“da, da-dadada!(—wha—WHAT?!)”
I couldn’t help shouting at Old Man’s bombshell.
The Ishirogi family was ending its career as exorcists with his generation?
And he intended to raise his own son—me—as an ordinary human?
Oh well… I guess I didn’t really care. It wasn’t like I wanted to become an exorcist or anything.
“I plan to eventually leave Yoshito in the care of some relatives. Of course, they’ll be a family with absolutely nothing to do with ghosts or youkai.”
So my name is apparently Yoshito. Whether it was a coincidence or not, it was the same as my name in my previous life.
Old Man continued.
“We’ll raise him here while he still needs constant care, but… probably until he’s two or three.”
“…Understood. It makes me sad, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Suika looked genuinely disappointed. The cat ears on her head drooped limply, and even her tail hung there without an ounce of energy.
“Come on. Cheer up.”
Old Man flashed his handsome smile and placed a hand on Suika’s dejected shoulder.
“Until Yoshito is old enough to be left with relatives, you’re his mother. I won’t be able to come home much because of work, so I’ll be counting on you to take care of him.”
“Naoki-sama…”
Suika looked up at him, her expression still downcast.
Her gaze trembled.
Ah! I’ve seen this before—in light novels and manga. The classic setup where the hero notices a depressed girl, comforts her, and accidentally raises a romance flag.
Damn you, Old Man!
My mother hasn’t even been dead for half a year, and you’re already trying to get cozy with another woman?!
“What’s wrong, Suika? Is there something on my face?”
Old Man was practically radiating the aura of a dense, oblivious harem protagonist. The kind of guy who’d cause an absolute disaster of a love triangle and then stand there afterward going, “How did things end up like this…?”
Suika, snap out of it! Don’t let yourself be fooled by a man like this!
“Da, da-daa, daaauu! (Feel the full weight of my virgin rage—!)”
I immediately grabbed the baby bottle lying beside me. I began gathering the magic power within my body.
Death to handsome men. No mercy.
I am going to deliver the righteous fist of justice straight into Old Man’s face.
I expanded the image in my mind—
“Dooo-dadaaa—(ROCKET PUNCH!)”
With all my strength, I hurled the baby bottle.
Technically speaking, it wasn’t a punch. But please, let’s not get hung up on the little details. Magic doesn’t need any complicated theories. All you need is the right mood and enough momentum to make it work.
“Guh—!”
“N-Naoki-sama?!”
Crap. My aim was off.
I’d been aiming for Old Man’s face, but the trajectory was lower than I’d expected, and the bottle slammed straight into his solar plexus.
Ah…Maybe I overdid it a little.
Sorry, Old Man.
“Ugh… Was that an enemy attack? Suika, keep watch… Check the surroundings…”
“Is this… a baby bottle?”
Suika turned toward me.
“Could it have been Yoshito-sama?”
“dah-bah-uu(Yes, I did—)!”
“Thank you. I nearly fell victim to that man’s poisonous charms myself.”
“Dadaudadadauda ubobobo sabidadabedaba(I simply did what any man would do for a lovely young lady like yourself.)”
“L-L-Lovely?! M-Me…?”
Huh? Something felt… off.
“Gaga- w-wait a sec—I’m… I’m talking! I can talk?!”
“Naoki-sama, this is incredible! Yoshito-sama is talking!”
“Huh? What did you say?”
Apparently, my old man was the hard-of-hearing protagonist type.
But putting that aside, what the hell was happening to my body?
I decided to analyze it a bit.
…Interesting.
Perhaps it was the effect of the magic. There was some residual magic clinging around my vocal cords. That might be what was causing it.
“It’s true! Yoshito-sama really did say something just now—”
“Hmm… Maybe you just misheard him.”
As I listened to the two of them going back and forth, I gradually began to feel sleepy.
I knew this feeling. I’m running out of magic power.
Suika… while I’m asleep, please don’t let Old Man fool you…
＊ ＊ ＊
I found out later that there had actually been five other candidates for the position of “mother.”
Apparently, though, every single one of them would start pressuring my old man to marry them whenever they got the chance. So he chose Suika, who lived at a comfortable distance from him.
…And yet, the fact that he was still unconsciously trying to win her over made me realize that my old man really was “an enemy of all womankind”.
“Yoshito-sama, I will never forget what you did for me that day. It may only be for a short while, but I shall devote myself wholeheartedly to taking care of you.”
“Daadaa…a-ba-ba-baba…baba(Make sure you find decent man… a real man… for yourself too, Suika-san)”
“Do you want some milk?”
“Da! (No!) Dadada-dabababa! (That’s not what I mean at all!)”
And just like that, I had reverted to baby talk again.
I could probably speak proper Japanese if I concentrated my magic power around my vocal cords, but my reserves had been completely drained by that whole “Rocket Punch” incident the other day.
And since I am still so young, my natural recovery rate was pitifully low. If I talked too much, I might actually pass out.
“ da-uuu-dadada (You don’t have to worry about me) A-ba-ba-ba…dadaba. (You can rest too.)”
“Perhaps you’ve grown tired of powdered formula? But I can’t produce breast milk…”
Suika fell into deep thought.
This woman—well, cat?—was genuinely serious at heart.
The problem was that every now and then, her thoughts would suddenly fly off in a completely bizarre direction. She was really dangerously unpredictable in all sorts of ways.
“I-I’m not particularly well-endowed, but at the very least, perhaps I can make you feel as though you’re being fed…”
Suika began undoing the buttons of her blouse. Her skin was smooth, and her shoulders slender. As my gaze drifted downward from the hollow of her collarbone, I caught sight of the curves beneath her white bra.
Calling herself “not particularly well-endowed” was surely being far too modest.
Suika lowered her eyes shyly.
“There. Go ahead.”
She shifted the right side of her bra aside.
Revealed beneath it was a pale pink—
Gulp. Every instinct in me told me to latch on, but somehow that felt like crossing a very obvious ethical line.
Sure, physically speaking, I was a zero-year-old baby. But mentally, I most certainly wasn’t.
Ugh.
“Perhaps you still need some milk after all…”
Suika picked up the baby bottle.
But instead of bringing it toward my mouth, she brought it toward herself. A few drops of milky-white liquid fell from the tip.
“Mmn…”
A strangely intimate sigh escaped her lips.
This situation was getting more and more problematic by the second.
W-w-what am I supposed to do?!!
As for how things turned out after that, uh–. No comment.
I’ll just say this: I am a coward.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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