“Hey, boss, you do pineapple on pizza?”

“Huh? What’re you saying, miss? Pineapple on pizza, what does that even mean?”

“Oh? Then one more question—do you have durian?”

“?”

“No durian either… how about a dark chocolate cookie pizza?”

“What??”

“So I guess kiwi pizza would also—”

“—No! None of that! Are you here to wreck my place or what?!”

A vein throbbed at the owner’s temple. He slammed the counter with a crack, and the display pizza on top hopped like a spooked landmine.

“Who puts pineapple, durian, cookies, or kiwi on pizza! Why don’t you swap the crust for a fried chicken cutlet while you’re at it—don’t you dare drag the name of pizza through the mud—urgh! Wait—hold it—how many days since you bathed? It reeks!”

Halfway through defending the honor of pizzaioli everywhere, the angry uncle clapped a hand over his nose. He finally caught the scent clinging to the woman in the flower-shaped mask by the door. His face scrunched up like crumpled dough, a man about to gag. The other male customers waiting for their pies flinched too, faces twitching in tandem.

The women buying dinner for their families had the opposite reaction. Brows lifted, they leaned into the air like flowers after rain, sniffing the new bloom of a scent. A strange blush warmed their cheeks.

“Reek? That’s clearly floral,” one lady murmured.

“Floral? Your nose broke? You can’t smell the rotten egg stench? Must’ve never bathed since birth—”

“—Who’re you calling unwashed?”

“Who else? That random masked woman right—uh?”

The owner, justified a second ago, suddenly stalled. The shop had gone dim as dusk.

Another woman stood in the doorway, just behind the flower-masked one. She was a head taller, taller even than most human men, a giant sword riding her back like a steel slab. She alone blocked most of the small doorway.

She wore a mask too.

Cast in the image of a golden lion, with bared fangs and fierce, round eyes, it announced trouble at a glance.

More importantly, women like them weren’t alone.

A whole pack of masked people clogged the little pizza shop’s entrance. Men and women, even a lion with a face nearly wider than the doorframe. They drowned the noon sunlight and smothered the shop’s chatter to dead silence.

It’s over—they really are here to smash the place. Adult breakdowns are a one-breath thing. Seeing a lineup so dramatic you wouldn’t find it on stage, the boss dropped with a smack, practically on his knees. “I—I run an honest shop—handmade pies—old brand—small margins—limited batches—no dirty tricks—no skimping—no cheating out-of-towners—never hurt a fly—if it’s money just take it, please, brothers and sisters, spare my little life—”

“—Boss, please don’t. We really are just here for pizza.”

The “unwashed” woman waved fast, her fingertips sketching green trails of magic in the air. The scent that was both rotten egg and flower vanished from the shop. In its place rose basil as clean as a spring leaf, braided with the roast of charcoal and baked dough. The air settled into something that made you breathe deeper.

Finished, the flower-masked woman glanced at her sullen companion. She nudged her with an elbow, voice soft as a petal. “Don’t glare like that, okay? You’re scaring the poor boss.”

“…So it’s my fault again?”

“Ah, Varie, you mule-headed thing.”

She rolled a little eye at her and told her to knock it off. A red-haired human man squeezed out from the masked group, seizing the chance. “This boss is a good guy. His mouth’s blunt, sure, but his craft? Top-tier.” The tall lion-masked woman snorted and turned her head away, no longer bristling like a drawn blade.

And just like the flower-masked woman said, they actually lined up. Even the big lion queued politely, padding forward to order like everyone else. Their choices were normal too—no pineapple, no durian, no cookies, no kiwi.

The tall woman balked at first, but when the lion tapped a picture on the menu with a paw and the rest had mostly ordered, she went with the flower-masked woman to the counter and stared up at the board.

“Mm, there are this many?” The flower-masked woman pondered, finger hovering like a swaying stem. “So hard to pick… oh, how about this?” Her slender finger touched “Chef’s Special.” She handed the decision over with a smile. “We’ll take your largest size. And please, use your most traditional, most authentic recipe. I’m counting on you.”

The boss bobbed his head like a pecking bird. The tall woman slanted a look her way.

“Why’d you pick the largest? You think you can finish it?”

“No worries. The biggest. It’s rare to find a place that doesn’t defile pizza with pineapple or durian. I’m going to eat my fill while I can.”

She launched into a rant about the shops back home—every one “disciples” of some “honored masters” the boss had never heard of, fake lineages as thick as smoke. Her tone was all grievance. The tall one looked ready to clap hands over her ears, misery written on her face.

“I give up. I’ll never get you long-ears. Show a little respect for the knowledge your god gave you, will you? If Isylia teaches you to put pineapple on pizza, there’s a reason. God-tier selections don’t miss.”

“Really? Then let’s say Isylia tells you to pile on cilantro twice as heavy as the cheese and lay a bed of century eggs underneath. You’d swallow that like gospel too?”

“…”

Varie froze for a few beats, then clicked her tongue, stung into anger. “I don’t know! And you haven’t even had human-made pizza! How can you be sure this so-called ‘authentic’ stuff is better than the sweet-and-sour pineapple back in our country? What if it’s awful?”

“That’s why you let me try.” She looped her arm through Varie’s and laughed. “And if it’s not our taste… hadn’t we agreed? We’ll try every new thing together and make new memories we share.”

“Say it clearer.”

“I mean, if I can’t finish, you’ll help me mop it up.”

“Scram! What am I, your food-waste disposer?!”

Uh—p-please don’t… don’t fight in here… The boss, a grown man, spoke in a mosquito’s whine. He watched the two bicker across his counter, terrified and—strangely—just a little smitten.

Because of that ordering detour, by the time the two finally settled on their pie, their companions’ pizzas had all landed. The table was crammed with pies and sides, a crowded field of steam and spice. Someone with no self-control had ordered wine too, and these people lose all discipline when they see alcohol. They were drunk in a blink—leaning, wobbling, laughing—professional, stone-faced killers turning into a gaggle of goofs. They stopped filtering their mouths. Gossip spilled like popcorn—from whose kid in Sanda got peeped on in the bath by the neighbor boy, to the blushy rumors about Bingxia and Silan that only grow hotter, then to throwing arms around Kabos and egging him on with Ma-gan like a pack of grade-schoolers… whatever the topic, the floodgates were open.

Seeing that chaos—drunk as lords, teasing Barni till he flopped like a belly-up cat, matchmaking Kabos with Ma-gan, not even leaving them a spare seat—the two latecomers traded a glance. Agreement was silent and quick. No, they wouldn’t squeeze in there.

That meant a different table. But it was noon, the rush at full tide, and empty seats were scarce as rain in a drought.

In the end, with no better choice, they asked to share.

“Hello. Is anyone sitting here?”

They stopped at a two-top held by a middle-aged man whose silence looked like a coat. He lifted his face and gave them a curt nod.

Permission given, they sat without fuss.

Then their mouths slipped into a language no one else in the restaurant understood.

Not Imperial, not Elf, not Desert. An otherworld tongue most Imperials would never brush against—that was why they didn’t mind sharing a table. The odds of being understood were slim.

They chatted while they waited for the pizza, easy as breathing. First, the human stage magician Michelle’s morning tour. They tried to parse how she did those dazzling tricks without mana or any special ability. Then they jumped to last night’s inn—flower-mask grumbling that the bath was too cramped to count as a proper soak, the other rolling her eyes and saying long-ears were pampered.

Their rhythm had no set pattern, no end. Sometimes warm as a sunbeam, sometimes edged with teasing shade. Whatever the topic, one ended and the next began without a seam, smoother than a couple married for decades. Anyone could feel the natural, strange harmony between them.

That harmony did break down, at certain topics.

“Tell me—do you really think giving us only a tenth of the slots every year is fair?”

The flower-masked woman breathed out a long sigh. “Varie… we’ve talked this to death. It’s not about what you or I think. Our people’s birthrate was already low. It’s been negative for centuries. The First Generation are anxious. I can’t talk them around.”

“Anxious? You kidding me? How many of our girls did you take—do I need to recite the numbers? You’re just starting to shrink, but we—because of you—we’re staring down a real population crisis. Who has the right to be anxious?”

“Varie…”

“Don’t. Puppy eyes won’t work. We have to make this clear. Newborns between our two peoples already tend to come in pairs—one long-ears, one beast-ears, full quad-channel. It’s not like they only carry our blood. We agreed: when they grow up, they’re free to choose your citizenship or ours. Either way they contribute to society as a whole. You’re not really losing out there. So why does allocating more of the World Tree’s production slots to us make you anxious?”

Her voice climbed notch by notch, her tone went sharp. Heads turned. People thought the two who’d been feeding them sugar a moment ago had started to fight.

You couldn’t blame her for the heat. This topic was serious any way you cut it—arguably the biggest issue shaping relations between the two peoples.

Unlike the old Elf–Nacha conflict, though, this clash didn’t come from mutual disgust or a desire to split. It was the opposite: a barrier they had to face and solve for the sake of living together.

Yes—fusion.

After the Void Rift, the calls to deepen cooperation grew like spring grass. And the loudest pushers weren’t the idealists in the Fana Family or moderates in the Nacha Tribe. It was the very radicals who’d once yelled the hardest.

Why? Simple. Strip the rhetoric, and those radical ideas were born of internal fears and external threats. The moment the Chaos was swept aside, both peoples realized what had long been true.

They couldn’t do without each other anymore.

Though the Elves excel at magitech that sings like starlight, their stone-and-steel engineering trails the Nacha Tribe. Many national projects rest on Nacha foundations like houses atop bedrock.

Conversely, Nacha life now breathes Elf black-tech; instant mana communication webs drape over daily routines like dew-wet nets at dawn. Among the most radical Nacha youth, ink from Elven culture has soaked deepest into the paper—born in Sanda, they can’t imagine the shut-in days of precision tools in hand yet no forums to scroll, no streams to watch.

So by now, the current runs clear as daylight. Deep cooperation, deep fusion—almost inevitable.

But change never brings only sunshine; the world won’t turn into a meadow of rainbows, blossoms, and smiles overnight. Integration will happen, yet old fault lines still snake underfoot; some will crack wider. The problem they raised now sits right in that fissure.

Elves keep luring away Nacha women—how do you untie that knot?

It sounds politically incorrect at first breath. Every free soul should fly to the perch they love, tribe be damned. Yet the Nacha tradition of marrying within the tribe has roots in the soil of reality. Their birth rate isn’t much higher than the Elves’, their numbers a small grove. After migrations and other cataclysms, they stand on the cliff-edge of a demographic winter. For each person, having children isn’t mere stubbornness; it’s keeping the flame alive against a long night.

And remember: on top of ultra-low birth rates and disasters that scythed through their ranks, they lack the Elves’ World Tree power to reproduce across gender. In other words, every Nacha woman drawn by Elven willows adds frost to an already thinning population curve. As cooperation deepened, this snow piled higher. It’s a hard contradiction that “freedom to love” alone can’t blanket out.

To face it, leaders of both sides bargained on a narrow bridge over rapids. Each stepped back, each broke a taboo laid on their ancestors’ tablets. The Nacha Tribe will no longer brand “mating outside the tribe” a sin against Goddess Isylia’s creed. The Elves will lift the ban on cross-blood integration spells. Nacha women may, with Elves and the World Tree, have mixed children. These children won’t be forced into Elven registries; they can choose Nacha or Elf citizenship like paths at a fork.

Thus the core conflict—Nacha woman weds Elf equals one permanent loss—gets half-healed, like removing a splinter from bone. Though called a forbidden art, the cross-blood integration spell ripened years ago under Menglan and Ayu, pioneers of the First Generation. It can blossom almost at once—no technical thorns in the way.

Even so, such a wide reform won’t sail under calm skies. New squalls keep rising. Like the ratio they just cited: the World Tree can bridge species and gender, but its fruit isn’t infinite in a given season. How to divide a finite harvest becomes the next fight.

Everyone wants more slots for their own field. Not only the Elves and the Nacha argue; Queen Dreamlan and the Lionheart Hero Varie can’t reach accord either. Even on a supposed vacation, the two raise their voices like flint and steel, sparks ready to catch—

“—Sorry to disturb you both, but may I ask if humans could somehow trade for the qualification to obtain two children via the World Tree?”

Both women fell silent at once, not for the content, but for the language—the sentence came in Chinese. The Chinese sounded oddly accented, grammar stiff, like someone who studied hard but rarely used it. Still, hearing Chinese in the Salman Republic felt like a wind from home through an unexpected window.

They looked up together, surprised, at the speaker—a middle-aged human man sharing their table.

“Please forgive my rudeness and abruptness, Your Majesty Queen Dreamlan and Lionheart Hero, but… this is a helpless request from a parent.”

Varie’s brow tightened, a question poised like an arrow—had he been eavesdropping? Under the table, Menglan’s hand caught hers like a cool breeze smoothing waves. She gave Varie a look, then turned with a warm smile to the man.

“Meeting a human here who speaks our tongue feels like fate’s hidden thread. May I ask why you made such a request?”

A ripple crossed the man’s icy-stern face. “It’s a long story… but in short, we’ve met a problem much like yours.”

He lowered his eyes to the coffee in his hand, watching the dark swirl, and laid out what troubles humans had lately. Not only low-birth Elves and Nacha struggle with newborns; humans—famed for fecundity—now ache over children too. Their roots of trouble differ: fewer human newborns in recent years, and a surge of orphans needing a home.

Yes. Three years ago, Regent Rockridge and his cronies were swept up like leaves in a storm—executed or jailed as the law demanded. But the wounds carved under their reign can’t be soothed by a single sheet of policy. For “The Greatest Sacrifice,” they churned a blood-storm inside the Empire to gather offerings; the land became a charnel field. Even if corpse-plague and its fallout have been mostly handled by now, three years on, children orphaned by the strife still live under that shadow. In the calm after war, they wander like stray sparks in a cold wind, lives bitter and bare.

To help those small ones escape homelessness, High Justice Skela’s first act in office was to grasp this nettle. She pushed relief funds for war orphans, and, with the Cabinet and the President, rushed through a suite of reforms like lanterns lit in a dark hall.

One of the most impactful reforms rewrote marriage law top to bottom. The new law cut chains on forming a family—abolished bans on cross-class marriage, and even removed gender as a gate. Any two who love may register as married.

At the same time, the law shaved away nearly all the old preferential policies for families. No more land just for tying the knot. Benefits now match the weight of social duty carried. In plain terms, families who bear more of society’s load receive more support. Beyond productive work, another key metric is children: any household with two or more children earns rewards—land, agriculture, and social benefits, like rain for well-tended fields.

More crucial: those children needn’t be of a set gender or blood. Legally adopted orphans count—paper becomes shelter, law becomes a roof. So said the middle-aged man, and Menglan’s mouth curved like a thin moon.

“Let me guess,” she said, “families who adopt war orphans get extra subsidies, right?”

“You’re correct. It’s one of the main incentives.”

“I see. This High Justice aims to clear the muddy waters and spend every coin where the blade meets the bone—a daring attempt.” Menglan nodded, then tilted her head. “But I still don’t understand. How do these politics tie to your ‘helplessness as a parent’?”

The middle-aged man fell quiet for several beats, silence like frost.

“My daughter’s wife… no, I should use your term—my son-in-law…” His stern face was carved of ice, but his words looped and stalled. At last he accepted the shape of it and sighed.

“My son-in-law is the current High Justice who is driving this marriage law.”

“…oh my.”

Menglan blinked, a hand rising to her lips. “Current…? If I recall, the sitting human High Justice of the Supreme Tribunal married her predecessor’s daughter only a few years ago. Which means you must be the former Chief Justice, Lord Padini?”

“My apologies,” Menglan bowed slightly, but the man shook his head, a pine refusing the wind. “Your Majesty, no need. I’ve stepped down. Titles are empty; talking about them won’t change what must be changed.”

Who I am matters less than the young still wrestling the world, he cut off the polite dance and pressed on.

“As I said, Skela and my daughter have been pushing the reformed marriage law. But they themselves, as a same-sex couple, still have no children to this moment. Opponents exploit that, shouting that their reforms serve private desire. They attack from the angle of ‘they have no kids, they want resources without responsibility,’ trying to force the government to roll back the decision.”

“Uh-huh. Easy to imagine… It’s a bold, radical move.” Menglan recalled the resistance she faced while fusing the two tribes and drew a cold breath through her teeth.

“They are bold and radical, but I don’t believe they’re wrong.” Padini’s words struck like iron on iron; his eyes didn’t waver.

“This era is special; certain forms of radical action are necessary. As a father, I cannot abide my child being slandered for nothing, her motives twisted at whim. As a parent, I cannot abide stubborn minds denying a reform that will rescue countless war orphans and return them a childhood.”

Such selfish stances, such warped motives, are unacceptable to me. His words fell like stones into still water. Lines that might sound theatrical from another mouth rang true on his upright face; no shallow vanity, only a clean insistence on his own justice.

Yet Menglan’s brows knit, a fine line drawn by thought. “I understand your feelings. But if they’re attacked for having no children, why not adopt two orphans? That policy was made for exactly this, wasn’t it?”

Padini shook his head again. “They want to. Sadly, they don’t qualify.”

“Qualify?”

“Yes. They’ve applied more than once. But…” To keep war orphans from becoming tools to milk subsidies, every adoption undergoes strict vetting. Only homes judged warm and safe, with enough companionship and care, may adopt.

“This is a rule Skela herself set to protect the children. Yet she and my daughter…” He paused, weighing words, then went on. “My daughter serves as Minister of Public Health. Skela is the sitting High Justice of the Supreme Tribunal.”

“The first is a newborn bureau with rubble everywhere and weeds to clear. As for the second… let me put it like this, like laying cards on a frost-white table. As her senior, I’m nowhere near a decent parent, a shadow I can’t shake. Partly it’s my fault, a stone in my own shoe, yet the work itself kept me from my daughter like rain keeps a traveler from a fire. And as the re-formed Republic’s first Chief Justice, the weight on her shoulders is a mountain higher than mine.”

“Ah, you mean they’re so busy they can’t meet the minimum companionship time for adoption, like a lamp that’s never lit?”

“Exactly so, Your Majesty.”

“I see… You’re saying, if they had children, those old fossils would lose a key excuse for a palace push, like a hawk losing a claw. But they’re two busy people, they’re both women, and they can’t meet adoption rules, so to have children they’d have to rely on our World Tree, like drawing water from a sacred spring.” Menglan nodded, yet doubt still misted her eyes like fog on pine needles. “But allow me one more question, like tapping the edge of a bell. If they can’t pass the adoption review now, then even with the World Tree, won’t they still be too busy to spend time with their child, like a ship that never docks?”

Isn’t that irresponsible? With that thorn pricking the air, Padini smiled, calm as a winter lake catching the sun. “Simple. I’ll take care of the child, like tending a hearth in a cold house.”

“...Ah.” The corner of Menglan’s eye twitched like a startled sparrow.

“I know I haven’t been a good father, a wound that still aches like an old scar. Precisely because of that, I want to carry some of their burden, like taking a pack from a weary traveler, and atone for my past mistakes like planting trees after a fire. I’ve already been studying the essentials, page by page, like tracing constellations at night—”

Padini kept explaining with solemn focus, like a blade held straight, trying to earn the trust of the two leaders across the table. Menglan, however, could only see one picture rising like steam from a teacup: the hand that once raised a golden gavel to bring justice to criminals and victims alike would soon be wiping a baby’s mess like rain cleaning a muddy stone.

The scene alone made her feel… hard to hold it together, like a drumskin pulled too tight.

Padini, stern as carved granite, didn’t notice her bitten lip, a petal folded against a thorn. He finished, then bowed to them with ceremony, like lowering a banner in respect.

“So, as a private citizen, I’m making a request to you—leaders of the Elves and the Nacha Tribe. Could you propose a workable deal, and provide two birthing slots for humankind, like opening two gates in a garden wall?”

Menglan hid a smile with a gentle cough, a sleeve over a lamp. She’d just smoothed her expression to answer. “Well, about that—”

“I’m not as easy as this guy makes me sound, brother.”

Varie smacked the table with a crack like thunder, and the server bringing pizza flinched like a rabbit. His hand shook, the pan slid off like a slate down a hillside.

Varie herself flowed up and caught it midair, smooth as a swallow snatching a twig, set it steady on the table, tore off a slice, and shoved it into her mouth like a wolf taking a bite. Chewing, she narrowed her eyes at Padini. “Your mouth is full of high ideals, all banners and sunlight, but that’s just your side of the story, like a river told by one bank. The last human who wanted a child from the World Tree made a mess the size of a crater. And you…”

She flicked a glance at the next table, where Kabos, flushed and swaying, snored on a beanpole’s chest like a cat on a fence in the sun. She snorted, a spark in dry straw. “Sure, the pizza here is decent, like a loaf fresh from the kiln. But that kid kept pushing only this place, chanting ‘most authentic,’ ‘you’ll regret missing it in the Empire,’ like a salesman with wind at his back. I don’t know what ‘authentic’ means to a Nacha, but it’s clear somebody sent him, like a kite tugged by a hidden string.”

“Hey, Varie…”

Menglan tugged Varie’s sleeve under the table like a breeze catching a banner, but Varie ignored her and pressed on like a drumbeat toward a march.

“Talk, brother. You planned this ‘chance meeting’ like stacking stones in a garden, even learned Elvish to speak with us, like tuning a flute to our key. You’ve got other thoughts, right?”

“…”

“What’s wrong? I hit the mark? Sounds like a guilty heart, like a fox track in fresh snow.”

Padini finally shook his head, then lifted his gaze to meet Varie’s like steel to steel.

“There’s selfishness in the request. I won’t deny it, like a shadow at noon.”

Varie’s face said, Ha! Called it, like a rooster at dawn. She grabbed another slice without thinking and bit down, a quick spark on dry wood.

Padini’s fingers clenched on the table, slow as frost creeping, his brows knotted like twisted roots. His voice lost its cold clarity and carried a quiet loneliness, like wind over an empty field. “Call me traditional, call me closed-minded, but… Isabella often told me, her greatest dream was to hold Hazel’s child in her own arms, like cradling spring in winter.”

“Uh?” Varie froze mid-chew, her jaw halted like a clock with a broken spring.

“I failed to protect her, like letting a lantern gutter in the rain. So at least for this one wish—holding a grandchild—even if I must use small means, I’ll try my best, like rowing against a slow, black tide.”

“…”

“…”

“...That…”

The air grew heavy, sand poured into a bell, and Varie’s hand hung there as if nailed in place, with a half-bite of basil pizza in her mouth like a leaf caught in amber.

Hey, bringing up your late wife right now is kind of foul play! She couldn’t shout that, so she just floundered, a fish on the riverbank.

Seeing her fluster, Menglan couldn’t help but cover her mouth and snort, a plum blossom in snow. “Pfft… I told you, stop stirring the pot. Can’t you see Lord Padini’s a good man at a glance, like clear water in a well? Did you have to play bad cop here? Not embarrassing, huh?”

Varie swallowed the slice in one gulp, rough as a stone dropped down a well, then flicked off Menglan’s hand under the table, cheeks burning like embers. “Fine, fine, I’m the awkward one, I’m extra. You’ve got the keen eye, happy now?”

“Hey, that’s not what I meant. But if we’re doing good cop and bad cop, read the room, like timing a thunderclap—”

Watching them bicker like sparrows on a branch, Padini looked a little lost, a traveler at a fork. When it didn’t seem to end, he raised a hand to cut in, like lifting a lantern between them. “About the trade terms I proposed—”

“No need. Give it a bit, we’ll handle it for you. Stop chewing on it like gristle.”

Varie tossed back the words, and Padini blinked, surprised, like a deer hearing a twig snap. His brows pinched. “Wait. No need for a deal…? Didn’t you just say the slots are scarce, like water in a drought, and the situation is serious?”

The two across from him shared a glance like mirrors flashing, then shrugged in unison like leaves in a light wind.

“They are scarce, and yeah, we’ve argued a few rounds about it, like thunder that rolls but doesn’t strike,” Menglan said with a smile, soft as evening light. “But as the saying goes, we quarrel at the headboard and make up at the footboard, like tides that ebb and flow. We love each other this much, so we’ll find a way—hey!”

Varie chopped her on the head with a hand like a quick blade, face red as a maple leaf. “If you can’t say it right, just zip it.”

Then, seeing Padini staring at their antics like a statue seeing rain, Varie cleared her throat, forced a stern look like a commander straightening a cloak, and went on. “Conflict ends with everyone stepping back a bit, like two carts passing on a narrow bridge. We’ll land on something both sides can live with. It’s not a ravine you can’t cross. No way we can’t spare two slots. And… yeah, like she said, I was testing you. You might be the one raising the kid in the end, like the firekeeper in a long winter. As for the slots for them? We already promised their side’s parents a while back.”

“Huh? Their… parents?”

“Yeah,” Varie nodded as if it were obvious, like tapping ash from a pipe. “Your son-in-law’s parents.”

Huh?

They agreed with his son-in-law’s parents?

Wait, wasn’t Skela an orphan? Who are her “parents,” then?

While Padini’s mind was still turning like a millstone, far to the north, in the stark General’s Manor where wind bit like iron, a sneeze cracked the quiet.

“Hm? What was that?”

Kneeling at the window in a nun’s habit, hands clasped like doves, Manni opened her eyes at the sound. Beside her, General Slandor rubbed her nose, puzzled, like a bear sniffing snow.

“Strange…”

“What’s strange?” The question drifted like incense.

“Uh… suddenly I had this weird feeling, like… I just became a dad out of nowhere?” Her voice wavered like a reed.

“?”

Mother Superior Manni narrowed her eyes at her, then burst into a laugh, a bell under eaves. “Dream on.”

“What? How’s that dreaming?”

Manni stood, slid her arms down around Slandor’s neck from behind, and hugged her, soft as velvet over steel. Then she whispered in her ear like warm breath on glass. “If anyone’s the dad, it’s me. You’re the mom~”

“...???”

While the red-faced general peppered the air with question marks like arrows, Padini, far across the Republic, finally put the pieces together like stones in a mosaic.

“So you’re saying, before you even came to Balad, you’d promised the Northern General and the Mother Superior to reserve two slots for Skela and my daughter…?”

“Yup. Thanks to my brilliant wife here—‘If you make a move, show real skill!’ she said like a drumroll. What should’ve been a light performance turned into her punching a hole in the so-called Unshakable Wall of Wind and Snow, a breach still not patched,” Menglan side-eyed the woman beside her, a sliver of annoyance like a thorn in silk. “Good thing General Slandor is magnanimous, like a big tree in a gale. No demand for compensation. She just heard the Mother Superior’s advice and made the same request you did—two slots for Skela, to shut those conservatives up. Hmph. What’s with that look? I’m not letting you off on this one, Varie. Acting on your own without talking to me was wrong, like steering a boat blind. Trying to wiggle out of it?”

What? I didn’t even know what was going on then, why blame me—Varie muttered under her breath, her earlier bravado vanishing like mist at sunrise.

Seeing this, Padini’s face filled with mixed flavors, like tea steeped with herbs, and that iceberg face finally thawed into a smile, a river breaking its ice.

“Seems it was all fated, like threads crossing in a loom. Good. Good!”

With that sigh, the three shared a look and clinked their cups, a soft chime like wind against glass. With an accord reached, the air lightened like clouds parting, and the talk branched like spring willow.

They spoke of the Salman Republic’s present, like mapping rivers on parchment. They spoke of bold reforms and the rough stones underfoot, and the new shoots of hope pushing through those stones, green as jade.

Padini sought the Elves’ and the Nacha Tribe’s counsel on the path ahead, like a traveler asking at crossroads, while Menglan and Varie bickered and traded insights, sparks and laughter mingling like fireflies over a stream.

By the end, they drifted to home talk, to The Parenting Classic that sold across all three races like bread in every market, and swapped guides on how to be worthy parents, like recipes passed down the hearth.

When that topic wound down, the last slice of pizza had already vanished into Varie’s stomach, a coin slipped into a pouch.

She brushed flour from her fingers, stretched like a cat, and said it was time for their next stop, a point clear as a north star.

Unlike “tasting authentic pizza,” which was just garnish on the plate, their next goal was sharp. They were going to find someone.

“All right, time to move—haven’t seen that ‘old friend’ in ages, and I’m burning for a reunion like iron in a forge!” Her teeth ground with a ch-ch sound, and fire flashed in her eyes. “I still owe her a ‘thank-you gift’ for conning me into knocking down that wall!”

“Pfft… go easy, I heard she’s back in a wheelchair, a person with special needs, like a boat with a cracked keel~”

“Special needs, my foot! Even if she turned into a vegetable, I’d still bonk her on the head!” Varie swung a fist, huffing like a bull at a gate.

Padini watched her temper flare and stroked his chin, thoughtful as a scholar over ink. “This person with special needs you mentioned… is it Lady Adelaide?”

“Eh? How’d you guess?”

“It just sounds like her, like a footprint in fresh clay. But if you’re going to see her, I’d suggest waiting a bit. Wander this street, have lunch first, then go.”

“Hm? Why?”

“Because your timing’s a little… delicate, like stepping between raindrops. She’s currently…”

Actually, pretty busy.”