Revisions made around 1:00 PM on 12/26.
The timing of the puppy’s appearance has been moved earlier.
The puppy, which first appeared in episode 10, now makes its first appearance in episode 4.
The added story today at noon is Episode 6: The Spirit King and the Puppy.
The day after the naming ceremony.
When I woke up, there were two children by my bedside.
The puppy wasn’t there. It was probably hiding.
“Dau? (Who?)” “Woof?”
I asked the children, and then I heard the sound of the puppy from under the bed.
It seemed like the puppy thought it had been called.
The puppy immediately poked its face out through the gap in the bed’s railing.
“Kya kya.” The puppy was so cute.
No, right now, it wasn’t the puppy but the children that were the focus.
The children had silver hair and blue eyes, the same as their father.
“Ah, did we wake you?” The boy smiled and spoke softly.
“I’m Gilberto, your older brother. Nice to meet you!” “Au? (Brother?)”
Gilberto, the older brother, was about ten years old. He resembled their father in atmosphere but had their mother’s eyes and other features.
“This is Lydia, your older sister. Nice to meet you.” “Dau? (Sister?)”
Lydia, the older sister, seemed a little younger than Gilberto, around eight years old. While her hair and eyes were the same as their father’s, her facial features were more like their mother’s. Both the brother and sister resembled their mother.
“Luria is so cute~” “Hey, hey, can I hold her?” “You can’t hold her standing. Wait until she can hold her head up.”
Lydia asked the nursemaid for permission, but it was declined. The nursemaid judged that it was dangerous to let a child hold an infant whose neck wasn’t strong yet.
“Okay. How disappointing.”
Lydia, looking truly disappointed, poked my cheek.
“Kya kya.” I was starting to feel happy.
“Both me and Lydia have wanted to meet you for so long.” “But why couldn’t we meet you before the naming ceremony was over?”
Lydia tilted her head. Even as an older sister, she was incredibly cute from my perspective.
“Well, that’s related to the Spirit’s blessing. If older siblings approach a newborn before the naming ceremony, they might take the blessing of the spirits that the mother gave to the child.”
“I see.”
“That’s how it was when Lydia was born too. We didn’t approach her until the ceremony was over.”
“But you were two years old then, right? Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“Is that really true?”
Then, both the older brother and sister laughed happily.
It seemed that despite being young, Gilberto was quite knowledgeable.
However, the talk about the spirits’ blessing and so on was just an old superstition from my past life.
In ancient times, a sickness spread among children, and many infants who were infected by their older siblings died. That’s likely where this custom came from, as the Spirit King Loa explained to me from my past life.
I wasn’t allowed to receive an education, but spirits like Loa had taught me many things.
While I was thinking about that, the nursemaid spoke to the siblings.
“Master, Miss Lydia, please sit here. You can hold Luria if you sit on the couch.”
“Yes!” they both exclaimed happily.
Gilberto and Lydia sat on a nearby couch. Then the puppy, wagging its tail happily, jumped onto the couch too.
Maybe it thought they were about to play.
“Leonardo is so cute.”
The puppy wagged its tail as Lydia petted it. I wondered, was “Leonardo” the puppy’s name? It didn’t seem to fit the puppy’s personality, though.
“Master, be gentle.”
The nursemaid carefully lifted me from the bed and handed me to Gilberto.
“That’s right. Support her neck with your right hand.”
“Okay.”
“Use your left hand to support her bottom. Then bend your right elbow and rest her head there.”
“Okay.”
Under the nursemaid’s watchful eye, Gilberto carefully held me, as if I were fragile.
Meanwhile, the puppy kept sniffing me intently.
“Sniff sniff sniff sniff.” Why was the puppy sniffing me so much? Was I smelly?
I didn’t know.
“It’s your brother, Luria. Eat well and grow up strong.”
“Dah~”
After being held by Gilberto for a while, I was passed to Lydia.
“Luria. I’m your older sister. You’re my little sister.”
“Dau?”
“You’re my little sister, so I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you and teach you things. I’m your sister, after all.”
Lydia looked so happy, repeatedly declaring herself my sister.
She was probably just really excited about having a younger sister.
“Luria, if anyone is mean to you, I’ll protect you.”
“Ah, but it’s my job as your brother to protect you.”
“Dau?”
Listening to the conversation between the siblings made me feel happy. In my previous life, I was an only child. I did have cousins, but they bullied me, so I didn’t have any good memories with them.
As I was gently rocked by my sister, I drifted off to sleep, feeling safe and comforted.
