Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Three days later....
It has been three days since Chise gave birth; she had somewhat recovered from the exhaustion of birthing six children, but the effects still lingered.
Rita and Anita had been helping her take care of the seven children, which was proving to be immensely difficult.
Draco wasn't a problem for them to handle; it was the newborns.
The house was also too cramped, and the walls were thin, making the cries of the babies echo through the house.
For the past three days, no one had gotten any decent sleep. There was also another problem that Mark had recently managed to deal with.
He wasn't expecting his wife to give birth to sextuplets; triplets would have been financially manageable for him.
But with the sextuplets and Draco, there were now seven children in total.
So, Mark had a talk with both Marcus and John on how to solve this problem.
At first, it was suggested that he split up the kids among the three families.
That way, it would be more manageable for him and Chise.
But Mark decided against it; Chise would be upset if he decided to do such a thing.
She was currently awfully defensive around the children, barely letting even her mother touch them, much less the thought of separating her children.
Another option was to give Draco to either Chise's or his own parents, but that too would not end well.
Draco was Chise's first child, and giving him away would make Chise sad.
Additionally, Asta might do something to his family if he failed to keep his promise.
She was someone who could created such a miraculous potion that went against nature.
Imagining what she might do to his family sent shivers down his spine.
John then made a brilliant suggestion: they were to move in together and settle in the village.
They would buy a large piece of land to build a house large enough to accommodate all of them; additionally, they could use the extra space for farming.
He explained several other reasons which Mark and Marcus found to be reasonable.
The village was still in development, and land was cheap on the outskirts.
The suggestion was met with acceptance from all sides, and plans soon began to be made.
Three weeks later...….
"Dad, I bought the land from the village chief. It was way cheaper than we were expecting," Mark announced lethargically.
There were visible bags under his eyes. The last three weeks hadn't been easy; everyone was lethargic due to waking up every four hours because of the babies crying.
They were all Demi-humans with animal traits, which unfortunately included sensitive hearing.
Some of them managed to endure by plugging their ears; sadly,
Chise, Rita, and Anita couldn't do the same. They had to be attentive to cater to the children's needs.
"I think we lucked out with Draco; I didn't have to experience this torture with him," Chise whispered to avoid waking up the babies.
The hardest part about dealing with the sextuplets was if one woke up and cried, the other five would wake up and cry too.
The only way to avoid this was to get all six of them to sleep at the same time.
"Yea, Draco is a quiet kid," Anita nodded in agreement.
"Yes, his reaction is cute when you stroke under his tail," Rita chimed in, smiling mischievously.
"Mom, don't bully him too much, okay," Chise warned; she knew that her mother tended to take things a bit too far.
She was worried for Draco since it was decided that all their families were going to be settling in the village.
"By the way, have you thought of names for the kids yet," Anita asked.
"Not yet, it hasn't been three moons yet," Chise replied. It was a custom to name a child after three moons; sadly, they didn't have the chance to do this with Draco since he already had a name when they found him.
"I think you should at least be prepared," Rita said.
"I have some name suggestions for the girls," Anita offered.
"Me too, we can leave the naming of the boys to Mark, Marcus, and John," Rita said.
"Hmm, that seems fair," Anita replied. The ladies then spent the next few hours deciding on the names for the girls.
Among the sextuplets, one boy and one girl were born as the same race.
The first pair were born as Chientrope's just like their father; the second pair were born as cat people like their mother.
The last pair were born as some form of hybrid between a Chientrope and Cat person.
This was one of the reasons that influenced the families to decide to live together.
Such a mixture of races was exceedingly rare, meaning that they were a prime target for exotic slave traders.
Draco was also a possible target due to the transformative ability he had shown.
They also speculated that Draco's race must have been hunted almost to extinction for some reason.
He was also the last of his kind, meaning that he was a one-of-a-kind merchandise that could make any exotic slave trader rich if they played their cards right.
Luckily, Marcus, John, Rita, and Anita were all former adventurers, so they could protect the children.
Marcus was a former level 3, Rita was a former level 4, John was also a level 4, and Anita a former level 5.
They had all been living in Orario before leaving to begin their families.
Orario wasn't exactly the kind of place to start a family peacefully.
They had accumulated enough wealth to last them a long while, and they could hunt monsters outside the city if they needed more.
Such levels weren't rare, as Orario was currently in its golden age where there were many level 7 adventurers; there was even a level 8 and 9.
They had realized their limits rather quickly and decided to quit while they were ahead.
Level 3 and 4 adventurers like most of them were just cannon fodder.
Meanwhile, Mark and John had already begun supervising workers to clear the land in preparation for construction.
They wanted to complete the house before winter began.
In the worst case that it wasn't completed, Chise had already asked Rose for help to accommodate some of her family through the winter.
She also offered Rose the option to live with them when the house was completed.
Chise didn't like the thought of leaving her best friend and her daughter alone.
Rose didn't have a source of income and was currently living on what her husband left behind.
Mark didn't disagree, as Rose's husband was a close friend of his, and there were already a lot of people going to be living in the house, so two more wouldn't be a problem.