Mushoku Tensei: Eternal Epilogue

Prologue: 3

It was the holidays now so all my kids who were still in schooling were now enjoying their free time.

Lucie had moved to Millis with Clive but came back just for today. After their wedding and the talk we had, she became a lot closer to me, so I was glad to see her for today as well. Clive sadly couldn't make it due to work though. 

Since that talk, I made sure to check how all my kids were doing and whether any of them felt inferior to me. Maybe I was checking up on them too much though, since both Lily and Ars started to complain. 

Ars seemed to be fine, not particularly caring about that sort of stuff and simply wanting to follow in my footsteps. The same could be said with Lily, Lara and Christina who were all following their own paths in life. 

However Sieg was another story. Similarly to Lucie, he felt a sense of inferiority to me, wanting to prove himself. After a talk similar to the one I had with Lucie, Sieg seemed to understand where my view was on this, though I still wasn't too sure he'd actually understood. 

Well, either way, today would be Lara's 15th birthday - her coming-of-age day - so we were preparing a party for her right now.

We also had plans to bring her back to the Doldia tribe as I'd promised Gyes to do that, but that would be in a couple of days from now. All we had in front of us today was the preparation for Lara's birthday.

She normally slept in late on these days, so it was easy setting up without her coming downstairs.

For presents, I prepared a long magicians robe. 

As for everybody else, Sylphie prepared a handmade blanket, Roxy prepared a handmade pillow and a Migurd necklace and Eris prepared a plushie of sorts. It seemed like they all knew how much Lara loved to sleep.

Aisha and Lilia spent some time preparing a cake for the party along with other various food. Their gifts to Lara were going to be a fur coat that they both worked on together. I didn't have nearly the skill to create that sort of stuff, so it was quite impressive when they showed me what they made.

Lucie had also brought a present for Lara, being a Millis-styled amulet. 

Looking at the preparations for her party, I stood up. Considering everything was done, I went up to Lara's room. It was time to wake up the birthday girl herself.

Knock knock knock.

"Lara?"

In a sleepy voice, I got a reply, "Dad? What's up?"

I opened the door to find Lara with bed hair, rubbing her eyes. It felt like she was trying to avoid my gaze for some reason...

"Is today a special day or something?"

Wow, she really forgot her own birthday. Lara's really living in her own world.

"Maybe so. I'll wait for you to get dressed, so can you come down when you're done?"

"Hm? Okay, sure."

Closing the door, I came back downstairs, "She's getting dressed right now."

About five minutes later, we heard footsteps from upstairs. Quickly, they came towards the staircase and reached the living room.

"Happy 15th Birthday!"

Her face was visibly shocked while her eyes looked slightly red, possibly from sleeping. I could have sworn I heard her mutter, "Oh yeah, it is..." under her breath, but that didn't matter.