11-2 To The Sacred Mountain Again

“Hey there, old man.”

I greeted Baldos, whom I had only just met the other day, like an old acquaintance from way back.

“Oh, is that not Al. What brings you here today?”

He was still in human form.

Or rather, he was still playing with his grandchild.

You doting old dragon.

“I want you to take a look at this.”

I pointed at the little one sitting on top of my head.

Since she was a girl, I decided on a fitting name and settled on Fal-chan.

The boys had been pushing for the cool-sounding Rei.

Well, that would not have been bad either.

If her family name were Ayanami, even a girl named Rei would not feel that strange.

Unfortunately, the principal was not a ○○○ otaku.

If anything, for my generation I would be more of a ○ fan.

And so, the ruling tilted toward Fal.

“Oh?”

The old man’s eyes widened.

What, what?

The knowledgeable old man was surprised.

“So cuteee~. I wanna hold herrr—”

Jenny-chan begged me, so I crouched down and let her hold her.

Fal had calmed down quite a bit too, so I had already lifted the no-holding rule at the Beast-Ear Garden.

This child seemed to have an affectionate personality, and was doting on the little ones with all her might too.

Jenny-chan was a girl with short blonde hair and pale blue eyes.

Her mother’s eyes were a deeper blue, and her father’s were green.

This girl would surely look good even with green eyes.

Quite naturally, I found myself wondering what clothes would suit her and unconsciously searching through patterns, which made me smile wryly.

It seemed I had really settled quite fully into my work as principal of a kindergarten-cum-orphanage.

This was quite a rare embrace shot between unusual species.

Camera One did excellent work, as expected.

“By the way, do you know what this child is?”

“It is something I heard from my granddad…”

“Wait! When was that?”

“It was when I was a newborn dragon hatchling, so about five thousand years ago, perhaps? I do not remember very well.”

It had been a mistake to ask an Ancient Dragon about time.

Or rather, their very concept—or sense—of time was completely different from ours humans.

“So then, what kind of story was it?”

According to the old man’s story, the details about Rainbow Fals—or rather, Fals—were unknown.

Even to his grandfather, they were apparently a rare kind seldom seen.

However, since raising them required an enormous amount of magical power, there were apparently parents who found it too hard and abandoned raising them.

The old dragon who told him that story was also gone now.

Even dragons were not immortal.

That grandfather had also passed away of old age.

Hmm, so it was a case of “Please take care of this child,” was it.

Well, that was common enough with churches and orphanages.

But that place was not a church; it was, officially, a kindergarten.

At least leave a note behind.

Fals.

Looking it up online, it meant “something swollen,” did it.

When described with the word rainbow, I had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It could also mean that male thing, but she looked like a girl.

Apparently in embryology it could also mean the female counterpart to the male thing.

To me it was a shock—or did Fals perhaps also carry the meaning of comic shock.

Or maybe stuffed food.

All of those were meanings of fals.

Could it be that this was the larval stage of something, and it would transform a second time?

If the details were unknown, there was nothing to be done.

In the first place, even if it was the same word, it might mean something different here than it did on Earth.

Neither our thousand-year living encyclopedia, nor the wise dragon who had lived five times that long, knew about it.

In any case, it was like yet another child had joined the garden.

Well, for the time being, it seemed enough just to feed it my magical power.

“Got it, thanks. I will come again if anything happens.”

When I returned to the Beast-Ear Garden, Fal was recharging with magical power on top of my head.

And once her belly was full, she slept in her bed.

When she woke up, she romped around with the children.

And when she got hungry… well, you get the idea.

At first I thought this thing might be closer to a chick or some sort of bird, but it was starting to seem rather scaly too.

There were those discussions about the relation between birds and dinosaurs, and the changing theories regarding the appearance of Tyrannosaurus too.

Hmm, it had a very hard-to-pin-down feel.

Its front and rear legs were very dexterous and could grasp things skillfully.

And it had adorable round little eyes.

For now, since it did not eat anything except magical power, I could not really tell, but it did not look like a carnivore.

It might be a kind of spirit race.

At first glance, it just looked like an affectionate little animal.

And yet I, despite being called the Spirit Demon King, was also just an old man wearing a samue, nibbling rice crackers and sipping tea on the veranda while dealing with the children at the garden.

Still, this child had wings, small though they were.

They were clearly of a different texture from the wings of birds or dragons

If I had to say, perhaps they were fairy-like.

No, in this world, perhaps I should call them spirit-like.

It would probably fly through the sky eventually.

It usually seemed to keep them tucked away, but every so often it would literally stretch its wings.

When it did that, at a glance it looked somewhat reptilian, but its charming, round little eyes denied that impression.

It gave off such a cute impression that it made me want to hand it an acorn or something.

By now, it was everyone’s little idol among the children.

All right, new little one.

You are one of the Beast-Ear Garden children too now!

After that, with Fal always perched on top of my head, I had been throwing myself into preparations for the big Autumn Sports Day.

I did need to go take a look at the Empire once in a while too.

The Emperor might already be dead, and for some reason the Crown Prince had not been killed back then either, so he was probably still alive too.

I had not heard any particular talk that the Crown Prince had died since then.

Looking now, the marker still showed that the Imperial Crown Prince was alive.

The Emperor too appeared to be barely hanging on.

Rumors had originally circulated that the Crown Prince had been assassinated, but that must have been spread by that Flash-God.

I wondered if he still had some use.

Or perhaps this time, from the coup faction’s point of view, he was being treated as a spare?

That sounded entirely plausible.

That second prince looked unreliable no matter how you sliced it.

Even while saying that, I was throwing myself into checking the list of invited guests for the sports festival on my laptop.

The rest I was leaving to Mari and Aoi-chan.

As for the bazaar food and such, I had tossed that entirely onto Eri and Logos.

If necessary, I intended to request manpower support from the Adventurers’ Guild.

Around that time, joyous news arrived from the Orston House.

At a time like this!

This was the kind of thing we used to casually call an event occurring at work.

When trouble happened, everyone gathered around, made a fuss together, and somehow dealt with it.

That was one of the real pleasures of company life.

Feeling a little nostalgic, I pulled out the half-finished baby gifts I had been making.

By now the children had all gathered around in a great crowd.

Even Fal on top of my head was making a fuss.

Hey, wait, you there.

Hey now, uncle’s working here, so could you get down off my head?

You had been sucking up magical power the whole time, had you not.

Your appetite had really been incredible lately.

The thing I was making now was that thing.

The thing that spun round and round above a baby.

Since I was an old man who never married, I did not really know what that thing was called.

I was pretty sure it was called some kind of merry, was it not?

It was very glittery and fancy in all sorts of ways, so it was drawing tremendous attention from the children.

Little cat Remi-tan had naturally locked onto it too.

Ahh, this was one of those things you had already graduated from, you know.

I handed Fal over to Remi and got to work.

The basic operating section was already done.

I had outsourced that part to Aoi-chan, the Motor Girl.

I put a little finishing work into it, but the test unit had come out quite well.

The improvements and mass production were my job.

I could even try selling these.

All that remained now was the decorative work on the finer details.

I worked on it carefully, very carefully.

As I did, I observed the children out of the corner of my eye.

I particularly checked the ones who were listening and watching with that highly alert ears-up look.

I recorded those scenes from above with the camera footage from the recording housing.

I thought I might use things like that as materials for future career counseling.

After putting various finishing touches on it at the end, it was finally complete.

When I hung it up from above and started it, it spun round and round together with a melody.

No, it had come out rather nicely.

For some reason, the little children were already totally absorbed in it.

Come to think of it, these kids had never had the experience of being loved by a parent who decorated things like this for them.

They were truly pitiful children.

And then Fal too was staring at it intently, completely absorbed.

Hmm, well, I guess that was fine.

Without thinking, I rubbed Fal’s head around roughly.

Then I made a rattle too.

I took my time and made that into something good as well.

Since it was something that made noise, everyone locked onto that too with their ears perked up.

It could not be helped, so I copied some for them, and they made a huge commotion waving them in both hands like maracas.

Well, it could not be helped.

No one had ever given these kids baby toys.

Even now, that was fine, so enjoy them to your heart’s content.

After saying I was off, I teleported to the tailor.

I picked up the baby undershirts made from the materials I had provided and asked them to make, then thanked them thoroughly and gave them a celebratory gratuity too.

After that, next I headed to the Commercial Guild.

I was there to receive celebratory dragon ham, char siu, roast dragon, dragon wieners, and the like.

The rare citrus fruits that I had firmly reserved for the wife, which hardly ever came into stock, had also arrived safely.

Then, carrying all of that, I jumped to Orston territory.

Ah, though I had at least called ahead first.

The idea of sending a formal advance notice ahead for nobles had not crossed my mind in the slightest.