Ren's children were roughly the size of toy poodles.
Kitten-sized was a little while ago. Now, they were about three kilograms—the size of small dogs. Even so, they still had human shapes. It was amazing that they were the exact same size as human babies. Towa-chan and Ark-chan must have been a little over five kilograms. Their sizes were completely different.
In exchange, their skeletons were delicate. However, because of that, their entire bodies were light, and their muscles and joints were remarkably flexible. Even if they clambered up and took a tumble, they just laughed. My heart leapt into my throat every time.
Their brains hadn't developed that much yet. When they said "Papa," I couldn't even tell if they recognized me as their father. After all, they called our cat Kinako "Mama," which made Ren super depressed. It seemed they called anything clinging to them that smelled like a male "Papa," and anything that smelled like a female "Mama." In the first place, it was unclear whether they even possessed a concept of individuality.
Apparently, research on the development of the Beast Race had a budget of zero, so nobody had ever done it! They rarely died, and the upper class always concealed them—it was utterly useless. Only now, in Wifey's generation, had proper research finally begun.
And the biggest issue was that Ren's sextuplets were of the cat Beast Race. They were cats. Beast-kin cats couldn't tell the difference between species until they grew bigger. Until they reached a certain point in their growth, they probably wouldn't know the difference between humans and cats. Though apparently, wolves and dogs could tell the difference between humans and dogs.
Daifuku the Chronos Mouse was on Towa-chan duty. He soothed her with songs. The wild hawk that basically lived at the Palace seemed to think of itself as a bodyguard. By the way, none of our animals carried infectious diseases. Momo-chan the Pomeranian was glued to Ark-chan.
And right now, the ones climbing all over my body while I was in dogeza were Ren's sextuplets. I was terrified of dropping them, so I couldn't even raise my head.
"Pa-paaa."
Pat, pat.
Once one of them started, they all began patting me.
"Please get dowwwn..."
"Pa-paaa. Kyahaa!"
Pat, pat.
They were having a blast. They weren't using their claws, so I figured they were just happily playing. Surely, if they started sharpening their claws on my clothes, someone would stop them. ...Someone would stop them, right?
By the way... my legs had gone completely numb a little while ago. Could somebody please help me out here?
"Ren... m-my legs are asleep..."
"Lord Groom... tuck your toes."
Ah, right. Without lifting my hips, I tucked my toes under to relieve the numbness. It took a bit of a knack. You shifted your center of gravity to create an opening and tucked your toes underneath. Once you were in this position, moving around was easy. You could move using only posture control and shifting your center of gravity. The so-called suwari-waza seated techniques. It was a bit difficult right now since I was flat on the floor in dogeza, though. People often said seated techniques were just for demonstrations, but really, they were practice for grappling from an ultra-low stance. Once you got the hang of it, you could pull off a low tackle at lightning speed.
While I was letting my mind wander with such useless thoughts, one of the kids got bored and tried to sharpen its claws on my back, bringing "Climb on Papa" time to an end. They were all rounded up and placed into a transport cart. The moment they were tucked into the cart, they forgot all about scratching and drifted off to sleep. Man, babies were truly a mystery.
"I wonder what's going to happen from here on out. Do they just suddenly grow huge?"
"Once they reach the size of a human, not much changes. It was the same way with Maruma."
Ren answered my question.
"In that case, ordinary parenting know-how should still work."
Thank goodness for that.
"A-iiin."
Probably making a funny face. Looks like he woke up after dozing off for just a second. Sora-chan, the boy, pulled a funny face. Unquestionably of House Kamishiro blood. I could truly feel the bond of blood.
"Kyahahaha! A-iiin!"
Amane-chan tugged on her cheeks, stretching them wide. Seeing that, the other children made funny faces too. ...Please stop. Wifey, Claire, Ren... don't look at me with those faces.
Papa joined the fray.
"Hanyaaan!"
I pulled my face up and down.
"Kyahaa♪"
"Kyak-kyak-kya♪"
Watching that, Wifey and the others made sour expressions.
"Truly the Lord Groom's child..."
"This gives me nothing but anxiety for their upbringing..."
"They are Husband-sama's children, after all. It will likely be even harder than it was with Maruma. In particular, that clever air they have where they can already communicate even now... is just... And, frankly speaking, their motor skills are developing at a terrifying rate as well."
Ren let out a sigh.
"Ark started crawling abnormally fast, too..."
Even Claire chimed in to agree.
"Towa is still quiet, at least. Although she does have an abnormal obsession with food... even though she cannot eat yet..."
Wifey let out a sigh as well. Come on, I really don't think I did anything wrong here.
"So then, about this publishing company in Repsitore... why did you seize management control of it?"
"Well, I was trying to buy some stock and entered the wrong number of digits, and it just kind of ended up like this..."
"Hoh... Then what is this massive funding provided to Repsitore's research institutions?"
Wifey pulled out some documents. Ah, the research funding I provided.
"Hm? Oh, that. Apparently, once warp technology was developed and the economic bubble ended, their funding got pulled. So I just offered funding and proposed joint research between the Galactic Empire and Chronos. You know, medicine and engineering are more advanced in the Galactic Empire and Chronos anyway."
"Do you all see now...? This is a natural-born Conquering King..."
"Why does that sound so scary?! They had the knowledge I wanted, and they were strapped for cash, so I just paid the money and suggested we research the technology together! It's totally fine since we're in the same allied camp!"
"It is terrifying precisely because you target structural vulnerabilities and conquer them legally like that!"
"It's legal, and it's not like I have any malicious intent, so what's the problem?!"
And by malicious, I meant the common definition of ill will, not the legal term for "prior knowledge." There was no general malice or intent to harm. I was just saying, "We're going to need this technology eventually, so if you don't need it, let's share it and develop it together." I figured it was a necessary technology for fighting against gods. Right now, we were powerless against a god, but I believed the day would come when science could reach them. Fortunately, we could already translate it. Scientists from Chronos and the Galactic Empire should be able to research it. I didn't think the technological gap was really that wide yet. All we had to do was pour tons of money into it while the economy was good and catch up. That was just how the world worked~.
Economies had good times and bad times. Repsitore was going through a slump, and during times like that, brain drain and tech leaks happened, but it was tech they couldn't make economic use of anyway. It was much better to let us research it and make a profit together. In the future as well, it was better to avoid hostility and become partners who researched together and shared the spoils. If anyone tried to hoard it all for themselves, we could just freeze them out. It might seem like a waste, but keeping it carefully locked away would only let it rust. Even if superior technology emerged in other countries, we could just import it. Since we understood the basics, we'd be able to use it skillfully. Products made using technology from other countries would surely be high quality, too. If we reached a point where we didn't even do design work and just imported things manufactured by foreign countries, well, then we'd be out of luck.
"So, that's why I think nobody is in the wrong. If Repsitore doesn't like it, they can just kick Chronos out."
"...See? Just as I said."
Why was this going over so poorly with them? I truly didn't understand.
And so, the research began, and we slowly drew closer to the truth.