Just as Lanae said, when the increasing population of liberated eves finally stagnated, Mason, Ivan, and Kierra immediately gathered their own squad of Fatalite members and set off, each traveling in large groups of caravans provided by the crown prince.
At the door, Lilian accompanied Ciel and Erin to send them off, one hand gripping the back of each boy's collar tightly.
Ciel watched the caravan groups disappear from his sight, before turning back to his eldest uncle.
"You know, you can let go now, I won't be able to catch up unless I ride Erin in his snake form."
Lilian still hadn't forgotten that Ciel had somehow smuggled himself overseas once, and his grip on Ciel's collar tightened.
"I'll let go when you don't have a way to catch up to them."
"No, is there really a need for this when I'm in a wheelchair?"
Ignoring him, Lilian slowly dragged him in. Even in a wheelchair, Ciel had managed to drag in dust with his dangling feet. In Lilian's other hand, Erin quietly followed where his tugged collar took him.
Watching the contrast, a line typical of a parent came out of Lilian's mouth.
"You should learn more from your brother. Look at how well behaved he is!"
Ciel laughed.
"Yeah yeah, my brother is perfect. He even follows me to the black market in case I get hurt."
"..."
The brown haired eve looked to his left.
Erin nodded in agreement, a hint of pride on his face.
Lilian gave up, dropping them in Jadiel's office, he waved goodbye.
"Brother in law, your kids, your problem. I'm going back to testing medicine. Enough of my research time has been taken up by you lot these days."
The door closed and Jadiel looked at his sons.
The two brothers stared back.
Jadiel scratched his head.
'How did Verdalite keep me occupied again?'
Hm. His days had always been occupied by traveling and seeing new things.
Jadiel looked around his office, devoid of furniture, the only new things being the piles of documents the crown prince had given him.
And, under the eyes of his disbelieving children, he picked up two thinner stacks of documents, two quills, and handed it to each boy.
"If you have nothing to do, come learn some new words."
Even Ciel was speechless.
What was there to learn when he had used this language his entire past life?
Erin took one look at the documents in front of him—politics, implementing new laws, gathering manpower to implement them…seeing these familiar things really made him want to hurl.
"..."
He put them back on his father's desk, deciding to take the advice Lilian had given during his last diagnosis.
"I'm going to train my body."
Patting Ciel's head one last time, he quickly slipped out.
Ciel looked at the closed door and turned around to face Jadiel.
"Then I'll also…"
"Lilian has banned you from training your body and your mana until you've recovered completely."
"I'll go find moth—"
"She's assisting her brother, do you really want to face Lilian?"
"I can hel—"
"The herbs they've been recently getting into are highly poisonous, if you go, they won't even let you in the clinic."
Being consecutively rebuffed, Ciel stared at Jadiel resentfully, a tone of complaint laced into his voice.
"...Dad."
"You're staying with me. I don't feel reassured about what you'll get up to when left to your own devices."
Damn, his true intentions finally came out.
But in fact, Ciel had really intended to sneak out. In the black market, a certain priest was still waiting for his ancient relic of a staff.
Ciel tried to fight again.
"What about my childhood innocence?"
"I thought you said it died a long time ago."
Jadiel smiled. The curtains in the room had been drawn to give the office a dim lighting, with Jadiel wearing a monocle and relying on a lamp for reading. He was clearly prepared for Ciel to stay long term in his office.
Ciel, noticing this, huffed and pulled his blindfold off, compared to his mana senses, his highly developed night vision allowed him to see the room with higher clarity. Taking off his blindfold in a suitable environment was almost the same as changing a video quality from a fuzzy black and white screen to a high resolution with colors.
Even the mottled spots in his dad's hair seemed brightly colored.
Ciel very reluctantly looked at the documents that caused his brother's escape.
Um, a total of 471 eves were rescued from the capital. 10 from the Feline tribe, 51 from the Leporae tribe, 24 from the Avian tribe, 32 from the Cervidae tribe, 21 from the Ursidae, 12 from the Proboscidea tribe, 1 from the Reptilian tribe, others are unaffiliated and will be dropped off at various villages in Sylvania plains…
He flipped to another page.
56 noble houses were demoted to commoners, 32 with their direct lines executed for corruption, 63 commoners were promoted to nobles based on past merits…blah blah…the Athne's direct line became the knight vassals of the royal family line, their side branches dispersing as commoners…blah…
Ciel's eyes moved faster as he flipped the papers.
Letters from both new and old nobles, charts organising the newly promoted nobles into suitable roles, reports about monitoring the former nobles, public propaganda tasks, resource reorganization reports…
Ciel closed the papers decisively.
"Isn't that crown prince dumping too much work on you?"
Jadiel laughed.
"This is only because the new nobles haven't adjusted to their new roles yet. After they adjust, our highness has told me to go establish our new territory and solidify Fatalite's trade business. And."
He gestured at the papers Ciel was holding.
"As you can see, I'm mostly done with them."
Ciel looked at the dense writing in blue ink.
Indeed. Something new he learned today was that his father, who had been a mercenary and knight captain, was surprisingly good at administrative work.
Seeing his suspicious eyes, Jadiel smiled and got up, picking up Ciel and placing the boy on his lap.
Since he was mostly done, there was no harm bonding with his stray cat-like child.
"When Verdalite was slacking off, elder Azar would teach me how to do his work at White Night. I learned quite a bit from both of them. Want to learn?"
Seeing him actually pick up another pile of reports, Ciel shook his head frantically.
Like Erin, he had gotten sick of writing and looking at reports a long time ago in his past life.
"Nope nope nope, let's change the topic."
Ciel grabbed Jadiel's hand and pushed the documents back onto the table.
"I've had a question I've been wanting to ask for a long time."
He looked up, staring into Jadiel's one good eye.
"You aren't going to sell us, you aren't going to use us as a tool or a subordinate, you aren't accepting us because you want to satisfy your ego, so why did you take us in?"
Jadiel tilted his head, taking the opportunity to examine Ciel's blue eyes. In the dark lighting, they looked more muted than usual.
"Don't you usually go to your brother for these kinds of deep talks?"
"Since you wanted to be my father, you better take responsibility."
Jadiel smiled.
"My family was slaughtered by slave dealers, leaving me and my unformed brother. Along the way, he and I separated, and I was desperate. Trying to get him back, I tried storming the capital, not even knowing where he was. Do you know what happened then?"
Ciel scanned his memories for similar scenarios.
"You got captured, tortured, and escaped, vowing revenge?"
Jadiel sighed, remembering how he, who had been still an adolescent feline, had been so easily grabbed by the scruff.
"I got picked up."
Ciel suddenly remembered his cheap grandfather.
"Verdalite?"
Jadiel nodded.
"He told me, unformed eves would be sent to a specific place to hatch. Hatchlings would be raised for auction immediately then. However, since hatchlings take around 15 to 20 years to hatch, I had time, and there was no need to rush. Eggs would be treated preciously."
This kind of scenario was unfamiliar to Ciel, and he leaned in.
"And?"
"He and Elder Azar took me in and we traveled the continents. Along the way, we picked up Lanae, Lilian, Kierra, Mason, and Ivan. As soon as I reached adulthood, I took them, left home, formed the mercenary group called Fatalite, and returned to this continent."
"Then when you got enough fame, you got scammed."
Jadiel, still absentminded from reminiscing, nodded.
"I got scammed. No, wait, that's irrelevant to the current conversation."
Ciel shrugged and let the topic slide.
"So how does that answer my question?"
Jadiel got up, and squatted down next to Ciel's eye level, fluffing his furry head.
"The world hasn't been kind to me, nor the rest of Fatalite. However, when we despaired and had nowhere to go, we received kindness. So, I want to give kindness back."
Ciel was silent, feeling strange.
He felt that this group of people were too kind, but his mouth said something else.
"Well, that's pretty dumb. So you could have taken any random kid in, and you let your family's killers go."
Jadiel's chuckle strained. This kid really knew how to poke sour spots.
"Nope, I hunted down those slave dealers, and, are you sulking right now?"
Because Fatalite could have taken in some random kids other than Ciel and Erin?
Ciel puffed up his cheeks, trying to turn away. But Jadiel's large hand grabbed his head, forcing him to turn back. Lifting up the blindfold, Jadiel looked smilingly into Ciel's large, cat-like eyes.
"In peaceful times, orphans are rare, but I've seen my fair share of them throughout my travels. I was unable to help all of them, but if I could, I would send them to the orphanages Verdalite and Azar sponsors, with an abundance of food and shelter, a large family and friends, or send them to other eve villages. You and Erin were the first children I and the others decided to raise as our own."
And the last.
He left those words unfinished.
Ciel looked at his eye, examining the jadeite pupil carefully.
"Why?"
It wasn't because he felt like he was taking undeserved love, nor was he probing to see whether he'd get abandoned in the future, for some reason, he just really wanted to know.
Was it because he knew how to fight? Or was it his maturity that was abnormal to kids his age?
Jadiel shrugged.
"I don't know, I just had a feeling. My instinct told me, 'I want to keep this one as my own, he'll make a good pair with the other one too'."
Or maybe it was because Ciel's fearlessness had given him too much anxiety to leave the kid alone.
Ciel stared at his eye, before bursting out into laughter.
"—Hahahaha! Just because of that?"
A warm hand rubbed his head comfortingly.
"I know what you're afraid of. Don't worry, I've taken you two in, and there's no way I, or anyone in Fatalite, will be willing to give you guys up. Even if your biological parents come."
"Ha, you wish. Both my parents are dead."
Laughing, Ciel patted the hand on his head absentmindedly.
In fact, his wandering mind had already settled down from Jadiel's first answer to his question, Jadiel's latter words of comfort were unnecessary.
But, he quite liked this feeling of having a proper father.
He rolled onto his wheelchair, and out the door using some sticks he had hidden in the seat, but not before stuffing a cookie in his freshly minted father's mouth.
"Then, have fun working. I won't bother you anymore!"
Jadiel, feeling quite pleased at Ciel's initiative, felt like the cookie was sweeter than usual.
'Verdalite, was this how you felt when you took us in?'
No, Ciel was much better than he had been as a child.
Jadiel hadn't been a father for long, but the silly father filter had already taken place. He even forgot that he had originally aimed to keep Ciel occupied for the entire day.
Ciel, having successfully slipped away, rolled himself to the garden where Erin had gone.
After the crown prince had first promoted Jadiel to a count for his children's achievements, Jadiel's next presentation of all the corrupt nobles had directly raised his rank up to a duke. This was probably one of the fastest promotions in the history of Anatol.
Because of all the nobles trying to probe them, they had also been temporarily relocated to an executed noble's mansion.
Stopping his wheelchair under a tree, Ciel watched his brother attack the temporary dummy Ivan and Lanae had built.
Looking at the light shades of gray dappled across the thick summer leaves, he felt a pang of realization.
He had already been here for more than half a year now.
A warm fleece blanket was draped over him. Looking up, he saw Lanae, with the eagle version of Kierra on her shoulder.
"Uh, La-mother?"
Didn't his dad say she was busy with poison?
Lanae chuckled.
"You can call Jadiel dad so smoothly, why am I mother?"
Ciel remembered the woman with pure white hair resembling his.
Hmm, he hadn't seen his actual hair color in a long time, would it still be as pure as hers?
"I already had a mom who was good to me. So you can only be mother."
"Ah~ It's fine, you can call me mother, Erin can call me mom, I don't mind~"
Lanae smoothly ignored the past tense and giggled, poking Ciel's cheeks.
Ciel smiled too.
"So, mother, do you like dad?"
Lanae wasn't shy at all with her response.
"I don't know, but if he stays wifeless, the little crown prince said that other nobles would find a chance to stuff in an outsider. Kierra doesn't want to, so I can only step in."
Ciel scrutinized her, recalling Jadiel's stone cold face and red ears as he had tried to convince Lanae to become the lady a few nights before.
"So you were just playing Jadiel with your constant refusals?"
Lanae laughed.
"Isn't it fun to tease that tsundere? You did notice his ears right? I bet if I had dragged it on longer, I would've been able to see his cat ears pop out!"
Ciel agreed.
"I did! Next time, if you know dad's gonna come find you, call me over too, I want to watch!"
He had only seen his dad's original form once, but it looked really fluffy, and the long tail looked very fun to play with.
Lanae agreed happily.
Erin, having finished his daily exercises, silently exchanged glances with Kierra.
The two spectators silently lit up a candle in their hearts for Jadiel.