"What are you waiting for, hurry up!"

"Quit pulling, girl!"

"Haa...why are we even bothering?"

Three figures were making their way through the cleanly paved street. A small elf in front, pulling the hand of a dwarf several times her weight. Following close behind the duo was a human woman, bereft of any real will, following apparently out of habit more than any desire.

No, rather, her own desires were against going where the elf was leading them, yet even more loathsome was she to part with them.

"Of course it's to save the little ones!"

Idmon finally let go of Ancaeus's hand and stomped the ground, denying Hylas with all her will.

"It's been years since the little ones have been taken by the fairies! Who knows what sorts of suffering they've been going through by the hands of a vampire! And finally, we got news that Arcadia and the pope are ready to start rescuing them!"

"But that means that we're going back there, aren't we?"

"Of course!"

Hylas moved to hug herself as she suppressed a tremble.

"Let's not. No good is going to come from going back there."

Unlike in the past, the woman had no desire to follow her comrades again where they had lost half their numbers. Despite that, she hadn't left the other survivors, no matter how insistent the older elf had been.

"Argh! Things won't get better if we don't do anything! They took all the spirits! All of them! And there's not nearly enough new ones being born because of it!"

Idmon heaved, her face red the entire time. Before any of this happened, none of the group had barely witnessed the little elf wearing any expression aside from apathy and lethargy. For the first time, it was the other two who were disinterested in the incident and she who passionately pushed the others to move.

"Yea, but that's the fairies doing, you said that yourself back when it first happened. Just talk to them or something."

While he wasn't nearly as adverse to get involved as Hylas, the dwarf Ancaeus still leaned more towards his hesitant companion. As furious as he was regarding losing two of his companions in a single day, even he wasn't so blind as to unilaterally blame their killers after they themselves were so blatantly the aggressors.

And on top of that, while he could get on board with another attempt at killing the demon lord, that was only IF she was actively working against their people. As things stood, while her location was a bit close for comfort, there was no indication of a military force buildup, nor news of any suspicious attacks.

Everything was pure speculation, and no matter how much he hated her personally, it was clear even to him that she wasn't the primary target anymore.

"If just talking to those crazy sugar-mongers ever worked, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place!"

Acaeus and Hylas both sighed at Idmon's response. It wasn't like either of them had enough experience with the fairies to actually refute their comrade. What little contact they had did certainly corroborate with Idmon's words, as much as they wanted to rebut her.

"Also, the higher ups of Arcadia are all in agreement. And they've finally finished preparations to take down those damn fairies and rescue the spirits."

"You guys really sure you wanna do that? Those fairies are supposed to be our allies, you know?"

"They're the ones who betrayed us! They're the traitors! They're even working under a confirmed demon lord!"

"Alright, alright. You got me there."

Raising his hands up to emphasize the point, Ancaeus gave up even trying to argue. After all, he couldn't come up with a reasonable reason why anyone would chose to live together with a demon lord. Only that the fairies were just that crazy and decided to throw in their lot with the enemy.

The dwarf was the first to admit he wasn't that smart, but even he would staunchly say that there's no reasonable reason to side with the ones his people had been at war with since the beginning of time, those feral enemies of all that was good and decent. Especially the current leader of those people.

In the end, the two gave up trying to argue with their elven comrade and followed her all the way to the city's cathedral, ready to accept the mission that they all knew was coming, no matter how bad of a feeling it gave them.

 

It's been a few months since Letty had joined the family.

Frankly speaking, things had gone quite a lot smoother than I had expected. Originally, I figured that there's be a lot of resistance all around.

Of course, there was my cute little twins. And as expected, they didn't like the idea of having to share my attention with a newcomer. But maybe because that newcomer, while quite an attention seeker herself, was able to accept a more passive form of attention most of the time.

As long as she was able to maintain a near permanent level of skinship with someone she was close to, Letty didn't mind if my attention was elsewhere most of the time.

Sure, having someone stuck to me like glue was a bit annoying, but Claret used to hang off of me like that in the past, so frankly, it was a little nostalgic. Even if Letty's body wasn't capable of passing through solid objects conveniently.

While Fate got attached to Letty quite quickly, Alicia on the other hand showed her rare differentiating point from her twin sister in not getting so fond with the new arrival.

In fact, the two got into fights over this a few times, something which I had thought the two had managed to get over. But it seemed, rather than having the fight between them taken out, they simply didn't have much reason to fight for the last year or so.

That fact, surprisingly, made me a bit happy. Both in that it felt like proof that I wasn't so bad of a mother, but also that the reasons they would fight showed how they were developing into proper individuals. Rather than identical twins who fought because they both wanted the exact same thing, they were becoming individuals who fought because they wanted different things at the same time.

I didn't know how much Letty's existence influenced this, but any amount that had fuelled their growth, I was thankful for.

After that, there were those like Philia and Flix, who I had personal relations with, but were detached to a certain degree when it came to our private lives.

Thankfully, they accepted the sudden new addition to my family without much issue. Or rather, they were more worried about how clingy Letty was, but once I explained how it was caused by her centuries long isolation, they instead grew quite sympathetic and started to encouraged her.

Frankly, I didn't want such encouragement being given to Letty, but it wasn't like I could tell them to stop. The thoughts of Letty finding out I said such and the mental damage it could deliver prevented me from ever vocalizing such a thing.

While it was unfortunate, I could only accept this as just taking a bit more time to cure Letty of her trauma and become properly independent.

Most of the others accepted Letty for who she was without issue. The stories of Saint Scarlet was sufficiently detached from them that at most it was like finding out some celebrity you've only vaguely known about having moved in to your town. Even Philia, after the initial shock that the person her orphanage was named after, was actually Letty rather than myself, quickly grew to act normal around her. Most likely, the shock didn't hit her that hard because she had always presumed that the legendary person she looked up to was the much less than legendary person she once playfully teased.

Of course, by that line, Elli was the single most standout figure when it came to that side.

Her shock was quite pronounced, to the degree that I grew worried of her health, being one of the oldest in the Commonwealth. And by being such an age, she actually knew Letty before she had died, though Letty barely knew Elli it seemed. Not much of a surprise considering that Elli was practically a child at the time while Letty was an important figure of the settlement that had existed at the time.

Though them reminiscing old stories was a bit embarrassing though. With Letty refusing to let go of me, I ended up being the third wheel as they enjoyed their talks together.

On the other hand, it was nice not being the centre of attention for once, even if they didn't mean to completely ignore me.

And so, after spreading the news of my new family member, as well as dealing with the various reactions, my next task was to work on the dhampire problem.

Specifically, it was getting their data set up properly.

It took a while, but in the end after going in and out of the control room in the lowest floor of the dungeon as well as some careful probing of the dhampire kids' conditions, I managed to stabilize their data.

In the end, I had them gain most of the vampire advantages, however most at a reduced potency. They could all drink blood properly and gain skills that way, but at a slower rate than pure blooded vampires. They still had [light magic] weakness and sensitivity to bright lights, but both at far reduced values. Their bodies were half-mana based, like how the fairies were, rather than fully mana based like true vampires. Unfortunately that was more of a weakness than a strength, but making radical changes to the base composition of their bodies could easily cause countless problems, so this part wasn't changed.

[Natural weapons] on the other hand, was secured at full potency. Experience had taught me that this was and important and useful skill to have, but at the same time it was a comparatively weak skill best suited as a backup when compared against other forms of offence.

Their natural traits as well, from their mothers' sides, were adjusted to roughly half the normal potency where applicable.

On top of all of this, I wrote up data sheets for all other crosses with vampires, regardless of the likeliness of them happening. Even half vampire half spirits. I really couldn't see how it could happen, but I wanted to cover my bases and deal with this potential issue before an example appeared and I was forced to deal with a possibly serious and irreconcilable problem.

I was 99% sure that Claret had no idea what sex was, and the idea of childbirth blew her mind to the point that she blocked out Alicia and Fate's birth.

Or something.

Either way, it wasn't something which I really thought to be a realistic possibility, but it couldn't be bad to put in that bit of extra effort.

Aside from that most of my time these last few months had been devoted to normalizing the changes to my family. Especially balancing how I handle my three daughters.

Frankly speaking, the problem was the sort of attention I needed to give my family in comparison to what they wanted.

Alicia and Fate needed normal maternal attention to help facilitate their growth. Nothing special, though at the same time, Letty needed her own growth as well. The PTSD she had developed during her long years of isolation was quite deeply ingrained, causing her an emotional need to feel like she wasn't alone.

Fortunately, she was easily able to keep her trauma from surfacing by maintaining physical contact with someone she trusts. On the other hand, she relapses quite quickly the moment that physical contact was lost.

While so far, Letty had been able to extend this need from just myself to Alicia, Fate, and even Claret. For the duration of treating Letty's PTSD, this wasn't really that bad of a spread, and was quite workable as long as nothing serious happened to disrupt this.

That said, Letty did prefer to hug whoever it was she was having contact with, so occasionally the results would be a little weird. Particularly when it happened with Alicia and Fate, there were a few times that they dragged her along the ground while she hugged their waists, one in each arm.

The results of that wasn't pretty at all. While her robes managed to survive the ordeal any serious damage, Letty's legs fared much worse. I didn't know how she just let herself be dragged around until she was leaving behind a trail of blood.

After I got her fixed back up with some forceful injection of blood, I made Alicia and Fate promise to watch out for their little sister, and to make her hold their hands when together with Letty. While it did make Letty complain a bit, it did solve the problem.

As for why Alicia and Fate didn't even notice that they were dragging their little sister...the only reason I could think of was that it was because she didn't put up a fuss combined with their own levels being high enough that they have a hard time realizing that they were doing something that could hurt other people.

That issue with their levels really was something I was worried about, but unfortunately, nothing but experience and growth could solve this problem.

Besides this, there was some other minor issues, but for the most part, I've committed myself to slowly improve things as we went out as a family.

"C'mon Letty. I know you that you know how to do it."

"I don't wanna."

"Geez. Alicia and Fate are doing it properly."

I pointed towards my twins as they mercilessly struck down kobolds with spears.

The aim this day was both to get my daughters experience fighting as well as fill out on blood loaded universally useful skills. The kobolds that filled the 11th floor fortress had a wide variety of skills, especially those that were more suited towards day to day life.

While Alicia and Fate had already gained those skills, there wasn't any harm in having them raise those skills further while gaining an understanding of how to fight against those who wielded weapons. Letty on the other hand, shouldn't need the physical experience fighting, but merely the XP to raise her level as well as skills to fill out her character page.

""Mommy! Mommy! Look!""

"Ah, how wonderful! You two did a great job!"

I patted Alicia and Fate's heads as they came back dragging a kobold corpse, adorable smiles beaming all around.

"Be careful how you strike your enemies though. While today it's not a problem, poking them full of holes means that there'll be less blood to drink. You won't always be somewhere where its easy to drink as much as you want."

""Okay Mommy!""

"Oh yea. Since the two of you are getting so good at fighting monsters, why not be a good big sisters and teach your little sister how to hunt?"

I let a grin spread on my cheeks as I looked down at the figure pressing itself against my chest.

"Yes! I'm a good big sister! I'll show Letty!"

"Ah! Wait! I'm the biggest sister! I'll show both of you!"

"Wai...! Mother!"

With a literal jump start, Fate rushed over to peel Letty off of me, with Alicia hurrying to catch up and assert her dominance. It seemed like Fate's actions really was making her feel a bit pressured, but while it was putting a bit of stress on her, all it did to me was increase the size of the smile I wore.

Letty on the other hand looked at me with an expression of being betrayed while I lightly waved her off.

"I made sure you have the appropriate magic skills since I heard from Claret that you were pretty good at it in the past."

Since we vampires could learn skills just by drinking enough of the blood of a creature that it, it was quite easy to simply collect the blood of magic using monsters to feed Letty as a way to jump start her levelling process.

"C'mon! Your big sister'll teach you how to hunt for your own blood!"

"Ah! I'll do it, Fate! I'm the biggest sister!"

"Claret you smoke headed traitor~!"

I followed my three daughters, careful to make sure that they never got in over their heads. Alicia and Fate, their arms hooked around Letty's as they literally dragged her off on a little adventure with me watching over them from a small distance.

"Ah, life is good."

Frankly speaking, though I had a feeling I had this thought several times in the past, I never knew that it was possible to have so much joy in life. It was a little sad to think that this was a time limited event and I might never experience it again, no matter how much it could stretch on forever.

But then there was the fact that we would have many more joyful events in the future. Alicia and Fate will grow bigger, all three of my daughters will slowly mature and find their own ways.

I knew there was going to be troubles in the future, though not of what sort. I could only hope that we'd safely traverse them all as I watched over my daughters as they grew up.