Vol 4. Chapter 2: Adorable Daughters

For the past two days, Miss Yumo had been extremely depressed.

Yumo had agreed to let Xiao mobilize the Abyss Demons in the eastern part of the Great Winter Forest for several major reasons. One of them was to make the people of the Anqieka Continent regain their fear of Abyss Demons, so that they would abandon their internal conflicts and unite against a common enemy.

Looking at the aftermath,

this objective had been quite successful. The upper echelons of all the major powers attached great importance to this Abyss Demon invasion, and they were even preparing to convene a Continental Conference that had not been held for a hundred years. The wars between the Crimson Leaf Empire, the Sadik Empire, and various smaller nations came to an abrupt halt as soon as news of the Abyss Demon invasion reached them. Almost without exception, these powers shifted their attention toward the north.

They were terrified that another Abyss Demon horde of this scale might appear.

In addition, Yumo had wanted to use this attack to deal the Child of Destiny a massive setback, forcing him to recognize reality and stop being blindly confident. At the same time as teaching him a lesson, she intended to have Shuoyue overwrite his memories, erasing both her identity as 'Blood Butterfly' and the connection between 'Blood Butterfly' and the Black Rose Family from his mind.

Then there was rescuing Marquis Xiumu-Duke and his wife, freeing Karina, and saving those children who had been used as experimental subjects...

Judging from the results, aside from accidentally killing the Child of Destiny, all the other objectives had been accomplished quite smoothly...

However,

Miss Yumo was still filled with endless regret over accidentally swatting the Child of Destiny to death. Although she disliked him, Xue Tianao was still the Child of Destiny, one of the crucial figures necessary to save the world and complete the trial.

And now?

After waiting painstakingly for hundreds of years for such a person to finally appear, she had accidentally killed him with her own hands...

This...

Was just ridiculous!

Are you kidding me?! Why the hell did that ** suddenly charge at me with Divine Power for no reason?! And... why couldn't I control myself?! Aaaaaaah!

'This is so annoying!'

Every time she thought about it, Yumo became unbearably depressed.

After the Abyss Demon horde withdrew, Yumo was even unwilling to believe that Xue Tianao was truly dead. After all, he was the Child of Destiny, wasn't he? It wouldn't be strange for him to possess some kind of life-saving trump card, right? Maybe he could even come back from the dead? Clinging to that hope, after the battle Miss Yumo tried searching through the ruins for fragments of Xue Tianao's soul.

She wanted to imitate the necromancers of the Red Moon Tower, reconstruct his soul, and thereby bring the Child of Destiny back to life.

Unfortunately,

after searching for ages, Yumo couldn't find even a scrap of his soul. At most, she managed to find some of Xue Tianao's ashes...

After gathering the ashes into a pile, Yumo sat beside them for a long time, as though refusing to accept reality, waiting expectantly for a miracle to occur. However, several hours passed, and absolutely jack shit happened...

In the end, Yumo had no choice but to completely accept the truth.

Yet after accepting it, Yumo didn't feel relieved. Instead, she became even more conflicted. Now that the Child of Destiny was dead, the heavy responsibility of completing the trial and killing her could only fall upon Mengxi.

The moment she thought about how that girl had exploited her trust and put on an act to fool her for so long, Miss Yumo couldn't help getting angry.

Being angry was one thing,

but the real problem was, after everything had been laid bare like this, how was she supposed to face that girl from now on? The moment she saw Mengxi, she would probably involuntarily remember that embarrassing chapter of her past. The sheer humiliation would make her want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

If that happened, how was she supposed to communicate with that girl?

Maybe...

She should just stop bothering with her?

Enmm,

but Mengxi was also the only Chosen One left. Now that Xue Tianao had kicked the bucket, wasn't that girl the only person Yumo could rely on? Under these circumstances, not only could she not ignore her, she would probably have to take twice as much care of her! After all, if something happened to Mengxi as well, the trial would truly be screwed...

And besides, if that girl Mengxi asked why an Abyss Demon like her had gone to such lengths to stay by her side...

How was she supposed to explain that?

She couldn't tell her about the trial...

If she couldn't explain herself clearly, wouldn't Mengxi become suspicious? And if Mengxi ended up hating her because of that, what was she supposed to do...

...

In short, for the past two days, Miss Yumo's mind had been constantly plagued by these problems. They left her extremely gloomy and depressed, and she even felt an intense sense of pressure. Thus, after helping the main force withdraw under her identity as Yu-Black Rose,

Miss Yumo came to a tent in the middle of the camp, intending to take a bath and relax while soothing her tense nerves.

Before bathing, however,

Yumo naturally noticed the two little fellows who had been fighting among the Black Rose Family's convoy. Although she still had plenty of questions she wanted to properly 'ask' her daughters, the [N O V E L I G H T] sight of the filthy little white wolf and little gray bird, both covered from head to toe in dirt,

made Miss Yumo temporarily abandon her plans to question them.

The children were so dirty...

As their mother, Miss Yumo simply couldn't stand looking at them like that.

Therefore,

several dozen minutes earlier, Yumo had grabbed the two little fellows in their adorable forms and brought them into the tent in the middle of the camp, then instructed Zhong Xizhi, Qiu Mingtong, and the others to prepare some hot water. Afterward, the black-haired girl removed the dress that had been stained with countless patches of blood and mud and slowly immersed herself in the comfortable hot water,

trying to wash away both the grime covering her body and the hesitation weighing upon her heart.

While washing herself, Yumo also personally gave her two daughters a bath for the first time in quite a while. Picking up a towel and some soap, she gave the two adorable creatures a thorough scrub-a-dub-dub~.

Naturally,

the sisters Limo and Liyu, currently transformed into their adorable animal forms, had no objections whatsoever. They already loved sticking close to their mother, so they took full advantage of this opportunity to replenish their 'Mother Energy.' While Yumo brushed their fur, they continuously rubbed themselves against the black-haired girl's soft, fair body~

As a result, brilliant smiles unconsciously blossomed across the two little creatures' faces.

Their fluffy little faces were already adorable, and those radiant smiles only made them even cuter, leaving Yumo, who was rubbing her daughters' little heads, increasingly reluctant to let go of them.

For a time,

the atmosphere inside the tent was extraordinarily warm and peaceful.

“Mewoooo~”

“Chirp, chirp, chirp~”

Accompanied by the two little creatures' adorable cries and the soft sensation beneath her hands, Yumo's crimson eyes filled with happiness.

Thanks to the sisters' wholehearted efforts at acting cute, after just a few minutes, much of the gloom in Yumo's heart had indeed dissipated. Even that indescribable feeling of mental exhaustion had completely vanished beneath the healing power of her daughters.

Sure enough,

'My children really are adorable~'

A small, proud expression involuntarily appeared on Yumo's beautiful face. With a loving smile, Yumo continued gently grooming Limo's fur as she remained in the form of a little white wolf.

Feeling Yumo's affectionate touch and the pleasant sensation of the brush running through her fur, Limo couldn't help letting out one comfortable cry after another.

“Awooooo~” (Feels good, feels good~)

The excited little wolf cub even rolled over and lay on her back in the bathtub, all four paws pointing upward as she exposed her fluffy white belly to Yumo.

“Awooo!” (Belly! Rub it!)

“All right, all right. I know~”

Although Yumo couldn't understand Limo's words in her current form, how could she possibly fail to understand what her daughter wanted after seeing that familiar gesture asking for affection? After all, she had been taking care of this girl for hundreds of years. Back when Limo had only just become an Abyss Demon, Yumo had given her baths countless times.

For a moment,

the memories from hundreds of years ago seemed to overlap with the scene before her eyes.

“You've always loved being spoiled, haven't you?”

After sighing helplessly, Yumo gently ran the brush through the fur on the little white wolf's belly, cleaning away the dirt there, while the little white wolf wore an expression of pure enjoyment.

Fortunately, Limo was still in her adorable beast form.

If Limo had been in her girl form, this scene would probably have been far too stimulating...

Meanwhile,

Liyu, who had been relatively clean and therefore finished her bath much earlier, fluttered her wings and perched on Yumo's shoulder. With complicated feelings, she watched her older sister constantly acting cute in front of their mother. Earlier, she had repeatedly scolded Sister Limo, complaining that she fought far too wildly and had gotten both of them covered in dirt...

But looking at things now,

maybe that wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Enmmm,

if she'd known beforehand that getting dirty meant receiving more affection from Mother...

then before coming here, she should have rolled around in a mud pit first!

Watching Sister Limo constantly interact with their mother, Liyu couldn't help grumbling inwardly. Although the thought of rolling around in a mud pit had crossed her mind, Liyu merely thought about it. After all, she was a sensible child. She couldn't do something like that and leave Mother utterly dumbfounded.

'Mm-hmm, I need to be sensible. There's no point arguing with my silly big sister.'

After consoling herself inwardly,

the little gray bird cheerfully planted both wings on her waist, striking the dignified pose of a little adult despite her tiny bird body.

Miss Yumo, who caught Liyu's little movements from the corner of her eye, couldn't help smiling.

Sure enough,

'My daughters are so adorable~'

...

I really don't want...

to be separated from them...