Chapter 397 - Sweet

As Cecil was feeding Serilla some of the food that he had prepared for their family picnic, Lucia came rushing into the garden. When she spotted her sister and husband acting all affectionately towards each other, she called out to the two and rushed over to them.

"Hey, no fair, Seri," Lucia said with a pout as she sat herself down in front of them.

"Hehehe~" Seeing as Serilla only replied with a bright laugh, Lucia began pouting even more.

"Lulu, come here," Cecil said while extending his arm towards her. He grabbed onto her and gently guided her to his side.

With Lucia on the left and Serilla on the right, Cecil leaned back onto the tree behind him as he pulled the two women close into his embrace.

"Hmm... is something wrong, Cel? This is a surprise coming from you," Lucia asked.

"Shocking, isn't it Lulu?" Serilla asked as she teasingly looked up to her husband.

"Yup!"

"He just realized that he's been selfishly neglecting us so that's why he's begun acting all coy and sweet~"

"Oh! Is that right?"

"...Well, get used to it. I'll be doing this more in the future if you two don't mind," Cecil replied with a sigh.

"Hehe~ I don't mind at all! I'm glad that you'll do this more often, Cel~" Lucia said with a laugh. She had just taken a shower right after her morning training and after hearing that Cecil and Serilla were already at the garden, she had quickly rushed over so her hair was still wet.

"Ah, my hair's still wet! I should dry it first—"

"Let me do it," Cecil quickly said.

After drying her hair with a towel he had pulled out from his spatial ring, Lucia turned to look at Cecil peculiarly before smiling, "Hehe, after not seeing you in a while, my husband sure has changed!"

"And is that a bad thing?"

"Nope!"

The family continued staying under the tree enjoying each other's company. Not far from where they were at, Angelia and a few of her friends were walking around before they stumbled upon the happy family having a picnic in the garden.

Lucia had continued working as an instructor in the kingdom's magic academy but lately, due to her training, she hadn't been going too often. Of course, she had received permission from Fatima to be absent on most days due to her training. It was nice that she had an understanding sister-in-law.

As a replacement, Yuna would be her stand-in on the days when she didn't come. The dragon lady was instructed to only repeat to the students what Lucia had been teaching them until everyone in the class got it. It was only during the times when something new had to be taught would Lucia personally come to teach.

Since it was now rare for her to come, many students in the academy began viewing her classes as something that needed to be attended. Her classes were easy and gave everyone in the academy a different perspective on what magic was and the subjects she thought were all so fascinating that most of the academy's instructors who had free time began dropping by to hear her lectures.

The group that Angelia brought over to their family's estate during her break was her close friends. Everyone had also been seeing less of her since she was attending all of her older brother's strict training sessions and after hearing that she would soon be leaving on another expedition with her brother, they all decided to come over and play with her during her break.

No one expected that they would bump into their instructor in the garden acting all lovey-dovey with some guy that they hadn't seen before. Of course, that was with the exception of the students who had already seen Cecil before and knew that he was their instructor's husband. Who they've never seen before was the other woman who was also together with Cecil and Lucia.

"H-Hey, isn't that Instructor Lucia?!"

"W-who's that guy she's with?!"

Angelia was near the back of the group so when she saw her friends peeking into the central area of the garden, she quickly rushed over only to see her brother and his family lovingly spend their time together.

"G-guys, get back, right now!" Angelia quickly called out and pulled back the few people who were 'spying' on her brother's family.

Through practice and training, Angelia was now more sensitive to mana and had already noticed that there was a barrier around the central area of the garden. It was no wonder that she didn't hear her brother and her sisters-in-law even after she and her group of friends had come waltzing into the garden.

"A-Angelia, who is the guy that's with the instructor?" A boy from her class asked after being pulled back by the girl.

Before Angelia could answer, Robin Coppernium, who was just next to the dejected-looking kid, quickly answered, "That's the instructor's husband. I already told you that you shouldn't get any funny ideas about the instructor. She's already taken. Also, that man happens to be Angelia's brother."

"Ah! N-no wonder there were times when the instructor and Angel came home together... turns out she's your sister-in-law!" A girl quipped up and said.

Angelia smiled proudly and said, "That's right! Well, we should go explore someplace else since my brother and his family are currently occupying this place!"

"Yeah, let's go. I wouldn't want to intrude on them, but I do wanna ask, Angel, who's that other beautiful woman that's with them?!" Xin, the second shortest girl among their group, asked.

"You mean big sis Serilla? Shouldn't you already—Ah, you weren't able to attend my brother's homecoming party, huh Xin?" Angelia said in realization after she remembered something.

"Our poor little Xin was sick that day so she wouldn't know who that pregnant woman was," Marylyn said.

"She was pregnant? No wonder her belly was a little big! So, who is she?" Xin curiously asked.

"That's my brother's second wife, Serilla."

"W-what?! Your brother has two wives?!"

"Yup..."

"I-Isn't that illegal?!"

"Apparently, this world doesn't seem to care about that."

"W-what?"

"They got married outside our kingdom so there's not much we could actually do. Even I was rather surprised to find that my big bro had two wives. Though, I love those two now since they're both people I really admire!"

"I-is that so...Did you already know about this, Robin?" Xin asked.

"I was there at the party so of course I knew. It's not something I would forget in my lifetime. There were beastkin at the party so it was really memorable!" Robin quickly replied.

"Ah, you mean the furry people and those elves!"

"They aren't exactly elves, Xin, they are halflings, mixed-blood elves. The pureblood elves have their own kingdom."

"Heh, since when did you become an expert on them, Robin?" Marylyn asked.

"I'm not an expert. I only learned all of this from Ren."

"Ren... hmm, where is he nowadays? It's been so long since he's come to play with us!" Xin quickly interjected. "Do you know where he is, Angie?"

"How should I know? That jerk doesn't even show up at home sometimes..."

"Ohohoh, seems like someone's mad~" Marylyn teased.

"Tch, we live in the same house, but I never see him! If I'm right, he's probably locked himself up in my brother's workshop!"

"Then let's go see him right now!" Xin suggested.

"Let's not, I don't wanna bother him when he's doing some 'important' work," Angelia said with a scoff.

"...Did he say something to you, Angie?" Robin asked.

"Hmph, the last time we talked he told me not to bother him since he was doing some important stuff for my big brother... tch, it makes me so mad! Next time I see him, I'm gonna punch him in the face!"

Just after their group was out of the garden, Ren suddenly walked out of the garden with a troubled look on his face.

"She's gonna hit me? I-I better not see her for now..."

******

As the day began heading towards the afternoon, Cecil noticed that it was starting to get much colder after a while. He quickly brought his wives into the house and told them that they'd continue inside their bedroom.

After cleaning up, he quickly picked Serilla up and gave Lucia a piggyback ride at the same time in their house. While they were passing by the main mansion, they didn't notice that their parents were all on the veranda. The husbands were learning to play a board game from Kaiser while the wives were chatting amongst each other.

"Hey, isn't that our children down there~?" Anna said when she noticed them passing by.

"Oh my, I didn't think that dense son of mine was capable of being this sweet!" Anastasia exclaimed in pleasant surprise when she saw them pass by. "Ohoho, the mood between them seems quite nice, I might get news that I'll be having another grandchild soon~"

Seeing how delighted Anastasia was, Anna couldn't help but inform her about the downside of her race.

"Although I would really like that, but my race of people, unfortunately, have a really hard time getting i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed..."

"Ah, is that so?"

"Yes, moreover, we may only have one child in our lifetimes...it's why my people's race has a very limited population..."

"Oh... well, they have plenty of time. Besides, they're all still young!"

"Yes, they do have plenty of time~"

"...I hope my daughter doesn't take things too far..." Celia quietly mumbled.

"What's that Celia?" Anastasia asked.

"...If Anna's people have a hard time copulating, then my rabbit-kin people are the opposite... just doing it once might get us pregnant..."

"Oh?"

"After seeing how much my daughter loves your son...I just hope that she doesn't make it past 10..."

"Eh???"

Celia released a sigh and took a sip of her tea.

"...By the way, Celia...how many children do you have?" Anna couldn't help but ask in curiosity.

"...Twelve, Serilla's my fourth if you wanted to know."

"T-twelve?"

"Mhmm, my husband was quite the stud back in the day. Though he still is now," Celia replied with a slight smile on her face.

"..."

"..."

The other two women couldn't help but stare incredulously at the quiet Sword Saintess who seemed to be perpetually serious all the time. It was already hard enough for Anastasia to believe that the slim and delicate looking woman was actually the strongest Swordswoman of an entire nation, but now there was the fact that she had already given birth to 10 children yet still looked so young and delicate. The amount Celia had given birth to was exactly double how much she had.

"Th-that's amazing..." Anastasia replied in amazement.

"I'm really envious~ I've always wanted a boy and a girl, but alas... my race just doesn't permit that..." Anna replied in envy.

Celia looked over at Anna who was smiling sadly and said, "...Anna, I'm not really sure what race of 'demonkin' you are, but the ones with more power among the demons usually are those that have a hard time giving birth to their next generation of descendants. Of course, it's the exact opposite of my people, but only a select few of ours inherit my unique bloodline, Serilla being the only one among my 10 children. It was solely due to this reason that I was quite furious to hear that she had eloped with some boy that I've only met once."

"Oh my, what are you talking about, Celia?" Anna replied unhurriedly.

"Anna, let's just drop the act, shall we? In a sense, we're all family already and I've long since known that you aren't a child of Urrugdrasil."

"Hmmm, well, you'll all know in time. For now, I'll keep what I am a secret~"

"Hmph, if that's what you want," Celia shrugged and no longer discussed the topic. Anastasia wasn't really concerned with any of their races since they were the mothers of her son's wives. Also, due to her earthly customs, she wasn't one to care about a person's race or origins as long as they were upright, just, and had a good moral compass.

"Hehe, ladies, let's just drop that then. Did you all hear about the new trend in the city? The new summer apparel that—"

With Anastasia changing the topic, the ladies began discussing the latest trends of fashion that was suddenly taking over the city by storm. Ever since a few months ago after more materials and magi-tech tools were created or imported over from the Anglaria Kingdom, textile, jewelry, and other such fashion-related industries started booming and the Silvaria Kingdom began to slowly redevelop back to the society that was left behind back on Earth.

The beastkin were naturally being pulled into the Silvaria Kingdom's trends and even the UF, NWR, and other countries in the No-Man's Lands that had friendly relations with the kingdom were being pulled in.