Having a kid turned out to be pretty fun. However, I quickly discovered just how stressful the situation was when it came to thinking of what to name her.

A name was something that she would be stuck with for the rest of her life! And considering that she was part informational status window, I was pretty sure that she’d be immortal.

Having to think of a name for my daughter was far more intimidating than the fact that I probably had an immortal daughter.

Fortunately, I had a strategy to deal with the stress of having to name my daughter.

And that strategy involved dealing with it later.

For the time being, while Vala teased and played with Window on the ground, I went to go and find where our daughter ran off to. Well, I didn’t exactly have to search for her since I knew exactly where she went. She went to where Delphi, Cami, and Lavi were, and that was supposedly inside of the house. That supposedly was confirmed once I stood outside the house and heard their voices come from within.

Before I could open the door to the house, though, somebody else opened it from within. And that somebody just so happened to be Delphi with a huge smile on her face as she charged out of the door without looking first. She ended up knocking me over and conveniently landing with her chest right against my face.

I wasn’t going to complain about that.

“Master! I found you!” Delphi said, pulling her chest off from my face to look down at me instead.

“You should probably look in front of you when you run like that,” I said. Even if I wasn’t going to complain about how she landed with her chest against my face, I was still going to try and stop her from running without looking. I didn’t want my daughter to pick up that habit. What if she tried to cross the road without looking first?

Well, there weren’t any roads in our world. The closest things to roads were the lanes during battles. Regardless, to be a good father, I had to consider safety. Being influenced by Delphi into potentially running around all over the place without looking first wasn’t good.

There was also the fact that Delphi almost kneed me in the crotch when she charged out the door.

“Oh! Sorry, Master! I’ll be more careful! I was just really excited! We found this tiny fun thing!” Delphi explained, her ears twitching as she talked while her tail rapidly wagged behind her. Her tail wagged so hard that it made her hips wag, too, and the wagging of her hips made the rest of her body jiggle around, and that… created a very nice sight from where I was, considering that her chest was hanging down over my own.

But that was not the best sight. The best sight was the pure expression of happiness on her face as her eyes shined and her smile refused to be anything but as wide as possible. So, I reached up to pet her head. It was too irresistible to not pet. “By tiny fun thing, do you mean my daughter?”

Delphi’s eyes widened as much as they could as her body became still. “Ma-Master’s daughter?! I knew she smelled like you, and she has the same eyes as you, and she even introduced herself as your daughter, but I didn’t think she was serious! I thought she was playing a game! Like playing House since we were inside the house!”

“She was serious, as unbelievable as it might sound.”

Delphi tilted her head. “But it doesn’t sound unbelievable.”

“Then why didn’t you believe her?”

“Because if I believed her then I was going to get so excited that my heart might explode and I didn’t want to explode.”

“Why would you get that excited?”

“Because! She’s Master’s daughter! One, she already counts as a new friend to play with and that’s amazing! But it’s even more amazing if she’s your daughter! That means she’s like a mini-Master! Wait… Master, if you’re the dad… who’s the mom?”

“Window.”

Delphi stared straight at me in silence as the gears turned in her mind. I could tell just from looking at her that she was trying to figure out how that worked.

“She gave herself a normal body. You can even see it over there,” I explained, pointing over to where Vala was still groping and teasing Window.

“Window transformed! Does she taste better now?”

“Does – does she taste better now?”

“Yeah! I tried licking her before and she tasted weird.”

From the distance, a shouting Window could be heard. “Wha-what are you telling him?! And I didn’t taste weird!”

“Now that you mention it,” I said, “I noticed that she tasted like strawberries when I kissed her. I thought it was just lipstick… but she tasted like strawberries even on her neck and ear. And elsewhere.”

“What are you telling her about?!”

Delphi somehow managed to look even more excited. Every single time I thought that Delphi couldn’t look more excited than she already was, she managed to prove me wrong. It was almost as if she lived in a constant state of always being able to become more excited with every bit of new news no matter how trivial it actually was. She could be the most excited girl in the universe, be told something new and trivial such as a random fact about ants, and she would still manage to get even more excited. It was endearing. Extremely endearing. It made me want to continue thinking of new things to tell her to get her more and more excited.

But then her heart might actually explode. I didn’t want her heart to explode.

“Wait, Master,” Delphi said, seriously staring into my eyes all of a sudden.

“What?” I asked.

“What if… if it’s possible for her to taste like strawberries… is it… is it possible… to taste like soup?”

“You know, if you think about it, she does taste like soup already.”

“What?! How?!”

“Think about it. Imagine strawberry soup. If she tastes like strawberries, then that means she tastes like the strawberry ingredient of strawberry soup. Soup itself has no taste, right? Its taste is affected by its ingredients. In this case, strawberry is the broth and the main ingredient. So, she already tastes like soup. Like strawberry soup.”

Delphi collapsed onto me at the end of my explanation, reaching one hand up to rest on her chest. “Ma-Master… my – my heart… I can’t… I can’t take it… I’m… I’m too excited… it’s gonna – it’s gonna explode…” She might have been talking about her heart exploding, but she looked more like she was in such an extreme state of heat that she couldn’t even stand anymore. “I-it hurts, Master. I can’t handle it…”

“Wait, are you alright? You’re not seriously going to explode or anything, are you?”

With half-lidded eyes, she clutched onto my shirt and looked up at me. I couldn’t tell if she was extremely aroused or if she had an extreme fever and was about to die.

“I see,” Vala said, now standing next to us with her hands on her hips.

I looked for where Window was and saw her in the distance, still on her back, covering her face up with her hands now that her clothes and hair were all messed up.

“Is Delphi gonna be alright?” I asked Vala.

“Only if you kiss her,” Vala answered. “You have to give her a forehead kiss to release the excitement.”

“What’s that going to do?!”

“Forehead kisses are some of the most powerful kisses in the university.” Vala nodded twice. “Whenever somebody is getting too excited, kissing their forehead, despite being exciting in its own right, will also relax them.” She nodded two more times. “Truly, forehead kisses are the ultimate medicine to prevent spontaneous explosions of the heart.” Another two nods.

“Master… pl-please,” Delphi whined, using the last of her strength to drag herself farther up my body.

“Is this really going to help?” I asked Vala.

“Nod nod,” Vala said, nodding.

“You don’t have to say ‘nod nod’ if you’re going to nod anyways!”

“Vala stepped back with a look of shock on her face as if the entire universe was crumbling all around her from the sudden realization of learning that she didn’t have to say nod nod while nodding!”

“Don’t narrate yourself! And I’m afraid for our pocket universe if that’s all it takes to make it crumble!” When I heard either a pained or excited moan from Delphi, I returned my attention to her and did what Vala suggested. I pressed my lips against her forehead and kissed her.

The next moment, Delphi was up on her feet looking just like normal. “That was close. Thanks for saving me from exploding, Master! I’m gonna go lick Window now.”

“This feels extremely anticlimactic.”

Before she could reply, Delphi was already on her way over to Window.

Window was finally getting up from the grass just in time to be tackle-hugged by Delphi, knocking her back down onto her back as Delphi went for Window’s face.

“Is… is Window going to be alright?” I asked.

“Heh, she’s gonna be more than alright if you know what I’m saying,” Vala answered.

“Why do I have a feeling that for the next hour, every single time Window is about to get up and straighten herself out, somebody else is going to knock her down and do things with her?”

“You can’t just go and expose the newest running gag like that, Drake. Haven’t you ever heard of showing instead of telling?”

“Since when do you care about literary norms?!”

“Oh. Good point. Whew, that was a close one. I almost broke character and became some boring prude who gives overused writing advice on the internet. Also, now that we’re alone… you – you’re gonna have a kid with me too, right?” She might have started off sounding just like normal, but her last question featured her sounding insecure and nervous.

“I – I mean,” I turned my head and scratched my cheek. I could feel that I was blushing. “Obviously.”

“But I want… an actual baby, okay? One I can rock in my arms, and cuddle with, and sing to until they fall asleep, and dress in really cute clothes, and… I really want to experience them from the very beginning instead of skipping any steps. No-not that I think there’s anything wrong with skipping steps! I would still love them even if they started off older, but… I’ve always wanted a baby… even if I think they’re super annoying most of the time…”

Since Delphi was busy being on top of Window instead of me, I could finally get up and immediately hugged Vala once I was. “Don’t worry about it. And my answer is still the same. That’s obviously going to happen.”

“He-heh… thanks.”

“But we’re going to need some privacy if that’s what you want us to make.”

“Tha-that can be arranged.”

Both of us were heavily blushing at that point.

Then, when the hug ended, Vala returned to sounding just like her usual self as she said, “Oh, I’m totally skipping the pregnant part though. I don’t want morning sickness and don’t care about getting kicked and punched from the inside. And I don’t want to look fat.”

“There’s nothing wrong with gaining weight when pregnant.”

“You know how lazy I am! Do you know how hard it would be to lose weight afterwards?!”

“Couldn’t you just magic the weight away? And those other problems?”

“Look, even if I want a baby, I still don’t like the idea of a parasite bobbling around inside of me for the first fifty-seven months, and then once the shell forms, I don’t want to walk around with a giant egg the size of my torso!”

“That just got way too weird! What kind of pregnancy are you talking about here?! Nothing about that sounded like a normal pregnancy! And don’t call our future child a parasite!”

“I’ll love them even if they’re a parasite, but I won’t lie about what they are! And that’s how dragon pregnancies work! I know I might look like a cute waifu, but don’t forget that I’m still a dragon under my meat suit!”

“Wait… that’s seriously how it works for it dragons? And if you’re all so powerful, why don’t you just… magic the process into being simpler?”

“Well… not every dragon is as strong as me, I guess. Bu-but that’s not the point! My point is that it’s a horrible process and takes forever! That’s why I’m skipping it! Our baby can start off as an egg in a basket!”

“Wait… again. If you’re… you know, an actual, legitimate dragon, and we have a kid… is it going to be a dragon? A half dragon?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hasn’t this ever happened before?”

“Nope.”

“So, we’re going to make history by making the first dragon-human hybrid?”

“Yep.”

“It’s seriously never happened before?”

“Only in stories written by humans with weird attractions to dragons.”

“Should you really be calling those attractions weird considering our relationship?”

“Well, we’re different since I’m making myself look like a cute waifu instead of a dragon. I wouldn’t expect you to want to do lewd things with me if I looked like my normal self. Plus… with the size difference… I’m uh… not really sure it’d be possible.”

“I would feel emasculated if it weren’t for knowing your real form is literally bigger than mountains.”

“Yeah.”

“So uh… I guess I’ll leave it to you to arrange some privacy for us.”

“Ye-yeah.”

“Wait, couldn’t you probably just snap a baby of ours into existence right now?”

“But… if we do it the normal way… we have an excuse to do lots of… it.”

“O-oh. Right. Good thinking.”

“Plus it would take away from the fact that you just had a kid with Window and the cast would get too bloated too quickly if we all have a bunch of kids with you all of a sudden.”

“Despite you being weird and referring to us like we’re some sort of cast of characters in a play, I actually get what you mean. It’d be nice to have some bonding time with her before I have a bunch of other kids begging for my attention.”

“Right? Plus I’m not ready to share you more than I already am yet.”

“Want a hug and forehead kiss?”

“Yes, please.”

One hug and forehead kiss later, Vala was ready to go play some more games. Apparently, while I was gone, she made a couple of trees pop up near the house and she hung a hammock between them. That was her new gaming spot as she hung halfway off the hammock upside down, holding her handheld console in front of her face.

Inside the house, I finally made it to the bedroom where Cami, Lavi, and my daughter were.

And I instantly related to Window from when I threw our daughter.

“Heh, you’re good, but you’ve got a long way’s to go!” Lavi shouted as she held the curtain rod from the window in her hands, using it to block…

To block the sword that she gave my daughter.

My daughter, standing on the edge of the bed with barely any balance, was holding and swinging around Lavi’s very much real sword. Meanwhile, Cami sat at the back of the bed with her back against the wall and a pillow held against her chest as she watched the show.

I was about to shout before remembering that shouting around my daughter wasn’t something I ever wanted to do. Unless it was for comedic effect.

And this wouldn’t be for comedic effect.

“Lavi,” I said in the best calm, serious voice I could, “why is a little girl swinging your sword around?”

I expected her to maybe act like a deer who just noticed that a truck was barreling toward her, but she didn’t. All she did was chuckle a little and say, “Don’t worry, Master. The safety is on and can only be disabled when I’m holding it.”

“How – how does a sword have a safety? Wouldn’t the safety be the sheath?”

“Nah. Watch.” Lavi bowed in front of my daughter.

The next moment, my daughter swung the sword’s edge down toward Lavi’s head… and bounced off with a cartoonish sound effect.

“See? Safety,” Lavi said.

“Bonk!” my daughter cheered. “I win!”

“O-oi! That doesn’t count! I was demonstrating something!”

“Too bad, I win. You never said pause!”

“Tch… you little brat. You’re smart. Using the power of being technically correct at such a young age… oi, how old even are you?”

“Uhhh, maybe five?”

“Five years? No way.”

“Ehehe, not years! Hours!”

Lavi looked at me just as confused as I was when I first saw the girl. “Don’t question it,” I said. “She’s telling the truth. She’s also me and Window’s kid.”

“Wait!” Lavi shouted. “You mean that she wasn’t roleplaying about being your kid?!”

“Nope. She’s actually my kid.”

My daughter walked closer to me on the bed, raised the sword, and brought it down against my head. “Bonk! Ehehe, I got you, Papa.”

“Master,” Cami said, finally speaking up.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Who called dibs on being next?”

“Next to what?”

Cami pointed at my daughter and then pointed at me.

“A-ah… Vala, I think.”

“I call third.”

“O-oi,” Lavi said. “What about me and Del?”

“You can call a slot once you’ve done it with him.”

I sighed and threw pillows at them both. “Do I need to remind you there’s a kid here?”

“But we’re not being specific.”

“No,” Lavi said, “Master is right. We’re like… her cool big sisters now. We have to protect her, and that includes protecting her innocence.”

My daughter crossed her arms over her chest and said, “It’s not like I haven’t already been on the internet.”

Oh no, I thought. “When? When did you get access to the internet?”

“When you wanted more sleep. I went on Mama’s phone and saw lots of tabs open of idol girls from her game. Some of them wore really weird costumes.”

I felt the color drain from my skin.

Not only did my daughter already visit the internet… but she was exposed to my wife’s – Window’s, she was exposed to Window’s idol fetish and—

d-i-didid-0idid-ididididididid you just gfwerrefer to mne as your wifwifgiwifweiwfiewife?

“Mama!” our daughter shouted, dropping the sword and jumping up into the air to grab onto and hang from Window. “Eww… you’re all yucky.”

Looking Window over, she had what looked like a layer of dog slobber coating her rectangular self.

I had a good idea of what was happening to her before she returned to her normal form and teleported into the bedroom.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

GTRWEDSHGTE YES YOU DO YOU TOTALLY REFERRED TO ME AS YOUR WIFE AND THEN CHANGED IT

IT’S LITERALLY RIGHT UP THERE

I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE

a-and I’ll put a password on my phone… my bad

“Shouldn’t you be busy getting licked by Delphi?”

Window shuddered.

Her… her tongue… it’s as big as the rest of her… and there’s so much drool… it’s like the inside of her mouth has a hose in there that never stops leaking…

I didn’t think that Window meant anything lewd by what she was saying… but I made sure to place a hand over our daughter’s eyes just in case.