New Century Warriors

Chapter 2. On Attempts to Increase Motherhood

The next day, when Raino left the Grand Library after completing the formalities, he felt refreshed and invigorated.

It has been approved.

To be honest, we should have thought of this a long time ago. When it comes to mechanisms, there's no harm in not using them.

Lei Ye was very confident in what he wrote. According to his market research, the incredibly bored natives in this other world were willing to spend money on things to have fun.

If he had enough funds, Lei Ye could do a lot more. He checked his storage bag and found that he only had a few large silver coins in his pocket. Although it wasn't much, it was the money he had saved for three years, but it wasn't even enough to buy the cheapest slave.

But Lei Ye had an idea.

Today is his first day of freedom, so let's not linger around those mothers in the forest for now. He has so many wonderful ideas saved up in his little notebook, so let's try them out one by one today.

First, try the lowest-cost method.

He traveled all the way to the western edge of the city wall, to the poorest neighborhood in Hillius.

"Hello--"

Suddenly, a voice called out from not far away. Lei Ye turned around and saw that the barren fields were growing tall, local off-season crops that were over knee-high, and an older woman was holding a hoe and looking at the field.

She was dressed in a conservative, old-fashioned nun's habit, and had a tall, healthy, and full figure.

Wearing a veil and headscarf, her face was obscured, but her gentle eyes revealed a wariness like that of a small animal.

The caution probably stems from the fact that few people come to this place.

Lei Ye took out the money from his pocket, a shiny silver coin, and waved it at the older sister while slowly approaching her.

"I'm here to raise funds. I heard there's an orphanage nearby. Could you tell me where it is...?"

Upon hearing the words "fundraising," the nun's eyes lit up. She dropped her hoe and jogged over, grabbing Lei Ye's hand with a snap.

"There is indeed an orphanage. I am Ince, the acting director in charge of those children. You can call me Ince. Oh my, it really is... it really has been many years since we received any donations. I am so happy. Sir, please come with me, I will take you to see the children."

Wow, quite enthusiastic.

The older sister's hands were beautiful, but her palms were rough, making her look more like a peasant woman who had worked long hours than a clergy member serving the gods.

This touched Lei Ye a little.

"My name is Raino, but I'll call you Chisting. Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone else around here. Many buildings are empty. Does that mean you're the only ones living here now?"

"Well, not long ago there were still some people living nearby, but recently there have been many rumors of sightings of lower-level demons in the slums, so those people moved away because they were very scared. As a clergyman, I am not afraid of demons, but I am a little worried about the children. However, this is the only place where there is cheap farmland to rent, so there is nothing I can do."

"And what about the other business owners? They actually let a nun like you do this kind of heavy work."

"There aren't any other business owners here."

Chisting gently brushed a strand of black hair behind her ear, her eyes gazing into the void. "Not long ago, there was a priest who worked here with me, but later... never mind, it's nothing."

Although he didn't know why he said it with a bit of gritted teeth, he could tell that the nun was a really good person. Lei Ye silently took out two more large silver coins and handed them to Sister as an additional donation.

The so-called orphanage was just a dilapidated courtyard, very small in scale.

There aren't many children living here, only six.

The nun called all the children out and had them line up in front of Lei Ye. It was clear that the children were well taken care of; although their clothes were full of patches, each of them was still quite plump.

"Children, this is..."

The nun stood beside Lei Ye and said many beautiful words of praise, which made Lei Ye feel embarrassed. He felt like a primary school student being praised by his homeroom teacher while standing on the podium. But Lei Ye's purpose in donating money was not for praise.

Seeing that the nun had finished speaking, Raino turned his head and asked softly.

"Excuse me, may I stay here and play games with them today?"

Upon hearing this, the nun's delicate body trembled violently.

She pulled off her veil, covered her red lips, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Mr. Raino, you are such a kind person. I will definitely tell Venus your name when I pray to her in the future. Tata~ Come over here, there's a big brother to play games with you today~"

Moved to tears, Chisting called the smallest girl to her side.

He squatted down and patted her little head.

"I'll take a day off today too, and I'll spend the whole day playing with you. What does Tata want to play?"

"I want to... play soccer with everyone."

Tata looked delighted to hear that Chisting would also play together, and answered in a sweet, soft voice.

The two smiled at each other, a heartwarming scene.

At this moment, someone loudly interrupted.

"I want to play house!"

Lei Ye stuck his head in, "Playing house, I want to play house!"

Chisting was stunned, but the little girl Tata reacted quickly, shaking her head and speaking in a coquettish tone.

"I'm not a little girl who likes playing those childish games anymore. Can you play soccer with me, brother?"

"No, my nationality isn't suited for this kind of sport," Lei Ye shook his head and said loudly again, "I want to play house!"

The air was quiet for a long time.

When she spoke again, that animalistic wariness returned to Chisting's eyes.

She hesitated for a moment before speaking cautiously.

"There have been wealthy businessmen who said they wanted to raise funds before, but although it seemed to be for the children, they always got too close to me. I really can't accept that. Mr. Raino, you're not that kind of person, are you? I mean, you really care about these children, and you're not just trying to get close to me..."

"I didn't understand at first, but I know what you're worried about. You think I'm using the guise of playing house to pretend to be your child's parents and get closer to you, right? Don't worry, I didn't come here with that intention. In fact, I didn't even know there would be such a beautiful lady like you here before I came. How about this, you be the mother, and Tata be the father. I'm the only son in my family. Is this role assignment okay?"

"Beautiful!? You mean... you mean me? No, hehe... I understand, Mr. Raino is indeed a good person. Let's go, let's go to the children's room."

"Just call me Raiye, Mom."

Oh my god, that's so true!

Lei Ye silently followed behind Chi Siting, conducting a self-examination. The skill bar interface showed the real-time number of mothers, which remained unchanged at nine.

As expected, increasing the number of mothers is not as simple as just calling someone "Mom." The key condition is that the other person recognizes the identity. Now it's time for some fine-tuning.

The girl named Tata swayed her petite body behind them, following obediently, but she seemed rather unwilling.

"What's going on? Suddenly becoming a father or something, how strange."

Upon hearing this, Lei Ye turned around and glanced at her.

"If you don't want to be a dad, then don't be. I'll change the settings for you. You and Christine's mom are a lesbian couple, so you're not actually a dad. You're also my mom, just like Christine. What do you mean by 'Then who gave birth to you?' Of course, it's Mom who gave birth to you. Come on, Mom, let me carry you inside."

The wooden house is small, but it is full of the warmth and life of children.

There wasn't enough firewood in the fireplace, and the room was quite cold.

"Mom, it seems a bit cold in the house... It's fine if there's no heating, but at least turn on the kang (heated brick bed)..." Lei Ye couldn't help but complain.

"The kang...? It's a bit cold. Let me add some more firewood. Since we have extra income today, we don't need to be stingy with firewood. Dad, you have to keep working hard too." Although she heard some strange words, Chisting realized that the game had started and immediately got into character.

"I'm not Dad, I'm Mom," little Tata said earnestly.

The cook, who was adding firewood, stopped and asked in confusion.

"Huh? What do you mean? So, my current identity is Dad?"

"No," Raino shook his head, "you're a mother too."

"...Huh?"

Before Chisting could think further, the other children had all entered the room. Playing games is something everyone should do together.

Whenever a child enters the room, Chisting will assign her an identity. This is the first time Raino has played a different world version of house. He didn't expect it to be so complicated. In addition to parents, siblings, and brothers, there are also villagers, bandits, and goblins.

Oh, this is so sophisticated, it even has a storyline.

The second part of the story then begins.

"Honey, no...honey, this year's harvest was terrible. Look how pale and thin the baby is."

Chisiting stroked Lei Ye's head, which was resting on her lap, her face showing reluctance.

Although he couldn't see her expression, Lei Ye knew that she had probably figured it out.

The reason why her expression couldn't be seen was because a pair of huge mountains blocked Raino's view.

Oh dear, it has to be this kind of maternal instinct that's suitable for being tricked into becoming a mother.

The smaller the liar, the more likely they are to deceive people; the larger the liar, the easier they are to deceive people. This is all based on Lei Ye's experience.

"No...that's not right, Mr. Raino. I guess I'd better not become a mother."

"Okay," Raino said readily, getting up.

She moved her body and lay down on Tata's lap, who was sitting next to her.

"Mother."

The eight-year-old girl imitated Chisting's gesture, patting Raino's head and giving him a mischievous smile.

"Sweetie~ Sweetie~ How should I put it, being called 'Mom' by an older brother who's so much bigger than me feels weird, but... it's surprisingly not bad?"

Oh, little girl's mom, that's wonderful!

Of course, although he is a lolicon, Raino would never have any lustful thoughts towards children; he simply feels satisfied.

But Chisting's face darkened, and without saying a word, she moved Raiye's head back onto her lap.

The story continues.

"Guga!"

A little boy, imitating the howls of goblins, ran around the room.

Feigning fear, Chisting hugged Raino tightly and moved her body with him, as if they were looking for a place to hide.

Because he was playing the role of an infant, Raino didn't have many lines. He silently observed for a while and roughly understood the meaning of this other-world version of playing house. At this moment, goblins were plundering the village's livestock, and Chisten was directing everyone to hide in the rooms. In a sense, this was actually a form of education. Raino remembered that he had accepted a commission to exterminate goblins before. In a village ravaged by goblins, Raino had actually found surviving children from where these children were hiding.

Recalling the first time he saw that scene, he was heartbroken. However, Raino thought that he no longer needed to worry about goblins. One of the eight mothers in his previous team was an alchemist who was very good at making all kinds of strange potions. One of these potions was called "Potion of Calamity," which would harm the user's roots. Raino applied this potion to the bodies of the dolls he made and left them lying around in the wild. In less than half a year, the number of goblin requests decreased significantly.

A new type of goblin, the little male and female goblin, has started to wreak havoc, but it's not very dangerous, so there's no commission for it.

Tata was shaking violently at that moment.

In the story, she is supposed to be the "adult" who protects the village, but at some point, she secretly crawled under the bed and curled up in a ball.

Her fear was genuine, not child's play, and Raino, as an explorer, noticed something that Chisting hadn't.

After thinking for a moment, Raino guessed what was going on, left the lap pillow of Chisting, crawled under the bed, and gently took Tata's hand.

Are you scared?

"Huh? The baby can't talk right now."

"The game is paused. Now it's the older brother's turn. Tata has experienced something like this before, right?"

"Yes, at that time, Mom died."

Lei Ye quietly held the child's hand, slowly putting her at ease. After a moment of silence, she crawled out like a nimble cat.

This action overlaps with the scene that Raino saw when he first accepted the goblin's commission many years ago.

"Oh, it was you..."

Lei Ye said softly.

He remembered that he had personally rescued the child and brought him back to the guild. At the time, he thought that if he handed the children over to the guild staff, he wouldn't have to worry about what would happen next. He never expected to meet the child again in a place like this.

The guild is really unreliable.

He placed Tata on his lap and looked at her intently.

"Brother, I'm actually an explorer, a really good one. I've killed hundreds, if not thousands, of goblins. Among them must have been the goblin that killed your mother. Your mother has found peace, and seeing you grow up well, she must be so proud of herself."

Since the other party didn't recognize him, Lei Ye didn't specifically mention that he had saved her a few years ago; it wasn't important.

Lei Ye gently patted Tata's little head.

"Goblins are nothing to be afraid of. If they are scary to you, then I promise you, I will kill all those evil creatures and never let such a thing happen again."

"elder brother..."

Tata's eyes were glistening with tears, but she seemed finally at ease.

That's fine.

Lei Ye breathed a slight sigh of relief.

I still remember how that blonde goddess clearly stated that what she was giving Lei Ye was a job to save the world.

But Lei Ye didn't have enough power. He was afraid that he would take the position of savior but not be able to save so many people. The responsibility was heavy but his ability was insufficient, so he was filled with anxiety.

Sigh, I still need to improve my strength quickly.

Lei Ye continued to stroke Tata's little head, his voice gentle.

"Even though you don't have a mother anymore, you can be my mother. Do you want to be my mother? My mother isn't as easy to kill as your mother, and she can be my resurrection coin."

"Wow!"

Tata let out a howl and ran away crying.

Not far away, Chisting noticed them looking over and a hint of hostility flashed in her eyes.

"What are you doing?! What did you do to my child?!"

"No, no..."

Lei Ye clicked his tongue and looked away.

Little girls' hearts are so hard to understand.

Let's take a look at the boys who are playing around.

Putting aside its educational nature, this isekai version of pretend play is quite interesting. The next part of the story involves the 'adults' discussing how to defeat the goblins, devising tactics, and then lighting torches, grabbing weapons, and venturing deep into the cave.

It looks quite decent.

Speaking of which, when Lei Ye first went to hunt goblins, he didn't feel the fear of facing evil little green goblins as a newbie, because his first teammate, the flat-chested elf Loya, was indeed quite powerful as a mage. Lei Ye held off her in front and pushed forward from behind, quickly killing them all.

Under Chisting's suspicious gaze, Raino silently watched the boys' playful antics, showing no intention of joining in, only hoping that the plot would quickly progress to his interactions with the mothers.

These little boys don't have the value of being mothers.

Wait, that's not right.

No, no, no.

Raino had a sudden flash of inspiration!

Speaking of which, his "mommy skills" don't have any gender restrictions; male mothers might actually be able to do it.

Lei Ye had never thought of this before, because most of the guild members were burly men. To go around them to increase their favorability and then ask them to be his mother at the right time... He really couldn't do such a thing without having been to Chengdu.

But right now, aren't these innocent and adorable little boys the perfect experimental subjects?

"Stop, stop," Lei Ye abruptly interrupted the children's game. "I said stop, stop. The current role assignments aren't fun. Let me change them."

The children looked at each other and stopped what they were doing.

Lei Ye pointed to the little boy closest to him.

"You, stop playing the villager, you play the mother."

"what?"

"Hey, you're going to be a mom too."

"Brother, please don't do this, I'm a goblin..."

"Oh well, it doesn't matter anymore. There aren't any proper goblins these days, they're all little male and female goblins. Never mind, I'm going to call you 'Mom'. Come on, let me rewrite the story for you. I'm best at this."

Just as Raino's outstretched hand was about to touch the boy.

The heightened senses honed over years of exploration suddenly snapped back, causing Lei Ye to lose his balance and fall to the ground.

Turning my head, I saw several gleaming throwing blades stuck in the wooden wall.

Lei Ye's brain went blank for a few seconds before he suddenly turned his head.

Before anyone knew it, Sister Infestin stood up in a very imposing manner, and in her hand was an enormous hammer.

His figure was like a furious Vajra, and his voice was like the low growl of a demon.

"I see... You weren't lying, you really weren't after me. I understand now, I finally understand."

She suddenly sprang up and smashed the ground that Lei Ye had dodged away with her hammer.

"That damned priest, how dare he impersonate a fundraiser! Die!!!"