“Oh.”

“The only thing I’m worried about is . . . the filolial.”

They were great for pulling carriages, but that appetite . . . Thinking about having two bottomless pits around made me uneasy.

“Meeee?”

Filo had her head cocked to the side while asking.

“Not you. The new filolial egg.”

“Filo’s going to have a new little brother or sister?”

“Yaaaaay!”

She was so boisterous. She looked like she could be in middle school, but she acted like a child. Then again, I guess she was.

“I guess that is how you would classify it . . .”

“Master, do you not want the new filolial to be like me?”

Filo had asked a difficult question. Depending on how I answered, she might think that she was unwanted.

“I want a monster that will pull a carriage and act as a means of transportation. I don’t want a bottomless pit.”

“Hmm . . . It should be okay, I think.”

Filo’s answer prompted me to look her way.

“If Master doesn’t want it to, I’m pretty sure it won’t be like me.”

Filo’s cowlick was pointing in the direction of the filolial egg, twitching. What was happening? Was she doing something?

“This will be one of my underlings, right?”

Underling!? Well . . . I guess from Filo’s perspective, all normal filolials were her underlings.

“Okay then. I’ll make it so that it doesn’t turn out like me. We can’t be certain, if we leave it up to you.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yup!”

Filo touched the filolial egg and channeled her magic into it.

“Now it won’t turn out like me unless I order it to.”

“Oh, umm . . . thanks.”

I couldn’t help but feel a bit like we had just snipped away at the potential of this soon-to-be-born life, but this place would never be quiet with more than one Filo around, so I guess it had to be done. Depending on how this little experiment went, I might be able to put Filo in charge of raising the filolial.

A few moments later, the eggs began to hatch.

“Peep!”

The first was a filolial chick. It looked kind of purplish. Next were two caterpillars. So these would be able to pull carriages when they got bigger, huh? They were called caterpillands. I tried absorbing a piece of the shell into my shield, but nothing happened. After that came three earthworm-looking monsters called dunes. Were these the ones that would work the land?

I set some basic restrictions for the monsters.

“There you have it. Now, all of you, take these things out and level them up!”

“Okay!”

They put the monsters in a big box and all carried it out to the carriage together, like a bunch of kids that had just gotten their parents to buy them pets. The filolial chick was sitting on top of Filo’s head and happily chirping away, despite having just been hatched.

How did I end up in another world playing daddy to a bunch of kids? I couldn’t let it get to me. I just had to keep telling myself that this was all an investment that would pay off when the waves came.