"Huh? Benjamin? Hey, where did you go so suddenly?"

Heka had just noticed, with a sharp jolt of confusion running through her entire body, that Benjamin — the man whom she had been speaking just a few seconds earlier — was no longer present anywhere inside this room.

He was simply gone as if he had never been there in the first place.

But he had told her, in no uncertain terms and with that calm, gender-neutral tone of his, to "take care of the kids," as if she were simply watching over a few small children for a short while.

But now when she swept her gaze across the room and looked around at every single corner and shadow, she only saw one single "kid" in sight.

That one being Briar, the small and petite young girl with the long and striking silver hair that fell down past her small shoulders, one who was now glaring directly at Heka with obvious irritation and displeasure burning in her big blue eyes.

The rest of the people in this room, every single one of them without any exception at all, including Heka herself as she sat on the edge of Benjamin’s large bed inside his private quarters, were not children in any sense of the word.

They were not even adolescents or teenagers hovering on the edge of adulthood, except maybe for the teenage-looking heterochromic person.

They were, by every possible measure of physical appearance and visible maturity, fully grown adults, complete with mature faces and developed bodies.

"Children...?" Heka wondered out loud once again, her voice barely above a whisper, as she furrowed her brows deeply in utter confusion and disbelief at what she was seeing. "Are... are you honestly telling me that all of you sitting on this bed are truly children of Benjamin?"

She did not expect to receive any positive reply to such a ridiculous and impossible question.

After all, it was clearly absurd on the very face of it to suggest that this room filled with grown men and women could possibly be the children of a man who had only appeared in their village a few short weeks earlier.

So she made a wry and crooked smile with her lips, curling one corner of her mouth upward deliberately, specifically to emphasize that she WAS making a joke and nothing more than that.

Maybe expecting laughter or at least amused denial in return.

But to her complete and total astonishment, another answer came from one of the strangers instead of the denial she had anticipated.

"Indeed, we truly are the direct and undeniable offspring of our father," the brown-haired young man dressed in a light grey outfit answered in a calm, measured, and sincere tone of voice, "the very same person whom you call Benjamin by name. He is our father, and we are his children."

"My greatest joy in the land of the living is simply that I was born from father."

The enormous and musclebound man with lighter brown hair answered as well, immediately following the first speaker, his deep and rumbling voice carrying clear delight that seemed to radiate from his massive chest like warmth from a burning fire.

"Rowan is Papa’s daughter for sure, without any doubt!"

The androgynous young individual of maybe eighteen years of age, who possessed two differently colored eyes, chirped happily and brightly while sitting comfortably in her fitted casual dress, her legs folded as she bounced with obvious contentment and cheer.

Heka was genuinely surprised by this unexpected and impossible scene unfolding before her eyes.

So she raised one trembling hand to shift a single stray strand of her medium-length blonde hair to the side of her face, carefully tucking it behind her ear, allowing her vibrant brown eyes to see all of them clearly without any obstruction.

The person among them who seemed to be the eldest woman there, approximately around Sara’s age if Heka had to make a rough guess based on appearance and demeanor — perhaps mid twenties or so — now smiled politely and warmly in Heka’s direction.

Her soft blue eyes grew even warmer and gentler as she tilted her head slowly to one side, causing her long and perfectly straight silver hair to fall gracefully over one shoulder like a cascade of liquid moonlight.

"It is our heartfelt pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am," the silver-haired woman said, and her voice was incredibly soft and wonderfully warm to the ear, carrying a soothing and comforting quality that seemed to ease tension.

She continued; "I am called Silver Moss by name, and those seated here with me are my siblings; Rowan, Oak, Ash Thorn, and Briar.

"Our elder sister, the individual who left this room together with father just a moment ago, is named Grey Ivy, and she is the firstborn among us. All of us are the children of Benjamin Mark, and we acknowledge no other father but him."

Heka’s eyes were blown wide open from the sheer shock of this sudden and overwhelming revelation, her pupils dilated and her eyelids stretched.

She immediately began sizing everyone in the room up with a fresh and searching gaze that traveled from face to face, cataloging features and expressions and trying to find any single crack or inconsistency in their rather incredible story. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"H-How did Benjamin possibly get children who are already this fully grown and this visibly mature?" She wondered aloud, her voice trembling noticeably with disbelief and genuine bewilderment. "And how is it possible that all of you can speak the Amazon language this fluently, as if you were born speaking it? Did he personally teach you how to speak like this, in such a short amount of time?"

And in the privacy of her own racing thoughts and churning mind, Heka had begun to assume that maybe Benjamin was not a god-touched individual after all.

That perhaps he never reincarnated here in the first place.

Because if he truly WAS a god-touched who had only reincarnated into their world several weeks ago, then there was simply no possible way — logically, biologically, magically, or reasonably — that he could have gotten anyone pregnant in a manner that would produce children who had grown this quickly in such an absurdly short span of time.

The numbers did not add up.

Nothing about this situation made any rational sense whatsoever.

As if she had heard Heka’s private thoughts directly, as if she had reached into Heka’s mind and plucked the questions out of the air, Briar turned her small head and enlightened the stunned woman with a sharp and informative statement delivered in her tiny but commanding voice.

"Hmph. We were born seven days ago from Father’s powerful aura and Mother’s magic combined together," Briar started, raising her small head high in an arrogant and proud expression, her chin lifted and her nose pointed upward, as her cute and diminutive voice resounded through the quiet room like a small bell being struck.

She continued; "But setting that matter aside, and moving on to more important business... Woman, I am deeply displeased and greatly irritated by your recent action towards Father just a few moments ago.

"My knowledgeable teacher in the land of Fairylynch has explained this exact situation to me in great detail, and I remember every word clearly:

"What you were about to do with Father just now, before he left... A kiss, was it not? You clearly wanted to kiss him, did you not? You leaned in toward him with that clear intention written all over your face, and I noticed it immediately."

But Heka, she did not respond to any of these accusations.

She did not defend herself.

Instead, she only watched the small girl ramble on and on from her position on the bed, staring at Briar’s tiny and indignant face and her moving mouth as if she were seeing cutting edge technology function for the very first time in her entire life.

Like some wondrous and impossible device that should not exist at all and yet was operating perfectly right in front of her.

"Excuse me, human woman," Briar asked, her voice now sharp with irritation, clearly annoyed by the harsh and unblinking stare that Heka was directing at her without saying a single word in response, "are you truly understanding what I am saying to you?

"Tell me, what is your exact position and rank in this society? Are you a queen of some kind? A duchess? A marchioness? A noble lady of high standing? I must rate you higher than your peers and your social equals first, before you shall be permitted to lay your hands on Fathe—Eep!"

A sharp and startled squeak escaped Briar’s tiny throat, cutting off her own sentence in mid-word and mid-syllable. "Wh-what is this?! What do you think you are doing?!"

Briar recoiled violently, her entire small body jerking in surprise, the very moment Heka shifted her own body closer to where the small girl sat on the edge of the large bed and wrapped her powerful and muscular arms firmly around the small girl’s tiny and unresisting body, pulling her into an unexpected embrace that neither of them had seen coming.