"Alright then..." Lily's blushing face is adorable, I'm not sure if I can do as good a job as her Mother, but I'll do my best to take care of this girl with all my heart.

"Then, what kind of food would you like?" As soon as I said that, she beamed and then said,

"Meat potato soup!" She almost jumped out of bed, I guess I know what her favorite food is now. I signaled to Melania before speaking,

"Then, let's go take a bath while we wait, shall we?" I shall use my mom privileges to pamper this girl as much as I can!

"Huh? T-together? I-I'm not a little girl anymore, you know? I can wash myself!" She makes a good point, however...

"Even though you've never used the bath here? Do you even know where it is?" Critical hit!

"That's not fair!" She said, but her body betrayed her words by getting out of bed onto her feet and looking up at me, her right hand twitched for a moment before I grabbed it with my left, leading her outside the door

"The castle is quite big, but you can always call for me or Melania if you get lost or ask any of the servants, alright? Oh, right!" Remembering something, I quickly turned around for a moment before dispelling the collar Melania put on her, even though I didn't tell her to... I'll have to give her a good scolding later

"Ah, thanks. It was a bit uncomfortable..." She said, Almost a whisper, though I can hear her just fine 

"Alright, let's hurry now, or else we won't catch the food while it's fresh!" That's a lie, of course. My cooks aren't so sloppy to let the food get cold even after an hour or two, though now that I think about it, I should probably practice my cooking a bit so I can give her a proper home-cooked meal one day

"Yes!" That's all it took to get her attention again, I'll make sure to learn how to make the best meat and potato soup...

...

"We're here." The castle is pretty big, but not that big so it only took a little more walking before we got to the private bathroom, a huge room with a place to put clothes out in front, a separate area to wash ourselves, and then a huge bathtub that looks more like a pool on the other end. "This castle is now yours as much as it is mine, so feel free to use it whenever you feel like it, alright?"

"Ah, okay..." She agreed, but I can tell that she's still not comfortable with everything just yet, so I'll have to take things slowly for now...

I found myself inside a huge bathtub with Lilith hugging me from behind and humming a tune in my ears. It feels weird, The only person I'd allow to do something like this is Mom, but Lilith promised she'd fulfill our agreement after a week, so I'll let her do whatever she wants. Though it does feel nice too, I guess...

"Lily," She stopped humming "You don't have to force yourself if you don't want to, okay?" Again with that, she keeps worrying about the smallest things, she doesn't need to do that...

"It's fine. I don't mind as long as you keep your promise." She suddenly pulled my ear "Ow!"

"Start worrying about yourself more, will you?" Why is she suddenly scolding me? "Because while you're inside of this mansion, you're a VIP, got it? I won't allow you to destroy yourself like you've been doing. Why weren't you getting enough sleep? You should've cleaned yourself properly, even if it's just water! Didn't you learn any water magic?" Maybe she can actually read my mind...

"No, well, I was in a hurry, and I wouldn't die even if I was exhausted while I was searching for the capital, so I didn't sleep a lot, as for cleaning, well, I haven't been taught any non-combat magic..." I looked back at her, but she didn't look mad, just... sad?

"Sigh, I should've known...Then I'll teach you some later, but you have to take care of yourself properly while you're here, got it?" She looked scary when she said that, like when my mom used to scold me when I did something bad...

"Okay, I promise." It might not be so bad to enjoy myself for this last week..."But, Lilith, can I ask you something?"

"Of course dear, what is it?" She said with a soft voice and a smile like her earlier scary face was never there to begin with.

"Why are you being so nice to me? Even though I'm the hero, why didn't you just kill me?"

"I already told you, dummy. I'm adopting you, not because you're the hero or because I want you to do something, but because you're you. I don't need anything from you, so please don't say things like that. If you want to do something, then live. If not for you, do it for your mother." She hugged me a bit tighter

"...I'll think about it." Just maybe...

"Good enough, let's get out now before you end up with a fever from the hot water, and the food should be ready by now."

"Alright!" 

I was seated at the head of the dinner table, which is big enough for around ten people with Lily to my left and Melania to my right, and Lily was practically inhaling her favorite food.

"Slow down, the food isn't going anywhere, you know?" Even though Lily looks cute doing practically anything, I should still correct her manners a bit, since I'm her mother now

"That's right, Young Miss. Please take your time and enjoy your food." Melania said while biting into some soft bread, and she seems to have started calling Lily by a weird nickname.

"Mm, but it's so good..." Lily said with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes, this girl probably hadn't had a decent meal for at least six months and probably hadn't had her favorite in the last two years, but thankfully she still slowed down a bit to wipe her face "Right, Melania, don't vampires need to drink blood?"

"We do have to, but we can still eat other things for the taste and the texture, even vampires can still digest normal food, since we're still physical beings, though we can live off just blood if we want. The only person here that doesn't need to eat anything is Lith."

"Really?"

"That's right, demons don't really need to eat, though our body can turn the food into mana, the rate at which we do it is terrible, and we're better off getting mana somewhere else. Demons don't generate their own mana like other species, but we can more or less live off the natural mana in the air if we don't use too much magic, but if we do we need to absorb mana from something else, powerful monsters usually have lots of mana, since they don't normally use magic, they just keep all their mana inside their bodies. While that makes them physically stronger, it also makes them very good prey for demons and vampires alike."

"I would have thought that demons would like to eat humans or something, but I guess the information about demons the church has is just wrong." She said in between spoonfuls of soup

"Well, not all of it is wrong, but it's true that the church likes to exaggerate things and doesn't mind telling a few lies to put the general populace under control, though I have heard vampires love Elf blood for some reason. You don't have to worry about it too much though, I will teach you about demons eventually, you should at least learn the basics about yourself and your family, after all."

"Me? But I'm human though?"

"You're human right now, but I did tell you I would make you my real daughter, right? Once you accept me as your mother, I'll properly turn you into my real daughter. Every living being can reproduce one way or another, and demons do it similarly to vampires in that we can turn others into demons, or I guess it would be more correct to say that vampires do it similarly to demons. Anyways, the main difference is that most demons can only do it once every century or so, since we basically split our core into two and give half of it to someone else, it takes a long time for it to fully grow back." Lily looked a bit worried, I was about to tell her that she doesn't have to worry about it, since I would never hurt her, but...

"Wouldn't that be painful?" She said, looking at me worryingly "Surely it would be painful to separate yourself into two parts..."

I shared a glance with Melania for a second, and we both giggled a bit at that

"Of course, you'd be worried about Lith instead of yourself, Young Miss." Melania said with a smile

"Right, I should've expected that. You don't have to worry about anything like that, Lily, it doesn't hurt at all and most demons get lonely due to their long lives anyways, so turning others is something almost all of us do. Besides, I'm the Demon Queen, so my core won't take nearly as long to recover. And I already told you, you should worry about yourself more. I just said I would turn you into a demon, you know? Well, you can always refuse if you wish, and you can still be my daughter, even as a human. It's just that, I really want a real daughter..."

"Well, I haven't decided what I want to do yet, but...if I do decide to become your daughter, I wouldn't mind doing it for real..."

"You still have a week to decide, so you don't need to rush anything. But I do plan on doing everything I can to convince you, alright?" I said with a smile, I'll make sure that this girl lives happily no matter what.

Nory

The chapter ended up being longer than the previous ones, I just sort of kept writing it and couldn't stop, but I do plan on somewhat slowing down how many chapters I post, so I might start making longer ones like this more often.