Meeting With Her Highness Siesta (2)

"So the four of you are Irregulars?" one of the knights spoke up. Using appraisal, his name was Richard Vegsburg. A noble, probably.

"Ma.."

"In regard to our current situation, that would be what best describes our situation," Liliath said.

"It seems you used some magic. Though, the fact that the four of you are unnamed Irregulars is something I can't just easily believe. Your Highness Siesta, for the sake of your safety, I will assume them to be nothing but lowly scoundrels who are here to fool you. I will have gathered sufficient evidence to prove otherwise."

Siesta bowed to us apologetically, "Is that alright with you?"

Liliath looked at me for a moment. It's not like we can just reject huh?

"There seems to be no problem on our side."

"Good, then let's go."

"Your Highness, you should keep your distance," the knight, Richard said.

"I am in agreement," the maid added.

With Siesta taking the lead, we were surrounded by knights on all fronts as we followed along.

Oh well. This is really shit isn't it? Totally didn't expect this sort of development straight off the bat. Honestly, what did I expect? I guess I've gotten too full of myself, thinking that an Irregular would garner a lot of attention when in reality.. our identities are being doubted. That's great.. but it's also kinda sad.

'Noel, the maid, El, has an appraisal skill. She might also be an assassin.'

From the corner of my view, I saw Nine's message.

'That's so cliche...'

I've requested a few tweeks to the UI, things like making it appear on the retina and being able to operate the system mentally are among the few.

So: Operation Don't Get on Their Bad-side Start?

Honestly, I thought it would be more like a simple conversation over tea. Reality is harsh~

And then a message came in from Siesta:

'Pardon me but who is the fourth person in the group? He resembles Nine.'

Oh yeah, Siesta met Nine as a girl the last time.

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"Princess Siesta!"

"Siesta Onee-chan!!"

"Your Highness, good to see you are well."

The children of the orphanage all gathered around Siesta with beaming smiles. The building being a distance away from the church, closer to the inner part of the kingdom-- the noble's district. If anything, it looked like a mansion of sorts. There is a large field with a pond in the centre, and trees and hedges that were clothed with leaves the colour of winter surrounded the place.

"Hello! Prune-neesan, Liliath-neesan, Nine-niisan and Noel-niisan!"

"Eh, it's you!"

"It's been a while Gabriel-chan.."

To be honest, I totally forgot her name-- appraisal is conveniently scary. Anyways, Gabriel-chan here is one of Jennifer-chan's friends. We met her last time when she visited the florist.

The princess was busily greeting the sisters and nursery carers all the while attending to the incessant chattering of the children. Gabriel-chan herself came to greet us instead.

"Are you not going to greet Her Highness?" Prune asked.

"Her Highness is busy like this wherever she arrives, it's fine to wait until everything settles down. I could always greet her then," Gabriel-chan said.

"Of all places, I didn't think we'd come to an orphanage.. opps. Sorry, I didn't mean to say something sensitive there.." Nine covered his mouth.

"Ah, no. My parents are still well, I just came here for the day care services since..they're busy most of the time. It's a lot funner here too," Gabriel said with a toothy smile.

"So.. then.."

I was wondering what we should do in this kind of situation but..

"Then let me guide you around the place," Gabriel threw a lifeline.

"Much appreciated," Liliath said.

"Ehehe.."

With Gabriel leading the way, we were introduced to the other members of the orphanage, the likes of the children who had broken away from Siesta's group and the caretakers that run the place.

We left a message for Siesta saying that it's alright to attend to the kids for now, we can wait. Since Siesta already knows how to use the new retina display function to read chat and type chat, she should be alright.

The orphanage itself was managed very well, had 3 floors with the upper two floors being the bedroom and library-- of course it's not appropriate to visit those area-- there were around a hundred children living here, most of them came from families that either couldn't support them, abandoned them or were ex-slaves. Included in the bunch were demi-humans, but they were the minority.

The orphanage's first floor had a study room, play room, living room, kitchen, dining room and two bathrooms. It also had a large backyard where the children could play around. Some mock weapons and straw posts could be seen and..

I saw this girl who had only one arm swinging a sword out in the field. There was a small peanut gallery of children bobbing their heads as they traced the movement of the balde. The girl herself had brown hair held together by a clip and her most notable feature was that..

She was pregnant.

Heh? She looks around my age.. like seriously?

I don't mean to be impolite but I did not expect this. A girl with only a single arm pregnant, and she's about 16 years old. I'm I seeing things correctly?

She swung her sword.. and stopped.. then turned to us. Sweat running down her face as she took in deep breaths.

"Nataline-san, meet the new guests, Her Highness also came today," Gabriel called out.

"Thank you Gabriel. Well, good to see new faces around here, I'm Nataline, nice to meet you four. Thank you for visiting our orphanage," she said with a confident smile. You could tell she was an adventurer just from that alone.

"Nice to meet you, Nataline-san, I'm Noel."

"Nice to meet you, you can call me Prune."

"And I'm Nine."

"You can call me Liliath. It is a pleasure to be acquainted with you."

"So.. Her Highness is here?" Nataline, asked in a dubious voice.

"Yes, she's out in front," Gabriel said, pointing with her finger.

Nataline then turned to the peanut gallery of children sitting at the porch.

"Okay, okay, children, have you greeted the Princess?" in a cheerful voice she asked.

"Not yet?"

"No."

"Is the princess here?!"

"Those who have not, shall we go greet her together?"

"""Hai!!"""

What a heartwarming scene. Together with the kids in tow, Nataline entered the mansion. She gave us a short glance before disappearing to the other side.

"Nice to meet you!"

"Um, onee-san, nice to meet you?"

Children started pouring in from nowhere and surrounded us. The beast-kin children looked rather interested in Prune so they approached her first.

We had to greet the children one by one. Rather cute how they tried using their fingers to remember our names-- they're not doing arithmetic so I don't know how that works.. oh wait, Nine is a number isn't he?

'My apologies, everything should be settled now. I'm currently in the study room so if you may meet me here, pardon the request.'

"Noel," Liliath called out, carrying one of the children in her arms as she flailed about like some superhero.

"Yeah, we better go."

"Yea.. yea. yea.. wait.. don't pull there, don't pull," Prune who squatted on her knees to meet the height of the children was being harassed by the tail and fluffy ears. But she looked like she thoroughly enjoyed being around them though...

As for Nine..

"Have you met Princess Frog?" one kid asked.

"Princess Frog? That would be a no.."

"You should go meet him, he's a nice frog!" another kid said.

"Oh no.." Gabriel held her head.

"Ahahaha.. maybe a little later, we have something we need to attend to.." Nine tried to laugh it off.

-- he was having a serious conversation with the kids.

"NO, I DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN!!"

"Now, we have something we must do, it's no good to be spoiled you know?" Liliath said to the child who desperately tried to cling to her.

"WAAAWAWA!!"

"Lucia-chan, you're troubling the guests," one of the caretakers came to take the child, Lucia away from Liliath.

"Uwu.." she tried to reach out her hand to Liliath but being held by the caretaker, she stood no chance. Tears formed at the edges of her eyes.

"Apologies for the trouble," the caretaker said.

"It's alright."

"Help.." Prune cried.. buried under a group of three kids while the others frolicked about with her body parts.

Owh darn.. I never knew an orphanage could be so dangerous..