They couldn"t go on calling them "that kid" or "this kid" forever. Both girls needed their own names.

When the issue was raised, the First Officer and four fairies had gone quiet. What"re they so worried about? Feodor had wondered. Something like names should"ve been a natural topic to talk about. They were nothing more than names, after all. As long as they were easy to understand, anything would work. For example, borrowing the name of some famous person, or pa.s.sing down names of family members.

That"d given Feodor an idea. "I know. How about we name one of them after that Kutori person? I might not see her as such, but wasn"t she supposedly amazing and wonderful?"

The silence became unpleasant after that.

As it turned out, it was said that naming fairies after other people was taboo, and they especially never used names that had once belonged to previous fairies. Although they didn"t understand the underlying reasons themselves, the girls seemed to have been taught to continue that tradition.

Naming the fairies had to be done as carefully as possible. "The oldest among the fairies at the time of a new appearance should read the past records extensively in preparation for deciding suitable names for a newborn," they said - although such matters weren"t strictly enforced, and it was more of a custom.

That being the case, they"d sent a hurried communique to their home on the 68th Floating Island. Afterwards, it was decided that temporary names should be chosen for the two children until their proper names were decided; ones that would never have been given to actual people. It would be best for the names to be both sloppy and unquestionably fitting.

In front of the soldiers and fairies scratching their heads and asking each other what they should do, the red-haired child had been happily eating crispy apple slices. Meanwhile, Collon was poking the blue-haired girl"s soft cheeks as said girl wiggled and squirmed in discomfort.

It was decided that the red one would be Apple, and the blue one would be Marshmallow.

No, no, no, that"s no good. Easy names are better, sure, but there should be limits to these things!

Feodor kept his thoughts to himself. "Apple, are you okay with this?"

She smiled and giggled at his question, her face sticky with drool and fruit juice.

"How about you, Marshmallow?" The other girl looked at him and tilted her head slightly, as if saying, "Huh?"

If there were no objections from the parties involved, he supposed that he didn"t have the right to say anything more. In the first place, his role was just to supervise Tiat and the others. He was nothing more but a pa.s.sing stranger to these two kids, and he protected them only in the course of his duty alongside the four girls. He had no right or responsibility to b.u.t.t in. Besides…

Feodor left the rest unsaid, preferring not to dwell on the issue too much. It"d be better if the 68th Floating Island could reply sooner rather than later and they received proper names. That was all he was willing to think about.

"It"d be inconvenient if we couldn"t figure out what to call them," Feodor mumbled as if talking to himself. He suddenly turned, feeling someone"s eyes on him, and found Panival watching him with a mysterious smirk.

…Just a coincidence, he thought. She hadn"t heard his muttering… or so he wanted to believed.

The facility now used as a base by the 5th Division was originally a public school building. It had been shut down due to administrative issues long before the Elpis Incident five years ago. It was slated to be remodeled into an airship factory at the time, but those plans had suffered somewhat of a setback. One thing led to another, resulting in the current-day situation after the building rights had finally been transferred to the Winged Guard.

In other words, it wasn"t originally intended to be a military facility.

That was probably why the military and factory sections were mismatched and poorly intertwined. The barracks in particular stood out as terribly built. One section might be overflowing with rooms while another lacked any, and the rooms themselves could run the gamut from claustrophobically tiny to excessively s.p.a.cious. Overall, the entire building resembled something like a chaotic toybox crammed full of things by overexcited and messy children.

Though the scale differed, a similarly chaotic mess existed within a certain room, left unused all this time. Although it was of a reasonable size, the room was far away from the barracks entrance and located on a high floor, and so it had been left alone to gather dust.

Roughly a month ago, two bunk beds were brought into that room, and four new residents entered to begin their lives at the facility.

Furthermore, just the other day, two small cribs were placed in the same room. Two more new residents entered, and started their lives.

"Fwedoooooooo!" As soon as Feodor entered the room, a small red missile flew at him and rammed straight into his stomach.

Putting aside the surprise element, it was actually a very effective ramming attack, with enough momentum behind it to almost make Feodor puke up everything in his stomach. He doubled over, suddenly truly and honestly grateful that he hadn"t eaten lunch before coming here.

After the initial a.s.sault, a small blue thing came tottering up to him. "Fwedoo," she cried out, running as quickly as her tiny feet could carry her and hugging his legs. Compared to the earlier cannon blow, she was a lovely presence.

"Apple, you… hey…"

He had called her name intending to scold her, something along the lines of "Stop doing that! It"s dangerous!"

But when she looked up at him with her huge eyes, he completely forgot everything he was about to say. "…It"s good to be energetic," Feodor finished lamely, "but won"t you go just a little easy on me?"

"Ei yo!" Apple fired back an insanely cheerful response, followed up by a similar cry from Marshmallow. It might be - no, definitely was the case - that neither had understood a word.

Although they were young, they were the embryos of soldiers who would one day bear the future of Regul Aire on their shoulders. At the moment, they overflowed with energy, happiness, and hope. In this situation, he felt like forgiving their positiveness. It"s not so easy to keep up with them, though…

Feodor had little confidence in his stamina. It wasn"t like he was particularly weak, but Imps didn"t have much physical strength or endurance. They were creatures that lived by making full use of others and exploiting them.

Their twisted morality, their fundamental shame that came with ever needing to move their own bodies, were deeply ingrained in the blood of the Imps. Even though he could master the sword as a trump card in emergencies, Feodor couldn"t quite train his heart, lungs, or muscles to save energy for said emergencies. What a troublesome story.

While thinking about what to say to the girls, Feodor casually threw out some words towards his blind spot. "They"re both already a handful. Don"t you dare join in, Panival."

"…What, is it so bad if I do?" Panival, who"d been in the position to make a full-fledged tackle, relaxed her stance. She sounded entirely too surprised.

"I want to know why you thought I"d allow it."

"Ahh, there it is. I had faith in your good heart, but alas…"

Faith. I see. What a convenient word. He laughed in his head.

"My heart aside, my body"s populated enough." Feodor couldn"t quite pull off the pair of girls still tightly attached to his waist. He felt almost like he was being devoured by a snake.

"Isn"t it normal for boys to show off whatever talent, however small, they possess?"

"Not if they"re ordered to do it. One has to take the initiative to have pride in these things." Feodor turned back her frivolous talk as something suddenly occurred to him. "Say, Panival? Could it be… you"re in a bad mood today?"

"Hmm? Why might you think that?"

"Oh, nothing. Just felt like asking, that"s all." If he had to give a reason, it was because her usual confident smile didn"t match her eyes, or because her tone seemed unusually p.r.i.c.kly, or something like that.

Panival shook her head. "It took awhile for you to pick up on it… but yes, I just might be in a bit of a foul mood right now."

Oh, really?

"Those two had just finally started listening to the story I was telling them, you see." Panival picked up a picture book from the floor. "And as soon as you came in - well, this was the result. I"m a little jealous."

It was probably because he was aware of her dissatisfaction, but Feodor could see her small lips pouting.

"Ah…" Feodor could accept a reason like that. He tried calling them again more sharply: "Apple, Marshmallow?"

Two cheerful voices shrieked back at him, and he abruptly felt it was better to change the subject. "Is it just you here? What about the other three?"

"Lakish felt a little sick, so I forced her into the sick bay."

"Is she okay?"

Panival shrugged. "She said "you don"t need to worry about me.""

Don"t need to worry, huh… He was doubtful about how much to trust that sentence when it came out of the mouth of a Leprechaun.

"There didn"t seem to be anything particularly wrong with her body, even to our eyes," Panival said. "But just to be sure, we let her go to the sickbay so she could get a little breather. At any rate…"

She quickly glanced at Apple and Marshmallow. "She couldn"t hope to rest and recover her strength if she was here with these two."

As Feodor was currently in the middle of having his own strength drained to nothing, the remark seemed quite persuasive. "…What about Tiat and Collon?"

"They got called away by the First Officer."

"Huh?"

What sort of business does he have with only two of them? Are they being scolded for breaking something while playing around? If that was it, he hoped he wouldn"t get caught up in the crossfire just for being their superior officer on paper.

"Fwedo! Fwedooooo!"

While they were talking, the two girls wrapped around Feodor seemed to have discovered a new game. They were now happily smacking his thighs with powerful palm strikes, holding nothing back. Despite being only small children, it hurt a lot. "Is this… how they throw tantrums when they get hungry?"

"I wonder." Panival chuckled lightly. "If anything, it"s because their favorite toy just fell right into their grasp."

"You"re the one who sees me as a toy!"

"So you don"t deny it…?"

He couldn"t. That"s exactly right.

Having gotten bored of slapping his thighs, the children had grabbed onto his pants and were trying to climb up his legs. It felt as if they were stretching out the fabric and they were still ignoring him, so Feodor reluctantly reached down and picked up the two of them into a hug.

"Uwaaah!" Apple swung her arms around vigorously, getting more excited than he"d expected. Marshmallow, in his other arm, grabbed at what she could reach of his hair and started pulling on it.

"Ow-owowow! Hey! Quit it, you two!"

"Shouldn"t you be glad you"re being loved so pa.s.sionately by young women?"

"Don"t you think there are limits to the appeal of affectionate children?!" Feodor yelled, letting slip more than half of his true feelings. "And how many times do I need to say it? I don"t have a preference for markless children of any age - hey, my hair! H-Hey, stop! Don"t you bite me!"

Panival grinned. "You know, a woman much like our mother once said this: "Feeling like you want to devour someone is the highest form of affection." You are, without a doubt, loved."

"Don"t talk about troll wisdom like it"s common sense!"

"Oh? You knew about her?"

"I thought it might be a lie the first time I heard it, but I can accept it after seeing your otherworldli-OW!" He writhed in genuine pain, the swinging pair giggling and chortling with every twist of his body. "My gla.s.ses are slipping - slipping - they"re falling! That"s dangerous, stop!"

It was definitely a good thing for them to be having fun. Precious, even.

Still, he"d like them to consider timing, circ.u.mstances, limits, and moderation for once.

"Like I said, it hurts owowowowow-ARGH!"

The room was located on the third floor of the barracks. It was rarely used, since it was a corner room with little use to begin with. Even now, a number of adjacent rooms were uninhabited storage.

In other words, even if some children were to run wild, or Feodor was to shout a few screams, it wouldn"t bother anyone.

"Ears! Ears! MY EAAAAARS!"

It could be argued that it was a good thing that the girls had grown attached to him, but they absolutely refused to listen to anything Feodor said. They struggled while he tried to change their clothes, clung to him while he tried to get them to sleep, and refused to eat anything they disliked while he tried to stuff the food down their throats.

Taking care of them was Collon"s specialty. She alone was capable of dodging their attacks with equally destructive energy, almost magically changing their clothes and sending them to bed. Perhaps it was because their mental age was similar? Or was it more like a pack of animals who couldn"t disobey their alpha?

Lakish was the next best at handling the children after Collon. She - how to put it? - appeared particularly used to dealing with excessively selfish children. As for why that might be… that was a topic best avoided, for the sake of her friends" reputations.

Feodor went to the doctor"s office to check up on her condition. Lakish, sitting up on her bed, appeared to be in the middle of writing something in an open notebook spread out atop her blanket.

He knocked on the open door with the back of his hand. The girl started and looked up at him, somewhat fl.u.s.tered. "Feodor?"

"How are you? I heard you were feeling sick."

"I"m fine. I"m only here because Panival was worried about me." She casually closed her notebook as she answered him. "The truth is, I"d be okay even if I got up now. But since I have the opportunity, I thought I might pa.s.s some time here."

She stuck out her tongue playfully.

"Lakish, you"re a delinquent."

"Yep, I am."

Why"re you nodding so happily?

"How are Marshmallow and Apple? Are they behaving properly?"

"They"re incredibly cheerful," Feodor grumbled. "They ran wild until they got tired, so now they - Panival included - are in the middle of a nap. The three of them are pretty cute, if you"re just looking at their sleeping faces." Lakish snorted at his last sentence. "…What"s wrong?"

"The three of them, you said?"

"Something weird about that?"

"Oh, no no, nothing strange about it at all."

Feodor felt oddly irritated by her overly sweet big-sister-like tone. "…By the way," he moved on, having just remembered something. "I"ve been meaning to ask you about Apple and Marshmallow… from what I can see, they"re around two or three years old, right?"

"Eh?"

"They can stand up and walk, talk a little, and eat well." And run, charge, cling, hit, pull, bite. "No matter how you look at them, they don"t act like newborn babies. How did they survive in that forest until we got them out?"

"Oh… I see, that"s true. But um, uh…"

Lakish thought about his question for a bit. "I think it"s true that they"re about two years old by other races" standards. But… newborns, for us… are more or less the same size as those children."

"Huh?"

"You know what kind of… beings… we fairies are, right? We"re born from the souls of children. That"s why, from the start, we"re born as children. Even so, there"s still some differences between individuals. If anything, those two are small for newborn fairies."

"What?!"

Feodor might"ve been shocked and felt like screaming "What the h.e.l.l"s with that?!", but at the same time the thought ran through his head, It makes sense. If Leprechauns weren"t necessarily born from parents, then there was no need for them to go through the regular processes of birth from scratch.

A large, uncomfortable emotion combined with a smaller, unpleasant one began to make itself known from the depths of his heart. Just imitating life. They really are something else. Cursed existences insulting life itself - the girls" m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic thought processes seemed to only become more accurate with the more they told him.

"Well then, what about your profiles? You"re supposed to be fourteen, right?"

Their ages on paper were believed to be counted from the time of birth onwards. Therefore, if Lakish and the other fairies were born as roughly three years old, would they now be the equivalent of 17-year-olds? Given Tiat was already listed as 15, was she actually 18?

Various races were part of Regul Aire, with various lifespans to match. For example, individuals of the Bennu species could live to be over three hundred years old, while the Alle lived and died within a few years. Therefore, there wasn"t much meaning in comparing the mental and physical growth rates of other races.

That said, the various markless races tended to share lifespans and growth rates. According to one scholar"s research, the legendary Emnetwyte who once flourished on the surface were said to possess similar lifespans. For that reason, it wouldn"t be odd for an 18-year-old Leprechaun to have roughly the same physique as an 18-year-old Imp… although…

"Um, you see," Lakish mumbled awkwardly, interrupting Feodor"s train of thought. "Naigrat… the troll who looks after us… told us once that we Leprechauns tend to grow a little slowly until we"re about to start p.u.b.erty. Around the age we are now, we grow to be roughly the same as a child of similar age from your average markless race… or something like that…"

"Oh, I see, I see," Feodor nodded, perfectly able to accept that. He felt relieved. Though, if she"s saying their physiques are suited for being 14-or-15-year-old girls, that still leaves me with a few questions. But I won"t delve any further than that.

Not knowing what turmoil was stirring up Feodor"s heart, Lakish smiled sadly. "I… want to become more adult-like, though-"

She slapped her hands over her mouth like she was about to throw up. m.u.f.fled sobs leaked out from behind those hands as her shoulders shook fiercely.

"Lakish?!"

"I"m… alright…" Lakish answered brokenly. "P-Please… don"t worry about me…"

"I don"t believe you!" Feodor snapped, quickly checking her forehead and wrists. "No fever, nothing weird in your pulse…"

"L-Like I said, I"m fine-"

"You"re sure not looking fine!"

When he"d fought with Tiat, he"d learned one thing about Leprechauns: they were tenacious, stubbornly enduring far past the point where doing so held any meaning. They buried any pain in their heart, hid any wounds, and went around pretending to be brave.

But their ability to lie was horrid. They might fool themselves, but they couldn"t ever pretend well enough to trick anyone around them. Moreover, to an Imp and professional liar like Feodor, the attempts became much more visibly painful.

Enough time pa.s.sed for Lakish to take a few shallow breaths. Her violent shaking slowed as color returned to her pale complexion.

"You really… don"t need to worry about me."

Her head still bowed and her hair hiding her eyes, Lakish spoke without looking at him. "I"m sorry for surprising you. This is… a kind of seizure unique to fairies. It doesn"t affect our physical conditions, so it"s not like we"ll die from something like this."

She didn"t seem to be entirely telling the truth. Even so, he didn"t hear any lies in her words.