I Became a Mother of Three

Episode 3

 

Erina, standing between the rock and tree where she found the eggs, carefully unwrapped the cloth.

She held the wheezing dragons in her arms with their eyes still closed.

“Sorry.”

Erina apologized with sincere regret and placed the dragons deep among the rocks.

And the area around it was meticulously covered with leaves.

She shouldn’t have brought the egg in the first place. It was no use regretting it now, but she felt so sorry for the dragons.

After stroking the dragons’ heads several times, Erina was finally able to take a step forward.

When she moved her body, which was full of lingering regrets, and barely manage to get away from the rock.

“Myyyyyy!!!!”

“Puuuuuu!!”

“Kyaha!!”

The voices that she heard in the morning started to be spread again but it was louder as if there were three noises instead of two.

Erina quickly covered her ears and looked back.

The surrounding area was obviously covered with leaves just now!

Before she knew it, the dragons had come out beyond the rocks and were crying.

Erina was surprised and approached the dragons again.

“Weren’t you guys sleeping?”

The dragons who stopped crying at Erina’s question collectively tilted their heads.

Erina raised her eyebrows for a moment because it was so cute, but then her expression hardened and she said.

“No, I can’t take responsibility for you.”

Erina don’t know whether they understood her words or not, but as soon as she finished speaking, the dragons continued their loud triple chant as if they had made a promise.¹LoL😂, they sound like trouble for me.

“S-Stop!”

Erina covered her ears again as the sound of crying directly hit her eardrums.

But the dragons didn’t stop. They were ready to cry until they said what they wanted.

Erina sighed briefly.

“I’m not your mother.”

“Mom?”

The purple dragon reacted to the word ‘mom’ that Erina uttered.

No, I mean am not!

Erina pounded her chest in frustration.

“No, I’m not the mother!”

“Mama! Ma?”

The purple dragon suddenly stopped crying and stretched out his arms to ‘Mama’.

The baby dragon only looked at Erina with tear-filled eyes.

Erina frowned as the pain throbbed in her heart.

Looking at that gentle and delicate figure, she felt like she was a villain.

When Erina, who was standing in front of her, only sighed and did not immediately hug her like before, the purple dragon began to shed tears again and prepare to cry.

“Wait a moment!”

Erina, who saw this, quickly stretched out her arms and hugged the dragon. And of course, the blue and red dragons waited for their turn and hugged Erina.

“Don’t you really want to meet your real mom?”

The three dragons shook their heads at Erina’s words.

“Wha!”

“Aah.”

“mama?”

The babies seemed to be saying in unison, ‘Who is mother?’.

They didn’t only understand what she said, but also tried to reply.

Their intelligence was unbelievable for  creatures that were born less than 24 hours ago.

Erina looked down at the three of them and smiled.

The three raised their eyebrows as she looked down at them. They ware trying to imitate Erina’s laughter.²How precious 💕

A part of her heart felt sad because she felt like she shouldn’t throw them away here.

Although she had never cared for anything other than a human being, she thought it might work somehow. “Okay, how can I sleep with you all here? Let’s go first.”

Erina again wrapped herself in the cloth and carried the dragons. Her heart was heavy in a different way than when she came up the forest path.

The three dragons riding on her warm back whispered among themselves again without Erina knowing.

“Gya gya.”

“Piyu.”

“Mama mama.”

The dragons’ eyes, which were filled with tears, had already become soft and sparkling.

 

***

 

As ‘A Mushroom Hunter’ Erina only heard of ‘dragon’ as a word. The people around her were the same too. There was no way that anyone had actually seen one.

So, of course, there was no way to get any information about their ecology.

Erina muttered to herself as she looked at the three dragons placed on the table.

“So, what do you guys eat?”

Would they drink milk like human babies, eat insects and fruits like birds since they have wings, or eat raw meat since they look like reptiles? She had no idea at all.

Every time Erina sighed, her blonde hair fluttered.

The dragons playing among themselves on the table could not take their eyes off it each time the long, shiny hair, like golden thread, moved.

Seeing the dragons that stopped moving for a moment, Erina made a wrong interpretation.

“Ah, are you hungry after all? Just wait a moment. I’ll prepare something.”

Erina stood up, tying her long, loose hair together.

The shiny hair instantly disappeared before their eyes.

The dragons puffed out their cheeks to express their displeasure as they felt as if their beloved toy had been taken away.

However, Erina was completely unaware of the complaint and was busy looking for food to feed the dragons.

She prepared some bread that she bought a few days ago, dried mushrooms, jam made from berries, soup with a few vegetables, and some ham that she had saved.

She brought everything she had at home, but this was all she had for food.

Erina laid out the food in front of the dragons. “Now, find what you want to eat and eat it! I will go to the market and buy milk tomorrow. First, let’s get by with this today!”

She wondered if the food was too difficult for babies who were just one day old, but she couldn’t help it.

The sun was already setting, and she would have to walk down for more than an hour to get to the market.

But surprisingly, the dragons smelled the food and found something they liked by tapping and touching it with their arms.

The blue dragon was the first to pick up the ham and eat it. And it just kept eating ham.

The red dragon took a bite of the berry jam and held out his arm to Erina. It meant that It didn’t like it because it was sticky.

Erina spread jam on the bread and gave it the part that wasn’t sticky. Then, as if satisfied with the taste and convenience, he said, ‘Pupu!’ and started to eat while screaming.

Lastly, the purple dragon picked up the dried mushrooms. It seemed like it smelled good for it.³She didn’t name them yet, so I am going with ‘it’ until she names them.

“Do you like mushrooms? These are dried, so they taste better when added to soup like this.”

Erina added mushrooms to the soup and stirred it. The mushrooms played a role in further enhancing the flavor of the soup. A delicious smell wafted up. Erina fed the baby dragon soup with a spoon while watching it swallow its saliva in front of her.

Using a spoon with its still short arms and fingers didn’t seem right.

“Whoo, whoo. The soup is hot, so you have to blow on it to cool it down before eating it. Understand?”

The dragon followed Erina and breathed ‘mu, woo’. When Erina saw that, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Worries were worries, and cute things were cute. The dragon opened its mouth wide again, following Erina’s lead.

Erina stroked the baby dragon’s head and then brought a spoon to its mouth. The dragon swallowed a mouthful of soup and opened its eyes wide.

“Delicious?”

Instead of answering Erina’s question with a yes, the dragon stretched out his arm and moved the spoon toward the soup. He seemed to like it quite a bit.

So, Erina looked at the ham, the bread, and even the soup as she waited for the dragons to eat. As she filled her stomach in between feeding them, it was already dark outside.

The three dragons were stretched out with their full bellies exposed, as if they were quite satisfied with the food they had eaten for the first time in their lives.

Erina gently stroked the dragons’ bellies in front of her.

“Now shall we give you a name?”

She didn’t know how long they could stay together. However, it was obvious that it would be difficult to take care of the three dragons without names.

Whether they meet their real parents later or get separated from her in a few days, she thought it would be a good idea to give them a name for smooth communication until then.

Yes.

Erina brought a mushroom encyclopedia from the bookshelf⁴Come again, WHAT!!. Then, she looked through the book and started looking for mushrooms that resembled the dragons in appearance. “Let’s see, who should we start with?”

At Erina’s question, the blue dragon came forward. And then it looked at Erina’s face.

“You are a blue dragon. Because you are blue, I will look through the ‘Sky Mushrooms’!”

Erina said as she placed the blue dragon on her palm and stroked it.

She found some pretty letters in the scientific name of Entoloma virescens, which she checked earlier. “Your name from now on is ‘Resen.’”

It was a name that was cut out from the front and the back, but it just had to be pretty. The blue dragon also seemed to like it and rubbed its face against Erina’s palm. The next one that came forward was the red dragon.

“Let me see the red mushrooms. Oh, it’s here! ‘Bib grape mushroom!”

This time again, I looked through mushrooms with similar colours.

Erina looked at the scientific name of Stropharia rugo soannulata. She was looking for the prettiest combination of letters.

“What do you think about Lia? I think it matches the color of your wings very well.”

At Erina’s suggestion, the red dragon jumped on her palm with the corners of its mouth raised. It seemed like she liked it.

Now only one remains, the purple dragon. Erina finally brought the purple dragon and placed it on her palm.

Then the purple dragon said, ‘Myuung!’ He let out a loud cry. After seeing its brothers who had previously received pretty names, it seemed clear that they were looking forward to its own name as well.

Erina also wanted to come up with a pretty name, so she got excited and looked through the mushroom encyclopedia.

However, no matter how much she looked through the mushroom guide, she couldn’t find any purple mushrooms. No, there were purple mushrooms, but they were all scary poisonous mushrooms.

Cold sweat broke out on Erina’s forehead as she looked at the dragon, who was still full of anticipation.

What should she do with this?

 

***

TL:

Do you think that I should stick with the third person pointe of view or alternate between it and the first person’s?

I am still struggling with the gender of the dragons, maybe I will go with ‘it’ or try harder to get their gendre right. What do you think?

I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as me(⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠).