Those eyes held a mix of longing, awe, and adoration. It was a blind faith towards the one who saved them.

“Yeah! I found them on the way. They’re fluffy and clean!”

Cien revealed her white teeth with a smile. And she stroked the child’s fluffy hair as she spoke.

“I’m going to use them as my minion!”

Hearing Cien’s bright voice, Matthias nodded.

He couldn’t openly show his guard when Cien liked them so much.

“Alright. Annoyin….”

…He made a mistake.

Matthias faked a naive smile and said,

“…No, a cute friend. I’ll prepare a separate room, let them stay there.”

But there was definitely room for doubt.

Especially with that strange masked child, with peculiar eyes, treating Cien like a beloved doll.

“Yeah! Got permission, now let’s go play!”

Cien bubbled, shaking the boy’s hand.

The boy muttered in a small voice in return.

“Yes, I’ll be useful.”

Useful, at this word Cien’s face slackened for a moment before it returned to normal.

Seeing Cien’s occasional lonely expressions, Matthias’s heart ached. So he deliberately asked in a cheery voice.

“Let’s go in. Anything else happened?”

It was just a deflection.

But as she followed Matthias into the mansion, Cien excitedly said,

“Right, I also got an adult knight!”

“Eh, Dad? But Dad is Cien’s knight.”

Matthias laughed brightly and retorted.

Cien often said, “Daddy is like a knight on a white horse!”

But this time, Cien seriously shook her head.

“No, a real knight!”

…A real knight?

‘So Daddy is a fake knight?’

Matthias, a bit hurt, loosened his clenched fist and calmly retorted,

“Who… is it? Daddy’s hurt.”

In truth, saying ‘Daddy’s hurt’ had quite an effect on Cien.

But today was different.

All Cien did was laugh and shake her head, she said nothing more.

Somehow anxious, Matthias bit his lip and asked,

“Hm? Cien.”

“Yep, I’ll tell you later!”

Matthias quietly thought.
It occurred to me that there hadn’t been the familiar, affectionate talk about Father in the country village lately. All they did was look at his plump and lustrous face, and with a stern expression, they would go around saying ‘Oh, he’s such a child!’

Suddenly, I had many secrets from Cien.

Matthias’s fist clenched tightly.

While looking at Cien’s round head, Matthias contemplated.

What on earth has Cien been up to these days, I need to find out.

‘I need to verify the knight’s identity.’

I should properly verify who the knight that Cien mentioned is.

If they teach my innocent and fragile daughter to do something wrong, I won’t just sit idle, I had thought that….

Had I been thinking too hard? Before I knew it, Cien, with her round feet, had darted forward.

Before Matthias could catch up to Cien’s steps, Cien’s loud voice could be heard from far away.

“Let’s play hunting later!”

“Huh?”

To the innocent boy’s voice who was following my daughter, Cien responded playfully.

“Beat the goblins!”

Hearing Cien’s voice, Matthias thought.

No.

Our daughter is not the problem.

This is all a problem of this family.

Yet somehow feeling a cold chill from his neck, he decided to dig into all of Cien’s recent activities.

Father was silently lost in thought.

I don’t know what Father is thinking about. Perhaps he’s having a lovely thought like, ‘That tiny, good child, I should feed her well and clothe her properly.’

‘Because our Father is very kind and gentle!’

Having made a light guess about Father’s thoughts, I turned my gaze straight towards Acid.

Acid cautiously asked me.

“So, are we going goblin hunting after dinner?”

“Yeah! Let’s beat them!”

I put on a very evil grin.

‘I will eat dinner, defeat goblins, and show off to Father! I will show off my power!’

I can kill two birds with one stone.

I planned to become friendly with Ted’s younger brother, Acid, while playing ‘Beat the Goblins’ tonight.

But….

After finishing a sweet dinner with Father, whose face had somehow hardened as if he had aged a year from working hard, and tightly holding Acid’s hand as we came out to the mansion’s outdoor garden.

‘Why aren’t there any goblins? They were here for sure.’

I remembered the scary looking uncle who was presumed to be Father’s close aide had released goblins in this vicinity.

I sharply asked the maids standing behind me.

“Where did all the cute goblins go, sisters?”

“Ah, that is….”

“We did prepare the goblins….”

I saw sweat trickling down the maids’ shiny foreheads.

“Sir Matthias ordered them all to be discarded. He said we couldn’t keep such scary things in our mansion.”

The maid’s voice faltered a bit.

Upon hearing their words, my head naturally nodded.

‘Father must have said the captured goblins were pitiful.’

It was obvious that a kind person like Father would even pity goblins.

‘As expected, our Father is an angel.’

But then, the maids pointed at my feet and squinted.

“He sent down this cute kitten instead.”

“A kitten……?”

I looked down.

The sisters were right.

On the grass with a slight frost, a completely white, cute, fluffy kitten was calmly approaching me!

It seemed happy, with its tail lightly waving low.

‘Kittens are cute, but they’re not necessary for building strength!’

Of course, the kitten was very cute and made my heart hurt.

I crossed my arms and shook my head several times.
“People like me don’t mix well with kittens.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I like goblins. Goblins, lions, tigers!”

“Oh…….”

Looking at the dejected servant sisters, I turned my head to the right and looked at Acid. I was about to say, ‘Let’s go see a lion!’

“Sweetie, our lion[dash].”

But soon, I closed my mouth.

Acid slightly opened his mouth and was intently looking at a cat grooming its paw, where jelly was poked in.

Regardless of what kind of noise came from around, he found the cat fascinating.

“That…… Do cats originally have white fur?”

“Hmm?”

Just as I was about to casually answer, ‘There are white cats, and there are black cats.’, I paused for a moment when I saw the boy hide his burnt hand behind his back.

‘There are only dirty cats on Fellrod Street, so you didn’t know.’

The air felt somewhat heavier.

To freshen up the atmosphere, I clapped once.

“Let’s tell fun stories!”

It seemed like Acid had only seen dirty and unpleasant things so far.

Just like I was covered in wounds from being shunned by my family before reincarnation, Acid’s heart would also be sharp now.

‘It’s hard to shun because he’s like me.’

Therefore, I wanted to teach him many good things too. I wanted to make him happy, just like I am now.