11-5 The Strange Visitor

When I suddenly woke up in the morning, I felt one child clinging to me.

Since it was a small child, it was probably Remi.

I often carried this child around, so sometimes she would slip into my bed.

Thinking it could not be helped, I patted her on the head, and to my surprise, there were no beast ears.

Thinking that could not be possible, I looked carefully in the morning sunlight and saw an unfamiliar child clinging to me.

Face down, so I could not see the face, but at a glance, it looked like a girl.

She was even smaller than Remi was now.

Remi had turned two last month, so this child was probably about one year old.

For some reason, she was not wearing any clothes either.

Just where had she slipped in from?

Had Mari picked up another one again?

Just as I was thinking that, there came a loud splashing sound.

I had been had!

She started wetting herself with a force that made me wonder where all that could even be coming from.

And on top of that, she did not even wake up in the warm rising steam and just kept sleeping like that.

Wow, this child was going to be a big one.

But if I got flustered over something like this, I could never serve as head of the garden.

Well, it was fortunate it was not the bigger kind.

Or so I thought, when with a pop, the child turned into the form of a Rainbow Fals.

What, it was you, Fal.

Why did you pee and then turn back!

Was it because your body became smaller!?

This was probably that.

Since she had grown, she wanted to take in even more magic power, so she had changed forms in search of a larger charging terminal.

Compared to the still-small Rainbow Fals form, the terminal area in humanoid form had to be about a hundred times greater, did it not?

Apparently she had slipped into my bedding wanting magic power in pursuit of even more growth.

Did returning to normal mean charging was complete?

Judging by the way she transformed, she was clearly different from a dragon.

Maybe she really was some kind of spirit-type existence.

Hmm, I really did not know.

For now, I cast purification magic on the bed and on Fal, changed my own clothes, then placed Fal in Rainbow Fals form on my head and left the room.

Because it was breakfast time.

From the morning on, the children were already running around.

The daily familiar spectacle unfolded, with the angry shouts of the caregivers resounding everywhere.

It looked like Mari had succeeded in capturing several of them.

“Such energy is very commendable.”

After finishing looking at the familiar sight I saw every morning, I took a broom and headed outside thinking I would clean in front of the gate, when I saw one child peeking inside from the gate.

A boy, huh.

No? This probably was not a child.

I knew it without logic.

Oh, this one was packed full of things to comment on too.

For now, should I capture him?

I used line-of-sight teleportation and instantly stood behind him, then tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

And facing the face of the one who turned around, I invited him with a bright smile.

“Hey. Spirit Forest priest, how about having tea with me?”

Fal, buried nose-first in cake on top of the table.

And the Great High Priest of the spirits, looking uncomfortable and fidgeting a little.

“You came because of this one, didn’t you? Were you the one who dumped this one’s egg at my place?”

“T-to say dumped it there makes it sound awful! I simply, simply…”

“Simply?”

I questioned him while glaring at him.

“I thought perhaps you might raise her for just a little while.”

“Oho, that is a remarkably convenient story for you. I cannot send her back to such irresponsible parents. In our country, Japan, we have rules about that.”

“T-that will not do.”

“Then take her back right now.”

“That would also be a problem~”

“No fair—you can’t take Fal-chan away, you bad guy—”

The children, who had been peeking and standing watch from behind a pillar, edged toward the Great High Priest, each carrying a broom, mop, or some other weapon in hand.

Since the other party looked like a small child, our kids were acting awfully bold.

“Wait! Please, just hear me out.”

“I will at least hear your excuses.”

That was what I said while lazily swinging an orichalcum sword infused with magic power, sharpened enough that it looked like it could even cut a spirit.

Then, breaking out in a cold sweat, Jolly began to speak.

“Then first, how much do you know about Rainbow Fals?”

“Not much. I heard it guzzles magic power like crazy to raise one, though. You set your sights on me during that last uproar, didn’t you? You were one of the ones who sent me protection. Thinking maybe you were, I checked just now, and your name is on the restaurant reservation list. Back then, you sure sucked and sucked and sucked without the slightest restraint. I do not recall asking any work from you in exchange for that magic power. You dine-and-dash bastard. Go home!”

“I-I… um… I am sorry~”

“This one is already our child now. I have no intention of handing her over to the likes of you.”

“Ehh, could you at least hear me out?”

“I will at least hear your plea for your life.”

And according to what he said, a Rainbow Fals was something like a guardian deity of the spirits.

“How should I put it, from the spirits’ point of view, they are an extremely sacred, or perhaps holy, existence.”

“Sacred, huh.”

The sacred land of the spirits, the Spirit Forest.

When a crisis came upon that forest, the power of a Fals would swell up, wrapping around the forest and protecting the woods inside as though it were stuffing.

Absorbing massive amounts of magical essence, the ‘Swelling One, Fals’ protected the Spirit Forest from every calamity.

Among them, one hatched with especially high-quality magic power was called a Rainbow Fals, and was said to conceal tremendous power.

Now that a Rainbow Fals, which had only ever been born once in the past, had been born again, the Great High Priest had been dispatched from the Spirit Forest.

That… had to be Takeshi’s doing.

When I glanced over, Mari was tilting her head.

Huh, was it not?

That old man Baldos.

If he was Takeshi’s sworn friend, he probably knew about Rainbow Fals too.

Had he been playing dumb so he could make me raise Fal?

Fal’s mother had exhausted her power in order to drive away a mighty calamity that had even reached the forest.

After that, she somehow managed to lay Fal’s egg, but she could neither raise it nor even hatch it.

And then, after seeing that broadcast uproar the other day, they brought it to me.

But the one that was born had once again been a Rainbow Fals.

It seemed the story was that they could no longer just leave things as they were.

He explained all that while cream covered the area around his mouth.

This might not matter, but the way he looked completely lacked persuasive power.

“There is one thing I want to ask—your kind can live on magic power alone, right? So why are you all so helpless when it comes to sweets?”

“Well, for some reason, I do not really understand it myself either, but when we manifest like this from spirits into human form and the like, we start wanting to consume sweet things like these to support our activity. Things like these are, after all, expensive, so we rarely get to eat them. To begin with, they are difficult to obtain from the Spirit Forest. And unlike humans, we do not do things like cooking. Well, it is rather embarrassing.”

Jolly said that while wiping around his mouth.

Fal, was this one the same too?

I tried asking about Fal turning into a human, and about how she had peed and returned to her original form, but he was only tilting his head too.

Well, she was a rare existence, after all.

So even a Great High Priest of the spirits did not really know.

It could also be a matter of individual disposition.

Fal was the sort who had the air of a natural heavyweight.

“So that is why, please allow me to stay here for a while as well.”

“That is fine, but not for free. You will work under me.”

And thus, yet another odd fellow became a resident of the Beast-Ear Garden.