"Wait! Wait you little rascals!"

I ran, far more than ever in recent memory.

Furious and frantic.

Or at least, the appearance of doing so, maybe.

As I wildly swung my arms in a mockery of of certain desert dwelling coyote cartoon character, I ran, at quite a slow pace at that.

""Ihihihi~!""

That was, I ran after my two daughters, who ever so cutely ran away on their stubbly little legs as I chased them.

Of course, thanks to the fact that they were born with levels more comparable to a typical adult, their running speed was far faster than one would imagine coming from a pair of eighteen month year olds. But even then, it wasn't fast, even by normal adult standards. Not when despite their high physical strength, they hadn't developed the coordination to make use of such incredible stats.

Alicia, followed closely by Fate, ran around a corner, and as I rounded the same corner, I just barely saw them disappear around the next, circling around the building I was chasing them around.

"Alicia~! Fate~! Where did you go~?"

I loudly called out.

""Ehehe~!""

My ears easily picked up the sounds of them giggling while they huddled together just past the next corner.

As I made my way slowly past the corner they disappeared from, I continued to call for the two.

""UI~!!!""

"Wah!"

Suddenly, the two appeared behind me, grabbing my legs.

"Oh geez, you little rugrats!"

Of course, I didn't fail to notice them sneaking up behind me. Not only did I hear their stiff footsteps a mile away, but [presence detection] never lost sight of them in the first place.

"Okay, you've had your fun. Let's go back now!"

""Okay!""

My ever cute little twins raised their hands as I picked them up, and we went back. After all the fun we had, their breathing was a little laboured, so it was time for them to rest.

 

As we got back, my eyes narrowed as I was filled with conflicted feelings looking at the building which we called home.

Frankly speaking, it was enormous.

The others said that it was appropriately so, being that it was both the house of one of the elders, but also the one who had sole ownership of the dungeon the entire nation relied on.

Though to be honest, that fact felt more like a formality than anything. It wasn't possible to actually solely control the dungeon, which was why the Hunter's Guild was established in the first place. The guild even built a pair of new buildings to encapsulate the two entrances.

One reason was to hide it from outsiders, since it was only a matter of time before someone shows up. The other was for the sake of convenience.

Not only did the building allow people to enter and exit the dungeon more conveniently when it rained or snowed, but a lot of business could be done inside of the large building. The guild established new reception areas to receive materials from requests and to pay the hunters for them, but also had a full fledged garage that held hand wagons for loading to be transported to the cities.

In the end they were simple, mostly bare-bones buildings, but they made everything much more convenient, allowing the economy to turn noticeably better.

But my house, which was built right beside the western entrance, was what was giving me those mixed feelings.

It was probably the size of a small hotel.

The building was four stories high and had four large rooms per floor flanking each side of the main lobby, and was half again as deep as it was wide. The rooms themselves were divided for use, and overall varied in size depending on that use, but even the smallest rooms, like my bedroom, was more than twice the size of my old studio apartment I lived in before I died.

I opened one side of the double doors and stepped into the lobby. This first room was half the size of a basketball court, and was decorated with plenty of fire element lanterns with the floor being covered with carpets.

Right in the middle, there was a huge central staircase which split ninety degrees both ways two thirds the way to the second floor. I couldn't help but imagine some pompous nobleman slowly walking down the stairs holding a glass of red wine greeting their guest while looking down at them when I first walked through those doors.

Without even bothering with the carpeted stairs, I simply levitated us up straight through the open ceiling until I straddled past the guard rails for the second floor overlook. The lobby didn't extend past the second floor, so there were different rooms directly above. A pair of staircases did run alongside the overlook to the upper floors.

Walking through the side hallway, I entered the first door on the left.

My personal room had everything I needed in it. Which to say wasn't much.

As a vampire, I didn't need a bed, nor a table to eat at. There was a desk and some chairs, along with a coffee table flanked by a pair of couches, but of all the things in the room, the one thing which normally shouldn't be in a bedroom was the only thing which actually got proper and regular use: a large bathtub.

"C'mon you two. You're covered in dirt. Take your clothes off and let's take a bath."

"A bath!"

"Yay!"

Alicia and Fate excitedly exclaimed before they awkwardly stripped down. They worked the buttons on their robes one at a time before throwing them to the side, then bundling their under dresses over their heads. They awkwardly gripped the bow tie on their laced boots before managing to undo them and loosening the laces. Though it took them a minute to remove each boot, once they were off they were unceremoniously thrown behind them, making dull thuds as they landed and rolled to a stop.

Finally, the lowered and stepped through their underwear before running towards me, appearing like the day I gave birth to them.

"Mommy! I did it first!"

"No, I did it first!"

"Yes yes, you both did a good job taking your clothes off."

I gave each girl a pat on the head as their cheeks slackened and they giggled.

Behind me, the tub had reached its capacity so I stopped my magic and stripped down myself, though I placed my clothes on a bench beside the tub rather than scatter them around the room. Not like scattering them would make this enormous. room feel less empty.

Taking the two into my arms, I lifted a leg and stepped into the warm water. It was a bit cooler than what I preferred, but making it any hotter might not be good for my girls, so I endured this little bit of discomfort.

The moment I let go of them once I was seated in this huge tub that was as wide as a Jacuzzi, Alicia splashed water onto me. Of course I erected a wall of hardened air around us so the water wouldn't spill out of the bath.

"Ehehehe!"

Fate glanced at her sister, then with a bright smile she splashed water onto me as well.

"Eeee!"

As the little girl stood in the bath water looking proud for herself, Alicia turned to her sister with a bit of a frown and splashed water her way.

"Wah!"

With a yell of surprise, Fate slipped and fell backwards into the water. A moment after her butt touched the bottom of the bathtub, she started to flail her arms around, with only the crown of her head above the water.

I quickly lifted her up and gave her a hug.

"Are you alright Fate?"

My little girl pressed her face into my chest while returning a tight hug. But even then, she gave me a firm nod after a few moments.

"Alicia, you need to take care of Fate. You're her big sister."

"But..."

"No buts. Now apologize."

"Mmmm!"

Alicia gave me a frustrated look as her gaze bounced back between me and Fate, but eventually she let go and gave me a shallow nod.

"Sorry Fate."

"And?"

"I love you Fate."

Hearing the key words, Fate turned her head to her big sister's.

"And what do you say Fate?"

"It's okay. I love you too Alicia."

And without me even needing to prompt her, Fate let go of me and gave her sister a hug. Alicia hesitated for a moment before returning it, her expression that suitable for a loving big sister.

"Now then, now that you've made up, what type of soap do you two want to use?"

I pat my two adorable daughters on the head as I asked them.

"Oh! Ummm, ummm...!"

"I want the orange one!"

"Yea! Me too!"

Despite being the first one to respond, Fate ended up simply following her sister's choice. Somehow it always ended up being whatever Alicia chose. I worried a little about her passivity, but she was still young. She still had time to grow out of it.

"Alright. Orange scented it is!"

I first raised up orbs of bath water into the air, then slowly poured them on top of Alicia and Fate's heads. They giggled and stamped their feet under the water as their hair was soaked, then I did it for myself before taking out a block of soap which gave off the distinctly sweet smell of oranges.

Alicia and Fate both eagerly rubbed their wet hands into the bar of soap, as if they were competing to see who can wash their hair first.

(No, maybe they really are competing.)

Either way, they awkwardly rubbed their palms into the suds covered block then rubbed their hands into their hair before going back to build more bubbles.

"Ah, be careful Fate!"

Just as a line of soapy water started to make its way down Fate's forehead, I caught it with a finger and wiped it away before it could get into her eye.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

"One moment Alicia."

I quickly gave Fate a final once-over while Alicia tugged at my arm, demanding my attention.

She had a tendency of doing that whenever I only paid attention to her sister, even if it was only for a few seconds. She didn't seem to mind when my attention was equally split between the two, but for some reason she seemed to feel threatened somehow if I prioritized on Fate for a few moments.

I hoped that it wasn't the beginnings of a bad habit, as I had no idea how to prevent such a thing.

At least she didn't exhibit this behaviour with other people. She could at least understand when I was talking to other people regarding important subjects.

(Is this maybe from something before she died?)

The speed at which she had grown attached to me when she was still human, I hadn't thought of it at the time, but maybe it was because she wasn't properly loved? And she only held it in because she felt like she didn't deserve it due to her disability?

Alicia had originally been blind, but her family was extremely poor. Being only a burden that made her family's situation worse, it was a given that she would crave being loved in that situation. And I had given it to her, but she still felt reserved at the time.

But now, she had a healthy body, but lacked the physical maturity to think as clearly as she did before. Her brain might not have been developed well enough to incorporate the self control that had dominated her behaviour at the time, but instead her desires that were buried underneath was unearthed and amplified with her innate desires.

Though I could only speculate. I was no behaviour psychologist or anything, or even knew much about the subject.

"*hic* *hic* Waaah!"

"!"

My head immediately jerked to the source of crying.

Alicia was holding her head, with the bar of soap I had accidentally abandoned sitting on top. There was a large plume of bubbles surrounding it, with a stream of suds running down her face.

"Alicia!"

I quickly scrubbed her face with a wet hand, wiping away the soap trail. Then I knocked away the soap bar resting on top of her head and swept away the mountain of soap bubbles that continued to drip more suds down her face.

"Alicia, you okay?"

Fate slapped her sister in the shoulder as lightly as her clumsy arms could, but in the state Alicia was in, it was a given that she couldn't respond in any decent way. Instead, Alicia flung an arm at her sister in the place of saying that she wasn't, hitting her in the face with an open, soap covered palm.

*Hic*

"...Waaah!"

Surprised at the sudden assault, Fate too started to cry.

(Oh geez!)

"Mommy! Alicia...Alicia...!"

"It was an accident dear. Your sister didn't mean it."

But my words seemingly fell on deaf ears, and Fate buried her face into my chest as she continued to cry.

In the meantime, I was busy juggling two crying babies as things deteriorated far faster than I could have imagined.

With one hand, I rubbed Fate's back to reassure her, and the other I continued to wipe the dripping suds off of Alicia's face.

"No, Alicia, don't...!"

But with my attention divided and my mind going in overdrive trying to figure out how to calm down a pair of crying babies, I was a bit late in noticing Alicia raising her hands to rub her teary eyes. I managed to grab one of her hands, but the other soapy hand pressed against her face.

"WAAAH!"

Alicia's wails intensified as soap suds entered her eyes once again.

(Nonononono!)

My elder daughter flailed her arms around as I tried my best to wipe away the soap from her face, then I lifted her chin and poured some conjured water onto her face, allowing it to run down her eyes, but diverting the flow away from her face the moment it ran past them.

All the while, I tried my best to comfort the two girls.

"Master! I finished cleaning the fourth floor!"

With a boom, Claret came in through the window, blasting open the shutters and flooding the room with painfully bright light.

"Claret! Not now!"

I practically roared over the sound of my babies' crying intensifying even further. Even if the light couldn't reach us directly, the intense brightness of it was enough to be painful to our eyes as it was still before evening.

Or maybe it was my yelling which had spurred the two on even further. Either way, my path had gotten that much more difficult.

"Y, yes Master..."

If that ever loyal familiar of mine was a dog, her ears and tail would have been drooping while she closed the window shutters and sat down in the corner.

I felt bad for yelling at her like that, but I didn't have the leeway to deal with her at the time.

My daughters were incomparably higher priority than Claret.

For the next few minutes, I did my best to reassure my babies while cleaning away any traces of the soap from Alicia's face.

 

"Maybe it's time to cut your hair."

I twirled a lock of each of my babies' hair around my fingers as they sat in my lap. Once I managed to calm the two of them down, we continued to wash and now they were playing in the warm water while I just enjoyed watching them.

"Mommy! I want my hair to be long like yours!"

"Yea! I want that too!"

Alicia and Fate both gave their wishes to me.

"But when your hair is long, they get in the way when you play you know?"

While I didn't know about what people meant when they said that long hair was heavy due to my stats, I did understand that it got in the way quite easily if you weren't careful. Loose strands gets in your face quite easily, and you always spent a long time every day, washing it, drying it, brushing it, dressing it up.

It wasn't some one-and-done thing like when my hair was short in my previous life. Just lather, rinse, scrub dry and forget. Maybe comb it for a few seconds if I had an especially bad case of bed hair.

In this life though, I had to dedicate proper time to handle my hair, or else it would give me no end of grief all day.

But despite all that, I had grown fond of my long hair, and wouldn't trade it for the convenience of short hair.

Most likely, Alicia and Fate would end up with long hair like mine some day, but it would get in the way far too much at this age, so I made sure to keep it short and cut it every time they started to touch their shoulders.

I wondered if Alicia remembered how much work it took to care for long hair. She saw it countless times once she regained her awareness inside of my body.

Fate on the other hand probably had no idea, and just wanted what her sister wanted. She had probably never even considered getting long hair until her twin had mentioned it.

While it wasn't really a big deal and easily reversed, I still worried that it might take away from their happiness. That they wouldn't be able to enjoy their youth quite as much if they had to struggle with long hair.

"Mommy, can't I?"

"Can't we?"

My heart dropped like a cold stone as I was faced with a pair of puppy dog eyes.

"A, alright. We'll try letting it grow out for now."

I turned my head away as I answered.

(That's just cheating.)

So far, I hadn't once been able to win against those eyes.

One day they might be the source of some serious trouble, and I was worried even knowing full well the consequences, I'd still succumb to them.

""Yay! I love you mommy!""

The two of them hugged me, wiping away all my worries in an instant.

(Maybe it'll be alright. At least for now.)

And just as any bad mother did, I left the problem for the future me to deal with as I was consumed with the joys of now.