Chapter – 12
“An infant doll that eats food. Try it.”
With this easy-to-understand explanation, the doll was thrown to Mary and Sasha.
“Wow, wow! Look, sister! The baby’s mouth is moving!”
“Wow……”
The children’s eyes sparkled brightly.
Kroft barely suppressed the corners of his mouth from rising and explained indifferently.
“The other dolls can only eat models, but I made yours able to eat anything. You can even feed it real food.”
“Really?! Kroft is the best! I really like you!”
Sasha shouted happily.
The child’s unfiltered, pure affection and praise struck him suddenly.
Kroft felt his expression collapse horribly and quickly turned his head.
“Can we really feed it food? But babies can only drink milk, right? If it eats food, does the baby also go to the bathroom?”
“No, I didn’t make it that detailed. Just stuff anything into its mouth. There’s a space-expansion magic and weight-reduction magic inside… Well, if you feed it about 1,500 kg, it might burst.”
“Bu, burst?”
Mary’s green eyes wavered. Kroft quickly added,
“You can open its head and remove the contents. In the first place, who would feed it 1,500 kg? Are you going to put that much inside?”
Mary, who didn’t know how heavy 1,500 kg was, only shook her head while observing his expression.
Kroft crossed his arms and continued.
“Mariposa, even if you put seventy people inside this, it will be fine. So don’t worry about it bursting.”
“Really…?”
“Yes. And even if it does burst, it’s not like an explosion. The contents will just come out. No one will get hurt.”
Of course, it depended on what was put inside, but Kroft was thinking of nothing more than cookie crumbs or candy.
“It’s made much more sturdily than other dolls, so don’t worry about safety. It’s far more efficient and useful than most magic bags.”
What Kroft said was true.
In the magical world of Magia, the baby doll was thirty times more efficient than the magic bags used there.
Moreover, since the weight reduction error was nearly zero, even if the children stuffed steel inside it, their arms would not feel any strain when lifting the doll.
Mary inferred that this doll was not simply a test product but was made solely for them.
The moment she confirmed Kroft’s affection, which she had been feeling unknowingly all along, a sincere thank-you came out.
“Thank you. I’ll play with it well. The wizard is the best.”
Mary’s heartfelt words were enough to melt Kroft’s ice-cold heart, which had tried to keep children away from him.
He widened his eyes, then stared at Mary for a long moment, forgetting even to control his expression.
“Kroft?”
When Mary called him hesitantly again, Kroft came back to his senses.
“Good if you understand.”
Answering coldly, Kroft turned around and went back to the warehouse, his face twitching in discomfort.
Was it because Sasha also felt something from Kroft’s affection as much as Mary did?
Sasha began bothering him in a different way.
“Mom, mom. Please feed me that too!”
“Alright, my baby. Shall we say ‘ah’?”
“Yes!”
Behind Mary and Sasha, who were playing house so affectionately, Kroft sat on an old sofa, attaching a magic circle to the doll.
While drawing the magic circle with a serious face, he couldn’t bear it any longer and spoke to Mary.
“Mariposa, take your younger sister outside.”
“Let’s go, Sasha. We shouldn’t be here.”
“No… I don’t want to. I want to stay with Kropto.”
Like a baby duck imprinting on someone, Sasha refused to leave Kroft’s side.
Still, it wasn’t that she clung to him completely; she just wanted to stay in the same space. The problem was that this was Kroft’s storage room, which he insisted on calling a laboratory.
Mary alternated worriedly between the tearful Sasha and the cold-faced Kroft.
This was the first time a child had liked him so much and wanted to stay beside him, so even Kroft couldn’t find words.
With a sigh, he muttered,
“I shouldn’t have given them the doll……”
At that moment, Mary’s heart sank.
But only briefly, as Sasha again urged Mary to play house.
Mary, watching Kroft’s expression carefully, took Sasha’s hand.
“Hah.”
Kroft pressed his forehead in disbelief.
He checked thirty times whether there were dangerous objects around the children and turned back.
…Yes. When they got tired of house play, they would probably go do something else.
He continued his work, trying to ignore that his situation was similar to that of many parents suffering from childcare.
Meanwhile, Sasha, playing with the baby doll, frowned as Mary held up a bottle of milk and covered the doll’s mouth.
“No. Mom, I don’t like milk!”
“My baby, you have to drink milk to grow big and strong. Mom always said that, right?”
Mary mimicked the tone of her dead mother.
Sasha seemed to like thinking about her mother, so she copied her behavior exactly and complained.
“Then Mom, I’ll drink milk, so give me candy. I want candy!”
“Alright, alright. How can I win against my baby? After you drink this, Mom will give you candy.”
Now that they lived under Kroft’s protection, they could eat candy and snacks as much as they wanted, but when living with their mother Molly, even snacks were precious.
There had been times when they couldn’t even dream of eating sweets before, except when Molly went to work at the doll factory.
Even during the age when they craved snacks the most, Mary gave them all to Sasha without hesitation.
The same now, Mary smiled gently while imitating her mother, fed milk to the doll, and picked up a red candy that was rolling on the floor.
“Here, baby. Candy.”
The red candy was placed neatly into Sasha’s hand.
Sasha happily put it into the doll’s mouth as if she herself were eating it.
Then, feeling a sudden doubt, Mary looked down at the candy jar.
“Was there a red candy?”
What Mary brought was a jar of apple and caramel-flavored candies, filled only with yellow and dark brown ones.
Mary looked around in panic.
Then she noticed a small drawer that was slightly open at the bottom.
The child moved on her knees and carefully checked the drawer.
Inside was a pile of red candies she had picked up earlier.
“Huh……”
Mary secretly picked one up. Soon she realized it was not candy.
“Is this a bead?”
Rolling it around, the transparent glass bead shone brilliantly.
Staring blankly at the bright red light, Mary slowly opened her mouth.
It was not a bead. It was a finely processed gemstone.
A gemstone.
Oh, my goodness.
Mariposa had caused an accident.
Mary quickly recalled Kroft’s words that the doll’s head could be opened to remove whatever it had swallowed and rushed out of the warehouse.
She tried various methods while grabbing the doll’s head, but for some reason the doll did not budge.
‘He clearly said I could open the head.’
Mary ignored Sasha’s whining for the doll and fidgeted anxiously.
But the doll didn’t move at all, as if glued with adhesive.
This is bad. With a pale face, she stared blankly at the doll.
Kroft opened the door and came out.
“What are you doing? Did you two fight?”
Kroft looked at the tearful Mary and Sasha.
Mary shook her head, and Sasha nodded.
“Sister won’t give me the doll!”
“Sasha, it’s not like that.”
Mary, watching Kroft’s expression, handed the baby doll to Sasha.
Sasha’s face brightened, but Kroft frowned.
“Don’t be greedy, four-year-old. That doll isn’t only yours.”
“But…!”
Sasha seemed shocked to hear that from Kroft, who had been giving her endless affection lately, and soon began to tear up.
Kroft clicked his tongue and asked Mary,
“Mariposa, should I make another one?”
But Mary’s mind was completely filled with the red gemstone swallowed by the baby doll, leaving no room for anything else.
She only shook her head slightly while keeping her eyes on the doll.
Kroft gave a frustrated laugh, then quickly hardened his face.
“When this request is finished, I’ll ask the toy store to send a few more. If you want something other than baby dolls, just tell me.”
“Wow! Kropto, you’ll buy toys?”
“Yes. But if you act greedy like earlier, you won’t get yours. Understand?”
“Yes!”
Sasha’s simple mood improved.
Perhaps she filtered out the bad words, as the child hugged the baby doll and shook Mary’s sleeve, happily thinking a new toy would come.
Mary, who had been troubled, also thought of the magical toys and smiled.
Kroft sighed helplessly, then quickly stiffened his face.
“More importantly, stop coming into my laboratory. I can’t concentrate, and my work slows down.”
“Sniff.”
“Mariposa, control your younger sister well. There isn’t much time left, so stay quiet.”
As Kroft spoke sternly, the children looked downcast. Sasha was sad because she could no longer stay near Kroft, and Mary was already guilty after causing an accident.
If she said the doll swallowed the gemstone, she would be scolded. Moreover, since it wouldn’t open, the contents might be lost forever.
Although they lived more prosperously under Kroft’s protection than before, Mary had grown up in the slums.
A single gemstone was far more valuable than the money she had earned cleaning shoes.
‘If I don’t say anything……’
There were dozens of red gemstones in the drawer, and Kroft wasn’t a person who organized things neatly, so there was a high chance he wouldn’t notice.
But Mary shook her head after hesitating.
If she did that, it would mean lying to Kroft.
‘I can’t do that. I have to admit my mistake.’
He had kindly given her the doll as a gift; deceiving him would not be right. If her mother were here, she would definitely have scolded her.
Let’s apologize. Even if she would be scolded harshly, she had to confess her mistake.
Finally, when Mary made up her mind and approached Kroft to confess—
“I told you. Don’t enter this room.”
She was rejected.
Mary stood blankly, looking at the warehouse door that slammed shut.
