Reivan wisely chose to shut the hell up at the moment, waiting in silence as his mother fixed whatever mess he'd made. Also, he didn't want to offend his new family members any more than he already had.

"What a troublesome little girl..." Vianna raised a brow and snarled out an explanation to the two girls. After they'd calmed down, she turned to Reivan with a wry smile. "You didn't say anything rude, but don't just shout at them like that. Apparently, their clan gave them a really tough time. I don't know the specifics, but they were bullied and ostracized, among other things. So, no shouting at them. Even if you mean well."

"Oh. Then can you tell 'em that I'm sorry?" The young prince asked, a look of guilt crossing his face. But inwardly, he was curious about something else.

'Why would such young girls be ostracized?'

Wouldn't you usually have to do something big to get shunned by your own relatives? At the very least, he wouldn't get genuinely mad at Kyouka unless she did something at the level of stealing his girlfriend — which had a very high chance of happening, had he not been glued to a hospital bed for most of his past life.

'Well, I got ghosted by my own parents in the past, and I didn't even do anything. So I guess you don't necessarily need to do anything bad to get shunned by family...'

Just as he was about to shrug it off as another case of people being born with shitty relatives, Reivan was suddenly struck with an idea.

'Were they ostracized because they have some sort of cursed ability or something...!?'

Wasting no time, Reivan inspected them with [Supreme Insight].

~^+— Unit's Statistics —+^~

Name: Mi

Species: Warbeast (Cat-type)

Realm: Mortal

Age: 10

Sex: Female

Special Abilities [NONE]

Might: 6 Extra Skills Elemental Affinities: [Earth] [Water] NONE

Favor: (Fear / Caution) -3 / 100 Threat Level: N / A

~^+— Unit's Statistics —+^~

Name: Ji

Species: Warbeast (Cat-type)

Realm: Mortal

Age: 9

Sex: Female

Special Abilities [NONE]

Might: 4 Extra Skills Elemental Affinities: [Ice] [Water] NONE

Favor: (Fear / Curiosity) 3 / 100 Threat Level: N / A

'Oh. I got worked up over nothing...'

Reivan heaved a sigh of relief that he'd just been overthinking things. Perhaps getting isekai'd made him think like he was the main character of some crappy web novel, and that everything around him would be overly complicated and dramatic for plot purposes.

'Three cheers for normalcy! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!'

"Anyway." Vianna placed Hector on a chair and walked behind Reivan. She put her hands on his shoulders and lightly squeezed. "They're family now. So be nice."

"I'm always nice." Reivan rolled his eyes. "Oh, I don't know how to talk to them though."

'Learning a whole new language wouldn't be so bad, but...'

"Don't worry about that. I'm slowly going to teach them English." Vianna assured him, gesturing at the two girls. "On that note, Ji has been a quick learner. But her big sister's a bit on the dumber side, so it'll probably take a long while to get her to a decent level."

Perhaps sensing that she was being dissed, the brown-haired girl started growling and snarling in protest.

Vianna, on her part, snarled back with equal vigor, quickly silencing the brown kitten. She scoffed before disappearing, only to reappear behind them. "Watch this. This is what they learned over the past few days."

After the queen's prompting tap on the back, the white-haired girl tiptoed forward nervously before dipping her head. "Hello. My...name... Ji. Nice to... uhm...... Nice to..."

"Uh-huh. Go on..." Reivan — having had plenty of experience from when Kyouka was still learning her words — smiled patiently as he egged her on. "You can do it."

Mi tried to stand in front of her little sister again, but Vianna easily held the struggling cat girl back. Muffled by the queen's hand, Mi's screams couldn't even reach Ji's ears.

'Geez. I'm not gonna eat her or something! What the hell!'

Feeling somewhat hurt that his new sister was so on guard against him, Reivan turned back to his other little sister.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Nice to..." Ji bit her lip, seemingly struggling to find the words before her eyes widened. "...meet you! Nice to meet you!"

"Oh! You did it!" Reivan cheered and clapped his hands. He knew it was important to encourage children like this, especially after they successfully completed a difficult task.

Perhaps clapping was a good sign in warbeast culture too, since Ji's face brightened at his actions. A light blush colored her thin cheeks as she looked down, seemingly embarrassed but happy at the same time.

"Now it's your turn." Vianna pushed Mi forward. There was a proud look on her face as she threw a glance at the younger sister.

The brown-haired cat girl's brows wrinkled in thought for a while before she confidently bellowed, "Me, is Mi!"

Seemingly feeling good about herself, the girl raised her nose in the air and sniffed proudly.

"Wrong." Vianna mercilessly grabbed the Mi's tail and squeezed, making the girl shriek in surprise. The queen then began scolding the girl using the warbeast's language.

'Don't be too rough on her...'

Reivan prayed in silence for his feisty sister, not daring to say anything to her after his past experiences. He couldn't help but find the girl who was meekly accepting a lecture with her tail between her legs cute.

While his mother and Mi were doing that, Ji nervously walked closer to Reivan while sending him furtive glances. Even if the girl wanted to look at him in a subtle manner, it was hard not to notice her staring.

Or rather, Reivan noticed that she was gazing at his hair, rather than himself as a whole.

'Well, it would make sense for her to be interested. Grey hair on a young person is rare. Plus I don't have animal ears on top of my head, so that's another thing.'

Even though he technically wasn't an adult at the moment, indulging a child's curiosity was an adult's responsibility. As such, Reivan smiled while he bent forward to show her the top of his head. "Surprised? I don't have ears here."

Out of nowhere, he felt a hand gingerly touch his hair. Eventually, it seemed the hand felt courageous enough to abandon the stroking of lone strands, and straight up comb through his head. He was a bit shocked at first, but found that he didn't really mind. As such, he let her do as she pleased.

After a moment or two, Ji pulled her hand back and muttered to herself. "Pretty..."

'Oh? She knows more words than I thought. Cool.'

Reivan looked up and smiled. "Thank you." then, he pointed at Ji's shoulder-length hair, which was as white as snow. "Can I touch yours too?"

Ji tilted her head with a blank look on her face, clearly not having any idea as to what he'd just said.

'Language barriers are tough...'

With a chuckle, Reivan reached forth and brushed her hair with his hand. The sensation on his fingertips could not be compared to the feeling he got when touching his mother's fur, but the fact that Ji's hair shared the same color as his beloved mother's locks made them automatically more appealing in his eyes.

"Pretty," he commented. Reivan then shifted his gaze to the girl's eyes, only to notice that she was frozen stiff. "Uh, are you okay...?"

The young prince didn't get the answer to his question, however. Because his senses tingled, alerting him of something coming at him from the side.

'What the fuck...!?'

His body had already moved out of the way before he even noticed. When he looked back to where he had been standing, Mi was there with her claws at the ready to rip... or rather, to scratch him to pieces.

"Raaah!" she snarled threateningly, once again putting her sister behind her.

'Okay, I'm sorry for touching her all of a sudden...! But would you chill the fuck out!?'

Snapping out of her daze, Ji squeezed past her sister and threw her hands out protectively, all while shouting a lot of things that Reivan couldn't make any sense of.

In the end, he had to look to his mother for an explanation.

Vianna shrugged while walking to Reivan's side. "Apparently she was shocked when you touched her hair, but she's okay with it now. And you even told her it was pretty."

Mi had a look of confusion on her face, as she turned toward him. She said something, which, judging from her tone, was actually a question.

"She's asking if you weren't joking." came Vianna's translation.

To that, Reivan tilted his head before nodding. Though, he couldn't really understand what the big deal was.

Mi stared at him for a few moments before she visibly relaxed. After a single step forward, her gaze lowered as she rapidly explained something in her native tongue.

'Hey slow down...! I can't understand anything!'

Reivan had no choice but to look expectantly at his mother for help once again.

Vianna crossed her arms and listened to the young girl tell her tale through growls and snarls. "She says her sister always got bullied cuz of her hair. There were even multiple times when someone pulled it roughly, which was why she decided to cut the little one's hair short. That's also why she misunderstood what you were doing."

"She got bullied because of her hair color...?" Reivan repeated in bewilderment. "But you have the same hair color, Mother. And I'm pretty sure you weren't the only one to have it. Is it not common to have all sorts of hair colors where you came from...?"

"It's certainly not uncommon." The queen rubbed her chin. "But that's if you belong to a tribe that has that hair color. For us, it's white, but for the Terracatta clan, it's brown. That's because of the dominant earth attribute in their blood, though they do have a hint of water attribute as well."

"Oh..."

Thinking back to how Mi had earth and water attributes, while Ji didn't have the earth attribute at all, Reivan immediately formed a rough idea of why the cute little girl became an outcast.

'Where did my normalcy go...?'

There was some drama going on in the background, and it was probably too late to back out of it now.

"Mother, can you translate for me?" After getting Vianna's confirmation, Reivan then turned to look at the poor girl in front of him. Perhaps it would be too forward of him, but he placed his hand gently on top of her head and spoke. "This place is different from your old home. No one's going to hurt you just because of your hair."

Ji then turned around to look at him, her golden eyes staring into his own.

"Plus, you and I have really similar hair!" Reivan chuckled while he ruffled his own crown of grey locks. He then pointed at his mother. "And you have the exact same hair color as my mother too! So it'll be okay! If someone insults you for your hair, they'll be indirectly insulting the queen and the prince! And then it'll be off with their heads!"

"That's right!" Vianna chirped and giggled, before proceeding to translate everything her son had said.

Reivan playfully mimed something sharp hitting the side of his neck as he played around with the girl's hair with the other hand. He could barely restrain himself from poking her cat ears, but he somehow managed.

The white-haired girl's face gradually brightened before she started giggling as well. And soon, after watching her little sister laugh, even Mi the feisty catgirl joined in.

"It's great that you're all getting along now." Vianna smiled, watching her son and adopted daughters. "C'mere you three!"

Reivan felt a light tug, and the next thing he knew, he was in his mother's arms, together with his two new sisters. Sandwiched between girls, who were strangers to him not too long ago, Reivan didn't know what else to do but to let his mother do whatever she pleased — which just so happened to involve a lot of snuggling and spinning around.

'Hm?'

While getting flailed around in the air, Reivan caught sight of a black-haired boy sitting off to the side, watching them with a hint of melancholy.

'Hector...'

But what type of person was Vianna? Her being an Ascendant aside, her senses were far superior to a baby boy like Reivan. If he noticed something, obviously, Vianna would notice it too.

"And what're you looking at...?" she grinned, her canines bared. "You're not safe from my grasp either!"

"Hah!?" Hector barely managed to exclaim before he sailed across the air and was inserted in between Reivan and Mi. Now there were four children squeezed into the beastly woman's arms.

'Fuck! It's too tight...!'

"Hehe..." Vianna snickered to herself. "You're all so cute I could just eat you up!"

----------------------------------------

After about a minute or two of that, his mother seemingly had enough of playing with the children as if they were ragdolls.

Reivan sat on the floor and let Ji play around with his hair as she pleased, all while watching Mi curiously poke Hector in all sorts of places — as if he had the weirdest anatomy of those present.

'It'd be great if they got along too.'

As one of his best friends, Reivan naturally spent a lot of time with Hector, so if Hector and his little sisters could become good friends too, that would be for the best.

"Hey! Not there!" Hector yelled in embarrassment as Mi tried to poke his armpits. "It tickles!"

Although she most likely didn't understand a word of what Hector said, Mi snickered. She then patted her chest and cried out "Mi!" before pointing at Hector's nose.

"Uh... Are you asking for my name? You've been touching me everywhere and you didn't even know..." The boy sighed in obvious exasperation. "Hector. My name's Hector."

Mi frowned. "Tor...?"

"You forgot the first part. It's Hector. HEC. TOR. Hector."

"Hect?"

"It's HECTOR! Why do you keep cutting it in half!?"

Faced with Hector's outrage, Mi stiffened.

"I said no shouting." Vianna whacked Hector on the back of the head. "She keeps doing that because she's used to people only having one-syllable names."

At this, Reivan tilted his head in confusion, making Ji momentarily stop playing with his hair. "That doesn't make sense. What about you, Mother? Your name's got plenty of syllables."

'Whether it's your real name or your alias, they're both three syllables.'

"That's cuz I'm important!" Vianna puffed out her chest proudly. "The more syllables you have in your name, the higher your social status. And that's without last names! Only a clan's royalty has those!"

"So that's why their names are so short...?" Hector scratched his head. "But what about now? Aren't they royalty now?"

The queen's eyes widened for a moment before she stroked her chin in thought. "This kid's got a point..."

After a dozen or so seconds of thinking to herself, Vianna suddenly nodded resolutely.

"Alright. From now on, Your names are Mimi Aizenwald and Jiji Aizenwald! That's five syllables! You can't have as many as me though."

"But doesn't Van's name have five syllables too?" Hector asked curiously again.

"Who's Van...?" Vianna's brows furrowed for a second before she figured out who he meant. "Oh, is that a new nickname? I like it. Anyway, Rein's not a complete warbeast, so the rules don't apply to him. Rather, since he's only half a warbeast, we'll have to treat his name as if it has double the syllables! Which means he actually has ten syllables in his name!"

'I don't think that's how that works, Mother... Also, the names you came up with are super lazy! You just doubled it!'

With a wry chuckle, Reivan watched and listened to Vianna explaining her arbitrary decision to the two clueless little girls. After a moment of disbelief, they both started dancing and cheering, as if they'd won the lottery or something.

'Is it really that important...?'

Reivan didn't completely understand, but he did understand the notion that people put importance on different things. As a wise man once said, "one man's garbage is another man's treasure". Or perhaps "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" would be a better-sounding quote for the current situation.

For example, he placed the lives of his loved ones above the lives of himself and the rest of the world. But a lot of people would give a rat's ass whether he or his family lived or died.

'Good for them.'

In the end, what was important was their happiness. And his two new sisters were very happy with their new names, despite his mother's lack of creativity in coming up with names.

Suddenly, he became curious about something.

"Mother." Reivan looked up to meet his mother's eyes. "If I didn't have to be named after the first king, what would you have named me?"

"Hm?" Vianna raised an eyebrow before a confident smirk crossed her face. "I've thought of what to name my first son ages ago! But since that didn't work, now I'll give that name to your first son."

"And that name is...?"

"Chunchunmaru!"

"..."

'Thank you, Father. For naming me after our great ancestor, the first king.'

Reivan decided to prepare some kind of gift for his hard-working father, and give the first king's grave a visit.

"Yani!" Jiji squealed joyfully as she hugged Reivan from behind, apparently still a bit excited from leveling up her name.

"Yani...?" Reivan echoed, confused.

"It means elder brother in our language." Vianna chimed in. She then stared wistfully at the air. "Wow, it's been such a long time since I've heard that word. When was the last time I called Viktor by that...?"

"Yani! Yani!" Jiji repeated, nuzzling her face in her brother's hair.

"Yes, yes. Yani's here." Reivan chuckled. "And it tickles, y'know?"

Still, he didn't have the heart to push her away, so he let her do as she pleased.

'I feel like I've had little girls pull me around as they pleased all day. Which reminds me, Helen's taking a really long time to get back from the bathroom...'

Speak of the devil, and they shall appear. Reivan caught the sound of the door opening, and his gaze was naturally drawn to the black-haired little girl that stepped through it.

"I'm back," she said. "Got lost."

'Figures.'

Reivan snickered and gestured for the girl to come. "C'mere and lemme introduce you!"

"Hm?" But when Helen's eyes drifted to the girl behind him, the indifference that usually plagued the little genius' face fell off to reveal a frown. "Who's that?"

"Like I was saying, I was just gonna introduce you!" With a grunt, Reivan jumped up and placed his hand on Jiji's head. "This is Jiji! She's a new member of the royal family!"

"Family...?" Helen's brows creased as she stared down at the white-haired girl.

"Yani..." Jiji voiced softly as she hid behind her brother, her frail arms wrapped around his stomach.

'What did I expect? Both of them suck with strangers, I guess.'

With a warm smile, Reivan announced while he patted his sister's arm reassuringly. "Yep. She'll be living with us from now on. It'd be great if you got along with her."

Helen's frosty gaze scanned through Jiji's eyes, nervously peeking out from behind Reivan, to the arms wrapped around his body, and finally, to Reivan himself.

"I don't like her."