There was no endless pursuit, no calculating eyes watching them, no cold laboratory equipment. Day after day, there was only a gentle breeze, warm sunshine, and the fresh scent of plants. Rimuru let the two of them live as they pleased, never restricting them, never testing them, and never probing into their powers or their past.
Three meals a day, a stable home, and an absolutely safe environment were the simplest and most precious gifts Rimuru gave them.
Pietro's nerves, taut for years, slowly relaxed in the peace of those passing days.
He no longer kept his super speed active at all times to stay on guard. Occasionally, he would race around the estate for exercise, venting years of pent-up restlessness. The hostility in his eyes gradually faded, and he regained the vitality of a boy his age.
Wanda, too, put down all her defenses.
Under Rimuru's boundlessly gentle acceptance, she no longer had to fear being hated for losing control or abandoned for making a mistake.
Whenever her magic ran wild, Rimuru never frowned or scolded her. Instead, he immediately cast a soft barrier of magic, protecting every plant on the estate and shielding her in her panic and confusion.
In just a few days, the siblings had come to trust this soft-looking, approachable powerhouse from another world completely.
Rimuru's appearance was hardly intimidating, and they were even a little taller than him. He looked like a child beside them, which was something that bothered him. Did foreign children all grow this well?
To them, Rimuru was the benefactor who had reached out to pull them up when they were at their lowest, a good person who had taken them in when they were homeless and treated them with pure kindness.
But Chaos Magic remained the one intractable problem.