Having to calm myself down again, I cleared my throat.

“H-Hey, you two,” I spoke to the twins.

They looked up at me with their large sparkling eyes. Their faces were slightly blushed from the bath, giving them a much more seductive appearance.

No, stop thinking about that!

“I asked yesterday but with so much going on, it kind of fell through the cracks. Do you two have names?”

Yes, I had spent almost three days with them, including the time it took us to ride back home, and I still had no idea what their names were. Red-haired girl had shut down that whole conversation before it went anywhere and elf girl made it worse by getting naked on top of me.

It didn’t feel right to not even know such simple information about people who were now living with me.

The twins looked at me with confusion. They looked off to the side and then faced me once more. ““We don’t have one.””

“What?”

“They get rid of our names…if they had one to begin with,” came the sudden voice of the red-haired girl to my right. “If you are bred to be a slave, you don’t have one from the start, but if you’re made into a slave, our name is erased alongside our Citizen Code. That’s so our new master could name us whatever they want.”

It was clear I hadn’t been fully informed about everything when it came to slaves. I knew about as much as most people did, but the whole name thing had never come up before. I guess it makes sense. But…

“But you did have a name before, right?” I asked the red-haired girl. In fact, if I wasn’t wrong. “I’m certain that all of you had names.”

Red-haired girl huffed, “What does it matter now? I’ve had so many names throughout my life now that I’ve lost count. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to call myself my original and keep my pride intact.”

“I share that same sentiment,” The elf girl added. “But above all else, I don’t want to be related to my old life any longer.”

The once hero and once princess. Obviously being relegated to slaves would leave a mark on their pride, but in the case of the elf girl, I suspected there was something deeper there. Unlike the red-haired girl who had problems with a group of people who were at best friends, elf girl was royalty. It was her own family that was around her. So how did she end up this way?

Having gotten the other two’s wishes, I waited for the twins’ response.

After a few seconds, the blonde twin said, “14367-J, that was me.”

“And I was 14368-J.”

I wasn’t entirely sure if they were joking or not, but their innocent faces clearly told me that wasn’t the case.

“Those…are hardly names.” I recalled what Isolde had told me about these two’s situation. “You were raised in a church, right? Those are the names they gave you there?”

““You knew about that master?””

“Of course. I got a run-down of all of your situations.”

I noticed the two girls off to the right twitch from the corner of my eye.

““Ooh”” The twins let out.

Blonde twin then added, “Every child got that kind of name, they did.”

“And anyone who joined later would have their names replaced with one of those,” the other continued.

“I see…so basically, now all four of you have no names.”

They all nodded.

As the way things are now, I have no other way to refer to them than by their appearance. I can’t just force them to use their old names and the twins basically never had a name to begin with. That left me with no other option.

“Do you want me to give you all names?”

““Would you do that?”” The twins asked excitedly.

Red-haired girl quickly interjected, “It’s his right as our owner. It’s not like we have much of a say in it.” She lowered her body in the water until the surface covered her mouth.

“I mean if you don’t want me to, I could just—”

““We want you to!””

“Alright—do you two have objections?” I asked. Elf girl shook her head while red-haired girl simply looked at me then looked away.

Guess I’ll take that as a no.

“Alright, let me think…”

I wasn’t great at naming. Really, I had very little to go off of. But there was one thing I could take from. Something that I always feared one day forgetting.

Leaning against the back of the bath, I looked up at the ceiling. “There was this book my father once brought to me. It was a prototype, as far as I know. The author was a man he’d met while on his adventures off to the lands of the east.”

I spoke as I recalled how my father would tell me of his many travels. He hardly traveled at all after I was born, only for emergencies and the like, but he had stories after stories of the years before that. Adventures that sounded straight out of a fairy tale.

“He had given the book to my father as a gift for helping him out, among other things of course, and asked to give him his thoughts about it whenever he stopped by. Once he did read it, he wasted no time to find a reason to go back to the East and speak to this man about his wonderful book, but when he arrived, he found out he’d been killed. And his book never saw the light of day.”

All four girls gazed at me in silence.

“When I was younger, my father would always read that book to me. It was written in a language I didn’t understand so I couldn’t hope to read it by myself. But he’d not only know the language, he was skilled enough to translate it on the spot…” I realized I was going into a tangent and cleared my throat. “Anyway, that story has always left an imprint on me. The characters, morals, and themes it contained were etched into me since back then. That book was lost at some point, and I had nothing more than my memory to preserve those characters.

“I may not be great and naming but giving you a name from there is the best I can do.”

Since the twins were the closest to me, I might as well start with them.

I started with the blonde twin. “You will be Shiari. A joyous, loving girl.” I turned to the twin, “And you’ll be her sister, Hikari. A girl as bright as the sun.” I assigned names as I recalled the characters from that story.

The twins, Shiari and Hikari, beamed beautiful smiles as they rightly hugged my arms. Their small chests pressed even harder on my shoulder. ““Thank you, master!””

Red-haired girl was next up, sitting just nearby next to me. “And you,” she turned to me with scarlet eyes, her mouth still underwater. “Are you okay with the name Kishiko? An ambitious, precious girl.”

Her cheeks reddened. She turned away, facing the surface of the water, then gave a small nod.

Cute.

Finally, I turned to the elf girl at the far end of the bath. “Will you accept the name Misaki? And honorable girl who’s unafraid to aid those in need.”

The elf girl, Misaki, gave a sharp and resolute nod.

“Then that settles it. Shiari, Hikari, Kishiko, and Misaki. This might be a little late, but I welcome you to my home—well, our home.” I smiled.

 

---

 

****, no, Kishiko rubbed her hands under the water. Her cheeks burned red. She’d been named before, it’d happened every time she had been bought, but this was the first time someone had actually put some thought into naming her.

A part of her felt pathetic that she was getting excited over something like that, but a much more powerful part of her was filled with happiness.

She’d once been proud of her name. It represented everything important to her. But now that it represented nothing but shame to not only herself but to her family as well, she couldn’t use that name again. None of the names her previous masters had given her made her feel attached to them, but for some reason, Kishiko was different.

It’s like she could feel the emotion and the thought that went into naming her.

Her whole plan of talking to the elf girl, Misaki, flew entirely out of her mind.

In her chest, there was a small flicker of something. Something that gave her the passing urge to get closer to Starlin.

“Okay, it’s about time I got out,” he suddenly said. “Are you girls going to stay any longer?”

““We’re going with you!”” Shiari and Hikari yelled.

“I’ll also be leaving,” Misaki said.

“Same here,” Kishiko quickly added.

She was just thinking that she should probably get out first when the twins suddenly lifted Starlin out of the water. Misaki was turned to him at the time and came face to face with his bare private parts. Her heart jumped to her throat as she quickly turned away.

 

---

 

We all walked naked into the changing room. There we grabbed a few towels and dried ourselves, Misaki helping out the twins with their long hair. But just as they were about to reach for their rags…

“Wait, girls!”

They all turned to me. Thankfully I had put on my clothes before turning all the attention towards me.

I reached for the bag that I had brought with me earlier and dumped the contents on one of the shelves. From inside came many, many clothes, all balled up haphazardly. They were of all types, but one thing they had in common was their feminine features.

“I couldn’t get underwear for you all, but I did get these outfits my mother made a long time ago. It was her hobby to make dresses of all types, but she never did anything with them. I’m sure she won’t mind if you all use some.”

All four girls walked up to the shelf and looked over the clothes.

“I don’t know if they’ll fit, but I picked a few out that looked more or less right. Try them on.”

“Why?” Kishiko asked. “WE already have the—”

“You’re not going to tell me you want to put that back on. Those were barely even clothes. Actually, they look more like sacks than clothes.” I pointed at their old outfits. “Just put these new ones on. I want to see how they look on you.”

With a bit of grumbling from Kishika, excited cheers from the twins, and a single nod from Misaki, they looked through the clothes.

After a few minutes, they had all dressed up.

Shiari and Hikari wore similar sleek dresses with skirts that reached halfway down their thighs. The dresses were white and black respectively, but they each had the opposite colors detailing the outfit throughout.

Kishiko’s was simpler. A cute sleeveless top and a short skirt that really accentuated her girthy thighs. The outfit was a little tight on the chest area, her breast pushing one of the buttons a little more than it should, but it looked cute nonetheless.

And finally Misaki. Like the twins, she also wore a dress, but this one reached right around her knees. It was also slick, but with a mature aura that really gave the vibe of the princess she once was.

Now that they were fully dressed, they looked like nothing more than the beautiful girls they were.

“…You all look beautiful…” I accidentally let out.

““Thank you master!!”” the twins jumped back onto my arms.

Kishiko looked away in a blush while Misaki simply nodded.