I Became a Kindergarten Teacher for Monster Babies!

Chapter 643 643: Trip (1)

Dante crossed his arms tighter. "No."

Lilith toddled closer and wrapped her arms around his leg. "Go, Daddy. Wiwwy go. Bwudders go. All go. To mou'ains."

Sable dropped to his knees beside her, his silver eyes wide and pleading. "See, Dad? Even Lilith wants to go."

Lilith nodded so hard her black curls bounced everywhere. "Wan see snow. Wan see big wocks."

"Rocks," Lucien corrected gently from where he stood by the door, his red eyes calm but hopeful.

"Wocks," Lilith agreed, pointing at Lucien as if to say that's what I said.

Dante looked down at his daughter. Her lower lip trembled in that dangerous way that always meant tears were coming, and her crimson eyes, so like his own, were filling with determination.

"Lilith, you're too small for the mountains."

She held up two fingers proudly, wiggling them in his face. "Am big two. See? Two. Big two."

Sable grinned. "She makes a compelling argument, Dad."

Lilith tugged on Dante's pants with both hands, almost pulling herself off the ground. "Daddy. Pwease." She tilted her head, blinked up at him with those enormous eyes, and delivered her final blow. "Wuv you."

Dante's jaw tightened. His eye twitched. His shadows, who had no loyalty whatsoever, immediately started swirling around Lilith's feet like they were on her side.

"You can't use 'I love you' to get what you want," he said, but his voice had already lost its edge.

Lilith smiled, showing off her small teeth. "Wuv you more."

"She's good," Sable whispered to Lucien.

Lucien nodded, watching his sister work. "She learned from Mom."

"Hey!" Alina's voice came from somewhere in the kitchen, warm and amused.

"Just stating facts!" Lucien called back, completely unafraid.

Dante knelt down, and Lilith immediately threw her arms around his neck, squeezing with all the strength her tiny body could muster. "Wuv you, Daddy," she murmured against his shoulder, patting his back like she was comforting him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, defeated by a two-year-old. Then he looked at his sons over her small shoulder. "Three days. You watch her every second. You don't let her out of your sight."

Lucien's eyes widened. "Really?"

Sable jumped up so fast his shadows scattered across the floor. "We promise! We'll protect her!"

Lilith pulled back and looked at her father with serious eyes. "Go mou'ains now?"

Dante sighed, the deep and long sigh of a man who had lost a battle he didn't even know he was fighting. "Yes, little one. You can go."

Lilith's face broke into the most radiant smile. She clapped her hands, then immediately started directing traffic. "Wucien, come! Sable, come! Pack bunny! Pack bwankie! Pack evwything!"

Lucien chuckled. "We have three days, Lily. Not three minutes."

Lilith stomped her small foot. "Pack now!"

Sable scooped her up and spun her around. Lilith shrieked with laughter, her curls flying and her stuffed bunny flopping in every direction. "EVERY TOY!" she shouted. "EVERY SNACK! EVERY EVERY!"

Dante watched them scramble around the room.

She was young, so he didn't want to send her. However, he didn't have the heart to reject his little girl, so he decided to send his own shadows with them secretly. The shadows would hide in the trees and under the beds, and if anything moved wrong, he would know within seconds.

Alina appeared beside him, wiping her hands on a towel and leaning against his arm. "You're sending your shadows, aren't you?"

Dante didn't answer. Which meant agreement.

***

Lilith, despite being only two, was terrifyingly smart. She had learned to bathe alone. She had learned to open doors by studying the way Lucien turned the handle. And when she heard that Sable had gone to kindergarten at age two, she had marched straight to Alina and announced, "Wiwwy go school. Now."

It had taken Alina three hours to convince her that she had to wait until she was five. Three hours of negotiations, bribery, and eventually a signed pinky promise. Lilith had kept that promise folded under her pillow ever since. But the mountains were not school. The mountains were adventure. And Lilith loved adventure.

Back when Sable was two, Dante had sent him to kindergarten for a completely different reason. Sable had been lonely. So Dante had sent him to kindergarten, hoping he would find company.

Sable had found much more than that. He had found Lucien, then Alina, friends, and finally a family.

***

Three days later…

Dante watched Sable carry his little sister toward the carriage he had prepared for them, his dark eyes bright and his shadows dancing happily around his feet. Lucien was carrying some bags.

Lilith waved at them. "Bye bye, Daddy! Bye bye, Mama!"

Alina waved back, her other hand resting on Dante's arm. Dante just stood there, his arms crossed, watching until the carriage disappeared down the road. Then he closed his eyes and sent his shadows to follow.

As the carriage rolled away, Dante's mind drifted to Alina's first batch of students, then to her second. They were the craziest group of kids the kindergarten had ever encountered. Especially that one kid, the one who had figured out how to unlock every door within his first week and had looked Alina in the eye and said rules were just suggestions written by people less creative than him. Alina had a hard time taming them. She had started drinking tea with honey every afternoon and had developed a small twitch in her left eye. She sometimes stared at the wall in silence for ten minutes after class ended.

Dante shuddered just thinking about it. Thankfully, that batch had moved on. They were someone else's problem now.

He turned away from the window and walked back to his desk, where a stack of documents waited for him. The castle felt quieter without the children. He picked up his pen and tried to focus, but his shadows kept tugging at his consciousness, showing him images of the carriage rolling through the countryside.

He let them.