While Yunduo was silently pondering, Bronya, who was beside her, noticed the struggle in her eyes.
"Sister Yunduo, what are you thinking about?"
"...I'm just thinking about what I can teach the children."
Yunduo rubbed her nose and spoke truthfully.
There were too many things she could teach, and she suddenly had some difficulty choosing.
"As for making a decision, let's go see them first," Bronya said softly.
Yunduo agreed, and the two walked forward.
Kiana helped Theresa, neatly sticking up various Homu wallpapers.
Mei dealt with the discarded materials, rolling them into bundles, and then swept away the dust.
Yunduo and Bronya also went to help.
After a while, the wallpapering was completed.
Looking at the cute cartoon walls, Theresa clapped her hands happily and exclaimed, "From now on, this will be our Saint Freya Orphanage."
After saying it, she felt it wasn't quite right, thinking the word 'Orphanage' sounded too unpleasant, so she cleared her throat and corrected herself:
"No, this is our Saint Freya Home. From now on, the children will all be family."
"Eh~ Aunt, does that mean we are considered the children's parents?"
Kiana asked curiously.
"You could say that. There are very few children in the first batch, only a few people, so each of you will count as a parent for one child." Theresa looked at the dazed crowd and affirmed, "If a child's grades are poor in the future and a parent-teacher meeting is needed, Kiana, you'll have to come here to receive the criticism!"
"No way, this young lady hasn't even reached that age yet, hey!"
Even though Kiana protested, she ultimately accepted the fact.
She also wanted to give warmth to those homeless children.
The group didn't wait long before they heard the sound of a helicopter cutting through the air.
Then, a roar sounded near the Saint Freya Home, and several people got off the helicopter; it was Rita bringing the children.
"Good afternoon, everyone~ and Lord Theresa, you've come to help as well."
Rita, wearing a well-fitted maid outfit, pursed her lips and smiled, her movements gentle and elegant.
After greeting them, several children appeared behind her one after another.
Those children were all minors, ranging from little girls of seven or eight to older ones of twelve or thirteen.
The brave ones craned their necks to look at Yunduo and the others, blinking their eyes.
Of course, most homeless children are timid and over-cautious, not even daring to make a sound.
As soon as Kiana's or Theresa's gaze fell on them, they would shrink their necks and retreat to the back, as if they had been wronged.
This is a very common phenomenon.
Children in an Orphanage find it hard to have the same mindset as normal children; they don't receive the care and companionship they deserve, so they close off their hearts.
And what the Saint Freya Home wanted to do was provide them with a place where they could grow up healthily.
Looking at the small girls one by one, Bronya's eyes couldn't help but glaze over slightly.
She remembered the scene inside the Cocolia Orphanage in the past.
On her first day there, that girl with light purple hair had introduced her name with a stutter.
"..."
"Bronya?" Yunduo called out softly.
"Sorry, Bronya was thinking about the past. When I went to the Orphanage back then, Seele looked at me just like this; her eyes were very similar to these children's," Bronya said.
"True. Leaving Seele alone in the deep sea, she must be very lonely, right?"
"Seele—"
Yunduo's words made Bronya suddenly feel at a loss. But the words that followed made her feel as if she had taken a calming medicine.
"So, in a few days, let's bring her back, okay?"
Bronya looked up and, in a daze, found Yunduo smiling with pursed lips. Deep in her ink-colored pupils was a look of pampering and heartache; it was a care that would reach out a little finger to save her even from the depths of an abyss, an everything where faith and heart intertwined.
The midday sun fell on her cheeks, and a sweet taste involuntarily revealed itself through her soft words. The orange-yellow glow complemented her long eyelashes as they blinked slightly, as if forming an eternally unforgettable painting.
Bronya suddenly noticed the curious gazes of the children and abruptly felt her cheeks grow a bit hot.
She gave a soft "mm," her lips curving into a smile.
Yunduo was surprised to see this, because Bronya almost never smiled.
Meanwhile, Rita's introduction was coming to an end:
"You must listen to Principal Theresa from now on; she likes well-behaved children best," Rita introduced gently at first, but suddenly emphasized at a certain point, "Furthermore, now that this place is handed over to Theresa, all authority belongs to her. If you anger anyone, the consequences... I don't need to say it, you should understand."
Rita's words made the children in the back tremble, and many of the timid ones were almost scared to tears.
Hearing this, Theresa quickly waved her hands to indicate it wasn't so, and she called out to Rita in disapproval, "Don't tell the children such things! Don't scare them!"
"Apologies, Lord Theresa, but they must know what they need to know. These children's parents all died in the Honkai, and they were previously taken in by Schicksal."
"However, Schicksal doesn't have an Orphanage, so they lived with the Valkyrie Squads. Of course, they didn't have to go to the battlefield, but they would learn some bad things, so it's necessary to emphasize this," Rita explained with an apologetic face.
She didn't care about the future of these orphans; whether they lived or died, once they entered the Far East Branch, they had nothing to do with Schicksal anymore.
The most important thing was just not to anger Yunduo and the others and thereby involve Schicksal; whether anything else would leave a psychological shadow was not within Rita's scope of consideration.
Theresa comforted the children and led them into the Saint Freya Home.
Rita said goodbye and left by helicopter.
Now, in the vast interior, only Theresa, Yunduo, and the others remained, along with the few orphans brought by Schicksal.
"You are Ai Li? Your hair is very pretty. You must like reading and playing the piano, right? Here~ this is your dormitory key. You can go to the library to read or the piano room to play when you have time."
"You don't have a name? Hmm~ Since we met under the sunlight, let's use the naming style from your hometown. How about Yoko?"
"You are..."
Theresa distributed the dormitory keys to the children one by one and used gentle words to dispel the fear in their hearts.
To be honest, if one didn't know her identity beforehand, letting Theresa blend in with these children wouldn't feel out of place at all.
So in just this short while, the wariness on the children's faces had mostly vanished.
After all, they were just children; encountering a new environment, they all felt very curious.
"By the way, each of you is now responsible for one child as a parent."
"Kiana, you're responsible for Ai Li. Mei, you're responsible for Yoko. Bronya, you... Yunduo, you're responsible for this child."
After Theresa finished speaking, she pushed a small girl with short light blue hair and a wound on her face in front of Yunduo.
"This child is in your care."
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