Chapter 47: Chapter 43 – Orphanage Days

The fluffballs circled around me in a slow orbit. It felt like they were laughing at how ridiculous I looked. Once I managed to calm down, I gave them an annoyed glare before going back inside. Most of the kids soon came back and I went to teaching them a bit more about soap-making. First, we started with using the new equipment I had made.

Fortunately Philia wasn't mad that I used a room and set it up without her knowledge. The room wasn't being used as I had thought, but I still wished I had the foresight to properly ask permission beforehand.

The stove itself the kids caught on quickly, but the distiller took a lot more time. The very idea of it looked difficult for the kids to grasp, but after several explanations and a few demonstrations, they managed it, and we made another batch of soap, this time using some spare animal fat I had left around in my bag along with the lye we had let sit the day before.

For the essential oil, I considered for a moment to use the flowers the kids gave me before, as they were perfectly preserved in my bag, but chose against it. It probably wouldn't have been taken very well, as they were gifts.

The kids gathered a bunch of wild flowers and we used that as a basis. The scent was was a bit indistinct, but it served it's purpose for teaching the kids how to use the distiller. I just had to stress the importance of using only one type of flower for making the oil per batch. Mixing can be done afterwards if a good combination was found.

Using the ashes from all the fires we had burned that day, we threw that into a pot to make the next batch of lye.

After the day's soap making was done, we moved on to dinner before we played around until the sun started to set, and the kids went to bed.

That night, I went around, making adjustments to the equipment, then enjoyed some time in the bath on my own. I didn't bother trying to get the kids to bathe more often than they were used to. On the other hand, I wasn't restricted to their routine.

Taking the bath made me notice a few details that needed adjustments, so I added things like several types of hangers and holders for various bathing equipment.

I spent the rest of my free time that night playing with the little spirits until the first of the kids woke up.

The next day, I managed to convince Philia to do some shopping for me. As I was starting to run low on cash, so I handed her a bunch of those mana imbued crystals I had gotten in the dungeon for her to convert. What I had her buy was any sort of cheap oils she could find, milk, and honey.

As I waited for her return, I went around doing some basic cleaning, mostly just sweeping the front and back of the building, as I had to care for the youngest kids on my own being the only adult around until Philia came back.

By the time she did, the sun was already setting.

She apologized profusely that she couldn't get her hands on milk. It seemed like there weren't many places that sold it, and it had to be ordered beforehand because milk was brought in from outside of the city from a nearby village.

For me it wasn't a big deal, as I still had a bunch left of it as well, and I did my best to placate her on that. But it seemed Philia was uneasy at the idea of me providing so much of everything. Only repeatedly mentioning that it was temporary and that they would have to provide all their own ingredients in the future was what made her quit the subject, but she didn't stop being hesitant over it.

That night, after I finished my nightly jar of blood, I started work on something I had been putting off lately. Just thinking about it brought a swirl of emotions and depending on which direction it took me, brought me back to tears, paralyzed from doing anything useful. But if I didn't risk that, I wouldn't be able to do what I had promised. What I needed to do.

I was going to bring back Alicia no matter what. It was what I had promised both her and myself. As long as the possibility existed, I was going to move to to make it a reality so that one day we could walk together side by side.

While it hadn't actually been a while, it certainly felt like it. Going through the master skill list, trying to find the bits and pieces I could use to create the new skill needed to bring Alicia back.

My options were to put her soul into an existing body, into a body I make myself, or find a way to wake her up without a body.

The first I was against, and would only resort to as a last resort. Any body that already existed would be that of the deceased or a non-living one, neither were prospects I liked.

The second choice would be idea. Growing or building a body perfect for her was the top choice, but also the most difficult and time consuming. The sheer number of complicated and difficult steps involved made me put it off for the time being.

By elimination, that made the third step the one I would go for. At the least, it would serve as a good temporary measure. If choice #2 was idea, then choice #3 was a great stop-gap measure, and could be used to transition in to #2 in the future. I'd be able to enjoy Alicia's company once again even if she wasn't in a state where we could interact like before, at the very least we could talk.

As an added bonus, I could get feedback on her preferences for #2 if she wanted a body different from before. It was the closest thing I could do when it came to reincarnating like I had experienced myself.

At the current time, Alicia existed as a formless mass held together inside of the container of my [Soul Siphon] skill.

Thinking about it, leaving the skill as is was risky. While it didn't automatically activate like my [Blood Suck] skill, accidentally activating it could have devastating effects on Alicia. With that in mind, I made a small alteration. Simply by disconnecting the act of sucking with the transfer of any data made it impossible to corrupt Alicia's data.

Satisfied with the safety measure had I put into place, I moved on to my research onto awakening Alicia.

As I parsed through the master list of skills, I also thought about what sort of end result to aim for. The obvious option was to turn Alicia into something similar to the little spirits that always followed me.

Looking up at one, I activated [Scan] and had a look.

It seemed like their species name was actually [Lesser Spirit]. That suggested there was some sort of greater spirit as well, and maybe even other types of spirits. The implications were both encouraging and disheartening.

Encouraging because there was an obvious path to take, but discouraging because it would involve changing Alicia's species from human to some form of spirit. It was difficult to predict what sort of effects such a thing would have.

Even for myself, when I thought about it, there were quite a few changes I had gone through when I had changed into a vampire. Many of which I still had trouble understanding or even identifying years later.

For example, the instinctive urge to drink blood. While pretty obvious, the consequences weren't as much so. Needing to feed and instinctively knowing how to wasn't too odd, at least I didn't think so. But the lack of guilt after the fact? Even though they were only goblins, when I thought about it, it was strange about not feeling anything about it.

No matter how much goblins were "cockroach-like," they were still not bugs, as disgusting as they were. The ones in dungeons aside, they were still humanoids with their own lives, as stupid and ugly as they were. It was strange that I didn't feel any remorse for killing them. I remembered hearing about an incident where a coworker who liked to act all bad-ass freaked out over the thought of killing a mouse.

I doubted I would've reacted too much differently in the past as he did, but now killing animals regardless of their appearances didn't phase me in the slightest. It was a bit worrying that if I crossed the line and killed an intelligent being, I might not even think twice about it afterwards.

The fact that the inherent chaos and lawlessness of this world was worrying, as it might be only a matter of time before I was forced to kill someone. Fortunately I hadn't seen much violence inside of the city, but there was the fantasy trope of bandits on the roads. I could only hope that if I end up facing such people, it wouldn't lead to me disregarding the value of peoples' lives.

Another thing I had only recently noticed was my lack of a sex drive. It wasn't even something even noticed until I thought about the changes to my body again. Especially as I had turned into a woman, I'd have thought that I would've reacted in some way to seeing a bare man's chest other than simply thinking it was weird. I couldn't feel even a trace of hormones running through my bloodstream when interacting with any men since leaving my home.

The closest thing was how Philia made my heart race when she rubbed herself against me or kissed my lips, but that was probably just me being conscious about her actions. But when I thought about her actions, I couldn't help but overlap them with the flirting a close couple would do in the shows I used to see.

(But there's no way she really has those sort of feelings for me, would she?)

We had only just met. There was no way such rapid developments could happen in real life. It was probably just a part of the culture in this world I hadn't known about before. That said, it wasn't exactly something I could imitate either for the time being.

Even if she felt more than simply friends, there was no way it would be because of who I was. It had only started when she saw my face without obstructions. Making a move on her would just be a slap to all the hospitality she had given me since I showed up out of nowhere as a nobody.

It was a bit of a depressing thought, but it was probably for the best. While I didn't want to go through a second life without ever having even dated anyone, much less ending it as a virgin again, taking advantage of Philia like that wasn't right. Even though she insisted that there wasn't anything wrong with it, I couldn't help but feel it was.

I shook my head.

I was getting way off topic. It was like I was instinctively trying to avoid thinking about Alicia for more than a few seconds. Breaking down and crying wasn't a good prospect, but not doing anything and just letting her keep sleeping inside of me for all of eternity was far, far worse.

For now, I had a plan of action. Find a way to at least wake her up so I could hear her opinions on how to proceed for her full resurrection. On Earth, a child so young often wouldn't even be consulted, but I wanted her to have the final say in it. It was her life I was going to create, so she deserved to have a say.

That said, as the hours ticked by, I couldn't say I was getting much progress. From everything I could find out, what I was doing may have been unprecedented. There was a serious lack of code I could use to achieve anything I wanted to do.

Putting together the modules and code blocks that may have tangential use, I couldn't say I had more than a small percentage of what was needed. I did find a metamorphosis skill that belonged to an insect monster, but it required an existing body to make it work. I did make a copy for future reference, but otherwise there wasn't much use for now.

The more I dug, the more it felt like creating a new skill for Alicia to inhabit and awaken into was my current best bet. There simply wasn't any skills that allowed me to transfer her soul into a new body. Even ones that interacted with a person's soul was pretty limited, with the one that I used to create [Soul Siphon] being the only one I had found so far.

*tump tump*

Looking up, I saw Flix standing by the door looking on.

It should've still been pretty early, so it was a bit surprising to see her awake already.

"Is something the matter?"

The little girl looked away, but I couldn't help feel like she wanted to say something.

"Did you have a bad dream?"

She looked up at me, but turned her head down again after a moment. I was probably a little off from the mark.

"Do you want to talk about it? Here, come over."

I opened my arms wide, inviting her over. The girl's face brightened up and her triangular ears flattened against her head as she rushed over and climbed onto my lap. Just like last time, she wrapped her limbs around my body and buried her face into my chest.

Flix's tail wagged strongly enough that I could feel her butt move back and forth on my lap a little as I stroked her hair.

"So, what made you wake up so early?"

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"...I needed to pee."

Her tail slowed down a little as she responded for some reason.

Flix had said the same thing two days before. Did she have a habit of drinking too much water before going to sleep?

(Or is it something else?)

Well, it wasn't like it was problematic, though it could be a bit harmful if she did it too often.

"Ummm...what were you doing just now?"

Peeking from the valley in between my breasts, Flix looked up at me.

"Ah, I was trying to come up with...a new spell."

Letting on that I could make skills wasn't going to be very safe, for myself or her, but magic was probably fine.

"You can make new spells?!"

But a little unexpectedly, Flix's eyes sparkled like she was looking at her personal hero. Well, maybe it was stupid of me to think it was unexpected. People probably rarely made new spells. Even if it was common, I was talking to a little girl who had no acquaintances aside from me that could probably even use magic.

"Ah, yea. It's not too hard, though I don't know if what I'm working on is something nobody else has come up with."

Or rather, raising the dead couldn't have been even remotely a new idea even in this world.

Despite my words though, Flix's eyes sparkled even more. At this rate, I worried that they might light up the room or something.

"Do, do you think I can learn magic?"

I froze up a bit at the unexpected question. Maybe it was due to how I learned it, but it felt like a pretty stupid question to me.

"I think anyone can learn it if they try."

"Then! Then can you teach me magic?"

"Eh? Ah, sure?"

"Yay!"

And hence, my little session of turning a little girl into a weapon of mass destruction started.

Later on, after most of the kids went to go earn whatever little money they could, Philia and I were sitting together in the back yard bench again caring for the youngest kids. And once again, the short director was pressing her body against my arm.

I couldn't help but think about what had happened the last time we were in this situation. My face was already hot without anything having happened and I couldn't look her in the face. Without being able to clear my mind of those thoughts, I stared blankly at the sky.

"Scarlet?"

"Ah, yea?"

"...Never mind."

Philia stirred a bit before quieting up. It was just a little, but it felt like she wasn't pressing her body against my arm quite as much. Stealing a glance, she was looking downwards, so I couldn't see her expression but a pang of guilt wrapped up and squeezed my chest.

It was my fault. I had caused her to change the way she did, and now she was suffering for it.

(Philia said I should love myself for who I am, but how could I do that when I hurt those around me for being who I was?)

Before I could come up with an answer, the sound of the kids returning interrupted our time together.

When we went in, I found out that the other kids had caught wind of how I was teaching Flix magic. So instead of playing, it turned into a big group session where I taught the basic principals of the skills required and how to learn them. For some reason, even Philia was watching intently at the back as she tip-toed to see over some of the other kids.

It was so adorable that I couldn't help but to lean down out of sight for a moment, only to straighten my back to see her frustrated expression. I had a hard time maintaining a straight face the whole time.

 

That night, I spent more time working on the skill to bring Alicia back until Flix showed up early in the morning. I couldn't help but feel that she woke up earlier than before, but since I didn't have an actual clock, I wasn't confident on that.

I gave her a private lesson as she sat on my lap until the other kids woke up. After breakfast they went off again and I was alone in the backyard with Philia and the napping kids.

She was rubbing against my arm again, though not as energetically as she did the first time. I couldn't help but be reminded how I had made her a bit sad by my actions, or lack there of.

After a while spending our time like that, I wasn't able to stand the silence anymore. It felt like it was accusing me of something.

"Umm, Philia..."

I turned to glance at the quiet director. I was sure she heard me, but she took some time before looking up at me.

"Umm...I know, I think I know what you're feeling, but I..."

"I know. You can't accept my feelings. I was...I was being cheap, taking advantage of your kindness, your naivety."

"It's not that. I just..."

"I said I know. You think that my feelings were caused by your appearances, but so what? So what that my feelings changed from simply liking you to actually loving you because of your looks? It was only the trigger. For me, it only took things to the point that I couldn't hold back."

"But..."

"Scarlet. I said it before. Your beauty is a part of you. It's a part of what makes you you. Don't deny it, as it would be denying a part of yourself."

"..."

"I'm not...I'm not asking for you to return my feelings. I know you can't do that, not right now. Even before that first kiss, I already knew that."

I turned away from her.

(This, this is my fault. It's because of me she has to suffer like this.)

But a hand touched my cheek and turned my head back. The hand was big and rough, a bit calloused, yet warm and gentle beyond belief. As I turned back to Philia, I felt something soft and warm on my lips, but just as my mind registered it, it had receded.

"It's not your fault. You are who you are, and people will love you for it, as I do. Don't debase my love by coming to hate yourself because of it."

Philia got off of the bench and turned to head inside.

"If you can't come to at least like yourself on your own, then at least let me help you not hate yourself."

As her figured disappeared from my sight, my mind hung on one thought.

(That kiss was the warmest she ever gave me.)

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