his arms. The air in the kitchen grew heavy, his mana leaking out, pressing down like gravity, and the table groaned under its weight.
“Excuse me for a moment,” he muttered.
Before anyone could reply, he disappeared in a ripple of space. He found himself at Mars. A vast, red landscape spread before him as he kicked the dust off his shoe and walked up a small hill to sit on a rock. The silence was absolute—just what he needed to process what his daughters had said. He should have seen it coming, really.
“Who am I kidding? I should have just locked them in the house and called it a day,” he mumbled, staring at Earth, which looked like a tiny blue marble in the distance. His head hung low as he rubbed his temples.
He pulled out his phone, dialing a familiar number, and pressed the phone to his ear. After a few rings, an old voice answered. “Silas?”
“Old man, I need a favor.”
“Another one? You’re bleeding me dry, you ungrateful brat.”
Ignoring the jab, Silas pressed on. “I need a job at Aethelgard.” He glanced back toward Earth. “Teaching position, Something close to the new students if possible.”
“You’re not coming back as a hunter, are you?” There was a hint of surprise in the old man’s voice. “You kept pestering me about coming back to the Hunter Association, and now you want to teach? What gives?”
Silas sighed.
“Parenthood happened, old man. Parenthood.”
There was silence on the line for a moment before the man on the other end let out a loud, booming laugh. The old man agreed and the call ended.
Putting the phone in his pocket, he merged with space and folded the distance between Mars and his home in an instant.
The table was the same. Katherine still glowered over her pancakes. Victoria was already munching on bacon, and Elizabeth was watching him with those big, bright eyes that could melt stone.
“Alright,” Silas said as he sat back down, the heavy atmosphere vanishing. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table, a smirk on his lips. “You girls win. You’re turning into adults and are free to make your own decisions even if they are wrong.”
Katherine raised an eyebrow, “Seriously? That was... surprisingly easy.”
Victoria had wide eyes as she watched her father closely. "Why is an alien pretending to be our dad?"
Silas just smiled and poured himself another cup of coffee. “I’ll even give you a ride to the Academy on your first day.”
The twins looked at each other with mouth agape, and then at their mother, who was already humming happily as she poured syrup on her pancakes and ate.
“Mom, did you... threaten dad? He always folds like a cheap blanket when you use your charm on him.”
Elizabeth batted her lashes. “Oh, no, honey. Your father is just the sweetest, most understanding man. He knows that his little girls need to follow their own path.”
His wife gave him a quick glance, daring him to try anything. The last time he did though... He had to return to an ex for pleasure: his right hand.
“Right,” she paused, “Darling?”
He nodded eagerly.
“Great, I guess. We can do this on our own then. Thanks, dad for not freaking out... I guess,” Katherine muttered, looking like she was about to be sick from the amount of gratitude she had just shown.