Simple man with his overpowered army

Chapter 81: A peaceful tour for the little ones

When Lud and Tifa were introducing Kaina and Mara to the rest of Elysium, Kaina was falling more and more to unease. But thanks to Kaina having Mara by her side, she managed to stay strong while meeting with strange adults. Perhaps it was her wavering pride as the older sister to Mara that she kept her cool when her younger sister was being seemingly unaffected.

There were few notable interactions.

When the kids met the big Xu, they were a little scared at first, but when Xu offered to carry them on his shoulders, the kids looked delighted and accepted the offer. While on Xu’s shoulders, they met with the fingers. While they didn’t meet all of the fingers, they met almost half of them that weren’t on duty at the time. Kaina was a little scared of the fact that they were machines, but Mara was so interested in them that she asked Tifa "Can I someday make something similar, grandma?"

Tifa responded with "If you really want to, then sure. I’m sure that dwarf would love to teach you a thing or two."

Since they hadn’t met Illi yet, their next stop was his workshop. Xu carried the kids on his shoulders to the door and let Lud and Tifa continue the tour from there.

When the two kids heard Illi yelling at one of the craftsmen, both got a little uneasy. Kaina more than Mara.

When Lud introduced the two kids to Illi, Illi glared at the two for a few seconds and then patted their heads for a brief moment. He said to the kids "If you ever come here, make sure you don’t get in anyone’s way."

Tifa mentioned what Mara said about Xu and his fingers to Illi, to which Illi said "I can teach you, but first you need to build a little muscle so you can carry a hammer or two."

Mara nodded after hearing this, which left Kaina a little left out, but the tour continued.

Their next spot was the magic tower that wasn’t too far, and there they introduced Elisia, together with Lych and Lili who were there to discuss something.

Elisia welcomed the two kids warmly and even commented "I certainly can see a little of our king and queen in you two, but more than that, I most certainly see the crown princess in you two."

This comment made the two kids smile a little, to which Lych said "Not to be racist or anything, but the skin tone is definitely more on whoever the fuck the father is."

Elisia stomped on Lych’s foot to silence him and said to the kids "Don’t worry about him. He can be a bit insensitive to some things. In fact, he is the second best runner out of the battalion leaders. Learn from his mistakes, okay?"

Kaina said "Okay" and Mara just nodded.

Lili said "If either of you want to learn how to dispel magic and the likes, then come to big sis Lili here. If you want to learn magic itself though, then big sis Elisia is your bet."

Mara said "I’ll keep that in mind" and Kaina said, as to follow Mara’s example "Me... Me too!"

Elisia then patted the two kids on their heads, but she noticed that they were a little dirty, so she asked "Your hair is a little dusty. Were you playing just now?"

Kaina said meekly "N-no..." and then with little more confidence "We did hop on uncle Xu’s shoulders for a bit and then stopped by to meet uncle Illi."

Mara then commented "He patted our heads also."

Elisia smiled warmly and said "Is that so?" Then when she stood up she had a little scary smile on her face when she said "I guess that shorty hasn’t learned not to touch young ladies with his work gloves on. I better go remind him about it later."

Lud says to Elisia "Be merciful. He meant well."

Elisia nods and says while smiling and keeping her eyes closed "I keep that in mind."

Then their next stop was the dragon grounds where Brutus and his crew were doing stuff like resting, fighting, eating and all other kinds of things to a proportion for dragons if need be.

When the group came to the grounds, Brutus was having a some sort of brawl with the other dragons. Not all the dragons were grouping up to fight Brutus, but most of them did.

Sarias saw Lud and the crew and came to greet them. "Hello, your majesty and the queen. And who might these two be?"

Lud explains the situation and Sarias says "Aah. That is why the crown princess has been absent as of late. So you wish to meet with Brutus, correct?"

Lud replies "Yes" and Sarias replies "One moment please." Then Sarias whistles quite loudly and the brawl stops.

Brutus asks "What’s up?" Until he sees the two kids besides Lud and Tifa.

He jokingly says "Don’t tell me boss and Mrs had more offspring. No wait, their colour doesn’t match, so step kids?"

Lud explains the situation and says "Ahh. So that is the jist." Then he lowers himself to the kid’s level and says "Hello little ones. I’m sure both of you will grow to be quite the beauties when you grow up if Mrs and young boss are anything to go by."

He finishes it by saying "So have confidence. Big bro here will make sure no baddies get to bully you two" with a dumb smirk on his face.

Lud comments "Are you sure you can say that behind Angie’s back?" To which Brutus says as he gets back up "No worries, she wouldn’t mind something minor like complimenting boss’ grandkids."

Lud says, while checking behind Brutus "You sure? I mean she doesn’t look so happy."

Brutus asks "What are you..." and behind Brutus, Angie grabs him by the ear.

Brutus makes a few pained sounds as he says "What did I do now?"

Angie says, with an irritated face "You say that while your own kids require attention. And here you are, having a brawl while they keep screaming at me in YOUR office."

Brutus says "Okay, okay, I get it. I was wrong so could you please let go of my ear?"

Angie says "Not before you promise to take better care of them in the future."

Brutus says while in pain "I promise in the name of our boss!"

Angie looks at Lud for a moment, to which Lud nods and Angie lets go of Brutus’ ear.

Brutus says while holding the ear that Angie pulled "Jeesh, you really go overboard sometimes. I mean, isn’t it part of the dragon culture that the mother is the main caregiver?"

Angie says "Where did you learn that from? Where I come from, both parents take care of the young."

Brutus then mutters to himself "Guess we had two different experiences."

Angie says in a stern voice "What was that?" To which Brutus says "Nothing. Nothing. I’ll go and... Do what with the kids?"

Angie answers "Go play with the kids. The two maids can barely deal with the four of them."

Brutus leaves while muttering to himself "And how am I supposed to deal with them then?"

Brutus continues to mutter as he is barely within earshot "I mean they aren’t even one year old. How can’t two maids deal with them? How the hell is me going there going to fix..."

Angie shakes her head and says "I apologize again for his behaviour. *sigh* At this rate, the kids are going to grow up being a bunch of mischievous people doing anything to garner my and my husband’s attention."

Lud says "It is fine. Brutus works his butt out to make sure the battalion stays sharp, so you can cut him off a little slack."

Angie is about to say something, but Tifa opens her mouth earlier by saying "But he still needs to be an attentive father figure. What I’ve gathered from Lutah’s dragon culture, the kids need much more attention than the human kids to keep them from doing erratic things."

Lud asks "Since when have you learned anything about kids?" To which Tifa explains "I had a lot of time to look for victi... I mean people to bu... I mean play around with, while waiting for that asshole to get you here."

Lud says "Right. Sorry for asking."

Tifa says "You are forgiven, though the fault lies mostly on that piece of shit."

Lud says "Thanks... but could you watch your language a bit? These two..."

Tifa scoffs and says "I don’t care."

Angie bends down for the kids and says "If that brute or any other dragons here do anything weird, you may come to me for help. On the other hand, rely on the adults that your grandparents introduce you to, okay?"

Kaina nods and Mara says "Okay."

Angie straightens up and says "Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have some paperwork to work with that my dear husband SHOULD HAVE done earlier."

Angie leaves and so continues the tour around Elysium for the little ones. Since Tear was on a mission elsewhere, they didn’t get to introduce her to the kids yet, so they went looking for Marchosias in the training grounds for the third battalion.

Once there, they saw Marco instructing her people on how to fix a few mistakes she noticed while watching them fight. Once she noticed Lud and the others, she said "Time to take a break." To which most of the soldiers sight in relief. Few of them even collapsed.

Marco saluted Lud and said "What brings you here today, my liege? I don’t recal any inspections being scheduled today."

Lud explains the situation and Marco replies "I see." Then she looks at the two kids and says to them "Your grandfather is a great man. Everyone in this city respects him in one form or another, so there is no need to be humble. Feel proud to carry the name Ilumnos."

This seemed to make Kaina a little happy as she smiled a little and said "Tha- Thank you, miss Marchosias."

Mara on the other hand stared at her for a moment and said "You had a crush on grandpa, didn’t you?"

Kaina puts her hands on Mara’s mouth and says "You can’t say that Mara! Mom said that it is rude to say stuff like that!"

Mara removes Kaina’s hands from her mouth and says "But I can see it. Look." She points at Marco’s tail that started wagging the moment she noticed Lud.

Lud explains "Look. Sometimes people with tails wag their tails for happiness. Sometimes for anger even. But still, you should..."

Tifa says "I mean she wasn’t wrong. I read her mind plenty of times and it was filled with the thoughts of my darling. Though these days..."

Marco says "Yeah. I kind of gave up the thought of partnering up with my liege. Recently I’ve come to realize that it might not have even been love in that kind of sense. I think... I simply wished for the approval of my master, and that is why I always had my heart pump faster when I was near him."

Mara asks "So you don’t have a crush on grandpa?"

Marco pats Mara’s head and says "I don’t think so anymore, but I’m always happy when I get to help your grandfather, and that also extends to helping you two and your mother."

Marco also pats Kaina’s hair and says "Take good care of your little sister. I feel like she might be a bit too open about her feelings like her grandmother, so she might get a few people riled up more often than not."

Kaina says "Okay, got it." And Tifa comments "That’s rude, you know. I simply hate hiding things from people nowadays."

Marco bows and says to Tifa "Understood. Now if you’ll excuse me." Then Marco leaves the group and says to her soldiers "The break is up. Find your sparring partner and get ready."

The group could hear groans coming from the tired soldiers, to which Kaina said "Poor soldiers. Aunt Marchosias should go a little easier on them, right grandpa?"

Lud pets Kaina’s head a bit and says "I’ll bring it up to her in the next meeting. Now let’s go meet a couple more people."

As they were walking towards the castle, Mara said to Tifa "So that explains why something irked my head. Can you stop reading my mind, grandma?"

Tifa says with a little surprise in her voice "You could feel that?" To which Mara nodded and said "It felt irritating."

Tifa then says "I’ll refrain from doing so then when it comes to you."

Mara says "Can you also not do it to Kaina? She might not feel it, but it irks me."

Tifa responds with "Sure, I’ll make an exception with you two, though I don’t promise to stop completely."

Mara says "Very well. Just not too often."

Lud then comments "If we are talking about the mind reading part, can you also stop from..."

Tifa replies sternly "Not happening. With you especially."

Lud laughs nervously for a moment and the rest of the way is a bit awkward.

After walking a while, the group finds Liz and Zenith drinking tea together. Lud called them earlier to find out where they were, and they told them that they were about to have some tea on a terrasse.

When Liz saw the two kids, she immediately grew wary. Zenith however, went to the two kids as she took one of the pastries from the table so that she could give it to them.

Zenith said to the kids "So you are the two new faces the master had told us about. Come, take some of these tasty pastries that I just made.

Kaina was a little wary over Zenith’s overly friendly attitude, but Mara said to Zenith "Mom told us to not take stuff from strangers. Are you a stranger?"

Zenith realized that she was a little too eager, so she placed the pastries back on the table and took a proper stand as Lud’s maid and bowed to the kids.

Then Zenith said to the kids "Greetings, young ladies of Ilumnos family. My name is Zenith and I am in charge of taking care of your grandfather’s daily needs."

Then Zenith rose up and extended her hand towards Liz "This lady here is Miss Lizbeth and she is in charge of the people who are protecting your grandfather. She has a knack for terrifying people, so even though you are of royal lineage, be sure to not anger her."

Kaina bowed profusely and Mara just said "But she already seems to dislike us."

Zenith looks at Liz and asks "What’s wrong Liz? Why do you have that look on your face?"

Liz stays silent for a moment, until Tifa says "It is fine little demoness. Your fears are not something I haven’t accounted for and acted upon already."

Liz takes a deep breath, smiles gently and pets Kaina and Mara on their heads. Then she says "Sorry. Ever since we came to this world, there have been plenty of people who have taken advantage of our King’s kindness, so I’ve gotten a little wary."

Then Liz stops petting the kids, puts her hand on her hip and says half jokingly "And as for Zenith here, she has a soft spot for children, so she might come across a little too eager sometimes. She is a maid that our King has most trust on."

Kaina looks at Lud for a second, then at Mara and then asks Zenith "Could... could I have some of those things you were about to give us, aunty? I’m sure Mara would like one as well, wouldn’t you Mara?"

Mara gave a thumbs up and Zenith proceeded to feed the two kids for a moment and Lud, Tifa and Liz talked with each other for a moment.

After some chatting and eating sweets and pastries, the group went on their way to find Li, who was already informed of the two new faces as well.

When Lud, Tifa, Kaina and Mara went to Lud’s office, Li was already sorting some papers on the guest bench. When the group entered the office, Li bowed down on his knees and welcomed the two young ladies by saying "Greetings. I am special officer Li Last and King’s, your grandfather’s, advisor. While he may be a little too trusting of people, King, your grandfather, is a reliable person through and through."

Then, as Li raised his head while still on his knees, he said with a kind smile "If you are in any trouble or in need of guidance, I’m at your beck and call."

Lud and Tifa were a bit taken aback, but Mara just patted Li’s head and said "Very well. Good boy."

This shocked all of the people in the room and Kaina, once realizing what Mara did, said to her younger sister "Don’t do that! That is very disrespectful!"

Kaina removed Mara’s hand from the top of Li’s head to her side, then bowed profusely and said "I-I’m very sorry! My little sister is a bit mischievous at times according to mom, but she means well! Ple-please don’t take that to heart."

Li was still kneeling for a moment, but then he rose up and said "You young ones don’t have to worry about such minor things. In fact, receiving something like that is an honour for people who serve our King, your grandfather."

Kaina says in awe "Is... Is that so."

Lud said to Li "Don’t teach them stuff like that. They are going to get over their head if they think petting people is okay."

Tifa said Lud in kind "I think it is quite fine. They are royalty, so yeah, while manner wise it might be a bit uncouth, I’m sure plenty of people who serve you would be happy to receive such praise."

Then Tifa patted Mara’s head and said "You did good kid. Keep that up and you might become a top bitch."

Lud shouted at Tifa "Tifa!" To which Tifa turned to Lud and patted his head as well. The room fell silent for a while after that, and thus ended the tour around Elysium.

When Li left the office, he went to find Toki, who was in the graveyard where Adam’s memorial was placed.

There, Li asked her sternly "I sense deep darkness within those two and I don’t think it is the abyss talking. Who is the father?"

Toki simply looked at the memorial in silence for a moment and then responded "I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to."

Li responded with "So not only are you not able to talk about it, but you are also unwilling. I see."

Then Li turned around and said to Toki while his back was facing her "I’ll find out soon enough once I cross examine a few people that came to mind."

Toki says, with minor sadness in her voice, "I wouldn’t recommend digging deeper."

Li asks, still his back facing Toki "Do you think I’ll regret it?" To which Toki says "The truth will lead you to only wanting to ask more questions. If he allows you to even reach that point, that is."

Li doesn’t speak for a moment as he realizes that there is a bigger picture at play here, but then he says as he leaves "I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Elysium. That I vow."