Chapter 173: Chapter 164 – The Path to the Common

The next morning, we set off.

Everyone waved goodbye to the nice villagers who partied with them until they were out of sight.

As the packed dirt road west of the village didn't actually go very far, it didn't take long before the wagons became difficult to move.

The ones we had gotten for the orphanage kids were only lightly loaded as I opted to make a bunch of small ones rather than a few large ones, so they didn't suffer that much from the uneven path that drove through the deep forest. The ones that the women who originally sought my help though, were the sort normally used by traders.

Even though they were the lighter two wheeled variety since the horses they had bought were old and frail, that didn't mean that they didn't have to regularly push the cart out of a particularly deep depression.

I offered to help several times, but was refused on every occasion. They stated that they'd rather I relax than to be bothered doing such menial work.

I didn't have any problems doing such a thing, but nothing I could say moved them, so I was left with no choice but to just leave them to their work. If they started to tire themselves out from it all, I could always just help prepare a feast for everyone or something at least. There was no way they could argue against that.

Aside from that, our journey was relatively peaceful. Orphne's subordinates kept a vigilant patrol around the whole group to ward away any monsters that decided to check out the massive group of intruders. And without any monsters to cause any problems, all we had were people admiring the scenery while they walked though the forest.

But no matter how much the children were amazed by the endless sea of trees, there was a limit when the scenery hardly changed while walking through the difficult bumpy terrain that slowly sapped everyone of their energy.

While the children were only a little dispirited, there was one figure that was entirely dispirited.

I kept glancing her way here and there, but the occasion when she noticed and looked back, the dead-eyed glare I got made a shiver run up my spine. Especially the way they looked so bloodshot, it reminded me of when I was pulling an all-nighter and had long since run out of coffee.

That time really made me hate my life as well as whoever it was who decided that none of the local grocery nor convenience store were open 24/7.

I couldn't help but wonder if maybe fairies actually had some sort of blood sugar regulation issue when they didn't have a high enough intake, but the thought was so absurd, I could only conclude that what Orphne was suffering through was closer to a psychological addiction rather than a physical one.

Considering that sweets didn't seem to be so accessible in this world that an entire race could gorge out on it on a regular basis, I couldn't see how any race could evolve to have such a high reliance on it.

(Though I suppose that presumes that evolution in this world happened with the same underlying principals as on Earth.)

With some of the beliefs that I had heard regarding this world, there was a chance that creationism might actually be true unlike on Earth.

(Well, at least souls are real and there does seem to be existences that could be considered gods or something close enough.)

But frankly, such high level theory wasn't really that important in the grand scheme of things. If you couldn't interact with something, it was the same as it not existing.

Though I was targeted by at least a few of those god-like beings, it was entirely a one way issue. And even then, it seemed to be quite indirect as they had never once even tried to directly do anything to me.

But all that didn't matter at this moment.

I glanced over at the fairy I was in the middle of punishing.

Surprisingly, it looked like she didn't try to cheat the punishment in any way over the last day. It could have been a sign that these little guys were quite honest to a degree that was even greater than most children.

Or Orphne had a good enough reason not to, but I wasn't sure which was more true.

It seemed like I needed to revise my impression of these creatures, despite having lived with them for a while now.

The little sugar deprived fairy noticed my glance and snapped her head towards me. Her brows creased while her left eye twitched here and there. If looks could kill, my inflated HP pool wouldn't have saved me here.

She had barely touched her dinner, or any meal since her punishment had started. Frankly, I was quite worried about her, but fortunately I didn't have to keep my heart hardened any longer.

"Orphne, come over."

"What...?"

Despite the hostility in her voice, the girl did as she was told and floated my way.

"It's been a day since your punishment started, so your ban on sweets is now lifted."

And with my words, I pulled out a gift I had made the night before.

After seeing how terribly Orphne had taken to my punishment announcement, I thought it would be good to prepare a proper carrot to go with the stick.

I presented her a large black forest cake, topped with glazed cherries and plenty of whipped cream.

"As long as you can promise me you won't misrepresent yourself, you can have this. I don't mind if you joke around with that sort of thing, but you can't have people thinking that sort of thing without correcting them afterwards. Alright?"

Orphne's eyes filled with nothing but hatred of all life and maybe some unlife cleared up in real time and was filled with nothing but desire. Her head nodded up and down like a bobble-head glued to a game controller with its rumble feature stuck on max.

"Well, I guess that's good enough for me. Enjoy."

Raising the cake up to the fairy, she dove in on it with her arms stretched out.

"I love you!"

"Oh, uh, thanks?"

"I mean the cake!"

"...Right."

I let out a sigh as I watched the girl stuff her cheeks using her bare hands as she practically swam on top of the fluffy cake. The sight reminded me of a particular cartoon cat and his habit involving his favourite pasta dish.

I felt conflicted at the sight though.

On one hand, I was glad that she was enjoying my food so much, but on the other I was a bit worried at how much of a junkie she was acting when it came to sugar. It was possible that I've been ingraining quite some bad habits into the fairies. Though even if that was true, there was little I could do about it at this point. They were pretty self sufficient when it came to their regular sugar injections.

At the same time, aside from times like this, it wasn't like their addiction was destructive or anything. They were able to live normal lives.

At least what passed for normal for fairies.

"Oh, that looks nice Orphne!"

"Hey hey, can we have some too?"

"Cake! Cake! Cake!"

*HISS!*

When a trio of Orphne's former subordinates came back from a patrol, Orphne used her body to shield the cake and actually hissed at them.

However, despite my surprise, the three fairies only looked a bit dejected before going away.

(Wait, this isn't considered normal behaviour to them, is it?!)

I wasn't quite sure which fact surprised me more. The fact that Orphne so aggressively defended her prize to the point at actually hissing at her friends, or the fact that they didn't even question how weird it was being hissed at with such vigour.

But after that, I simply sat back and watched as Orphne magically put the cake several times the size of her body inside of her.

In the end, she was lying on the serving plate literally licked clean as her belly bulged out as if she was pregnant.

Somehow, the little fairy actually glowed as her expression oozed with satisfaction.

(Maybe there's more than one thing I need to reevaluate regarding fairies?)

Once she rested up after gorging herself, Orphne returned to her usual self thankfully.

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Though her usual wasn't anything which could be considered normal by most people's standards, it was quite normal for a fairy at least.

We were on our second day travelling through the woods. While the kids found the occasional thing to be interested in, for the most part they were already bored with all the walking.

Things didn't really look that good considering that we still had a few more weeks of this ahead of us. Unfortunately there wasn't really much that could be done regarding that. Walking through the forest was tiring for them, and any games that they could play to entertain themselves would simply tire them out even faster.

It was unfortunate, but all they could do was bear with it the best they could.

But not all the kids were on this slow decline as we continued our journey.

"And then, Miss Scarlet! You wouldn't believe what Joel did!"

"Uh huh? What happened?"

Little Flix was walking at my side, sticking close whenever possible as she talked about everything she could think of.

I was a bit worried that I made a poor conversation partner as all I could do was listen, but with the way her fluffy tail endlessly wagged, maybe that was good enough for her anyways.

Alicia and Fate looked dissatisfied the entire time, but they didn't try anything at least.

Or more like, they couldn't really do anything most likely. Flix made sure to stay out of reach of the twins and I avoided protracted patting.

"Wow, Miss Scarlet. You're way more amazing than I even thought."

Flix changed subjects after I received a report from one of the patrolling fairy groups. I've been keeping an eye out on the whole area myself, but having people who were physically out there checking out the perimeter felt like a good thing and eased my mind a bit better than not doing so.

"Huh? How so?"

Though I could think of the reason, it would be embarrassing if I got it wrong and just gave the little girl even more fodder.

"I mean, I know that you were powerful. The way you could beat up bad guys, or help out everyone at the orphanage so easily. But all those other people as well. They said that you beat the people who kidnapped them all by yourself?"

"Well, I wasn't alone. There were a bunch of other people who were working with me at the time."

"But they said that you were the one who beat their boss! That he was so strong, there was no way anyone else could beat him! You were the only one who could!"

"Well, maybe nobody else in that group, but there's other people who could beat them."

(Those damn guys who invaded our country a few years back probably could've. Especially with that weird sword they had.)

"But they weren't the ones who saved them, you were!"

Flix's eyes sparkled as she looked up at me, her hands held tight over her chest.

"As I thought. You really are amazing, Miss Scarlet!"

"Mommy's amazing!"

"Mommy's amazing! Wow!"

After a few moments of Flix's eyes sparkling, Alicia suddenly pulled on my robes then stretched her arms out wide as she yelled out those words, as if she was trying to compete against this fox girl. And on seeing that, Fate imitated her older sister, throwing out her arms in the same way.

This absurd praising made my cheeks grow a bit warm, but there wasn't much I could do beyond giving the three a wry smile as discouraging this sort of thing was probably a bad thing.

That, and it was at least a good thing that there was something they could agree on, and even compete in. Even if it was something which was really embarrassing to me.

"Miss Scarlet's really incredible!"

"Super amazing!"

"Super, super amazing!"

"Umm, you three are taking this a bit far, I think..."

"Of course she is! Nobody's better than Miss Scarlet!"

"Mommy's bestest!"

"Bestest-bestest!"

If Philia could hear this, I didn't know which one of us would want to cry more.

 

After the weird praising session, or rather, the unending embarrassment torture marathon, Flix's relationship with Alicia and Fate grew a bit better, though there was still a noticeable degree of hostility or rivalry or something in between them.

But I had some confidence that it would get better in time, though it might take some work.

We had a month or so anyways, so it wasn't a big deal.

Though with how Flix tried to stick close to me whenever she could like a baby chick, at least Alicia and Fate got a lot of exposure.

Frankly speaking, while their age gap was quite large, I was glad that there was someone like Flix around. Even if her interest was in me rather than my babies, she was probably the closest thing they had to a friend so far.

None of the other kids at the Commonwealth dared to come too close to me and was usually content with staring at a distance.

It was actually a little depressing, but the worst bit was probably that Alicia and Fate didn't really have anyone close to their own age to interact with.

Some of the fairies did play around with them a little, but it was usually just for a short time in between other things they were doing. Alicia and Fate didn't really seem to get attached to any particular fairy aside from Orphne. But their relationship wasn't exactly like normal friends. More like someone who was friends with a family member and would just play with them here and there.

Or rather, that was exactly what their relationship with Orphne was like.

(Maybe I need a word with that girl at some point.)

But putting aside having Orphne treat my twins a bit nicer and play with them more often, my two babies didn't really seem to hate Flix so much after their little attempt at killing me with embarrassment.

At least that was what I was hoping.

They still gave her looks of hostility and kept trying to put themselves between me and her.

It seemed like just because they had something in common, didn't mean that they were instantly friends or something.

Not like I expected such a convenient development.

But at least Flix started to try to appease Alicia and Fate by giving them head pats, and the two of them didn't try to bite the foxkin girl's hand.

Putting it into words made that sound much less impressive than at first thought, but progress was progress. As long as progress didn't stop, eventually they would become friends.

At least I could hope.

Either way, the journey was slow but mostly uneventful. The most difficult thing was to keep the children from getting too bored of doing little more than walking and resting.

Orphne and the other fairies did a fabulous job of keeping any monsters away, so overall there wasn't any real issues thankfully.

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