~~** Interlude | Glace **~~

My wholesome life! Give it back to me papa!

While mama was resting and recovering from giving birth to me, a number of adult goblins came to see papa and I. Well, mostly papa. Turns out my papa is some kind of shady harem protagonist. I have yet to learn all the details, but I haven’t seen a single other male anything, be they human or goblin around here so far. It’s just papa and a lot of goblins with zero modesty. At least papa owns some drawers so his summer sausage isn’t just flapping about. I’m a young and impressionable girl right now, I don’t need to be traumatized by how… impressive… it is.

But now I know why mama can’t say no to anything. She wouldn’t be able to after going a full round with that.

The midwife goblin had come to visit papa today, and she wanted to hold me. She even let me sample her milk, which tasted like berries. Damn, mama, step your game up, this breast milk is super tasty! What does this goblin even eat to get it to taste like this? Papa, do you even know?

…wait a minute. If she’s got breast milk, then…

Yeah. Papa knows...

Cheater!  Playboy!

Hmm. I’m kinda cheating on mama too with how much I’m enjoying the taste.

O.K. papa, I’ll let this mistress of yours slide for now. I’m not an unreasonable daughter.

Moving on, the family home isn’t half bad for being in a goblin cave. It’s spacious, complete with two bedrooms, a massive living room, a dining table meant for loads of company, some kind of makeshift kitchen and pantry, a large heated bath, a shower, a play area with some basic games of strategy, and some kind of miniature auditorium from what I can see.

Having night vision without a cybernetic augment is kind of cool, but papa needs the light on.

I guess my showing off  my talent with mana has prompted papa to gauge my intellect already. With a crude sharpened bone in his hand, and with me sitting comfortably in his lap while he was wearing his undies, he began to draw a number of Glyphs into the dirt floor and explained each one in detail, complete with directional functionality. He called them Runes and the directional functionality was given the name diacritical marks, but it was similar to the first magic system I learned many worlds ago.

As such, he wanted to know if I could manifest each of the Glyphs, and I did, in exchange for being praised and given headpats. I mean, I’m like super old here, but when a handsome and young papa-type is willing to dote on me, I’m not going to be stubborn and refuse. One of the best parts about hopping worlds is being able to take full advantage of the benefits of each stage of life. Why be stoic? I’m gonna be a selfish brat and live as I want! Kekeke~

Papa understood that I couldn’t talk, but he didn’t seem all that disappointed. Instead, he did his best to talk to me plenty so my Language Syntax skill could pick up the local language, and he tried to explain what he felt was important that I should know. The first thing he did was explain that mama was in a similar situation.

Mama had some kind of communication disorder that made it difficult for her to speak more than one word at a time, but that her mind was sharp and there was probably some kind of neural disconnect. Considering I was flooded with her thoughts going a mile a minute while gestating inside of her, it was easy to understand. I also gave a few points to him for being in a relationship with mama considering she had such an impairment. Also, mama was the only goblin allowed to live with papa. Everyone else was in a commuting relationship with him.

I guess I can’t complain if I’m meant to be the spoiled daughter living the sweet cave-mansion life who also gets plenty of papa’s time and love. Yeah, as far as papas go, this guy is alright, I think. The skinship is nice, and his body is always warm and comfy. It’s dangerous because sometimes I feel like… taking a nice long nap while he's holding me.

Speaking of naps, I was interrupted from a nice one while resting on mama’s chest after sleep-nursing. A few goblins a bit bigger than I was, but who were obviously still children had come to see me.

“Are you Glace?”

No, I’m Grace!

I nodded.

“I’m Diana Artemis. The oldest of Husband’s strong ones! These two are Orchid and Lilac. We are all your big sisters.”

Nice to meet you?

I nodded.

“Are you not able to talk?”

Sorry, I appear to not be able to.

I shook my head.

“Not a problem. Vera also has a hard time speaking. I’ve heard from Old One that you are a Smart one, which is different from a Strong one like us. Also, that you are a runt. There’s no shame in that. Lily, the one who made Orchid and Lilac, is also a runt. There is a place for you in the tribe, we just need to settle where it is.”

Oh, great… Am I about to be bullied?

“Diana Artemis is a kind big sister. I listen to Husband and show my sisters how to be strong!”

“Yeah! Diana teaches us how to hunt!”

“Husband is also smart and made us stronger with special weapons!”

Husband?

“Husband is Husband. One who also made you.”

Oh? You call papa husband? How strange. His name is Ark, you know?

“Anyway, I want you to come with us for a little while.”

There was a little difficulty in getting off of mama, but Diana, true to her proclamation of being a kind big sister, helped me down and held my hand as we walked out of mama’s bedroom. Papa had a little straw hand-broom he was using to sweep the room. Looks like he’s a reliable househusband too!  Happy wife, cushy life.  If he's a pushover, my life is set.

Diana had approached papa and asked him if I could use human magic. Was there a distinction in the types of magic activation that separated it into schools? Magic is just magic, kiddo. Papa said that while I was a runt, he thought I was going to be stronger than him where magic was concerned.

Well, naturally I would be. This cutie has hundreds of years of experience using it!

Diana looked at me and asked if I could dig holes in the ground and blow things away with wind. Not to make a pun here, but that kind of stuff was child’s play to me. So, I nodded in the affirmative.

“I am Diana Artemis! The next Guardian of the goblin tribe and the oldest of sisters. I want you to show me your magic, so I know how strong you are, Glace!”

She sure is full of confidence, isn’t she, not calling me Grace properly? Alright sister, I’ll try and go easy on you.

I squatted down and drew a circle on the ground.

I won’t leave this spot, okay?

I then pointed off a bit away, hoping she’d understand I needed her to move away. She did and had my other sisters spread out as well. I also saw papa watching so I guess I should show off a little here.

Let’s see, start with an activation Glyph, then decide the size of the area to affect, insert the wind circulation speed in a counterclockwise manner, adjust the intensity of mana to inject, and then discharge it.

Woosh~!

Oops, it was a little bit stronger than I expected, but it still did the trick, even though my oldest sister tried to dig her pointy toes into the ground to resist it, she got blown back off her feet along with the other two.

I was already constructing a safety net for them, beginning with an activation Glyph, followed by increasing the area to affect, chaining a decrease in gravity to the ground behind them, and then forcing some dirt upwards with a large injection of mana

Beautiful. A soft wall of dirt caught them like a glove. They slid down into a few holes the dirt had come up out of and for the finishing move, I decided to trap them in the holes for a moment by removing the Glyph charge so the dirt wall wouldn’t retain its shape, and then swap the gravitational constant by causing the dirt to pack itself against them.

“What is this! Nghh.”

“Diana, I’m stuck in the dirt!”

“Me too! Gwaha~ I can barely wiggle my toes!”

Papa came over to me and squatted down, putting his hand on my head and smiling at me.

“I think you showed them what you can do for now.”

I turned around to look up at him, only to find that doing so made me feel dizzy. I couldn’t stop my body expelling some... coolant, before landing on my tushy.

“...”

Papa didn’t say anything, he just scooped me up, used his own magic to shift the dirt so my sisters could climb out, and told them to hit the showers. He took me along as well, and we all got cleaned up before he brought me to the bath and activated a Glyph panel which seemed to be configured to heat the water. It was quite intricately done. Maybe there’s some potential with papa to be a Formulator? If he was responsible for these, he’d have a good career back on my fourth world.

Diana and Lilac sat across from us, and both expressed their opinions that they expected me to be weak because I was a runt. Orchid on the other hand must have suffered some brain damage, because she was a bit too excited with having been sent flying, and getting all clingy with papa.

Well, space marines were like that sometimes as well. Give them a pack of waxed crayons to munch on and they’ll orbital drop into a black hole just for the thrill.

This little test by Diana had led to a good outcome. Papa explained the magic systems used in this world while we relaxed in the warm bath, and I wound up correct in my assumption. Magic wasn’t unified into a single system here. But papa seemed to at least understand that I was able to show a comprehensive understanding of how real magic should be crafted and activated.

Plus he bounced me on his leg in the water and it was fun going splishy-splashy~

There was some talk about me going on a hunt with my sisters, as well as me being a Shaman? Also, Diana was requesting papa to make her some kind of weapon to use.  Was he also an artificer?

Shaman, huh? Come to think of it, I did see something like that set as my class in my System’s status window.

There was also talk of getting mama and me some meat, but, I’m practically a newborn. Can a goblin even digest meat a day after being born? Makes me think these barbarians wanted me to eat my own placenta after I came out of mama...

My sisters left the bath and papa asked me if I wanted to go visit another sister of mine called Button.

What’s with the abysmal naming sense around here?

I sighed.

One day papa will call me Grace…

One day…

Until then, it was time to fly! With our goal to go meet some of the other natives, papa put me up on his shoulders and I had to grab onto his hair in order to steady myself without digging into his skin with my sharp digits.  

I was once again Valkyrie Squadron’s Nova-Hot Combat Pilot – Serendipity Spades!

Off into unexplored territory!

Let’s go~ Super Dimensional Fortress Magi-Papa!