《Ordered Reincarnation: A second chance in another world》


 Prologue: I dont know

    I don¡¯t know how it happened¡­


    What has happened to me¡­


    ¡°Where am I¡­¡± I muttered as I walked through the cold rain in my bare feet, bruised and bleeding from cuts of the rough gravel-ly concrete pathway. The rain washed the blood from the streets. With each step I take blood drips, with each splatter of blood, the rain runs across leaving a stream of red liquid flowing down the slight slope of the road.


    What happened to that one popular kid in school¡­


    I was popular¡­ Now a jobless, homeless, useless failure. I once had good looks, the key word is ¡®once¡¯. I am standing there, in the rain, regretting my life, the choices I made. What mistake did I make¡­


    I had only been homeless for a couple minutes, before, I was still living a blissful life, sure it wasn¡¯t what you would imagine the word ¡®blissful¡¯ as, but for me that was more than enough,


    What happened to my life¡­a life where I don¡¯t need to worry about anything. Despite being a shut-in I would still say my life wasn¡¯t so bad, sure it wasn¡¯t a perfect life, sure I never went out, sure I never have anyone to talk to, but who can really blame me on that.


    Nobody supported me after my 14th birthday, I had no family anymore. I made quite the scene at the hospital back then, flipping over tables and shit.


    My arrogant personality at school didn¡¯t help me one bit either, when I was still a complete looker, I could easily get away with all of that. I was really the sort of guy to put others down to make myself look better, looking back, maybe that''s one of the reasons my once ¡®friends¡¯ played around with me after I lost my support, by play around, I mean bully. I guess that¡¯s what pushed my depression over the edge, losing old gramps and getting bullied at school. I had no one to talk to, no one to help me push through. It¡¯s kind of like karma, I still don¡¯t believe I deserved all of that though¡­


    It should have been around 8 o¡¯clock. Today, I was mid-way through my episode of elf hentai, wanking it to one of those rapey elf videos, my relaxed body laid down on the bed where filthy clothes and unfinished packages of chips laid, my hips arched and my laptop on my belly. I was on the edge of getting my first load off, my back fully arched and the fapping sound of the lotion and my skin echoed in my dark room¡­ That''s when I heard my front door slam open, I then heard the breaking of glass and some other sounds of things breaking in my small apartment, I couldn¡¯t care less¡­ After a while of the sound of things breaking, some randos dressed in black barged into my room, maybe it¡¯s for my long due rent or something, I thought. I saw some of them holding crowbars, others held baseball bats. Even still I basically ignored their whole thing, looking back down at my elf hentai.


    Crack¡ª


    It was then one of the men snapped my laptop. It wasn¡¯t something I¡¯d think they dared to do, that triggered me. Oh yeah? Did you just break my treasured laptop? That was what ringed in my mind.


    In the past, I was a martial artist. I trained under gramps before he died on my fourteenth birthday, I never knew my parents, it¡¯s said they died in a car crash when I was like, barely one years old. Back then I would say I was a pretty good fighter, I was at least the best in my school, or maybe even the whole state. I learned all types of arts, from being a black belt karate master to a U14 fencing champion, you could say I did it all. You can also say that I was pretty confident in my battle prowess, maybe I was a bit too confident¡­


    I tried to throw a punch at the man that destroyed my laptop, but my motions were floppy, my body was not what it used to be, throughout these ¡®blissful¡¯ year I have probably gained 30 plus kilograms of just fat, not that I would know the exact amount, I never dared to measure my weight. My attempt to punch the man failed, failed miserably, as he easily dodged out of the way, leaving me to tumble forward crashing face first into a wall next to my bedroom window. I was banged onto the floor, as multiple others came, they held me down against the wooden planks of my floor. They beat me up pretty roughly, I felt powerless against them. As they continued to beat me up I had no choice but to whimper in pain while they destroyed my belongings. In the end I was dragged out of the house, and thrown into the middle of the street with nothing but the blooded clothes I was wearing.


    They shot looks of disgust, as if they were looking at trash, sure I was a shaggy shut-in, but what the fuck did I even do wrong? I was going to pay back my rent sooner or later, just let me wank to my elf girl porn in peace.


    What was done, was done, I guess I don¡¯t have a home now. I just accepted that as a fact, I have no drive to fight back and get back what I have lost. Rain was pouring outside, the water on the streets were filled with gunk. Was there an oil leak somewhere?


    A car went past, skidding water as it went by, the oily gunk sprayed onto my shirt.


    What was there that I can do now? I stood there in the middle of the footpath, the pedestrians walking by shot looks at me, revolting looks, pedestrians with kids shied away, walking on the side of the road to avoid me¡­ I look down at myself, my previously white T-shirt, covered in blood, sweat, semen and gunk from the sewage water, my arms and legs covered in spots of blood and patches of purplish bruise marks¡­ I was lookin like something you would see in a horror movie, I think I even heard a kid say ¡®Frankenstein¡¯ before their parents pulled them away.


    I knew what I could do, the simple answer is to find a job, then rent a room, then actually live an average civilian life. But what I don¡¯t know is how I do this, sigh¡­ I wish I had paid more attention in class now. Well, according to some unreliable sources on the internet, first I should go find a job agency and give them my resume, then they will do the rest and find me a job, finally I would have to go to an interview and if I was to be lucky, I would land the job.


    *Please don¡¯t rely on this information


    I flipped my pockets out¡­ Empty¡­ So now what am I supposed to do?


    This time I actually don¡¯t have an idea on what to do, if I had some money I could at least eat food from the convenience stores and last like a month. Am I forced to be a beggar now?


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    I paced around the streets in the rain, my body soaked in the grimy junk from the sewage and cold rain. ¡°If only I could go back and restart from the beginning.¡± I muttered as I continued to walk through the streets of Tokyo in my bare feet.


    Back in my junior high days, I was a popular guy, I ain¡¯t the piece of garbage you see right now. I was in a pretty well off family, gramps owned a dojo, it was pretty famous. I was an only child, my parents died shortly after I was born, since then I lived with gramps. Everyone back then knew me as the prodigy, not academically, my grades sucked, but I had a knack for athletics. I was in the basketball club, the karate club, the boxing club¡­  I was pretty involved with everything, really became the complete opposite later, huh?


    It wasn¡¯t until high school, or more like last year of junior high, was the turning point in my life. I was 13 turning 14, it was my birthday, nothing really happened, by then gramps was still healthy and jumping, at least I thought he was. Now thinking back if I looked closely I might have found that his breathing is uneasy. That day was just like every other normal day, gramps and I never celebrated birthdays and all of that, on the day we would just go out and treat ourselves to a nice meal and that was it. My 14th birthday was no different, we went out to a nice ramen place, then gramps went home first, I stayed behind roaming the streets of Tokyo looking around for some games for my playstation. I stayed for quite a long time, probably around like 4 hours, it¡¯s almost midnight when I got a call. I don¡¯t know the number, it seemed like it¡¯s a scam call. I cut the line. The same number called again. If it was really a scammer I could just cut the line again, I picked up. A voice through the phone told me the news¡­ ¡°... is currently in critical condition in Misui Hospital.¡±


    A ring shot through my head, the news was sudden, just a few hours ago gramps was still slurping on ramen next to me.


    Gramps died that same night, I became depressed, I lost my only remaining family, maybe there were still some uncles and cousins who I don¡¯t know out there in the world. I carried on with my life ¡ª, at least I tried to. My ¡®friends¡¯ got colder and colder everyday, I was less involved with everything, quitting out of one club after another. By the end of the year I wasn¡¯t in any. Slowly I went from the popular kid down to being the quiet kid, my grades dropped to a point where I was bottom of the class, the worse anyone can go. My once ¡®friends¡¯ kicked me out of the friend group, by then I was truly alone, no one to go to, no one to talk to.


    I thought studying was pointless, my grades dropped even further, I was failing every subject, and it didn¡¯t help that my old ¡®friends¡¯ started to mock me, laugh at me. I thought I was doing just fine, who needs grades anyways, who needs friends? I figured I would be fine without those, who do you think I am, I¡¯m way above the league of these idiots, I was wrong. So wrong. Without me realising my depression had gotten worse and worse. I started skipping school, over time I dropped out of school entirely, I became a shut-in.


    Once I dropped out, I rented myself a small apartment with the money I inherited from gramps. Unless I was out for food or groceries I never left the apartment, I still had my laptop and internet so I was able to kill plenty of time watching anime and other stuff. Despite all of the ¡®fun¡¯ I¡¯m having I wanted to go back to school, I really wanted to, thinking back now maybe I should have. But in the end I shook away the thought of doing that, I understood how much I would be bullied if I actually did that, you can probably imagine the situation by yourself, a 20 something year-old fatass sitting in a class with a bunch of juniors.


    I maybe could have actually achieved something even as a shut-in, maybe I could have written a web-novel, or hell maybe I could have even become a successful mangaka. I had the time, a lot of it. With some real effort, maybe I could have even become a professional gamer, I mean I was grinding MMOs and RPGs, till the point I have actually gotten quite good at them. If I had chosen any of these paths back then maybe I wouldn¡¯t be standing here in the cold rain, ¡°I really want to go back¡­¡±


    I see crowds of people in front of me, ¡°Hm?¡± I muttered under my breath, without me realising, I already walked around the streets for so long that I was already in Shibuya, to put in perspective that should have been around a 3 hour walk. I looked up at the billboards, all of these new gen stars, I never heard of any of them. I kept walking through the crowded feet, I couldn¡¯t stop my feet kept moving, taking me towards the large billboard¡¯s direction.


    The ad on the billboard shifted, a new ad was played, it was a sporting drink ad. The model in the ad seemed familiar, have I seen her somewhere, maybe in a porn video or something? No way porn-stars nowadays get to be in public ads.


    I continued to walk closer and closer towards the billboard, ¡°Hmmm¡­ Who is she?¡± I mumbled, as I desperately searched through my memory trying to find any hint.


    The girl in my past


    ¡°Hehehe, look at you, you really got it done.¡±


    ¡°You are giving me too much praise, I really have to thank my manager for this.¡±


    Two voices spoke, it seems like your typical conversation, nothing really special. There were two young women standing under the billboard. They were both really cute. One of them especially stood out, she had a short bob cut above her shoulder, she wore little makeup, even still her features were defined, she was beautiful.


    Seeing this sight brought back older memories. Back in middle school I once had a girlfriend who was really cute. She always wore a short bob cut above her shoulder, what I meant by cute was that she was perfect. To me she was a 10 out of 10, still to this day I can get off at least 5 times just by thinking of her face. Come to think of it, a few years ago I heard she became a big movie star or something like that, by ¡®heard¡¯ I mean seeing her posts on her social media accounts.


    Our relationship back then wasn¡¯t bad at all, we were together for quite a while, almost 2 years if I didn¡¯t remember wrongly. We have known each other since we were young, we went to the same kindergarten, the same primary school, we were somewhat what they call ¡®childhood friends¡¯, that trope always pops up in LNs, it''s always the losing heroines though. It was not until the end of primary school when I started developing feelings for her. First day of junior high, we were in the same class again. After a lot of thought, by a lot I mean a lot, I didn¡¯t want to lose our friendship nor did I want to miss the once in a lifetime opportunity, I was conflicted. At the end of the day, the bell rang and the class was dismissed. We walked out to the locker area where I decided I was going to do it. I mustered up all the courage I could get and confessed to her. I succeeded. Nothing really went south throughout the relationship, there weren¡¯t any arguments, there weren¡¯t any fights, all was good. As they say ¡®all good things come to an end¡¯, and that ¡®end¡¯ was the end of year 2 of junior high, there wasn¡¯t a big argument, it was just that her feeling slowly faded, we broke up and that was that. Even after we split up, our relationship was still not bad, it was back to the childhood friend stuff. Her name, Kuroi Shiina. Maybe if I talked to her back then I wouldn¡¯t have fallen into this hole.


    ¡°...?¡±


    Did I just hear my name? No way anyone recognises me, I haven¡¯t been outside in almost 13 years. I¡¯m sure that the voice sounded familiar, but who? Who would be able to recognise me?


    ¡°Is that you ¡­?¡±


    I¡¯m sure that person is talking to me, but who is that person? I scan the surrounding area, looking around in the large crowd of people.


    In the very back I see her¡­ standing under the biggest billboard around¡­ there she was¡ª Kuroi Shiina, she didn¡¯t change much, she looked pretty much the same as how I remember. Kuroi was standing in the middle of the street, the moonlight shining off her clear shining skin. Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, a truck speeding at high speed onto the road straight towards Kuroi, the driver of the truck was slumped over the steering wheel, his head down, asleep on the wheel.


    Kuroi doesn¡¯t notice it.


    ¡°He¨Chey, lo¨Clook out¡­ look ou¡­¡± Shit I can¡¯t speak properly. Since becoming a shut-in I barely spoke out loud, the only time I talk is when I have to say ¡®thank you¡¯ to the workers at the convenience store. My weak vocal cords can¡¯t even shout. Pathetic. Kuroi still doesn¡¯t see the truck, she just looks at me confused at what I¡¯m trying to say.


    I knew I had to save her, she was so nice to me before, if she got splattered to paste by the truck I¡¯m sure I would have regretted it and I would end up like before again. Ah fuck it, I¡¯ll just push her out of the way. I tried to sprint at her as the truck approached us at a dangerously high speed. The likelihood of me pushing her out of the way and dying from the truck was nearly 100%. I mean that wouldn¡¯t be that bad, I don¡¯t even have a life worth living anymore.


    I ran towards her, staggering from the pain of the bruises on my legs, I forced myself to run faster. The headlights shined brighter, and brighter as the truck approached. With all my might I pushed Kuroi out of the way, my hand reached around her chest area. Yeah, that felt good.


    I feel a hard object push against the side of my arm, I feel my arm crack at the impact. A white flash blossoms from in front of me, was this what dying feels like? Is this what it feels like when my life flashes before my eyes?


    She¡¯s safe right? Kuroi Shiina is not in the crash, right?


    I wasn¡¯t dead just yet, I could still see, I felt the hard concrete floor under me, I couldn¡¯t move. Every bone in my body was probably shattered, I looked over, Kuroi was frozen in place. A bright light came closer and closer, the truck didn¡¯t stop. I felt something heavy above me, I was pinned onto the cold concrete floor, my lungs were crushed.


    And then I was dead.


    My bad Kuroi, you didn¡¯t have to see that.

 Chapter 1: New beginnings

    I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a dazzling light. Shit, are the lights in the hospital this bright? The light engulfed my entire vision, I squinted my eyes in discomfort as the brightness hurt my eyes.


    I blinked a few times, my vision slowly adjusted. I opened my eyes wide. I¡¯m outdoors? I thought as I looked up at the clear blue sky, is this really japan? I don¡¯t think I have ever seen the sky this clearly. Not that I ever looked at it though, maybe it was always like that.


    A loud shriek came from somewhere closeby. Someone¡¯s having a panic attack I thought to myself. I felt something move from my back, the platform on my back that supported me is releasing? I begin falling toward the floor.


    Huh?


    I fell hard onto my back, Owowow, a sharp pain pierced my body. Shit that was painful. I tried to stand back up. I couldn¡¯t move my body? I mean, I could sort of move my arms and fingertips around a bit, but I couldn¡¯t sit up from my laid down position. That was a pretty serious accident I had gotten myself into, there¡¯s a good chance I can¡¯t move every part of my body. Maybe I was in a coma or something? If that¡¯s the case, my life would be a fucking shitshow. I tried to reach for the floor to push myself into an upright position.


    Huh? I can¡¯t even touch the floor? Did I get my arms amputated? No way, I could feel them just now.


    I looked down at my body¡­


    Reincarnation¡ª The phenomena is a myth passed down from ancient times, the simple meaning is when someone is reborn. I have read this in a couple of LNs, they are quite common, especially when you are reading the isekai styled stories. And yes I explained this for a reason, so I¡¯m probably reincarnated in this world. I thought it was weird, why would the hospital let someone in a coma outside? Looking down at my body I¡¯m able to confirm getting reincarnated as a fact, my arms and legs were tiny¡­ not to mention my dick, I guess that''s what the size of an infant looks like. But why are my memories of my prior life still intact? I thought they were supposed to be erased or something, Hey, I mean I¡¯m not complaining.


    So¡­ Now what? I looked around, analysing my environment, I seemed to be in some back alley of sorts. By now I figured I wasn¡¯t in Japan, it doesn¡¯t seem like Japan at least, but where am I? Maybe western Europe? If I dive deeper into my delusions, maybe another world? I mean there¡¯s no way right? That sorta stuff only happens in stories, right? Right?


    Turns out that I wasn¡¯t in fact ¡®right¡¯, but that¡¯s going a bit too far.


    Hours passed¡­ When I first opened my eyes, the sun was shining from right above me, the sunlight glared my entire vision, even thinking back now it hurts my eyes, it should have been around noon back then¡­ And now¡ª the sun is about to set.


    Fuck. If this continues on I would starve to death before I even get a chance to live. Why can¡¯t I have gotten a better spawn point, sigh¡ª I wished that I could just go back and start all over again, dying as an unnamed abandoned baby isn¡¯t in my checklist of things to do in another world.


    This might waste a lot of energy but I guess I don¡¯t have a choice by now, I really need to get someone¡¯s attention fast, anyone¡¯s. I take a deep breath in, my lungs fill up with air, I muster up all the strength I can manage¡ª


    ¡°Waahh! Blaah!¡±


    Only a weak whining sound came out of my mouth, I know my baby lungs are weak and all but¡ª Huh? Didn¡¯t I try to scream for help?


    Sigh¡ª No one is coming, maybe this is what I get for retaining my memories after reincarnation, talk about being harsh¡­ This might just be God''s punishment on me for breaking the rules or something.


    Another few minutes went by¡­


    All of a sudden, all went dark. Huh? Did the sun set that quickly? Guess it¡¯s different in this world. I look over to check on the situation. Wait¡­ No, there was still a sliver of sunlight shining from the sides of the alley, but something was blocking the light from getting onto my body¡­ It wasn¡¯t something, but someone¡­


    I looked up, I became aware that a young blonde hair lady was looking down at me. She was a beauty, I haven¡¯t seen somebody so gorgeous in real life for quite a while, I mean I haven¡¯t seen anyone in quite the while. It was kind of hard to see her features in the shade, but all I know is that she is one gorgeous girl¡ª no, no, she¡¯s definitely a woman.


    The woman leaned down. Woahhhh. Her tits are huge, I wonder if I can get a feel? I reached up. Shit I forgot I¡¯m a baby again. She slowly picked me up, she looked at me with a warm smile.


    ¡°*#@% *&%$#@!, *&^$%#@ #@!%$.¡±


    The way she spoke was weird, I have never heard any language like that before, it 100% wasn¡¯t Japanese, I couldn¡¯t understand a word she was saying, but by her tone and voice I could imagine the basic meaning of that sentence, she was probably comforting me saying something in the lines of ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll be alright.¡±


    After that she turned around and walked out of the alleyway, then I was able to see her face crystal clear, she was really a beauty, her blond hair contrasted well with her purplish blue eye and her ears¡ª Heh? Her ears are sharp? She¡¯s an elf?


    //


    Let''s skip forward a month or two.


    I was able to confirm that this isn¡¯t a dream and is in fact another world that I¡¯ve been reborn in. It seems that elves exist in this world and the young elf lady who picked me up adopted me, no real surprise there. I have been living in her house since, would I call it a house though? I mean I haven¡¯t been out of my room yet but it seems kind of weird to say the least, my baby bed isn¡¯t something you would see in a common household, it''s quite elegant, it¡¯s painted white and has golden legs, it seems expensive. Although the bed has quite the good look to it, my room doesn¡¯t even have electricity, whenever anyone comes in they hold a candle of sorts in their hand. Has electricity not been invented in this world yet? I mean it¡¯s totally possible, according to what I have read in LNs, a lot of other worlds don''t have the same level of technology as the Earth I¡¯m familiar with.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Today, a man entered my room and stared down at me. He doesn¡¯t seem pleased to see me, who is he though?


    After a quick glance he exited my room.


    Huh? What was that about?


    Then I heard some talking coming from outside. There were two voices, amongst the two, one was the young woman from before and the other voice I was unfamiliar with, the voice was stern and serious, I could imagine the voice being a strict teacher quite easily.


    ¡°&*$##% ^%$&T%%^ %$#&$&( *^%##*(^# ##%@@.¡±


    ¡°%^$@W& ^&*$&( *^^*^^%$&( @$^*@@% !#$^*$&^& #$@%%# @$!$%% *&^*^% $$*^%.¡±


    It sounds like they are arguing about something, I have been through something like that quite a few times myself. Back then I always got into arguments with my ¡®friends¡¯, of course that also gave me the skill to weasel myself through almost unwinnable arguments. Their argument outside went on for a while, in the end I think the elf lady won.


    Magic and Language


    About half a year went by within an instant, listening in on people talking around the house. I started to pick up some language, at least I hope I picked some up, I can start to understand some simple sentences, although I still can¡¯t confirm if I¡¯m correct.


    Also around this time I started crawling, my body has grown a lot since I first got reincarnated, being able to move is really a thing to celebrate for me. I had never been so happy to be able to move, normally I would much rather lay down and rub one out.


    Apparently the man who walked in my room before was the elf lady¡¯s husband, also known as my adoptive father. He looks to be at least 30 plus years old, to compare, ms. elf looks to be around 17, are age gaps common in this world? I also have two other siblings, an older brother who looks to be around 13 years old and an older sister who is not much older than me. This really scares me, did mother get pregnant at 4 years old? I¡¯m hoping that''s not the case.


    I was always shut inside my room, I never really got to go out and explore the house, but since I could crawl around the room, I learned a lot. The first thing was that my family was definitely a rich one, an extremely rich one, the house¡ª no, no, the mansion was two stories tall with well over twenty rooms, we had multiple maids around the mansion and a beautiful view of the landscape.


    The mansion is probably located around the countryside, it''s pretty rural, looking out the window sill I could see a peaceful landscape with grassy plains, looking further away wheat fields and small houses. I couldn¡¯t see any electricity poles or street lights around, this place was one with nature. I have heard that in some places they hide the internet cables underground instead of having them hang around, it''s a pretty smart idea not going to lie.


    Hopefully I will be able to find a computer or something to play with in the near future, or this life is about to be hell, what am I supposed to do in my free time if not watch some youtube or something.


    ¡°Hey, Gryne, be careful, you could hurt yourself climbing up like that.¡± Elf lady said.


    It was around 3pm in the afternoon, at this time father wasn''t home, and big brother was at school, so in the mansion there was only me, big sister, mother and the maids.


    Uh-oh. Someone jinxed it, I slipped down from the chair, my tiny hand try to grab onto the chair¡ª Fuck, I forgot I¡¯m tiny again. I fell¡ª Thump. I landed head first hitting the floor with a loud thud, one of the maids let out a small cry of alarm, mother turned around, her face turned pale as she covered her mouth with her hands.


    ¡°Gryne! Are you all right?¡± She rushed to my side, leaving big sister there on the floor looking lonely.


    Woman you know I can¡¯t talk, what am I to do to answer your question.


    She picked me up, as she looked down at me and our eyes met, her face loosened up, relaxing, and she began stroking my head.


    Yo man, be careful with my head, that shit hurts, I just banged that hard on the floor.


    Given the reaction from both her and the maid, my fall must have been pretty bad, at least it was something to worry about. Like I mean I did land head first, maybe it''s something related to a baby¡¯s body, not that I know anything about that topic. Back in my old life, I didn¡¯t have any siblings so I was pretty unfamiliar with how babies'' bodies work. Hopefully it was just going to be a small bump, like I don¡¯t seem like I¡¯m bleeding or anything, I just hope I don¡¯t become permanently stupid.


    ¡°Oh that bruise must have hurt, oh Gryne. It will all end soon.¡± She looked at me with a unique expression, I don¡¯t know what to say of it.


    ¡®It will all end soon?¡¯ I thought, she¡¯s not going to put me down right?


    She placed her hand atop of my head, ¡°This will make it all go away.¡±


    No way she¡¯s about to kill me right? Was hitting my head on the floor that bad of an omen in this world?


    She began chanting ¡°<i>May the god¡¯s blessing sooth the pain, give the one who lost strength to arise again¡ª Healing¡ª Painkiller.¡±</i>


    I saw mother¡¯s hand glow with a dim light, I felt an overwhelming sensation flow through my body, it was like energy went through my body and forced all the pain out of me. I instantly felt jumpy again. It was a pretty satisfying experience, like when you drink ice cold water on a hot summer day.


    ¡°Your mother is pretty cool, isn¡¯t she?¡± Mother asked, as her voice rang with a sense of pride. ¡°You know back then your mother was a pretty strong mage.¡±


    The terms reeled through my mind as I processed the situation, ¡®mage¡¯ ¡®magic¡¯ ¡®elf¡¯ ¡®isekai¡¯ ¡®spells¡¯ ¡®healing¡¯? But in all seriousness who could process such a situation.


    After that mother took me back to bed, putting me back in my jail cell to say in other words. If you have seen a baby¡¯s bed, it''s basically a prison cell, there was not much room to move around and you can¡¯t leave by yourself.


    This time sneaking out wasn¡¯t in my mind, and¡­ Magic also, huh? Maybe I won¡¯t actually get bored as much as I thought, there might be a life outside of looking at screens.


    Just maybe


    I tried my best to pay attention to every conversation going around in the house so I can expand my vocabulary. I paid extra close attention to the maids talking to each other as it seems their language is more polished compared to mother¡¯s which has kind of a slight accent. It was hard to catch up though, the words went by quickly and there were still a lot of unfamiliar words mixed in there, especially nouns and names, they were kinda hard to get a hang of.


    Language was something I wasn¡¯t ever good at, to what I¡¯ve heard I took almost four whole years before I could speak japanese fluently, maybe I didn¡¯t pay attention enough in my past life, I seem to be learning quite quickly to hear and understand words, maybe it''s just a benefit of being a child again, better memory and such.


    It occurred to me, maybe, just maybe if I lived in this world, I could have a fresh start, maybe I won¡¯t fall in that hole. After All this is a world of magic, why can¡¯t my life be magical? Why can¡¯t my life be a fantasy old me can only dream of. Why can¡¯t this time when I fall down, or drop into a hole, I climb back up and continue forward.


    In my past life I dropped into a sinkhole and didn¡¯t even struggle to get back up, I died fuelled with regret, I didn¡¯t get to live the life I wanted, I was a failure, a bum who couldn¡¯t achieve anything, even in the end when I got kicked out of my own apartment I accepted it after failing once. But now I understand it, I¡¯m not your normal child, I¡¯m a child with 27 years of experience under his belt.


    Maybe I can achieve something. Maybe I can lose my virginity this time. Maybe the world is giving me a second chance. Just maybe, I can finally live life the right way.

 Chapter 2: The duke

    Was that really the right choice? Julian thought to himself as he rolled around in his bed, ¡°I really have a soft spot for her, don¡¯t I?¡± He mumbled before falling asleep.


    Julian had alway been a noble, since he was a child, his status was confirmed as the head of the family. Since then he has developed into quite the capable noble, quickly rising amongst the ranks, becoming the duke in no time. Being a high class noble, he knew he had a duty to keep the world in check for the royal family, and to that he carried his role flawlessly.


    One time, Julian was sent on a mission given by the royal palace to represent humans and discuss the terms and conditions of the renewed peace treaty with the elves. Around 1500 years ago, there was a war, it¡¯s really a mystery how war started, but common belief was that there was a rebellious cult within the elven empire which overthrew the royals back then, and the cult has quite an interesting take on the world. They thought elves were the purest race and none should question them as the supreme rulers of the world. Quickly they attacked the kingdoms of humans, war went on for years, it was brutal. The war raged on, until there were finally 6 beings, the beings combined their might and ended the war taking down the cult once and for all, these 6 are known as the six heavenly gods. After the war ended humans and elves discussed over paper and pen, the remaining elves in the cult were soon exiled into the icy continent, Jothurgard, then the humans and elves created a treaty which would last 100 years, every hundred years the treaty is renewed and re-looked upon.


    This talk was one that changed the course of Julian¡¯s life¡­ During that time, there was a rising problem with slavery, it was pretty bad, humans would raid villages and capture all kinds of people. It''s said that they were a problem everywhere, but clearly there was a pattern, elves and beastmen¡­ They were the ones targeted, it doesn¡¯t seem like it was the case, but everyone knew it was the truth.


    Anyways that was the case and the mastermind of all that was the humans. Julian was well aware this mission was made to destroy his reputation and that the discussion would not end well. Someone in the royal family or in the high class nobles want to take him down and weaken his position. Whoever it was, the royal family or the nobles, Julian knew he had lost once the mission was filed to him.


    In the end the discussion didn¡¯t go his way, although a peace treaty was created between the nations, it wasn¡¯t balanced, all of it was in favor towards the Elven Empire. It really wasn¡¯t a shocker after that Julian lost his role as the main lord for castle town.


    Julian retained his title as duke, but all his previous powers and rank were all gone, he was no different to a low ranking noble. With his rank now gone, the path of continuing to serve close to the royal family was gone. He knew he could continue to try serving the royals but if he gains too much power again next time he might not come out with his life.


    Julian soon moved out of the royal capital, requesting to move to be the lord of a rural land, the agricultural area on the farther east of the continent known as Feris, the land was filled to the brim with wheat fields and grasslands. He loved the place, he no longer wanted to be involved with all the political sangagans, it was the perfect place to do just that.


    Julian was still loyal to the royal family either way, but as if now he wanted to get away from the capital as much as possible, away from danger as much as possible.


    Finally he was free, maybe he could learn and live as your average civilian, maybe he could even have a pretty wife and start a loving family.


    The laughing girl


    After about half a year of living in Feris, Julian understood the area quite well, the region wasn¡¯t crowded, the houses were spread out with fields and farms in between each one of them, towns were tiny and there weren¡¯t many shops, there weren¡¯t a lot of travelling merchants either. Compared to the capital, Feris was definitely underdeveloped.


    Feris was a big region, it wasn¡¯t like Castle Town or the Royal Capital where you could walk around the whole place in a day or two. It takes over 4 days just to get from one side of the region to another, without taking the time to explore the area or sleep, and this is also on a fast horse also.


    Within the region there are hundreds of villages ranging from small to large, even the common race in these villages were completely different from one another, some were home to elves, some beastmen, some even demons. Julian was quite surprised when he found this out, to his knowing all the different races hated each other and the only thing preventing a full out war was the peace treaties.


    Julian went around the region of Feris, never stopping down in one place. One day he stumbled upon a forest and somehow ended up in an elven village, it wasn¡¯t uncommon by now since he has seen a few of them along the edge of the region, the villages containing mostly other races stood around the edge, while the villages and towns with humans stay in the center, there seems to be a pattern.


    The village looks way more underdeveloped compared to even the other ones in the Feris region, it wasn¡¯t underdeveloped in a way where the villagers are living uncomfortably, to what Julian saw, it seems that the village was operating quite smoothly, there weren¡¯t any beggars nor were there any fights going on. The village was peaceful.


    Julian always loved the elven race, not in a weird way but he loved how the elven women looked. That night, Julian walked around the village, he was amazed at how the houses were built atop of trees and how bridges linked buildings. It was quite an incredible sight, it was like a city in the skies.


    Julian felt a soft tap on his shoulder, it wouldn¡¯t be anyone he came with, as he was travelling alone all this time, Julian didn¡¯t feel alarmed by the tap, there wasn¡¯t any aggressiveness behind it, it was probably a child playing with him Julian thought to himself as he turned around, his head down anticipating a elven child with a small frame. Julian¡¯s head bumped into something, something soft. What is this? Julian wondered as he looked up, what he saw was a beautiful sight¡ª An elven girl, probably 16 or 17, her face blushed, while she had a cheeky grin on her face.


    That girl was...


    Julian was surprised to see the dazzling sight, the girl was gorgeous to say the least, Julian knew elven women tend to have beautiful looks, some might say he probably has a little too much knowledge on that subject, but this girl felt different from the rest, it''s like a spark clicked when Julian saw her. Julian stood there still bent over, slightly blushing and frozen in place, looking up at the girl.


    ¡°Hahahahaha!¡± The girl laughed loudly, clenching her stomach, as she rolled down onto the floor laughing. Breathless from all the laughter, the girl continued, ¡°What''s that¡ª reaction? Hahahaha¡ª¡±


    The girl had a head of silky golden blond hair tied in a high ponytail above her head, which glistened in the moonlight, her eyes were like jewels, purplish blue.


    ¡°Uhhh¡ª Do I know you?¡± Julian asked.


    The girl continued laughing, tears streaming down from her eyes, not sad tears but tears from the uncontrollable laughter. Julian was confused at what was happening.


    Taking a deep breath in, the girl finally spoke, ¡°Now you do. I¡¯m Ava by the way, Ava Estaline, nice to meet you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Julian, Julian Notros-Farion.¡± Julian bows as he introduces himself, it¡¯s a habit for nobles to bow to whoever they are introducing themselves to.


    ¡°Relax,¡± Ava said, ¡°This isn¡¯t the royal palace, you can just be yourself here.¡±


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    Adventurer


    Since that night Julian spent another two weeks at the village, throughout that time he had developed a bond with Ava, who always teased him for being too formal. Ava was a childish girl, although she doesn¡¯t look like it, she¡¯s actually 23 years old, but being an elf means aging doesn¡¯t have the same effect on them.


    In the past Julian always thought the elves despised humans, a lot of this came from the fact that when Julian was in the Elven Empire civilians would throw glances of disapproval at him. It was a shocker for Julian how welcomed he was when he first entered this village, the villagers treated him with food for free and such.


    It has been almost 3 weeks since Julian arrived at the village, everynight Julian stayed up in the fields where long grass grew, Ava next to him.


    ¡°Hey, uhh¡ª Julian, have you ever thought about becoming an adventurer?¡± Ava asked.


    It was a new topic that Julian never thought of, becoming an adventurer would mean losing his status as the duke. ¡°Uhhhh, I have never thought of that before.¡± Julian replied to Ava¡¯s question honestly.


    ¡°You want to go on an adventure with me?¡± Ava asked again.


    Julian turned to Ava, his face blushed, it wasn¡¯t uncommon for elves to become adventurers, it wasn¡¯t uncommon for humans and elves to party up in an adventure either. Ava was looking down, fiddling with her hands, there was a slight redness to her face.


    ¡°Yes. I do.¡±


    ¡°Heh?¡± Ava was confused. Ava had thought that she would have to do some convincing before Julian would accept her offer, she knew that Julian is a renowned noble, a noble dropping out of his role and becoming an adventurer was definitely rare to see.


    Adventurer II


    Well it was a quick turn of events, Julian and Ava left the village soon after the conversation about becoming adventurers. After returning to the city, Julian resigned his role as duke and registered as an adventurer.


    The party duo quickly gained fame, known as the Black Sylph, Julian and Ava would fight side by side even against strong monsters. Julian was a great swordsman, he was a master class swordsman, being a noble before this skill was detrimental to prevent assassinations and such. Ava was not far behind either, she was a mage, wasn¡¯t any normal mage but an advanced class mage.


    Years passed, the party had grown larger, there were other members beside Julian and Ava now, at the time there were six other members outside of Julian and Ava, the Tank Heyrm, the Violent Sheon, the Trap Stark, the Assassin Aqua, the Moonlit Rena, and the Guide Grime. The party had walked through the Central and North Ether Continents.


    One day¡­


    ¡°I¡¯m pregnant.¡± Ava exclaimed, looking Julian dead in the eye as she did so.


    Julian knew she was being serious, ninety percent of the time if Ava was having a joke around she would blurt out laughing mid sentence.


    Throughout their time as adventurers, love bloomed between the two and they did some stuff, they knew it was going to happen sooner or later.


    Eldest


    Soon after discovering the pregnancy, Julian and Ava retired as adventurers, without the original core members the party split up, everyone heading their own way. In the center of the Feris region, Julian owned a mansion, the mansion was huge, two stories tall with over 20 rooms inside.


    Although the mansion was big, nobody ever lived in it, the walls and the floor was covered in dust after years of being barren. It was a mess and no normal person could live in it.


    It wasn¡¯t a big problem for Julian, being a noble in the past, he had saved up quite the sum of money, even though adventuring did take a big toll, he could still easily maintain a comfortable life with family. Julian hired 6 maids, all from nearby towns and villages, in no time the maids cleaned up the house and it was finally livable.


    And then, the child was born.


    The birth was easy, with everything proceeding smoothly and according to plan.


    It¡¯s a boy.


    The baby had dark brown hair like Julian and purplish blue eyes just like Ava¡¯s, the infant baby didn¡¯t cry at the start, his face had a cold expression, maybe the baby was a stillborn one of the maids thought¡­


    The baby blinked, then in an instant began crying his lungs out.


    The baby got a name: Von Notros- Farion. What a strong child he was, right off the bat he was almost double the weight of your average baby, his body was built like a truck. Von learned everything quickly, it was kind of unsettling how smart he was, at 1, he was able to talk in short sentences, at 2, he was able to run around without falling over, at 4, he picked up a book¡­


    Soon after Von¡¯s fifth birthday, Julian got a letter from the royal family which offered him a seat as the lord of the Faris region once again.


    Julian accepted the job.


    Life was peaceful in Faris, there weren¡¯t any things happening that needed to be dealt with, Julian pretty much had the same life as before he was appointed, except now he was getting a large sum of money every month.


    In the next few years, Julian spent a lot of time at home caring for Von, they had a pretty good father¨C son bond. Von is seven now.


    ¡°Father, I want to learn how to fight!¡± Von asked Julian when they were walking in town, as they passed a weapons shop.


    Julian never liked swordsmanship that much, although he was a powerful swordsman, he didn¡¯t love it. It wasn¡¯t something he considered to be important in life. This was until he met Ava of course, since then he developed an interest toward the craft and would practice it in the garden sometimes.


    Julian rubbed Von¡¯s head, ¡°You know, fighting isn¡¯t what you think it is, it¡¯s dangerous.¡±


    ¡°No, father, I want to protect you and mother when I get older, I want to protect my friends.¡± Von said.


    Von was always a mature one, he knew what is right and wrong from a young age, his intelligence didn''t hold him back either, his ego wasn¡¯t sky high where he wouldn''t listen to advice. But still Julian would have never thought his seven year old son would think so far.


    Julian gave in, and Von trained under him ever since that day.


    Finally Von was 11, being 11 means he has to go to school, it wasn¡¯t a shocker when Von requested to leave home and study in the dark knight¡¯s academy in the royal capital.


    Julian allowed his leave.


    Second born


    After Von¡¯s departure, problems came up in the Faris region, turns out there were pirates hunting down cargo ships going to the Elven Empire. It isn¡¯t a huge problem to deal with as Julian had dealt with this sort of a lot in the past when he was still lord of Castle Town. Maybe Von leaving was a jinx on the whole region, it was a funny occurrence how it was the exact day after Von¡¯s leave where the news was sent to Julian.


    It wouldn¡¯t be a big deal, it would just take a few months right?


    It turns out Ava is pregnant again.


    It was a surprise to Julian also, when this happened, Ava had been worrying about if she could even bear another child, her concerns were logical since it has been 11 years since Von¡¯s birth.


    The pirates'' case wasn¡¯t easy to take down, Julian was stuck in the port for weeks on weeks. Even though Julian didn¡¯t want to leave his wife in the mansion with no support from him, he had to. Even after the case was tackled, another case came out after it, it didn¡¯t get much better, it was like the world didn¡¯t want Julian home.


    Ava went into labor, it was quite early for the child to be born, at the very least it was over a week early, the birth was unexpected, but there was a good thing in the timing¡­ Julian was home at the time.


    It was the same as last time, the birth was smooth, Julian was relieved that he was there for it. There was something which was different from last time, the instant the infant came out it started crying. One of the maids soon confirmed the baby was a girl.


    The baby resembled Ava a lot, she was basically a copy, the same silky golden blond hair, the same purplish blue jewels as eyes.


    The baby¡¯s name? Claire Notros- Farion.


    Adoption against the prophecy


    Around five years ago, there was a prophecy made, it was big news.


    ¡°The child of god will be a calamity for this world. The child would have mystic rainbow eyes and crimson hair resembling the colour of blood.¡± That was the prophecy told by the priest at the Luminis Church.


    A boy with red hair wasn¡¯t uncommon, but mystic rainbow eyes were something nobody had seen for themselves, Julian was skeptical of the prophecy, how could one have mystic rainbow eyes? It wasn¡¯t possible, right?


    Julian signed off the last file on his desk. This week¡¯s work was especially grueling, ¡°You pirates just don¡¯t know when to stop¡­¡± Julian mumbled his body slumped over his desk.


    ¡°It¡¯s the last day of the week now, I guess I can go home and get some rest.¡± Julian stretches before heading down the spiral stairs towards the front door of the ministry where a carriage pulled by a huge horse awaits.


    ***


    ¡°You WHAT?!¡± Julian exclaimed as Ava told him about adopting a new baby.


    Julian knew Ava¡¯s personality was kind of jumpy but when he saw the baby, he saw something unsettling. The baby¡¯s eyes were big and round, at first glance you won¡¯t see anything, but looking closely Julian saw the thing he thought wouldn¡¯t exist¡­ Mystic rainbow eyes. The eyes themselves were beautiful, it wasn¡¯t something you saw everyday.


    ¡°We can¡¯t bring this child into the household¡­ What if¡­ What if it¡¯s really the child of god¡­¡± Julian wasn¡¯t sure what to do, if he saw the child on the street he would have just left it there, but now it¡¯s already in his house, throwing it away now just seemed unhuman.


    ¡°So what, you are going to leave the child outside in the cold winter letting it just die in the snow, are you really about to do this? Doesn¡¯t it seem wrong to you? Even if he¡¯s actually the child of god, what there is to it, he¡¯s still just a baby.¡± Ava shouted back loudly, there was a slight sadness in her voice. Ava wasn¡¯t the kind of person to leave someone, anyone to die, even if the person was sick in the mind or was once a criminal. Julian couldn¡¯t argue against Ava, he knew Ava had a point, the child was still a child after all.


    Was that really the right choice? Julian thought to himself as he rolled around in his bed, ¡°I really have a soft spot for her, don¡¯t I?¡± He mumbled before falling asleep.

 Chapter 3: A Taste of Magic

    It¡¯s been roughly 2 years since I have been reincarnated, did yall miss me? My legs have finally developed to the point where I can move on two legs although stumbling around was still a common occurrence.


    My language has also gotten better, I can now understand most words in this language and can also speak a little bit, but still can¡¯t do it in complete sentences though.


    I have decided this time I¡¯m not going to be stuck in a hole again, I¡¯m going to try my best in life this time, but first I gotta know what is happening right now¡­


    ¡°Grahhh!¡± Mother made a funny face, with her nose flared and her mouth snaring. To be completely honest, Mom was pretty stupid, she would just do whatever that comes into her mind, even if there was no logical reason to do it.


    Mom always plays around like this, she¡¯s like a child, although if I didn¡¯t remember incorrectly this year she¡¯s 43 years old. Elves in this world really don¡¯t age do they, compared to the first time I met her, mother probably aged like a month in human years. Would that mean in like 20 or so years I would look older than my own mother, although adoptive.


    Just the thought of that sent shivers down my spine.


    Book of Magic


    Let me re-introduce myself first, I don¡¯t think I have given a proper introduction yet: My name is Gryne Notros-Farion, the third son of the Notros branch of the Farion house, which is a high class noble family, at least I think they are, or else how might have father been able to buy this mansion.


    Because of it being a mansion, why don''t put a full on freaking library in it? That¡¯s probably what father thought when he was designing the mansion. And yes, I¡¯m not joking, the mansion has a library inside on top of 20 bedrooms.


    Lily was one of the maids of the mansion, I think she¡¯s been here for a while now, at least 2 years now, since I saw her on the second day after I¡¯ve reincarnated. Also¡­ She¡¯s the maid in charge of handling me since mother had to deal with Claire.


    I told myself I was going to live the right way this time, right? I mean it¡¯s a chance at redemption which I didn¡¯t deserve at all. Now that I can walk around and speak the language a little bit, I should get started with my so-called plan, but what can I do? I can¡¯t really train my body now, what should I do now¡ª


    I tapped my finger on the desk, as I thought of all the things I could try and do, exercise could wait when my body gets a little more developed. If I remember health class correctly I heard that training your body too early causes you to be short¡ª and I don''t want that. So maybe I could do some geography. I figured that I would need that sooner or later, maybe I could learn another one of this world¡¯s languages. I know mother¡¯s native language isn¡¯t this, whatever this one is called. Or maybe¡ª I could learn¡ª magic.


    No, no, that would be too hard, wouldn¡¯t it?


    Wouldn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Young master Gryne, you can learn magic at your age.¡± Lily said, bowing her head slightly.


    I think I forgot to mention¡­ Lily is clairvoyant, at least she seems like she is¡­ She kind of answers whatever question I think in my mind. I hope she didn¡¯t hear my comments about her body¡­ Lily was quite a beautiful girl, she wasn¡¯t like mother or anything close to her, but she had her own innate charm¡­ I mean could you blame me for those thoughts? She is at least an E cup.


    //


    I followed Lily into the library, where there were stacks upon stacks, shelves upon shelves of books. If you were a bookworm, this would be heaven. This was probably my second time being here, first time was when mother dragged me in for a ¡®bedtime story¡¯. Last time when mother dragged me in was a weird experience, I mean, who drags their 2 year old child down to the library for a bedtime story. Like I enjoyed the session, I got a few new words to add to my vocabulary from it.


    Last time I was in here, I was drowsy, I didn¡¯t know how massive this actually was¡­ Now I understand¡ª Even saying massive seems like an understatement, it should be called ginormous.


    We walked past a few rows of shelves packed with books, both thick and thin, finally stopping and walking into one of the rows. Lily scanned the shelves, then moved deeper into the row of shelves. I followed Lily in as I looked around the shelves in amazement. Reaching the second last shelf in the row, Lily climbed up the wooden ladder placed there.


    Almost there, almost there, I would be able to see her underwear if she climbs a little higher. One more step¡ª Lily stops and reaches over for an incredibly thick book, it was like an encyclopedia, in comparison it¡¯s almost double the size of all the other books which are not in all right thin.


    Lily came back down, holding the book in her arms. She bowed and handed me the book, placing it on my outreached arms. Damn this thing is heavy.


    I went back to my room, I opened the book¡ª Shit I forgot I can¡¯t read¡­ I mean I can with some words, I understand some of the characters in this language but still reading wasn¡¯t coming as easy as I thought. I mostly needed a bigger vocabulary, I wasn¡¯t exposed to a lot. Most of my vocabulary is just commonly used simple words from the picture books mother or Lily reads to me before bedtime, it wasn¡¯t much but it¡¯s something at least.


    A few months have passed since I have found the book which I now know the title of, it¡¯s called ¡°A beginner¡¯s guide to magic¡± if I¡¯m translating it correctly. I was able to steadily increase my vocabulary now, sometimes I still have to guess the character¡¯s meaning. This country¡¯s language overall wasn¡¯t actually hard to learn, it was a lot like Japanese, so I picked it up pretty quickly.


    Now that I can read I actually found the books pretty interesting. I loved reading in my past life also¡ª but it¡¯s mostly just light novels¡­ Oh well, it''s still reading.


    I wonder if the maids and mother thinks it¡¯s weird seeing a child walk around with a huge encyclopaedia like book almost the same size as the child itself. What would be their reaction if they found out I understand what I¡¯m reading? Heh, I would laugh just thinking about their reactions.


    I carried the book around the mansion and whenever I had free time I would review the book going through it from the beginning. I read through the whole book almost 3 times now. The book was actually really well written, it pretty much guides you through the whole process of learning spells. I haven¡¯t tried to follow the instructions and do it myself but it seems easy enough, at least the beginner level spells seem easy enough.


    Let me go through the contents of the book before I continue on. The book taught me the basic fundamentals of magic, after reading it 3 times now I think I have gotten a good grasp on how to explain the contents.


    Firstly, magic isn¡¯t what you see in anime or manga, it isn¡¯t the end all be all, there are a lot of things magic can¡¯t do, at least in theory they can¡¯t do. Magic comes in 4 main types, Attacking magic, your average offensive combat used spells; Healing magic, to treat wounds, injuries or even sicknesses on higher level; Supporting magic, it¡¯s also mainly used in combat scenarios but it¡¯s not used for attacking, examples like barriers, shields¡­ are put into this category; and lastly Utility magic, there aren¡¯t much in this category but it¡¯s basically just all the remaining spells and casts that can¡¯t be placed in the other categories. According to the textbook, magic was originally created for combat, hence the main focus on the three categories.


    Secondly, there is something known as magic power or mana which is the basic requirement to use any magic, if you don¡¯t have any magic power flowing in your body you can¡¯t use magic. It¡¯s simple isn¡¯t it. People mostly used mana within their own body, which would drain the magic reserves quickly, as magic developed over the years and in later years people would draw mana from the surrounding area or objects to cast spells, which largely decreased the toll on the body.


    Thirdly, in general there are two ways of using magic, incantations and magic circles, these aren¡¯t the only ways, but these are the ways in which most people find to be the most successful. They don¡¯t need much explanation right? We have all read this somewhere or saw this somewhere. Incantations are simply reciting a long chain of words, and magic circles are just drawing a pattern which casts a spell. For each spell there are different incantations and magic circles, the textbook goes through both detailedly. There seems to be a lot more history behind the spells and the development of magic over the years but I¡¯ll leave that till when I need it.


    Lastly, mana reserves are basically determined at birth, so some lucky bloodlines would have the crazy mana pools while unlucky ones can¡¯t even use magic if they tried. It isn¡¯t like your normal rpg mmo games where when you level up you get more magic power, it seems things don¡¯t work the same here. It¡¯s kind of unfair but I guess the world has its own laws and rules.


    Hopefully I have at least a decent mana reserve, I can only guess how much I have as I don¡¯t know my real parents. What if I was the kind of person without any mana, I was uneasy not knowing if I was up to the task of learning magic.


    For now, I should start from the easiest first, magic isn¡¯t as easily said than done. The book teaches every spell decently in depth, although it lacks the theory behind it, I could work with just the explanation and incantation. Since incantations seem to be the one more commonly used now I should start with that first, and plus how would I find monster blood to ink up my pen, not like you can buy those things in town, maybe you can? I don¡¯t know¡­ I have never checked. If I remember correctly the incantations get longer and harder as the spells power progresses, I am starting off with the beginner spells so I should be fine as long as I don¡¯t get too ahead of myself.


    There is no leveling up to get more mana in this world right? Let¡¯s just hope I don¡¯t faint after a single cast. Well anyways, whatever is the case, I would give this shot. I mean I had to right? It¡¯s a staple for any isekai.


    I placed the book on the floor of my room, and I held out my right hand, my left hand firmly placed on top of my right bicep. I began reciting the words.


    ¡°Heave crackling flames, ignite this place and flicker in the dimming darkness, show thy the way forward with your light. Fire¡ª Torch.¡±


    It was a weird feeling, there seemed to be something pushing against the tip of my finger and palm, the blood in my body seemingly concentrated on my fingertips, it¡¯s flowing like a spiral rotating around the palm of my right hand. Once the blood finally reached the center, something pushed through and exited my body. A small flame flicked in the center of my palm, luke warm, it wasn¡¯t the type of flame to burn anyone.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    The feeling wasn¡¯t uncomfortable, actually it was a pretty cool feeling. Hmmm¡­ How do I describe this, it¡¯s like the feeling when you hold in piss for a long time and finally go to the toilet. That relaxing feeling was the best way to describe it although it¡¯s kind of disgusting, hope you weren¡¯t eating just now cuz I know that you just lost your appetite.


    I was excited knowing I could cast magic, it was a surprise, I guess it really would for anyone in the other world. The flame became hotter and hotter. ¡°Blah!¡± I yelped as the flame burned my hand slightly, the flame flickered for a few more seconds then extinguished.


    Looks like I have to concentrate to maintain the spell.


    Let''s try that again¡ª Concentrate¡­ The feeling of the spiraling blood boiled up inside me once more. Yep that''s the feeling. I closed my eyes¡­ I formed the image of the flickering flame inside my head, did I do this last time? Now that I know how the spell looks I should be able to cast it easier right?


    What¡¯s this warmth I¡¯m feeling? It¡¯s pushing against my palm?


    I¡¯m pretty sure I didn¡¯t chant yet¡­ I opened a slit in my left eye.


    Huh? The flame is already there?


    In my moment of shock, the flame quickly extinguished.


    Was that normal? I thought looking down at my hands in awe. I was pretty sure the book said using magic with chants is basically impossible for your average mage. Was it really that easy? All I have done is focus on the image of the cast I tried to create. If it was really that easy why don¡¯t all mage¡¯s do that.


    I was a complete beginner, I had never even tried to use magic before now, and I of all the people in the world had just pulled off a feat where even the textbook says is an extremely rare ability, casting a spell without the use of words.


    It really wasn¡¯t hard at all, I simply just focused my mind onto creating an image of the cast, then I guess the mana just did it¡¯s job and formed the image into existence. It was basically all I did. Everyone can do that right?


    A bunch of different theories behind it formed in the back of my head, it wasn¡¯t like¡­ No. Hmm, maybe incantations are used to push the spells out? Uttering the words out loud before, I don¡¯t think I had to focus on the imagery at all. Maybe the incantations are used as an activation. Kind of like a car where you can use auto to skip the process of cracking the gears manually.


    The final outcome of my theory was that incantations can trigger the image without having to put your mind to it, kind of like when you play auto in a gacha game.


    There are advantages with using incantations if you think about it more. First it would be way easier to use and to explain, instead of chucking in a whole lecture on how to create the image you can just teach the chants and the spell would just form by itself.


    Second, magic was mainly used for combat, at least that was what the book said. If it was really mainly used in combat, incantations are much simply put easier, not having to create an image in your head while thinking about all the other things needed to do to dodge the enemy¡¯s attacks. It¡¯s much faster to yap a chant in a chain than close your eyes and concentrate fully.


    I flipped through the pages of the textbook again. I have read through the book multiple times, I never found anything teaching you how to use spells without incantations. It really wasn¡¯t a surprise, in the first few pages it already gave us an answer, casting without incantations is basically impossible, it''s one of the rarest skills a mage could get.


    Maybe I had some innate talent for this sort of stuff. I really doubt it, after all it was something even the creator of the textbook probably can¡¯t do. I tried to be reasonable with myself, but in the end I could only come up with one possible answer¡­ And it was that I have gotten used to creating images inside my head from all the LNs I read in my past life and I could also create other ¡®images¡¯ in my head... Sigh¡ª I¡¯m not proud of this ¡®achievement¡¯.


    ¡°Hahaha. Makes sense if that was why I could do it.¡± I mumbled to myself out loud. Afterall I wasn¡¯t someone who can be viewed as a normal person after all.


    Let''s lock in now, it¡¯s really not time to get ahead of myself, if I just live in the past and think I¡¯m all high and powerful just because I can cast without chanting, I would be no better than my past self. I have learned a lesson right? There¡¯s always someone stronger than you no matter how strong you are, nobody has truly reached the peak. If I get cocky again, I¡¯ll probably get beat up again.


    ¡°Gryne, time to restrain yourself.¡± I murmured to myself before taking a deep breath and slapping myself on the cheeks to clear myself. Yep, let''s start over again, I¡¯m still just a beginner, no more than a noob. I was just lucky in getting some rare skill from my genetics, nothing more nothing less. This is what they call Beginner¡¯s luck isn¡¯t it? I gotta keep a level head and focus on learning magic better, instead of thinking I¡¯m some type of genius or something.


    ¡°Okay, one more time now.¡± I said out loud, getting my body into the same position as last time, I was feeling slightly more sluggish than before, it wasn¡¯t like I couldn¡¯t move my body at all, but it just feels heavier.


    Am I tired, I thought as I continued to try to focus on the task at hand.


    No, that can¡¯t be right, can it? Does two casts of a beginner level spell really drain me up that much?


    Did I run out of mana¡ª


    Thump.


    //


    That can¡¯t be right¡­ The book says mana reserves are basically set at birth, so does that mean¡­ No, no, that doesn¡¯t make any sense. If my limit was two casts of a beginner spell, does that mean I don¡¯t have any talent at all?


    It seemed like my mana reserves had been too small after all. That really deflated my mood.


    Ugh. I moaned on the edge of my bed, still completely drained from using up all my mana.


    Sigh¡­ I guess I was delusional to think that I was some type of genius who appears every once in a thousand years. Who was I to blame, of course I would think I¡¯m one main character from the isekai manga.


    //


    The next day, I decided I would continue practicing magic, my train of thought was that I was in another world, why not take the opportunity to do something that back there I couldn¡¯t do. It was kind of ¡®bum¡¯ thinking.


    I went upstairs into my room after lunch, locked the door, and began reading the textbook again. This reminds me of my past life where this would happen almost exactly the same, I go up to my room, I lock the door, but instead of reading a magic textbook, I would be reading some sexual manga or novel with one hand.


    I went through the page on the torch spell again. I stand back up from my laid down position. Now then let''s try that again¡­ Repeating the process from the previous day I held my right hand in front before focusing my mana.


    Pop.


    A flickering flame pops out again. No surprise there, it was my third time after all, I have gotten used to how it feels. My bad. That sounded a little dirty.


    How many casts have it been now? Like 8?


    What the shit?


    Given the experience from yesterday I thought I would pass out and drop to the floor after 2 or 3 casts. No. I knew that I would pass out from the feeling of tiredness.


    Hmm. Interesting. Maybe the book is wrong? No way right? It¡¯s a textbook. Was it because it was my second time casting? Had it drained more mana because it was my first cast? It¡¯s an entirely possible explanation, I mean I would believe it if someone told me if that was the case.


    Finally after around 13 casts of ¡®Torch¡¯ I blacked out again.


    I was really satisfied with the result, it was over 6 times what I could do yesterday.


    //


    The following days I continued to follow the schedule of practicing daily. It hit me that I have been able to use the ¡®Torch¡¯ spell more and more. It wasn¡¯t the one time thing that I thought happened on the second day. What is happening? I felt like I could use the spell 50 times today.


    Everyday I seem to be less tired after one cast, I was playing it safe, I was only doing around 10 casts per day. Looks like the book really is lying again, first they talked about how ¡®hard¡¯ it was to cast without incantations and now they are talking about how a person¡¯s mana reserves are set at birth. A bunch of bullshit.


    Why are they putting caps and limitations on talent when there aren¡¯t any in the first place. There could be two reasons, one was that they didn¡¯t know about this at all, and second was that they were deliberately hiding this from the world. But I guess the first theory is more logical.


    Now that the textbook has already been wrong about two things, I guess I shouldn''t take all its information as fact. I thought as I flipped through onto the next few pages of the textbook.


    ¡°Beginner spell: Waterball¡­¡±


    I re-read the contents of the next beginner spell, it was the spell ¡®Waterball¡¯. I follow the book''s instructions once again, placing my left hand atop my right arm. I hold out my right hand in front of my body.


    Deep breath in, I begin chanting, ¡°May the blessing of the great seas grant thy¡¯s wishes, moisturise the land with thee¡¯s power, Water¡ª Waterball.¡±


    The orb of water hovered in the air for a few seconds before dropping onto the floor with a splash.


    The spells did exactly what I expected it to do, it formed a small fist sized orb of water, not gonna lie I expected it to be a little more epic. Maybe it¡¯s just me but I always imagined when a character casts a magic spell, it would have this epic camera panning.


    I might just be a genius. No. I shouldn¡¯t be thinking like this, I told myself from day one I wouldn¡¯t be an arrogant cocky kid. This is just a hypothesis but maybe if I continue to use magic everyday like this I would be able to get a pretty decent mana pool, I¡¯m still only two years old afterall, If I do this everyday I could get quite the significant growth. I still don¡¯t know if there¡¯s an upper limit to expand your mana pool, I guess I could ask Lily or Mother, they seem like they have a decent understanding on magic, their aura is much fiercer than anyone else around.


    Nah I won¡¯t do that, that would ticker a suspicion, I¡¯ll keep this to myself for now. At the end of the day I don¡¯t want to end up homeless again.


    In my old world they said that practice while you are young and growing lets your abilities develop much more rapidly, of course after you stop growing you could still improve but just not as much. There might be elves and magic in this world but the human body worked basically the same, the principles wouldn¡¯t be much different even here in a world of people¡¯s dreams.


    There was only one thing to do now, grinding my ass out to hone my skills to the absolute perfection and become the strongest mage in the whole world. Maybe that''s reaching a little too far but I guess it¡¯s entirely possible.


    But for real now, I would continue to hone my skill in magic and other crafts while I¡¯m still young and growing, after all this is the second chance the world gave me.


    //


    That same night I decided two things, one, that I would push my magic reserves to its limit everyday to maximise my growth. It''s something which could speed up the process after all, better use it as much as possible. The second thing I decided that night was throughout the time I pushed the limit on my mana pool I would steadily learn and use new spells, hopefully I can do 1 spell per day. It¡¯s an effective strategy, I would be basically multi-tasking without much extra effort¡­ It¡¯s the perfect plan.


    I have mentioned this term a few times before, ¡®Beginner level spells¡¯, it¡¯s a term used a lot in the textbook, throughout the first 70 or so pages at least. To clarify the term ¡®Beginner level spell¡¯ I meant basic spells, the easiest to learn, the basics. These spells are mostly attacking spells and there''s also a tiny bit of supporting spells mixed in, it¡¯s not until the next tier or level of spell we see healing and utility. Some spells in the beginner category include: ¡®Torch¡¯, ¡®Waterball¡¯, ¡®Fireball¡¯ and all that sorta stuff, the entry level magic if I had not explained myself well enough.


    On the surface level of understanding there are two majorly used power systems, the Barista system and the Aether system. The textbook only explains the Barista system so I don¡¯t really have enough understanding to explain the Aether system, but apparently it¡¯s used the most by adventurers and mercenaries.


    In the Barista system, there are a basic seven levels to magic: Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced, Imperial, Calamity, and Divine. If you were to dive in deeper there are a bunch of sub-categories in each one of the tiers, but for now that is really not important at all.


    Calamity class magic seems so cool to me, I wished I could one day become a calamity class mage, it just sounds cool as fuck. But how am I supposed to get there? I know I¡¯m getting a little ahead of myself but this textbook here only teaches till Advanced level magic. If I was actually to become a competent mage I would need to learn some of the higher class magic right?


    I shouldn¡¯t think that far now, I should just focus on the task at hand. In my gaming and anime watching experience, I know that if the mc goes after the strongest monsters they would get absolutely destroyed, burnt to a crisp, it¡¯s just going to be annoying when your attacks don¡¯t do a single bit of damage while the enemy can just one-shot you. The more realistic approach was to start off from the weak ones first, like goblins and slimes.


    Fire seemed like the best affinity so I¡¯ll start with it I suppose.


    The beginner level fire spells are listed here on the catalogue as follows:


    Torch: tiny flickering flame for lighting candles and for a dim light.


    Fireball: a fist sized orb of flame which hurls at the target.


    Flare shot: small but fast bullet of flame that goes in a straight line.


    Scorch: allows your hands to have flames on them and can burn targets.


    These are all classified as beginner level spells, but the mana needed to cast each one is night and day, for example ¡®Torch¡¯ takes about 0.1% of my total mana to cast while ¡®Flare shot¡¯ takes around 0.4-1% determined by size. The range isn¡¯t really large but the difference can be felt.


    There was also another factor that impacts the mana consumption, this only applies to fire spells but when using a fire spell the temperature fully determines on how much mana is put in, it could range from lukewarm to a 300 degree oven. The basic linear equation looks like: more mana= higher temperature, it¡¯s really simple if you learn basic maths in primary school.


    There is one problem though, all my spells just fall to the floor and extinguish instead of hurling forward like the textbook said. It¡¯s like there wasn''t any force pushing my spells forward. I couldn¡¯t get the spells flying both with and without incantations, was I doing something wrong? I couldn¡¯t really tell because I was still pretty new to this.


    Maybe I had to put more mana in there, I held out my hand and stood in position to cast ¡®Fireball¡¯. Let¡¯s try that, I begin imaging the spell in my head, I apply a little more condensed mana into the spell. I opened my left eye to check on the spell, ¡°Huh?¡±


    I saw the fireball hovering in the air, it wasn¡¯t flying forward like I had hoped it would. Is it a little bigger than normal? I thought as I went through the possibilities of what¡¯s happening. It seems like putting more mana into the spell doesn¡¯t automatically make it fly forward, instead it just makes the size of the spell bigger.


    I continued to experiments of different methods to make the spells fly forward, it wasn¡¯t an easy task, I could increase the temperature, make the fireball bigger or smaller, pressure the flames so that they¡¯ll create a mini explosion, but still I can¡¯t get it to hurl forward like how the textbook says it can.


    I tried to cast fireball again, this should be my 129th attempt today. I got in position¡­ ¡°Damn¡­ I ran out of mana aga¡ª¡±


    Thump.


    I fall to the floor, blacking out once again.

 Chapter 4: Swordsman

    It¡¯s been a rollercoaster the past two months. I have made quite a few discoveries. First and most important I found the answer to how to make my spells fly forward, I figured it out by mistake but thinking back it¡¯s actually pretty obvious, how was I so dumb¡­ So¡ª Magic basically works like a gun, the physical form of the spell is the bullet, but just a bullet won¡¯t do anything, to make the bullet fly forward there has to be a force behind it, in a gun it¡¯s gunpowder and in magic it¡¯s mana, forcing a burst of mana towards the physical form of the spell allows it to gain momentum and hurl forward. That was really the only logical explanation I could think of. From this I finally understood why people needed incantations.


    Incantations creates the spell without needing the user to focus on the imagery of the spell, which in terms free the mind of the mage to do whatever he or she want, and in casting a spell that would be to give the spell momentum using a burst of raw mana. With incantations the mage wouldn¡¯t have to focus on two things at once which makes the process much easier, at least that is the theory I came up with. Maybe no one actually tried using no incantations and pushing the spell at the same time, after all the textbook of magic never said anything about casting without incantations, it¡¯s a rare skill to even be able to do it in the first place.


    Second thing I discovered from my ¡®training¡¯ sessions was that there¡¯s a cap or a limit you might say on the size of a spell, you can¡¯t just infinitely enlarge a fireball to the point where I basically turns into the sun. Not that I tried to do that with ¡®Fireball¡¯ I was scared of burning the mansion down, I did try it with ¡®Waterball¡¯ though, it stopped growing when it reached the size of a basketball, so I¡¯d say there probably a limit on the size of a fireball as well. This can only be done within a certain time frame after casting the spell, any extra mana applied after would just not affect the spell at all, so the timing of enlarging the spell has to be accurate.


    Changing the size of the spell would not affect any other aspect of the spell, it seems the change of size won¡¯t affect things like the acceleration and the weight of the spell. There wasn¡¯t really a trick to how to make the spell bigger, but the timing was important, if the timing was off it may just waste your mana.


    Third, I now understand the importance of an activation, since I started using incantation less magic, fatigue piles up really quickly due of the need to multitask, it isn¡¯t really a problem now just because I don¡¯t have to fight anything, but I¡¯m sure that if I was in an life or death situation using an incantation would be much safer to do.


    Fourth and the last thing I found during the two whole months of grinding. Spells can be easily manipulated, for example, spell stacking, that''s one of the skills I learned during this time. It¡¯s not really hard to understand, by spellstacking you can create effects which are unable to be produced with one singular spell, like mist or steam.


    There¡¯s lots of things on my mind right now. I have been looking through the textbook hoping to find something related to spell stacking three times, but up till now I have had no luck. I¡¯m sure triple stacking can be used but I just can¡¯t get a grasp on how to do it.


    Lots of things can be done now, but still, fundamentals are important. I should just focus on the basics for now, I need to build up my magical potential before I start going off into the world of theories and experiments.


    I have really only three goals in mind now, perfecting silent casting, maxing out my mana pool and learning up to calamity level spells. The last one would take some time, so I would start off with it, but first, I need to break through my first barrier stopping me.


    Elementary magic.


    Up till now, I haven¡¯t even tried using elementary level magic yet. It shouldn¡¯t be hard, right? It¡¯s only elementary level, my mana reserves now should be more than enough to cast a hundred elementary spells.


    I flipped the textbook over, to page 67, ¡®Elementary level: Hydro Break¡­¡¯


    ¡°Shatter the walls holding thy in, may the divine water cleanse this dim place, Water¡ª Hydro Break.¡± I chant.


    I feel a strong wave of energy, mana, coarse through my body, from my heart to my legs to my arms. The mana flowing now was way stronger than any spell I casted before, it was like a pressured forceful push instead of the normal gentle push. I feel a strong force expelled from my hand, mana gathers in front of my palm, creating an orb of water, the water throbbed around as it got larger and larger.


    After a few seconds, the size of the orb stopped increasing, it was around the size of my body now.


    //


    ¡°My, my, Gryne really likes that book, huh?¡± Mother said with a small smile on her face, she glanced at me through the slit of the half closed door, I realised that she was looking at me from the aura she was exerting.


    I carried the textbook around everywhere around the house, surprisingly both my parents and the maids around the house didn¡¯t seem to be bothered at all, maybe the younger maids did at the start but they probably got used to the view. I kept the textbook tucked under my armpits at all times, but I made sure not to read it in front of anyone, at least not read it out loud in front of anyone. Not that I wanted to keep all this a secret but I was kind of scared that this is a bad omen or something¡ª I don¡¯t want to be executed. Back in the Old¡¯n times in the other world, people burn the ones they consider witches, it¡¯s really a dumb thing but who knows if that also exists in this world. I gotta protect myself for now.


    Considering there is a textbook on magic, like a straight up guide to how to use magic, it probably isn¡¯t a bad omen. But still I have to be safe with it, who knows what would happen if people found out a little 2 year old kid can use magic.


    With that I decided that I wouldn¡¯t use magic in front of anyone around, not my family, not the maids of the mansion. Whenever I practice magic I would lock the door before, hopefully it doesn¡¯t seem like I''m doing something dirty. As it was casting magic inside might be dangerous so I alway aimed my spells out the window, so there¡¯s a chance that I would get caught red handed anyways. It wasn¡¯t really a choice I could make, if I cast it inside I might end up burning the mansion down¡ª I don¡¯t want that.


    //


    I faced the window, the large orb of water hovering in front of my palm, I should shoot it forward so I don¡¯t get the floor wet. I pushed another gush of mana out of my palm. The spell sped forward at an alarming speed, I haven¡¯t seen a spell go this fast before, maybe because this is an elementary level spell.


    Shit. The windows might be too small to let the orb go through.


    The orb of water launched forward with impressive force. The orb explodes, it shatters the windows and blows a large hole into the wall.


    My secret training has officially come to an end¡ª


    I stood there dumbstruck by what I just did, I spaced out¡ª


    I stared blankly at the hole in the wall, dripping with water¡­ A hole that big¡ª It doesn¡¯t take a genius to see that it¡¯s blown out by magic.


    My secret has officially been blown¡­


    Right now, father isn¡¯t home.


    I hear footsteps scurry up the stairs¡ª Click. Click. Click. Click. The footsteps quickly approached¡­


    I still wasn¡¯t sure what to do.


    The door opens with a slight creak¡ª Bang. The door was slammed hard against the wall, an elven woman huffing and puffing looked around, scanning the room for me.


    ¡°Gryne! Are you alright?¡± The lady rushed towards me, still huffing and puffing her warm breath bellows onto my face, she was clearly pretty worried. Last time she had this expression was when I fell head first onto the floor, that was almost a whole year ago come to think of it.


    ¡°Was there a monster somewhere?¡± Mother¡¯s expression quickly went from worrisome to alarmed, then her face relaxed, she muttered under her breath, ¡°Not in these parts of Feris¡­¡±


    Her attention quickly came back to me after the brief thought of a monster attack. She looked around the room again, her eyes bolting from the hole in the wall dripping with water to the wet floor where a singular textbook laid amidst the rubble. Her eyes were fixed onto the textbook and the page it was opened to.


    Then Mother looked back and forth between me the opened textbook and the hole in the wall, she squatted down in front of me, her breath was now calmed no longer huffing. She looked me dead in the eyes. I couldn¡¯t tell from her aura if she was happy, sad, or mad at what I did, it was all over the place, her aura jumped around, throbbing.


    There was silence for a few seconds, I didn¡¯t know how to react, I mean I did something wrong, I should probably apologise, that would be the best way to stay out of trouble.


    Mother¡¯s mouth curled up into a warm smile, it wasn¡¯t like the normal calm little smile she does, it couldn¡¯t be counted as a grin either, her teeth weren''t showing that much.


    It was really scary, I didn¡¯t know what the facial expression meant, I wanted to look away, I tried my hardest to keep my gaze locked with Mother¡¯s. Right now I need to break the silence quickly, and apologise sincerely. This was the simplest way to stay out of bigger troubles.


    I opened my mouth to try and apologise, I follow Mother¡¯s eyes to show extra sincerity, ¡°I¡¯m¡ª¡±


    My voice was cut off quickly by a soft shove, I fell down on my back. ¡°Honey. Did you read the words of the book out loud and follow the postures shown?¡± Mother¡¯s large boobs pressed against my chest as she leaned in, her eyes glowing with subtle excitement, even now she was clearly holding a lot in.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Yes¡­¡± I hesitantly answered, one thing I knew for sure right now, lying won¡¯t do me any favor when I¡¯m in this position. ¡°I¡¯m So¡ª¡±


    I was cut off again, mother¡¯s eyes shined, it wasn¡¯t just glowing, it was like a ray of sunlight. Mother sat up, her hands clasped together, ¡°I knew it! My boy is a genius! I¡¯ll go find you a magic tutor as soon as possible.¡± She curled her hands into small fists and she hopped around like a mad woman.


    Well, mother sure was having the time of her life, does that mean my apology is accepted? I thought as a hand grabbed onto my shoulder, I turned around.


    Looking at me, mother said ¡°Wait, I didn¡¯t even teach you how to read yet¡ª Did you, Lily?¡±


    I look at the door, there stands Lily, ¡°No I haven¡¯t, Mistress.¡± She answered confidently without a single stutter in her sentence.


    If I was put in a pressured situation like that I would certainly have been stuttering and hitting ¡®um¡¯s here and there.


    ¡°My son¡¯s a genius! Lily. We are going into the city to tell Julian about this. We have to hire the best tutor in town right away! Oh my, he¡¯s going to be the best mage out there in the future, I know it!¡±


    ¡°Yes Mistress.¡± Lily calmly stated.


    Mother was clearly thrilled about this development. All the sudden I feel her eyes glance back at me, ¡°Hmm, how about you join Claire in the back to learn swordplay. Maybe you would have talent in that also.¡±


    Hmm, swordplay huh? It was something I had little to no experience with. Even before when I studied martial arts, I focused more towards hand to hand combat instead of weapons play. It would be an interesting turn of events if I focused on swordplay from now onwards. If I had the choice I would choose magic 100 percent of the time, but who knows this might be fun.


    The sword


    Claire was now 5 years old, she had beautiful looks just like Mother, from her hair to her eyes to her body, it was like a direct copy and paste. Another thing she inherited was mother¡¯s brain¡ª she was an airhead to say the least.


    I walked out the door¡ª A strong gust of wind bellows against my face as the clanking of wooden swords blast into my eardrums. I was shook, I haven¡¯t ever seen power like this. It wasn¡¯t like a sword fight in my past world, it was different¡ª way different.


    The banging of swords, the shifting of the wrist, the movement, the footwork¡­ It¡¯s beautiful. My eyes could barely catch up with the speed of the fight, the movements were smooth yet powerful.


    Clank¡ª


    The clashing sound was deafening, louder than any before.


    I see something coming down from above¡ª


    I slowly opened a slit of my eyes, a wooden sword was stabbed in the dirt inches away from me. If I had been a little closer, the injury could¡¯ve been pretty bad, maybe I could¡¯ve died there.


    Someone approached me, it was an unfamiliar face, she wasn¡¯t one of the maids of the mansion, I am sure of it. If she really was, I would''ve remembered her face.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry sir,¡± a gruff voice spoke out loud, the voice was gruff but it didn''t sound like a man¡¯s voice, the voice continued, ¡°I don¡¯t think we have met before young sir, my name is Iris, I¡¯m young Claire¡¯s sword instructor.¡±


    I looked up at Iris. Her skin was fairly dark, no actually it¡¯s really dark, I thought. As my gaze traced up her body, analysing it, I noticed that her muscles were defined and there were little scars here and there. I continued tracing up her tall body¡ª Damn! Her tits are huge also.


    As I looked towards her face, I realised my thoughts might have leaked out of my mouth. Iris had long silver hair tied up in a high ponytail above her head, a long braid tucked behind her 45 degree elf ears and sharp red eyes which were fixated on me. Her left brow was tilted up, she had a questioning expression on her face.


    Wait¡ª elf ears? Could she be? A dark elf? This was the first time I saw someone who wasn¡¯t a human or an elf, I mean she counts as an elf also but still. This means there''s other races outside of elves and humans, maybe there are beastmen, I really wanna meet one of them.


    ¡°Hey Iris, do you think Gryne right here can join in on your classes with Claire?¡± A voice spoke from behind me, interrupting my thoughts, the voice was Mother¡¯s.


    I was sure there wasn¡¯t anyone behind me, just now, I couldn¡¯t sense any form of aura¡­ Did mother conceal her aura? Just the thought of that was chilling. According to what I have read from the textbook, concealing aura is one of the hardest tasks even for the strongest of mages.


    ¡°Yes, Mistress, if you request it.¡± Iris replied.


    ¡°Iris¡­ You shouldn¡¯t be so formal. It makes it seem like we aren¡¯t close friends.¡± Mother said with puffed up cheeks.


    I feel a tap on my shoulder.


    ¡°We start tomorrow morning.¡± Iris said before walking away towards the back gate of the mansion.


    ¡°That woman.¡± Mother muttered under her breath, her face still pouty.


    New waifu unlocked I guess.


    The sword II


    I was shaken awake early in the morning the next day, the sun wasn''t even up yet. Aghhh¡ª Just let me sleep for a bit more.


    I headed down to the backyard, still not fully awake yet. I see a singular figure waiting there, it was like seeing the final boss in an open world rpg, Iris¡¯ tall figure makes her look even more like it.


    Clank. Clank. I felt something roll towards me and hit my boots. I looked down, it was a wooden sword.


    ¡°Pick it up and show me what you can do.¡± A stern voice echoed in the empty yard.


    I bent down clasping my tiny hands around the wooden sword, it was surprisingly light, I thought to myself as I lifted the sword in front of me.


    I look up again¡ª


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    Iris was gone.


    A strong gust of wind blasted onto my right cheek. I roll my eyes towards the wind, checking on what¡¯s happening¡ª Iris¡ª


    Her wooden blade approached at a dangerous speed, instinctively I shifted my body placing my sword in front to block the incoming attack.


    Clank. Our swords clashed, blasting wind all around, blowing my hair back. The force from Iris¡¯ sword launched me skidding back along the grass and dirt.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna get a fat blister after this.¡± I muttered under my breath as I took a few seconds to take a deep breath in.


    I was about 20 meters away from Iris now. I should be safe for a li¡ª


    She¡¯s gone again.


    I scanned around the yard trying to locate her. Swoosh¡ª I felt a gust of wind blow onto my back, I turned around to try block the incoming strike.


    Shit¡ª A feint. A strong strike pushed against the left side of my stomach.


    I went tumbling, flying away towards the mansion¡¯s back door.


    I tried to stand up, but the strike got me winded, I breathed heavily as I stood back up. Huff huff huff. Again there was a light tap on my shoulder, the thing that tapped me was something hard and warm, I¡¯m sure it isn¡¯t a hand. I looked towards my shoulder, I saw the tip of a piece of wood. I turn my head.


    Iris was standing there, her blade on my shoulder. She stood there, her expression shifted from aggressive to calm, a warm smile spread across her face as she let down her blade, stabbing the wooden sword into the blades of grass and soil below.


    ¡°You did better than I expected.¡± Iris said with a soft tone, she approached me, bending down she held up her finger, poking at the left side of my stomach where her strike landed.


    Owowow. I fell down to my knees from the pain.


    By now, it was dawn.


    I feel hands on my bottom, heaving me up into the air.


    ¡°Let''s get you to Ava so she can treat you.¡± Iris softly said as she carried me back inside the mansion.


    Once we went in, Mother quickly used her magic to treat my injuries. Thank god we were only sparring with wooden swords I thought, if that was an actual sword I would¡¯ve been dead a thousand times over.


    After mother finished using her healing magic, the pain dispersed. I looked around the living room, there wasn¡¯t a sign of Iris¡­ I probably don¡¯t have the potential to be a swordsman, I got beaten in only two strikes. Not gonna lie I felt kind of disappointed, I was hoping that I had the potential to do so like I have in magic, I guess it can¡¯t go my way every time.


    //


    Next morning I was shaken awake once again, I groaned as I opened a slit in my eyes. A figure loomed over me, her hair tickling my face as it brushed by. I was sure it wasn''t Mother, she would never wake up this early in the morning.


    ¡°Gryneee¡ª Wake up, Master Iris told me that we would be playing together today.¡± The figure above said.


    Master Iris? Mother would never call her that, whenever mother talks about Iris she becomes like a drunk.


    I opened my eyes wide¡ª the sunlight shone off the figure¡¯s golden blonde hair, in the shadow the figure seemed small, her purplish blue eyes blinked at me innocently as she continued to shake me.


    That¡¯s right¡­ Mother isn¡¯t the only one that looks like mother in this house¡ª


    My older sister¡ª Claire.


    As my blurred vision cleared up, I could clearly see the figure¡¯s small frame. There was now no doubt that it¡¯s Claire.


    ¡°Stop being lazy Gryneeee. Wake up alreadyyyy. Master Iris would get mad.¡± Claire¡¯s said, dragging along a tone of slight annoyance.


    Wait a damn minute, Iris is telling me to wake up? Does that mean¡­ I get to become a swordsman. I fling myself out of bed and instantly started preparing myself. Claire was shocked, I guess she wouldn¡¯t expect me to have this type of reaction.


    //


    Me and Claire walked down the stairs to the living area, down there two figures already stood, one of them was Iris and the other was mother, she was wearing a cloak and was holding a suitcase. Seems like they are talking about something, as we got closer to where they stand I was able to hear part of their conversation.


    ¡°I have to go into the city today, so I won¡¯t be back until sunset. Take care of Gryne for me, don¡¯t let him get injured like last time.¡± Mother said.


    ¡°Yes. Mistress, you won¡¯t have to worry, I won¡¯t be pushing him too hard today.¡± Iris once again replied with a stern tone.


    ¡°Sigh¡­ Iris, I told you, you don¡¯t have to talk to me like I¡¯m your superior, stop being so formal.¡±


    Mother then came over to me, bending down. She patted my head softly, ¡°Mama would be away for a bit, I need to go into the city to post a notice for your home tutoring. Make sure you listen to Iris and Lily.¡±


    After a few rubs she stands back up and heads towards the direction of the front door.


    Bam¡ª The door was slammed shut.


    ¡°So then, shall we start?¡± Iris said as she headed the opposite direction towards the backyard.


    ¡°Yes!¡± Claire said promptly.


    I was hesitant so didn¡¯t answer, but I followed along anyways.


    We went outside, standing in the middle of the backyard, I held a wooden sword in my hands, next to me Claire and Iris were doing practice swings.


    ¡°Gryne, go like this¡ª Hngh¡± Claire slashed her sword downwards creating a strong blast of wind.


    I followed her movements, I held my sword high in the air before I swung it down with all the force I could muster. Clank¡ª The sword hit the floor weakly, there wasn¡¯t any sort of power in the swing, it was pathetic.


    ¡°Aghhhh. You are doing it wrong, do it like this¡ª Fuah.¡± Claire does another downward slash, this one even more powerful than the last one.


    I tried to follow along again¡ª Clank. The swing was still weak but at least it was better than last time.


    We kept on going for the reminder of the morning until lunch. During the session Iris would sometimes come over to correct my form and give me advice, it was what they call in the other world¡ª Practical learning. This was as practical as it could get.


    ¡°Well done, Gryne. You are getting the hang of this really quickly, at this pace you would be able to catch up to your sister in no time.¡± Iris said, her expression doesn¡¯t really show it, but I could sense that she is proud.


    Maybe I do have some talent... I beamed with excitement as I ate lunch, anticipating the extra session in the afternoon Iris is giving me to teach me the physics and history behind swordplay.


    //


    Well¡­ That wasn¡¯t what I expected, but I did get to learn a fair few new things about swordplay.


    First, knowing how to wield a weapon is pretty useful in this world, after all there are quite a few monsters running around. To my understanding most heroic figures wielded swords, both in light novels and in this world, one of the figures Iris used as an example is Arthur Rein, the blessed, the one chosen by the world, the king¡¯s guard. I don¡¯t know much about this Arthur guy, but he seems pretty cool, someone I would imagine myself as in my dreams. So back to the topic, swords and weapons, swords are one of the majorly used weapons, along with axes, spears, and bows, no one really used daggers except for assassins.


    Given the background on swords, this art looks to be way more developed compared to where I once came from. It¡¯s said that even an intermediate level swordsman can stab his or her sword deep into a boulder.


    That leads to the second thing from Iris¡¯ lesson, classes, there are seven classes for swordplay and any other weapon. It¡¯s simple enough to understand, it was just like magic, although the names of the classes differ slightly. There''s beginner, elementary, intermediate, advanced, imperial, master, and divine, really only one class is different, switched from calamity to master. Iris is an advanced class swordswoman, it¡¯s pretty neat to have someone like her teaching me swordplay.


    Iris was an advanced classed Thief and Sword Saint style swordsman. A sword style, something taught in what they called schools of combat, a school of combat is basically how the person is taught to fight, a simple example is the Knight school and the Knight style, they focus on defence and counters instead of rushing in. All schools and styles have their ups and downs, some give up defence fully and rush the enemy whilst others do the complete opposite.


    There are six main styles when we talk about swordplay: The Glacial style, created long time ago by people of the north, focuses on offense and hit the vital points of the enemies; The Knights style, the most commonly used style in the human continents, it focuses on shielding and parrying attacks before countering, this was a defensive style; The Demon style, created by the original Demon king during the Great War, it¡¯s mostly seen as the most random style, there are crazy techniques like throwing your sword and stuff like that; The Thief style, one of Iris¡¯ specialty, mostly used by adventurers it¡¯s simple and focuses on speedy attacks, although the power is lacking it makes up with speed, it¡¯s a lot like fencing now that I think about it; The Rampage style, the most aggressive style out of the six, focuses on breaking the enemy¡¯s defences with raw force instead of getting past it, was originally a Greatsword style but was later re-modelled; Lastly, the Sword Saint style, the most balanced, developed and refined style out of every one, it¡¯s also the hardest style to master in terms of difficulty to advance from class to class, Claire was learning the style and I was also going to, after I finish my beginner¡¯s course of course.

 Chapter 5: Sister

    Every morning I would wake up early, when the sun wasn''t even up to train with Iris who gave me the early morning lessons since I needed extra class time to catch up with Claire. My training consisted of a lot of physical training, focusing fully on it almost 5-6 times every week. These included pushups, situps, running, and all that sort of thing. It''s tiring, given the fact that my last real exercise was like what, 20 years ago now.


    It¡¯s a grueling exercise, I didn¡¯t imagine it to be easy on my body as I was still a little 2 years old, all skin and bones, but man¡­ I ain¡¯t think exercise would ever be this hard. Iris said that the basics to learn swordplay is to have enough strength and stamina to move around. She told me to build up muscles so I could lift up a weapon and swing it around. She wasn¡¯t wrong at all, not being able to even swing around an actual sword defeats the purpose of learning swordplay in the first place.


    A young child like me doesn¡¯t really have the stamina to maintain effective training all morning so the classes are mostly separated into two sections, the first half on swinging the sword, and bodybuilding, and the second mostly on theory and dynamics. Since everyday was going like this, I had a lot of time remaining even if I stayed and observed Claire¡¯s classes. I decided to spend that time working on my spellcraft, there weren''t any video games or a pc, so I couldn¡¯t really do anything else but work on my magic.


    Now that Mother already knows about my ¡®secret¡¯ training, I don¡¯t really have any reason to hide it anymore. To prevent further damage from magical explosions, I decided that I won¡¯t practice magic indoors anymore.


    //


    Because of Iris¡¯ lessons I¡¯m not able to put as much time into improving my mana pool now, I mean, my growth everyday is still pretty noticeable but it¡¯s just not as fulfilling when I¡¯m not able to push my magic use to it¡¯s limit.


    One thing I tried to do was to increase all the spell sizes when training to the max, that allows me to use almost double the amount of mana every time I cast a spell without consuming extra time. Curiously, during an experiment, I found that actually making my spells smaller also consumes extra mana. I don¡¯t really understand what''s happening there but like I guess it''s a method when I want to practice indoors?


    I also tried spell stacking which gave me an efficient way to practice spells just making steam or mist, this doubles the amount of mana used on top of the maximum output with both spells put my amount of mana used to be almost four times the original amount, even with all this I couldn¡¯t even reach close to my limit. My mana pool has grown quite a bit huh?


    I still didn¡¯t truly understand the mechanics in magic, they seem pretty complicated, I have gotten pretty good on the methods of how to use it through practice, but still¡­ I¡¯ll just ask the tutor Mother got me whenever he or she comes.


    For a while now I wanted to move onto more detailed applications of magic, I can¡¯t really do much but throw clumsy fireballs and water balls at enemies, like what was really the use of this in life, I wasn¡¯t going to be a war general that has ambitions to take over the world. I wanted to be able to use magic practically in life, in other words the term known as Utility magic, it involves a lot of manipulating elements and warping things, it was a pretty interesting subject. I was able to learn the first part pretty quickly, it just pretty much involves reshaping the structures. I remember a little stuff from high school chemistry so I got the gist of it fairly easily.


    Warping objects is a pretty good thing to learn, it was going to be pretty handy during daily life, I could make cups out of clay or stone, make figurines¡­ figurines¡­ naked women¡­ loli?


    Shit my bad got carried away in my thoughts. I figured that reshaping hard objects would cost a pretty hefty amount of mana, for instance if I tried to reshape a piece of metal, it would cost me over six times more mana compared to something like clay. Even attempting to precisely create a figurine with metal would almost instantly drain all my brain power and magic reserves, the concentration it takes is really crazy.


    //


    Everyday my schedule continued like this, day after day, I was sure it wasn''t healthy sleeping this late at night and waking up before dawn. About a year has passed, I am anon three years of age, I has''t did improve quite a did bite, if I doth sayeth so myself. Anon I can p''rfectly maketh a metal figure without draining all mine own mana backups, huge improvement from ere ay? Let me drop the accent real quick, I¡¯ll repeat: I am now three years of age, I have improved quite a bit, if I do say so myself. Now I can perfectly create a metal figure without draining all my magic reserves, huge improvement from before, ay? I have gotten a sense that I have reached a sufficient amount of mana reserves, especially comparing to the bum I was in my past life, this was an achievement, put that checkmark down, reached sufficient mana reserves?.


    I was quick to give myself a warning, for the bum that I used to be slacking off during these times weren¡¯t specifically uncommon. Once one slacks off the body goes soft¡ª that sounded weird didn¡¯t it, my bad I didn¡¯t mean that¡­ For all I knew right now, magic could be the same, afterall I gained my incredible mana pool from training, I couldn¡¯t let all this go to waste, I have to make sure it stays this way.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    //


    Father came back, it was quite the rare occurrence, normally it would be us visiting Father, instead of him visiting us. On the first day I saw Claire and father sparring in the yard, father seemed even stronger than Iris, Iris was already an extremely capable swordswoman, but father was just on a different level. I could see that father used multiple different styles during his sparring session with Claire. His movement was silky, even in his slender body he could still slither around the hard dirt floor, the way he darted around was really special, it wasn¡¯t like what I have learned.


    Father was a stern man, his voice is alway monotone and serious, at least it is when he¡¯s with me or Claire. When he¡¯s with mother, his tone really switches up. Heh, guess even father is flirty sometimes.


    Since father came back, the house became pretty noisy, especially at night.


    One night, I was just practicing magic, trying to triple stack and burn through my mana reserves. Some lewd sounds came from somewhere, really it wasn¡¯t somewhere, I knew where it came from.


    To give a little context, there were six bedrooms on the second floor, the maids all slept downstairs in the maid rooms. The six bedrooms were in a line, there were 2 guest rooms and Von¡¯s empty bedroom, my room was fifth and Claire¡¯s was sixth, and the fourth room was the master bedroom, belonging to Mother and Father, as we can see, I always get the first hand experience.


    The creaking of the bedframe and the breathless moaning never stopped all night. If I pressed my ear against the wall, I could hear the loud slapping impact of the skin¡ª My, my, that¡¯s really rough¡­ Damn father, you''re making me jealous. I am definitely getting a younger brother or sister sooner rather than later.


    I really didn¡¯t have a preference, both would be good, in my past life I never really had siblings, maybe if I did have siblings I would have had a better time, maybe I wouldn¡¯t have fallen in that hole. Ahhhh¡ª who gives a fuck anymore, I¡¯m living the life now. Maybe I want a little sister¡­ Huh? I guess I do have a preference


    //


    Clank¡ª the sound of wooden blades clashing echoed in the empty dirt yard, the cool morning breeze blowing in our hair as the sword slices through the air.


    I took a step back, huffing and puffing¡ª Claire¡¯s strength really isn¡¯t something I wanted to directly connect with, if I really tried to overwhelm her with raw strength, my arm would probably have been ripped off.


    Within the blink of an eye, my vision wasn¡¯t able to see Claire anymore. In this world even the weakest swordsman can easily overwhelm any and all from the other world, no matter if you were a master swordsman or if you were an olympics gold medalist, you would at best be classified as an elementary class swordsman. It makes a lot of sense, since this world has dangerous monsters roaming everywhere.


    Clank¡ª


    Our blades clashed again, Claire was intermediate level by now, her growth has been impressive since father came back. A decently proficient swordsman in this world can easily move at speeds way past your average car, 50 miles per hour would be my guess at how fast Claire is moving right now.


    Clank¡ª Claire hit my blade with an upwards slash, the vibration from the hit coursed through my body, as my arms went numb from the impact¡­ My hands began loosening my grip on the wooden sword¡ª The wooden blade was flung through the air.


    The sword landed about 8 meters behind my back, my legs gave out, collapsing to the floor, breathing heavily.


    ¡°Big sis¡ª, you know I¡¯m still only elementary class¡ª You don¡¯t have to go so hard on me¡ª¡± I whined as I sat my butt on the dirt floor.


    ¡°Stop whining Gryne, if you want to improve you would have to practice.¡± Claire replied, her voice stiff, as if she was trying to give an impression of Father.


    Actually that was pretty good advice, I had already decided previously that I won¡¯t let my magic go rusty, why not do it with swordsmanship also?


    I got up and walked towards where my wooden practice sword was, the sword was all battered up, the wooden edges chipped away from Claire¡¯s fierce and ruthless attacks. I pull the sword out of the dirt leaving a hole there, I turn around to face Claire my sword in an upright position as I winded up my blade placing the handle on my right hip, the tip of the blade pointing forward at Claire, I shift my feet to the offensive stance, my left foot sliding back. I was using the sword saint style that Iris taught me, my back slightly arched forward, I concentrated on my breathing¡ª in, out, in, out, a surge of mana coarse through my body as my feet pushed against the dirt floor of the yard.


    A small smile washed across Claire¡¯s face as she took a defensive position holding up her wooden sword in front, slightly tilted at a 45 degree angle, the flat side of her blade facing me.


    As I blitz forward, my blade slashing down from above my head, our blades clashed¡ª Clank. Clank. Clank.


    In swordplay, the offensive position is alway advantageous, they can dictate the whole fight if they were skilled enough, although there are counters to this like parrying the attack or whatever they do in the knight style. To put it more clearly, it¡¯s like chess to some degree, if you were to move your pieces in a certain way, putting pressure on the opponent, you can clearly predict their next move, there are some variables that can¡¯t be controlled though, for example¡­ The queen¡ª


    Claire took two steps back, backing up as I continued to slash attack after attack. I thought I had the advantage, slashing my sword from the right side of my shoulder down to my left hip¡­ This is it I¡¯m going to win.


    My sword came down, I felt the wind blow onto my face, Clank¡ª I saw Claire¡¯s face¡­ She was smiling confidently¡­ ¡°Gotcha.¡± I heard her mutter under her breath.


    My sword flung back from the clash¡­ Claire just parried my attack¡ª As I tried to reposition myself, I felt a hard object softly push against my left gut.


    Claire was only still 6 years old¡­ Although she¡¯s kind of dumb, an airhead¡­ I had to respect her. I had lost to her once again. Taking in the fact that I am almost a 40 year old man, with experiences from my past life still engraved deep into my memory¡­ And was an incredible fighter at my peak. Everyone should respect Claire for completely outplaying me even in such a disadvantageous situation.


    //


    In the next few days our lives just continued as it was, there wasn''t anything to really take in except for the fact that I got destroyed in every sparring session with Claire, but we don¡¯t talk about that¡­


    Oh yeah¡­ Father went back to work in the city again, the house has been real quiet since. I almost forgot about that¡­ Sorry father.

 Chapter 6: Mentor

    It''s been a whole year and a half since Mother told me she was going to get me a tutor. In that whole time, I got one single update, as I heard my tutor was going to be arriving in about a year. I was surprised how long it was going to take at first, but then I remembered that this world doesn¡¯t have planes or cars, I guess it would take that long if anyone were to travel from across the kingdom or even across a whole continent.


    To my understanding, tutors were almost always retired adventurers or actual school teachers, but the latter is less common. I have read in a book that there are schools in this world also, you would be put in one when you reach the age of 10, but it is optional, I know that Von goes to a school in the capital. School was a word I despised in my old life. Whenever I hear the word, I think of my friends turning their backs on me when I was at my lowest point in my life. I still wanted to go to school, it¡¯s part of the experience of growing up afterall. It¡¯s too early to think about this anyways, if I really can¡¯t decide in the future, I can just let Mother and Father decide for me, just like any other normal kid.


    I was pretty sure my tutor was going to be some old lady with a large mage cap and a robe or some grumpy old man with a wooden staff, some Gandolf lookin ahhh¡ª


    He or she should be in the area by now, it¡¯s been almost a year.


    To what I have gathered my tutor was going to be living as a guest in the mansion, since there really wasn¡¯t anything near the mansion, the nearest town or village was about a 3 hour walk from here, and plus to what I know there aren¡¯t any inns in those villages either. It was the perfect example of the word ¡®countryside¡¯. You might be thinking, what about Iris? Iris was able to come around while not living in the mansion because she owned her own property not far from here.


    As I understood the situation, only mages above Advanced class were allowed the tutoring permit or whatever it¡¯s called. So, whosoever we got I would at least be able to improve a tier, or maybe even more determined by what level the tutor I got was at.


    //


    In the morning there was a knock at the door, and before long Mother called me downstairs.


    ¡°I¡¯m Rena. It¡¯s a real pleasure to meet you.¡±


    I hear a new voice speak from the sofa area of the living room.


    As I slowly walked down the stairs down to the living room, I saw a brief outline of the newly unlocked figure. She was patted with a dark blue wizard¡¯s robe, and a large wizard¡¯s hat, her figure wasn¡¯t big, in fact she was pretty small comparing her to all the other women I see in this world. Just when I was expecting an old Gandolf looking man, the one that showed up was a small girl, not even a woman yet, she looks to be about high school age.


    As I sat down on the sofa next to Mother, I got a good look at her, she wore a skirt under her long blue robes, her skirt was down to her knees, not at all the sexy ones I was used to seeing back in Japan. Her skin was pale, it was a beautiful skin tone, her eyes seemed to be sleepy, looking into something further away. She had rather long hair, it was a dim shade of purple, it was a bit over shoulder length, styled with bangs and a long braid, the braid reached all the way down to her hips.


    Next to her sat a large suitcase with a strap for wearing it on the back, the suitcase was almost too big for her. On the other side was another suitcase, this one was smaller, with a handle for easy carrying, it seemed to hold some sort of weapon. It¡¯s the kind of suitcase you see in those Breaking Bad sorta movies where the suitcase held a gun or a vial of illegal substance.


    ¡°...¡±


    Mother said nothing, there was a sort of awkward silence. Clank¡ª Clank¡ª the sound of swords clashing came from the backyard. Yeah that''s right¡­ Claire¡¯s swordplay session should be around this time.


    I guess Mother was as shocked as I am seeing a little girl pull up to our front door claiming to be my magic tutor. When she was putting up the notice, she¡¯d probably think that someone in the higher age group would rock up to our house.


    She looked to be school aged, around 17 to 18, her body was actually pretty developed in a sense, she wasn¡¯t by all means a loli, even though that would be nice. Her figure reminds me of a character I liked in my past life, one of the ones that I used to be able to get off in a few pumps.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you a little youn¡ª Oh.¡± Mother stopped her sentence midway.


    The girl¡¯s ears wiggled a bit, I looked over. Oh they¡¯re pointy¡ª It took me a while to process this in my brain¡­ Does this mean¡­ She¡¯s also an elf?


    Rena looked at me a little, analysing my whole body, freezing slightly when she looked into my eyes¡­ I swear I just saw a little fear in her aura¡­


    Rena let out a small sigh, ¡°Are you the one I¡¯m teaching, or is it the one out there?¡± she asked looking out the porch as the sounds of wooden blades clashing continue to fill the hall.


    ¡°Oh. No, you would be teaching my little Gryne over here.¡± Mother said as she gently rubbed my head.


    She freezes up again, then after she takes a deep breath in. She sighed again. I am pretty sure she¡¯s disappointed, I mean who wouldn¡¯t be when you came all the way, taking almost a whole year to get here, just to realise you are teaching a 3 year old little boy. This is what I think she muttered in her mind as she let out that sigh, Ahem, ¡°Ugh, when their child shows a little sign of being able to learn magic, all the parents go crazy and go hire a tutor.¡± She was definitely cursing me in her mind.


    I really do agree. But damn can¡¯t you keep those thoughts to yourself?


    With another sigh, Rena looked to me, ¡°Shall we head out and start your first lesson then?¡±


    And so, that was the first time I met Rena¡­ My master. Now my schedule is even more packed, in the morning I have sword classes with Iris and in the afternoon I have magic classes with Rena.


    Sigh¡ª


    //


    ¡°Okay, Gryne. So¡­ This is the begi¡ª No¡­ Actually, let''s check how much mana you can use first.¡± Rena said.


    She had taken me to the grassy plains outside the mansion for our first lesson, this was the first time I had ever gone outside. To what I gathered from Mother, Iris and Lily, is that any form of combat is typically practiced outside. And hell, I have had first hand experience of what would happen if I was to let magic loose inside the house.


    Nobody would want to pay for the damages every few days, just for practicing some magic.


    Rena held up a small clear stone, it¡¯s like a crystal of sorts. ¡°So, you hold onto this mana crystal right here,¡± she handed me the crystal, ¡°pour all the mana you can use into the crystal.¡±


    I followed Rena¡¯s instructions, holding the crystal tightly as I began gushing my mana into the small clear crystal. After a bit of time the crystal began glowing, ¡°Gryne, is this all you can put in? Put it all in, the crystal shouldn¡¯t overflow unless you have a crazy amount of mana¡±


    I mean no, it¡¯s not but if I was to¡ª Nah, I¡¯ll just follow her instructions, she said it wouldn¡¯t overflow.


    I focused my mana, pushing it out of my palm and flowing it into the crystal. The crystal when I first touched it was like an orb of ice, it was cold, since then it had become warmer and warmer, it felt a bit like a light bulb when you leave it on for a long time, lukewarm.


    The clear stone shined brighter and brighter as I poured in more and more mana, the stone was now almost blinding to look at directly, it¡¯s almost like a mini sun.


    ¡°Throw it away¡ª¡± I heard Rena shout, her voice was desperate.


    I hear slight cracks come from my closed hand¡­ Huh?


    I chuck the crystal into the sky.


    A large explosion blew up from above, darkening the whole sky as shards of the broken crystal began raining down. I look to Rena, her expression stuck in a state of shock, her eyes widened staring at the darkened sky. ¡°What incredible mana¡­¡± She mumbled under her breath.


    Got you there didn''t I?


    Smack. Smack.


    Huh? I looked to Rena again, her hands clasped on her cheeks which were a little red from the impact. ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s see how much magic you can use, Gryne, follow me.¡±


    That was cute¡­


    Rena held up her hand, ¡°Allow me to demonstrate. May the blessing of the great seas grant thy¡¯s wishes, moisturise the land with thee¡¯s power, Water¡ª Waterball.¡± As Rena chanted her incantation, a small orb of water formed in front of her opened palm, the orb was about the size of a basketball. Then, the orb hurled forward at a pretty high speed, flying a pretty far distance before splashing on some grass.


    ¡°Well?¡± Rena asked ¡°Do you think you can do that?¡±


    Yeah I can, it was one of the main spells I normally used to stack so I was pretty confident in using it. I shouldn¡¯t act too cocky, ¡°Yes, miss, I think I can do that.¡± I humbly responded to her question.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see it then.¡± She said her expression showing slight surprise.


    Was I too confident?


    Crap. What was the incantation again, it¡¯s almost been a year since I last used Waterball with the incantation, ¡°Uhhhh, May the blessing of the¡ª Uhhh, great seas grant thy¡¯s¡ª Water¡ª Waterball.¡± I failed to remember the full incantation, so I skipped the middle part. I created a small orb, the same size as Rena¡¯s and launched it at a similar speed, a little slower. Hey, if I did better than her she might get sad and all that, I didn¡¯t want that, I wanted to maintain a good relationship with her, Rena seemed like a nice girl.


    The basketball sized orb of water flew forward, reaching a distance close to where Rena¡¯s orb splashed. Rena fixed her gaze on my mouth.


    ¡°You cut your incantation short?¡± She asked, questioning if what she saw was truly what she thought she saw.


    Shit I almost forgot the textbook never mentioned anything about silent casting. I had just done it like it was the norm, maybe it¡¯s some sort of curse or taboo or something¡­ Am I going to be in trouble? Maybe she¡¯s mad because I did something not even she can do? Hopefully she can let me off on some sloppy chanting.


    ¡°Do you¡­ Always do that?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure what to say, I might get in trouble if I said yes or no, I shuttered a little, finally deciding to reveal my secret and be honest with her, ¡°I never really use incantations¡­¡± She was going to find out sooner or later, I am meant to be studying under her, she¡¯d figure it out someday even if I lied today.


    Rena looks over at my hand.


    ¡°...¡±


    Rena¡¯s eyes were wide in disbelief, there was an awkward silence before Rena took a deep breath in, regaining her composure, Rena muttered under her breath, ¡°Maybe this kid is actually worth teaching¡­¡±


    This time it¡¯s even worse, you said it out loud. If any other kid would have heard this their confidence would waver.


    ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s move on to the next spell,¡± Rena said with a small squeak, she flipped through the textbook landing on a page which had the title, Elementary level spell: Hydro Break.


    Man, that sure brings back memories, I smiled awkwardly before continuing to listen to Rena¡¯s teachings.


    //


    It¡¯s been a while ever since Rena came, I have been growing pretty quickly, both in magic and swordplay. Now I normally spend my mornings with Iris practicing sword and the afternoons with Rena practicing magic. Talk about a fulfilling life, I have never been so busy, and by never, I mean never, not even in my past life.


    Rena went through the curriculum pretty fast, almost too fast, it was actually a little hard to catch up, I mean she basically skipped the whole beginner level part so that''s an example. I am currently starting the part where I learn about the geography and history of the world. In my past life I probably would have dozed off after like 5 minutes, but now I actually wanted to learn.


    I really didn¡¯t have my time on my own since I started getting classroom style one on one lessons from Rena in the evening. She was a good teacher, I originally thought I was just going to learn about magic and all that sort of stuff, but I guess my predictions were off, it was like school, there were multiple different subjects you can say, there¡¯s history and geography as I said before, but there¡¯s also magic theory and maths.


    Sometimes she would just skip the topics she deems useless and move on to the next topic, she would always quiz me on the topic before teaching me, it probably gave her a better understanding of the level I was at.


    It isn¡¯t much but I did feel that my knowledge of this world is broadening. Back then Gramps had once gotten me a tutor when I was still in primary school. Damn that was a boring experience, every time the dude came I made a ruckus until he quit, back then his teachings weren¡¯t much different to what they taught in school. Comparing it to Rena¡¯s lessons, those classes he gave me were bland. Rena taught me with a sort of practical learning making it easily understandable. Let me give you an example, when we were learning about geography Rena told me to use earth magic to build little mountains and towns, placing them on a map, this interactive style learning helped me a lot to remember things. Of course, the fact that my teacher is a beauty doesn¡¯t hurt either.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    //


    ¡°Teacher? Why are there so little utility spells, why aren''t there spells which are used to clean dishes?¡± I asked, I was genuinely confused why there weren''t many spells which are unrelated to combat. Magic is really versatile to my understanding, it can do a lot of things if manipulated correctly.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see, I should start from the beginning,¡± Rena replied to my rather random question, ¡°Back when magic was first discovered by the elves, it was only really thought of as a weapon, nobody really thought to use it as a tool for daily life.¡±


    Yep, I guessed it¡­ Of course it¡¯s always the elves that find magic first.


    The picture of an elf in my mind are those hot blond girls in greenish garbs, with long pointy, and huge tits, someone like Mother or Claire, with tentacles wrapping them up. Whoa, calm down there.


    I could probably never look Claire or Mother in the eye now that I have created that picture in my mind¡­


    ¡°Teacher, what are elves?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s rather hard to define the different races in this world, but the brief overview is that there are four main races in this world, the humans, the elves, the beastmen, and the demons. The elves that you were asking about are a race that lives on the east-side of the map in the elven empire.¡±


    Rena continued on giving me the full story of the Great war and how the civil war within the elven empire created magic. She talked a lot about the chaos that happened after a cult of purest elves tried to take over the world. According to Rena, in the beginning of the Great war it was only the elves fighting amongst themselves but later, somehow there was an attack on the Demon continent and the Humans. This was the start of the brutal all out war between the three different races.


    ¡°There¡¯s an entire story and history behind all this?¡± I exclaimed, my eyes glowing with excitement wanting to learn more about the topic.


    ¡°Of course there is, did you think that magic just popped out of existence?¡± Rena rebuked. ¡°There¡¯s a history about everything in this world if you dig deep enough, some might try to hide it but by the end of the day history lives on forever.¡±


    ¡°The utility magic you were asking about is a reworked version of the original forms of war magic, these spells are innovations created by the humans. There are so few utility magic because magic in its original form was only used for battle. If anything, it would be even harder if you had to do everything with magic given the time needed to learn and master a spell, plus not everyone has access to mana and sometimes you would rather use tools and devices to replace it as it¡¯s faster. But maybe you can do everything with magic, granted that you can use silent casting without a runic ring, it¡¯s probably pretty easy for you¡±


    Huh? A runic ring? I have never heard of that before, I have no idea what it is, but damn it sounds cool, something straight out of a movie.


    ¡°Miss, what is a runic ring?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Oh, a runic ring is a magical device,¡± Rena answered.


    Huh? A magical device? I looked at Rena, confused at what she¡¯s saying. These terms were all new to me , given that the book I read was a guidebook for spells, it makes sense why there isn¡¯t anything talking about magical devices in the textbook.


    ¡°It might be better for your understanding if I showed you the real thing. Wait here for a second.¡± Rena said before getting up from her seat and heading outside the room.


    After a few minutes of waiting, Rena came back with something in her hand.


    Rena sat herself back on her chair, placing the object on the table, the object is a small black metal ring, ¡°So this is a runic ring, it¡¯s a magical device made for mages,¡± Rena explained, pointing at the ring she continues, ¡°there¡¯s a magic circle inscribed on the ring¡¯s outside, allowing for silent casting, and since magic circles can be used multiple times it makes runic rings more a popular tool amongst mages and non mages alike as magic circles can be activated with little to no mana.¡±


    So people can use silent casting, although they need a tool, no wonder Rena was looking at my hand the moment after I said I don¡¯t use incantations.


    Rena then continued her explanation on how the ring works, turns out the ring can only cast a single spell, although it can do it multiple times. I realized how much I didn¡¯t know, I thought I had learned almost everything once I had read the textbook, I mean I did understand the basics on basically everything. But I figured I still had a long way to go, it wouldn¡¯t hurt to ask a few more questions, who would ignore a curious child¡¯s question, let alone my own tutor.


    ¡°Can you tell me more about the world, Miss?¡± I asked.


    ¡°There are 7 continents in the world, North Ether, South Ether, Litith, Jothurgard, Central, Demon, and Zevol.¡±


    She thoroughly explained the placement of all the continents, on the westmost side of the map was North and South Ether, you can guess which sits atop which by the name, the Ether continent is also known as the beastmen continent, as the name implies, beastmen lived there, on the east coast of the Ether continents was the Western Sea.


    So there are beastmen, I want to meet one, hopefully in this world beastmen aren¡¯t the cursed beasts I saw in the Western TV shows, hopefully they are more like the hot anime girls with cat ears and say ¡®nyan¡¯ at the end of every sentence. Drool drips down my mouth as I think about the beastmen girls.


    Rena continued her explanation. Past that is where the Litith continent was, Lilith was the continent we are currently on, Lilith is a mostly human based continent with two kingdoms, one is the Midgard Kingdom on the bottom where we are located and the other is the Industrial Region of Heinard. We lived in the East most side of Midgard, in a region called Feris.


    Jothurgard sits next to Litith, although they are right next to each other, the climate in the two continents are like day and night, Jothurgard is icy, filled with tall mountains and huge snowy forests, as Rena explained it, it doesn¡¯t seem to be a livable place, despite that Rena said the elven exiles from the Great War lived there and even established a ¡®new¡¯ race called the ¡®ice elves¡¯, she mentioned that ice elves are especially violent and their nature caused their reputation to be destroyed. As she said it, ice elves were dangerous, a creature you never want to get near. I took her warnings close to heart, I¡¯m pretty sure mother mentioned the same thing about the ice elves during a bedtime story session, guess this information is pretty widespread.


    Under Jothurgard was the Zevol continent where the Elven Empire and the World tree is housed.


    ¡°In the center of the map is the central continent,¡± Rena explained, she continued, ¡°I used to live there, it¡¯s a religious continent, nearly the whole population follows the Luminis Church, the church had something against demons, they didn¡¯t like the fact that in some places demons are treated as equals to humans, they viewed themselves as superiors.¡±


    ¡°If I remember it correctly,¡± Rena goes on, ¡°the Luminis Church was formed right after the finishing of the first Human and Demon War about 4000 years ago, which was way before the conflict during the Great War which is about 600 years ago.¡±


    ¡°Miss, what are demons?¡± I asked looking up at Rena with curiosity, the typical image of a demon is your ugly winged creatures with two curved horns sticking out of their heads.


    Rena stared down at me in silence, I was pretty sure that she¡¯s thinking about something, ¡°Well¡­¡± she had a brief pause, ¡°the term demon is actually pretty hard to define.¡±


    Rena explained the concept of a demon is this world, pausing occasionally to think if her language use was correct. As she put it, demons weren¡¯t actually a race but a group of different races who lived in the desert-y demon continent, there were a variety of tribes in the demon continent but the Luminis Church just dubbed them all as a vast category of demons.


    ¡°Actually I¡¯m partially a demon myself.¡± Rena said.


    ¡°Huh?¡± I was confused as I looked Rena up and down, my eyes moving from her face down to her legs. I might have paused to look at two points in particular, but still, Rena looked nothing like the image of a demon in my head¡­ Due to her pointy ear tips, if she told me she was partly elven I would believe it more.


    I had a demon for a home tutor? Huh? I thought the races hated each other¡­


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Rena said, ¡°I¡¯m a half demon and half human, my mother was a demon and my father was a human. To put it in more detail, my mother was of the Isla tribe, from the Southern part of the Demon Continent. Didn¡¯t you notice your mother wasn¡¯t talking to me at first when she first met me?¡±


    ¡°I thought it was because you looked young.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Rena scoffed, she was surprised by my assumption. ¡°She wasn¡¯t talking as she was judgemental of my race after she saw the colour of my hair and my pointy ears.¡±


    Her hair? I could relate to the part about her pointy ears, but her hair? I never thought much of it.


    ¡°Demons have different coloured hair compared to humans,¡± she explained as if she read my mind, ¡°and purple is one of the many colours which are mostly associated with demons.¡±


    Just by looking at their hair, people can get judgemental, huh? Back in Japan, the Purplish highlights were common amongst punks or school girls. I could picture Rena easily in a schoolgirl outfit getting pounded¡ª


    Okay let''s just stop it there now.


    //


    I¡¯m starting to get the hang of these things, not only was my magic proceeding at a pretty good pace, swordplay wasn¡¯t behind by a lot either. I recently used my first intermediate spells, from all the different branches of course, it¡¯s way harder to actually use compared to elementary spells.


    Intermediate magic wasn¡¯t like any of the magic I learned beforehand, it involves a lot of vague concepts and a lot of theorising. What I mean is that¡­ I¡¯ll just use an example, there were a lot of factors that made the spell seem awkward to use, like when I¡¯m fighting a monster, what would making it rain do, maybe slip the monster?


    Making it rain was already one of the more useful spells, some spells are straight up useless in a sense.


    //


    I continued to improve at a steady pace, I could basically use all the intermediate spells without the use of incantations now. I finally realised how useful intermediate level spells can actually be now.


    A couple weeks ago, there was a really bad drought, the sun was blazing hot and there wasn''t any rain for days. All the plants in the garden started dying and drying up from the harsh weather conditions. Normally mother would just use her healing magic and bring them back to life, ¡®reviving¡¯ them after the drought ended, but she would a lot of the time also scold the maids for not taking care of the plants enough.


    But this time, the maids felt none of Mother¡¯s wrath, about halfway through the drought Rena asked one of the maids if they wanted some help with the plants, the maids of course agreed for Rena¡¯s helpful offer. With a flick of her wand, Rena made the sky turn gray, droplets of rain dropped down from the sky, moisturising the plants giving them another chance at life. The maids thanked Rena a lot after of course, after all Rena went out of her way to help them get out of trouble.


    I heard all this for Claire, her description was vague, here was what I guess happened, to be honest this was probably how it went knowing Rena.


    Maid A: ¡°Ugh, if these plants don¡¯t get some time to cool off they will die pretty soon, mistress is going to be so mad at me.¡± *sobs*


    Rena: ¡°Hey, don¡¯t you worry I¡¯ll fix it for you.¡±


    Maid A: ¡°Really?¡±


    Rena: ¡°Just leave it to me!¡±


    *Casts intermediate spell* (probably)


    According to Claire¡¯s description, ¡°Bang, and then¡ª and then, the sky turn gray¡ª Shaaaaa!¡±


    Maid A: ¡°Whoa! How did you do that? Now mistress is not going to be angry anymore. Yippee!¡± *jumps around and her skirt flies up.*


    Maid B: ¡°Thank you, Master Rena¡­¡± *sobs in happiness.*


    Rena: ¡°No problem.¡±


    *End scene*


    That was how I imagined the scene unfolding, I might have added a little detail there¡­


    Hahaha¡­


    //


    ¡°Miss, didn¡¯t you say you lived in the central continent?¡± I asked abruptly in the middle of class.


    ¡°Yes, I did, I was born in the central continent in a small fishing village along the east coast.¡± Rena replied adding a little detail to make her sentence longer.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you also say the people of the Luminis Church hated the demons?¡± I asked again.


    ¡°Yes, they do, they don¡¯t want to acknowledge the demons as an equal race, viewing them as inferiors.¡± Rena answered.


    ¡°Were you hated by the people of the continent, miss?¡± I asked.


    ¡°...¡±


    Rena sat there dead silent, it was clear that she didn¡¯t want to answer the question, but from her reaction, the answer was clear.


    ¡°Miss, can I call you master from now on instead of ¡®miss¡¯?¡± I quickly changed the topic of conversation.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t advise you to do that¡­ One day or another you would surpass me in skill¡­ Well, it would be weird calling someone who is clearly weaker than you ¡®Master¡¯, wouldn¡¯t¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s weird.¡± I butt in, cutting her sentence.


    ¡°If you still feel like calling me that in the future when you become stronger than me, I¡¯d be honored to have a student like you.¡± Rena smiles warmly, patting me on my head. She looked pretty satisfied with herself, there was a sense of pride in her expression.


    ¡°Oh crap. Are you really sure you want to do that? People might look down on you, they might say you are just the student of a filthy half demon¡­ Or something like your master is just some trashy devil of an adventurer and you are just some random rich man¡¯s kid.¡±


    Damn, that was a harsh statement to put on herself. I felt pretty bad for her, having to face all sorts of discrimination from something she can¡¯t change. Being discriminated against wasn¡¯t fun, it was like having a target on your back and people would just throw disgusting language at you whenever they wanted. But I guess the harsh reality is that whenever there are people there''s always going to be a hierarchy.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about their opinion,¡± I say, ¡°all I know is that Rena is my master, and nothing can ever change that fact.¡±


    Rena had a shocked expression on her face at first, which slowly transformed into a warm smile,¡°Thank you for that, Gryne¡­¡± She leans in for a hug, I guess girls are pretty easy to please when you just follow the lines from light novel mcs.


    As Rena embraces me, drawing into a tight hug, her body pressing against mine, her breasts pressing against my chest.


    I roll my eyes down¡­ Yes I saw them¡­ Rena¡¯s pink rosie nipples.


    Oh damn, I might be getting hard¡­ I¡¯ll be sure to remember this scene for future ¡®uses¡¯.


    //


    It¡¯s been a year since Rena came. I''m now 4 years old, life has been good, I have been learning well, I¡¯m getting a good grasp on not only magic theory but geography, mathematics and history also.


    ¡°Can magic do everything?¡± I asked Rena during one of our daily magic theory classes. It was a pretty broad question, like I knew the answer was no it can¡¯t but I feel like there''s a deeper explanation.


    ¡°No it can¡¯t, you shouldn¡¯t rely on it too much, just always be aware of your surroundings, but I¡¯m sure that if you hone your skills to a certain point, maybe you could figure out a way to do it in the future, you have great potential¡­¡± Rena¡¯s words are etched into my mind, but even still, I had images of loli hentai and naked sex scenes with schoolgirl Rena all floating across my head.


    ¡°Do you think you can teach me supporting magic?¡± I asked Rena as I tried to shake the eechi images out of my head.


    ¡°Yes, I can but I can only teach you up to intermediate level, I can¡¯t use any advanced level supporting magic myself. Are you sure you want to learn this? Supporting magic is quite hard, the concepts in order to use it are completely different to attacking magic and It''s not required in the curriculum¡­¡±


    `¡°Yes, Master Rena.¡± I wanted to learn supporting magic, it was mostly because in most video games, supporting characters are always S tier for some reason.


    I couldn¡¯t learn supporting magic before, in the textbook, there were only guides on how to use attacking magic and none on all the other categories. Now I can learn it¡­. I¡¯m in a fantasy world. Why not try everything then, you never know if it would be fun before you try it out first, right?


    So well, how about it? It''s been only a few days and I¡¯m already almost finished with elementary, even Rena seemed surprised with my speedy progress.


    Supporting magic was exactly what I imagined, buffs, shields, barriers, and all that sort of stuff. Rena was speaking the truth before when she said that supporting magic is vastly different to attacking magic, not that I ever doubted her.


    ¡°Hmph¡­¡± I grunt as I slash my wooden sword at Claire¡¯s, with my newfound ability to use supporting magic and buff my own strength, I feel like my combat prowess is getting closer to Claire¡¯s. Of course, this is kind of cheating, but still in a real fight, a person is going to use all of his or her abilities to secure victory, no matter if they were ¡®cheating¡¯ or not.


    ¡°Hyuh!¡± I swing my sword again¡ª


    //


    It has been about one and a half years since Rena came, time really goes by quickly when you actually have a life, doesn¡¯t it¡­ I have grown quite a bit, my muscles are now more firm and my body a little more built, not only that, my mana reserves are basically bottomless now. I know for a fact that there is still a limit, but with the current spells I¡¯m casting, there is no way I can use it all up within a single day.


    I have gotten a pretty healthy relationship with Master Rena, her teachings really gave me a new way to live. I would want this life to last forever¡­


    Rena has grown a bit also, I mean she¡¯s still a young girl, no, no, it¡¯s more right to call her a young woman now. Her body really developed in a way, if I had to guess she cup size should be about a D now. Just for a quick confirmation¡­


    Creak¡ª


    Father started coming back every week or two, everytime he came back it was like that, the house always became a bit livelier especially at night time¡­ Aren¡¯t you like fifty? Every night when father is home the hall would echo with sounds of slapping skin and lewd moans. Back in the past I thought those porn videos weren¡¯t realistic, oh now I finally know how wrong I am¡­ It might be an understatement when I say father was doing it like those porn videos.


    Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.


    Damn he¡¯s making me jealous¡­ Maybe just listening in would give me some of his superpowers, maybe I can learn some of his techniques.


    The wooden boards creaked as I tip-toed sneaking out of my bedroom. The clapping sounds continued to echo through the halls.


    Hmmm, maybe I should act like I¡¯m going to the bathroom, no, no, that''s on the other side. Who gives a damn, I¡¯ll just use Conceal to hide myself.


    Conceal is one of the intermediate supporting spells I learned from Rena, who would have thought this would be used against herself¡­ I chant with a whisper, ¡°May the heavens above allow me to hide my identity, protecting me against my enemy, concealing my allies in the shadows of the abyss¡­ Conceal.¡±


    Conseal is a pretty sneaky spell, heh, you get the joke? Alright, allow me to explain, Conseal is a spell which can hide the physical form, although the physical form still exists, Conseal hides it, so in short it¡¯s just a basic invisibility spell¡­ Imagine what I can do with this in the Japanese subways.


    I continue to sneak to the end of the corridor, without anyone noticing, it¡¯s in the middle of the night after all, none of the people in the mansion should be awake, right?


    Rena had the furthest left room in the hallway, it¡¯s at the end of the corridor¡­

 Chapter 7: Rena

    ¡°Adventuring really uses up a lot of money, huh?¡± A girl mutters under her breath as she walks through the bustling city checking her pouch, the roads were packed with all kinds of people, from all kinds of different tribes. This was one of the biggest cities in the Demon Continent, it¡¯s rare to find a city in the large continent, most of the space was too hot and dry for any sort of structure to be formed there.


    The girl walked up to a stand on the side of the street, the stand was made out of wood, it was old and shabby, if someone tapped the stand, it would probably fall over.


    ¡°Hey, mister, can I just get one piece of bread please.¡± The girl says to an old man sitting behind a counter.


    The girl¡¯s stomach growled¡­ Grrrr¡ª


    ¡°Young lady, are you sure you only want one piece of bread, you look awfully hungry.¡± The old man replies as he looks over at the young girl, with nothing but skin and bones.


    ¡°Yes¡­ Just one please.¡± The small girl replied softly, her voice no more than a whisper.


    ¡°Okay then, here you go missy.¡± The old man handed the girl a small brown paper bag, the sides of the bag were oily from the bread inside. The girl handed the old man a small coin, made of some type of strap metal.


    ¡°Make sure you don¡¯t go starvin¡¯ yo self, okay?¡± The old man says as the girl walks back along the busy streets with the small brown bag in her hands.


    //


    Sigh¡ª The girl laid down on a hard mattress, the room was dimly lit by nothing but a single flickering candle.


    ¡°Rena, you have to get a job or you can¡¯t keep up with your adventuring.¡± The girl says to herself, slapping her own cheeks, clasping her hands over her clear pale white skin, slightly reddened by the impact.


    Rena was 17 years old, she had been an adventurer for almost three years, at first it was all fun and games, she accepted guild requests and slayed hundreds of monsters, her achievements were incredible at first, within days she gained the license for a D rank adventurer and within months she went into the C rank category.


    Rena never played with anyone else, even as a child, she was an outcast¡­


    ¡°Get away you filthy demon! Go back to the Demon Continent where you people belong!¡± A mother once shouted, as Rena tried to make friends with the children in the town, she was rejected over and over again. Parents would bring their children away as they saw Rena approach.


    Waaaaaa¡ª


    Rena cried, hugging her mother, her face buried deep inside her mother¡¯s soft bosom. ¡°Why won¡¯t anyone be friends with me?¡± Sniffing loudly, Rena looked up at her mother, her face wet with tears and her eyes red.


    Her mother gently patted Rena¡¯s head, stroking her hair as Rena¡¯s face dug deep into her breasts, ¡°There, there, Reen. There is no need to cry, it¡¯s just that the parents are scared, that¡¯s all.¡±


    Sobbing, and sniffing, ¡°Why are they scared, ma, Rena ain''t¡¯ do nothin¡¯ wrong.¡±


    ¡°There, there sweetie¡­¡± Rena¡¯s mother pats her head, comforting her, ¡°you did nothing wrong, it¡¯s all mama fault.¡±


    ¡°Mama didn¡¯t do anything wrong either,¡± Rena looks up, she sees small droplets of tears well up in her mother¡¯s eyes, ¡°mommy, it¡¯s okay Rena will make a friend one day, and when that happens Rena wants mama by her side.¡±


    //


    ¡°I¡¯m heading out, ma¡­ Take care of yourself okay? Don¡¯t let the people hurt you, if they do, send me a letter¡­¡± Rena said as she stood in the opened doorway.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me, Reen, your mother has lived here for long enough to know where not to go.¡±


    Mother continued, ¡°Don¡¯t you go hurt yourself okay? Remember that me and your dad will always support you¡­ Come back whenever you want!¡±


    Rena walked out with a small smirk on her face, her hand raised up she waved back to her mother and the house.


    //


    Soon Rena reached the Demon Continent, it was a horrible experience just coming here, the waves clashed against the small boat she was on, throwing her around.


    Grahhhh¡ª Rena kneeled down on the dock, her body arched low, as she puked into the sea.


    ¡°It would be really bad if I had to do this multiple more times¡­ Good thing that was just a one time thing¡­¡± Rena muttered to herself between her barfing.


    Now then¡­ What do I do? Rena looks at the town, it wasn¡¯t the wealthy town with masterfully crafted statues of gods and sturdy wooden houses Rena was used to seeing, in fact, it was the complete opposite¡­


    The town was small, from her point of view, Rena was able to see the whole town, there wasn¡¯t much to see, small clay-made multi-story cabins, and pieces of cloth hanging around to block the blazing sun. It doesn¡¯t look at all developed, it was like a village from before the Great Revolution, there weren¡¯t oil street lights, nor were there any steam-powered vehicles.


    I guess I should head to the guild and register as an adventurer first, Rena thought as she walked through the small alleyways of the town, manoeuvring through the tight gaps between buildings.


    Rena headed to the guild, it had a completely different feel to the other buildings in town, the large building was made out of wood, the outsides were decorated with large banners and flags.


    Entering the guild was a new experience for Rena, after all, she¡¯s new to all of this. Rena was amazed as she entered the guild, it was just like how she imagined it, big, loud, and lively. The halls were decked with tables and chairs, with big gruff looking men with scars all across their bodies talking loudly as they drank mugs of beer. In the far back, behind all the tables, men, and waitresses was a counter, behind there was a young woman of Demon kin, she had dark blue hair and dark hazel eyes, her ears were pointy just like Renas, her face was patted up by pounds of makeup, but Rena knew that even stripping away the powder and the makeup, the face behind was still a beauty.


    Rena approached the counter, as the receptionist smiled warmly back at her, awkwardly Rena spoke in Demon tongue, Rena had learned the basics to Demon tongue from her mother, she could with no difficulty understand and have a conversation in the language, but it was still just her first time¡­


    ¡°Hello¡­ I¡¯m¡­ Rena¡­ I¡ª¡± Rena mumbled to the receptionist at the counter, her voice not much more a whisper, ¡°...I¡¯m here to register¡­ as¡­ an adventurer¡ª¡± she wasn¡¯t fluent in the language at all, Rena¡¯s accent was clanky and stiff, her voice was shaky as she spoke.


    ¡°Just fill out this form here.¡± The receptionist replies, her response was almost instant, as if she didn¡¯t need any time to think. The receptionist hands Rena a piece of paper with a hard wooden pad behind it.


    ¡°Ummm¡­¡±


    Rena looked at the piece of paper, although she knows how to speak the Demon tongue, she cannot read¡­ She tried to draw into her memory, trying to find a way to read the text. ¡°Ummmm¡ª¡± Rena grumbles as she fails to read the text.


    Rena sighs.


    ¡°Hey do you need help with that?¡± A voice spoke out from behind Rena in Leno tongue, the Leno tongue is the main human language used in the Central continent.


    Rena looks back, surprised, she didn¡¯t expect anyone to try and help her, let alone someone who speaks a human language. A boy stood there, he looked to be not much older than Rena herself. The boy was human, ashy brown hair and big sharp eyes.


    ¡°Hey, let me read that for you.¡± The boy approached Rena quickly, it was the first time someone had talked to Rena without hesitation. The boy looked at the form and translated the words to Leno tongue, ¡°Name here,¡± the boy instructed.


    Rena was able to fill out the form with the help of the boy. After handing the form back in Rena was given a crudely made bronze coin with the words stamped across, Rena Ristalia.


    ¡°Hey, do you want to join our party? We really need extra members.¡± The boy asked.


    ¡°Party?¡± Rena looked at the boy in confusion, the word was an unfamiliar term to Rena.


    ¡°Were you just going to do quests on your own!?¡± The boy jumped back, shocked at Rena¡¯s answer to his question.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, you can adventure with us.¡± The boy politely asked again.


    ¡°Okay¡­¡± Rena answers hesitantly.


    ¡°Good! Then, I¡¯ll introduce you to the others, my name is Ben by the way.¡± The boy said as he ushered Rena to follow him.


    As Rena trailed behind Ben, her hands were clenched together tightly, ¡°Hey Ben¡­¡± Rena said, ¡°What''s a party?¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Ben''s eyes widened in surprise as he heard Rena¡¯s question, ¡°you didn¡¯t know? Let me explain to you¡­¡±


    Ben explained to Rena the concepts of a party and the ins and outs of the adventurer guild, ¡°So that''s basically it, we go on quests, split our rewards and have a fun time here and there.¡±


    Rena met the party members who looked much older, most of them battle scarred and looked like a veteran. As Rena gets to know each and everyone of them through quests and battles, she slowly loses the feeling of being alone, the men and women in the party were all so friendly to Rena, giving her advice here and there every so often.


    The party was called the Howling Wolves and was a B rank party, joining in their quests, Rena was quick to rise up the ranks becoming a C rank adventurer in no time. Rena was a talented adventurer, she had quick decision making and great skill in magic. In the party Rena felt at home, she quickly grew to open up with the party within months, two of the party members had an especially good relationship with Rena, the swordsman Ben and the ranger Fern.


    Just like Rena, Fern was a half demon, she had long silver hair styled in a bun behind her head and two small horns sticking out of each side of her head. But unlike Rena, Fern grew up in the Demon Continent. The two quickly bonded and became best friends. Fern and Ben were a bit older than Rena, they were about 20 or so. Fern and Ben were both pretty new to the party thing, although they have been adventuring for quite a while, they haven¡¯t been to a party before.


    //


    A bit over a year has passed since Rena joined the party¡­


    Rena ran away, followed by Ben and Fern, darting through the somber looking trees of the shadowy forest, they sprinted as fast as their legs could take them, desperate to escape from the near calamity class monster. The remaining seven of the party, they told the trio of young adventurers to run away and escape, they fought for their lives trying to hold the monster off.


    Without a real choice, either it was death or to live, the three ran, horrid shrieks came from behind, shaking the woods. The three didn¡¯t feel good as they ran through the forest, abandoning their companion to die there in the cold forest, even still¡­ The choice was clear. A strong determined voice shouted from behind, ¡°The three young ones need to live, let''s hold this beast off even if it costs us our lives.¡± Cheers came from the forest, echoing through¡­


    Rena wasn¡¯t used to all this running, her legs gave out as she collapsed to the floor. Fern looks back seeing Rena clutching her unresponsive legs, Fern sprints back, with one heave Fern places the wasted Rena on her back and carries her through the forest.


    After a few more shrieks of pain, all was silent¡­ A gentle breeze blew as the dried leaves rustled and the tree crackled. A menacing aura came from behind, footsteps approached the three adventurers as they were frozen in tracks by the being¡¯s monstrous aura.


    Cold wind bellowed across the young trio''s faces, their eyes wide with horror as they looked back to see the large shadow of a humanlike creature. Shining drops of unidentified liquid dripped from the menacing creatures'' pale hands to the icy cold leaves of the forest floor, the liquid reflected a bright red colour, glistening in the cold moonlight.


    ¡°My name is Regern¡­ Regern the fierce, the monarch of the cold sky, the king of the dragons.¡± The voice shook the very fabric of reality as the words exited the being¡¯s mouth. Regern continued, ¡°I¡¯m here to destroy every being that could be the cause of the immense amount of mana gathering in this area¡­ Destroy¡­¡± Regern¡¯s heads buzzed around, as if there was a glitch in a game, ¡°The child.¡±


    Even if the adventurers tried, they couldn¡¯t, they couldn¡¯t stand up and run away. Through the immense amounts of pressure from the god of the cold sky, the three were frozen in place unable to even shiver in fear.


    The being approached the three, its hand held out, ¡°Draco¡ª Devour.¡± The being¡¯s arm mutated into the shape of a dragon¡¯s head, scales padded all over his muscular arms. The dragon¡¯s head had its teeth bared at Rena, its yellow eyes glaring down at Rena¡¯s slender shaking body.


    The dragon¡¯s head pounced forward, the being¡¯s arm was stretched as the dragon head flew towards Rena at a high speed. Rena collapsed to the floor, her legs flopped from the exhaustion of running, she closed her eyes, ¡°Mama¡­ Save me¡­¡± Rena mumbled as the dirt beneath her became wet, the dry leaves on the floor were pelted by a stream of warm liquid.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Chomp¡ª


    There was a loud crunching noise, then there was a blood curdling scream. A stream of blood flooded the floor in front of Rena, as a shadow of a figure loomed over her. Rena took a second to process the situation, still stunned in fear from the near death experience. As Rena regained her state of mind, she realised that Ben just saved her life. Looking up she sees Ben, his face scrunched up into a forceful smile.


    ¡°... Run away¡­¡± Ben said through gritted teeth.


    A bright light erupted from the ground below, as the clouds covered up the night sky, slivers of moonlight shone through the tight gaps between the gray clouds. The bright light expands, devouring Ben before, reaching Rena, blinding her with the bright flash.


    Rena was fully swallowed by the light¡­ The incident became known all throughout the Demon Continent¡­ Known to the people as the Monstrous Mana Disaster, the disaster destroyed many¡¯s home, and also displaced many¡­


    //


    Rena woke up in the middle of the desert, ¡°Was that all just a dream?¡± Rena mumbles as she sits herself back up. Looking around Rena saw no sign of anyone else, she didn¡¯t have her belongings either, she looked down to her skirt, inside her pocket was a small pouch filled with the earnings from the quests with the Howling wolves.


    ¡°Was that not a dream¡­¡± Rena memorises the scenes of the horrific encounter with what it called itself, the god of the cold sky¡ª Regern. Rena smelled a stench, a stench which can be smelled in toilets, a stench of dried bodily wastes.


    Rena began throwing up, her puke flowing down the sandy desert hill like a small ravine. Rena soon finished throwing up, her clothes were a mess. She stood up and began walking, Rena didn¡¯t know where she was, nor did she know where to go, but she knew if she wasn¡¯t to walk somewhere she would just die on the spot.


    In her messy dirty clothes, Rena walked through the desert for day, hunting for small furry animals as food surviving through her water magic. The ¡®adventure¡¯ took months for Rena, she went South hoping to land in a small town or village, for the first one or two months Rena wandered around the desert in the blazing hot sun.


    Finally after walking for what seemed to be at least three months, Rena found a small town, from afar she saw a small town, packed with buildings and protected by a large limestone wall.


    Rena walked towards the town, her body tired and wasted from all the exercise from walking for three months straight.


    As Rena entered the small town through the gate between the tall limestone walls, she realised how disgusting she was at this moment, her clothes were drenched in blood, sweat and other unidentified liquids.


    Once she was inside the town, the first thing she did was head to an inn and take a bath. Rena stripped off her clothes putting it into a small basket beside a tub filled with warm water, Rena stepped into the tub as she let out a relaxed sigh.


    Rena cleaned off her body with a small bar of soap, scrubbing it all over her body till the bar was all used up, Rena sat back into the tub, her face half submerged in the lukewarm water. As she lets out another sigh, her mind relaxes, her brain switches off survival mode. Memories flow into Rena¡¯s mind as she recaps the dreadful experience once again.


    ¡°Are they all dead¡­¡± Rena said under the bathwater, her voice muffled.


    Rena knew the answer. Except for Ben and Fern, the others are almost one hundred percent confirmed dead. The party which she once had such a close bond with, was wiped from the face of the world. Teardrops rolled down Rena¡¯s cheeks and into the bathwater.


    Rena sobbed and cried.


    The B rank party, the Howling wolves, is disbanded.


    //


    Rena calmed herself down before heading into the town to get some real food, which she didn¡¯t have in months. Even still Rena felt extremely bad, when the party needed her the most, she turned her head and ran for her life, leaving them behind¡­ Rena¡¯s eyes were still slightly red from all the crying as she sat down in a small restaurant.


    After Rena finished her food, she walked towards the guild in the town¡­ Inside the guild she looked around¡­ It was just like the one before¡­ Teardrops rolled down her cheeks once again.


    Rena headed towards the counter asking the receptionist in Demon tongue, ¡°Excuse me¡­ Where is this town located?¡± Rena''s voice was still shaky as she spoke to the receptionist.


    ¡°We are in the Baragrede Region, the North East of the Demon Continent.¡±


    ¡°Oh¡­¡± Rena answered, she was slightly disappointed, she hoped she was in one of the west side towns where she could just return back home.


    Sigh¡ª


    Rena, hopeless, thought to herself, so now¡­ What can I do¡­


    Rena decided to post a notice in the guild, writing, ¡°If any of the members of the Howling wolves are still alive, please note that Rena is alive and is currently travelling alone. Please put up a notice and respond if you see this.¡±


    Rena goes up to the receptionist again, ¡°Hey¡­ Do you know where the closest big city is?¡±


    ¡°That would be the Therit City on the West side, you should be able to get there in one or two weeks time if you get a sand dragon.¡± The receptionist answered.


    The guilds in small towns don¡¯t get as many quests nor do those quests pay as much, Rena figured that she had to go to the city in order to make a living. Rena had already used up a lot of her savings, and the remaining would be almost gone after she gets her supplies and rents the sand dragon.


    //


    ¡°Okay then¡­¡± Rena grunted as she sat up from her bed, ¡°Let¡¯s see if we can find any well paying quests at the guild.¡±


    It was still early in the morning, Rena walked across the barren streets, her remaining half piece of bread in her hands as she nibbled on it as she walked.


    Rena arrived at the guild, as she entered the large hall of the city guild, Rena instinctively walked towards the quest board without a single second of hesitation, by now she had already been an adventurer for almost 3 years. On the board, there were loads of quests, ranging from all ranks. Still Rena was only a C rank adventurer meaning her choices at quests were limited.


    Uhhh¡­ Rena looked around the quest board trying to find a high paying job¡­


    ¡°Feris tutoring, pay: 3 gold coins per month, requirements: mage tutoring license/ advanced classed mage.¡± A notice on the board said, it was quite a shocker for Rena spotting such an easy and high paying job, Rena was an advanced class mage. Her skill in magic was no doubt one of the best in the world, even within the advanced class there were lots of people who can¡¯t fight, due to restraints either physically or mentally, Rena had none of this, she had no hesitation when it comes to slaying enemies.


    Taking the piece of parchment from the notice board, Rena goes up to the receptionist counter, ¡°Please let me accept this quest,¡± Rena says in Demon tongue, Rena¡¯s Demon tongue is now fluent, the clicking of her tongue was like a second nature.


    ¡°Yes, let me help you put it in the registration.¡± The receptionist replied, writing something down on a piece of paper before putting it into a folder under her counter. The receptionist bent down and took something out, a map.


    The receptionist used a quill and marked a spot on the map, handing it to Rena as she explained the path to get to the mark, tracing a route on the map as a guide for Rena.


    //


    Rena revised her plan on getting to the Litith Continent, she calculated quickly that it would take around a month or two to get to the West most side of the Demon Continent if she went on sand dragon and another nine to ten months to travel by sea to the dock, combined it would take around a year but that¡¯s only for the quickest route. If she had walked she expected that it would at least take double that time.


    Another problem is the cost. Rena opened her pouch of coin, flipping it over and pouring the coins onto the small desk, Rena counted the pieces, 13 silvers, 21 bronzes, and 12 scraps.


    ¡°...¡±


    Sigh¡ª


    Rena pushes the 13 silvers and 20 bronzes aside, the remaining pile had 1 bronze and 12 pieces of scraps. ¡°That should be able to get me there¡­ And now I have to get equipment with,¡± Rena mutters as she looks over towards the tiny pile of scraps and the singular bronze coin.


    //


    After she finished shopping in the city, she placed all her equipment into a large suitcase, for Rena, she already cut down on a lot of the costs of living, she didn¡¯t need water or a tent because she can just produce them using magic. With her staff separated into small pieces, she placed it inside her small suitcase. After checking out of the inn, Rena mounted her sand dragon and embarked on a one year long journey to the Litith Continent.


    At last¡­ Rena has started her own adventure.


    //


    ¡°I¡¯m Rena. It¡¯s a real pleasure to meet you.¡± Rena said, looking at the beautiful elven woman.


    It took just about one year to get here, just as Rena expected. Lilith was a mostly human continent, the tutoring was somewhere in the Midgard kingdom.


    The elven woman glared at Rena, there wasn¡¯t any aggressiveness behind the glare, but there was a sort of judgement.


    ¡°...¡±


    Click. Click. Click.


    Rena hear small light footsteps scurry down the stairs, Rena looks over to the base of the stairs as a small child turn the corner, the child had a head of fluffy dark brown hair, he looked to be three or four years old, the child wore a loosely fit set of dark brown surcoat which had almost identical colour to his hair.


    The child walked up to the elven woman, sitting next to her. The woman finally spoke up, ¡°Aren¡¯t you a little youn¡ª Oh¡­¡±


    It was an awkward sentence, the woman was clearly just trying to break the silence.


    Rena Ristalia


    I looked down at the small child sitting next to the elven woman¡­ His eyes¡ª I feel a slight rush of fear run through me as I see them bright rainbow coloured eyes¡­


    The prophecy that the child of god who one day will descend on this world and bring a calamity along with it, was one known all across the world, even in the Demon Continent which was mostly separated from the other parts of the world there were rumors of such a prophecy.


    The features of the so-called child was a head of red hair, a pair of rainbow eyes, and was said to hold a jet black greatsword with the power to cleave the world in two. Amongst the three of the features two are pretty common, both red haired people and black greatswords are commonly seen. The last one was seen as the outlier, the one thing most associated with the child of god¡­ The thing only rumored to exist¡ª The rainbow coloured eyes¡­


    Now that I have seen it myself, I can confirm that rainbow eyes do exist¡­ Could this be? The prophesied calamity? The child of god? Just the thought of seeing the world¡¯s ¡®doom¡¯ sent shivers down my spine.


    I had to admit I was scared when I first saw him, when I looked at him, I couldn¡¯t sense any form of aura emitting. The only way to stop aura from emitting from the body was to force it inside by trapping it with mana, which would be nearly impossible if the person was not at least intermediate level.


    Sigh¡ª


    ¡°Are you the one I¡¯m teaching, or is it the one out there?¡± I said, trying to stay calm. Not going to lie I was hoping that I was going to teach the girl outside, being the tutor to the possible calamity was not my cup of tea. I was quickly denied any sort of hope, patting the brown haired child on the head, the elven woman said, ¡°You will be teaching my little Gryne over here.¡±


    I was pretty much expecting this, but even still, I froze up. I tried to look as excited as possible, but I didn''t think I had good acting. Even the child, Gryne, saw something was off, he was looking at me with a curious expression.


    He doesn¡¯t fully meet the description of the child, sigh¡ª I don¡¯t really have a choice, do I?


    //


    He¡¯s really a genius¡­ Maybe teaching him is worth the risk, it¡¯s really the first time I thought that of someone, I''d normally never do something if there was really a big risk involved¡­ Unless I miscalculated¡­ Like last time.


    I laid down on my bed.


    Sigh¡ª


    From everyone I know, nobody was able to break a mana crystal, not even the B ranked adventurers in the Howling wolves, they could do it, not even a little, let alone shatter it¡­ And on top of that, real silent casting¡­ Without even a runic ring¡­


    //


    Gryne is really quite a speedy learner, as expected by a genius. Seeing his progress I really just skipped over most of the beginner level stuff, I mean, he knew all that stuff when I gave him a quiz.


    I try to make the classes as interesting to a child as possible, even if we are talking about the boring stuff in magic theory or geography I try to always give a practical example so Gryne can understand better.


    He seems pretty interested in the classes, he was pretty involved to say the least, when he had anything in mind he would speak out, even if it was a question completely unrelated, sometimes I think to myself after he asks one of his questions, is he even listening? He seemed to have much more going on in that brain of his¡­ I guess you really can¡¯t understand a genius, can you? Even after all of that thought of him not paying attention, he would continue to prove me wrong every time, when I ask a question he would give me the most textbook answer possible.


    He asks rather peculiar questions, not some that you would expect a 4 year old child to ask. His questions always dives deeper into the specifics, if I answer with just a brief summary he would ask more and dive deeper into the waters.


    I sort of respect him for it¡­ He works really hard. Whenever I see him around the house, he is holding the textbook, and whenever I see him sitting down somewhere, he has the textbook flipped to a specific page and would be intensely staring at it.


    //


    I started to give him more classroom style lessons since he started to be able to use elementary level magic. His practical side of the curriculum is basically finished, so I started to work a little more on the theory side. Although completely unrelated to magic, a tutor is expected to also teach their student basic mathematics, geometry, geography, and history.


    I never went to school. All these things I learned were all just from what I thought of and had read¡­ I never even actually learned magic, it was all just from a textbook my mother had from her old tutor. I try to give Gryne the best methods that I know of possible, but it seems that he already has a pretty good grasp on the hard parts.


    Gryne was especially talented in mathematics and geometry, in those two topics I don¡¯t even have to do much explaining, I just told him the question and he would almost instantly figure it out. Even with his talent in mathematics and geometry, it seems he¡¯s more interested in history and geography. He would constantly pelt me with questions whenever he sees some things he doesn¡¯t understand. I am actually quite happy to answer his questions, one time he asked me to explain to him the map of the world.


    Maybe I bored him a bit on that question, I went on rambling a lot about each and every continent trying to find the best words to explain to him the placements and features. It might be better if I just made a map, using earth magic to create the mountains and enclosing the seas using water magic.


    Gryne then went on asking about the different races. I tried to tell him the differences between races as clearly as possible, but I don¡¯t think it would be that easy to understand for a four year old child. It was especially difficult when I tried explaining the term ¡®demon¡¯ to him, of course I am partly a demon myself, I tried to keep myself as calm as possible.


    //


    I felt my magic was improving along with Gryne¡¯s, of course he was improving at a much faster pace than I was. It was a pretty delightful surprise, knowing that I can still improve after so many years. To my understanding, a person¡¯s magic prowess basically halts once they become an ¡®adult¡¯, there are exceptions to the case but those were rare, it has been almost 4 years since I have become an ¡®adult¡¯...


    I have recently used my first Imperial level spells, I remembered all the contents from the textbook back at home, which guided me to my first Imperial level spells. the book went all the way up to Imperial level, I was sure that mother¡¯s tutoring was a pretty competent mage, in our world, not many mages are able to reach even Advanced level, thinking that mother¡¯s teacher was so powerful really doesn¡¯t seem realistic, back in her days, there would be at most 20 Imperial level mages roaming around the world, how in the world was she able to find herself such a powerful teacher?


    Gryne was not far behind either, he started playing around with intermediate level spells, he wasn¡¯t specifically interested in the class¡­ Intermediate spells differ from the previous levels by quite a lot, it was more of an environment controlling type class, most of the spells focused on manipulating the surroundings, like making it rain or heating up the area. Gryne had it pretty easy, he was able to cast the spells pretty quickly, after a few tries he was able to do it without any trouble. Even though he could cast the spells with ease, he didn¡¯t seem to put much heart into it. Maybe he likes the previous levels more, after all he¡¯s still a child, wouldn¡¯t learning something exciting be better than learning how to control the surrounding climate¡­ I know I would¡¯ve thought like that if I was his age.


    //


    Gryne was a pretty interesting child to say the least, he wasn¡¯t at all a trouble maker, he didn''t talk too much either, he kept a lot to himself¡­ It isn¡¯t that he wasn¡¯t telling me if I asked, but more of that he had a lot more going in that mind of his than what he¡¯s saying out loud.


    I did get a glimpse of his thoughts taking over one time though¡­ He was stuffing his head in the unwashed laundry¡­


    I didn¡¯t really think much of it, he didn¡¯t know better probably, he would learn soon enough¡­


    Today, Gryne asked me if he could call me ¡®master¡¯... Without a doubt I would have said yes if it wasn¡¯t for my race.


    Still I shouldn¡¯t get too close¡­


    I might ruin his life¡­ maybe his reputation¡­ maybe even leave a mark on his family name¡­


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t advise you to do that¡­¡± I say, as I try to think of a way to give another reason that was not discrimination, he wouldn¡¯t understand that at this age¡­


    ¡°One day or another you would surpass me in skill¡­ Well, it would be weird calling someone who is clearly weaker than you ¡®Master¡¯, wouldn¡¯t¡ª¡±


    Gryne cut me mid-sentence, ¡°No, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s weird.¡±


    ¡°If you still feel like calling me that in the future when you become stronger than me, I¡¯d be honored to have a student like you.¡± I said as a warm smile washed over my face, almost forgetting the original reason why I didn¡¯t want him to call me master.


    The brief flash of my reasons quickly snapped me back to my senses, ¡°Oh crap. Are you really sure you want to do that? People might look down on you, they might say you are just the student of a filthy half demon¡­ Or something like your master is just some trashy devil of an adventurer and you are just some random rich man¡¯s kid.¡± I try to reason with Gryne again.


    Not going to lie, I was growing quite attached to Gryne, I know I really shouldn¡¯t¡­ Last time I did have a nice happy friendship with someone, it got blown away¡­ I don¡¯t want that feeling of grief¡­ That horrible feeling where I knew I couldn¡¯t do anything but watch them die¡­ I don¡¯t ever want that again¡­


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about their opinion,¡± Gryne said with a rather arrogant tone, ¡°all I know is that Rena is my master, and nothing can ever change that fact.¡±


    I was shocked by his reaction to my argument¡­I really can¡¯t beat this child in an argument, huh?


    I really have to get close to him, huh? Guess fate does it job¡­ God please¡­ Don¡¯t take this away from me also¡­ Please¡­ Allow me¡­ Just this one time¡­


    I feel a warm gush of emotion wash over my body, ¡°Thank you for that¡­ Gryne.¡± I say, my voice no louder than a soft whisper, as I lean in the hug Gryne¡­ This isn¡¯t weird right?


    Nah¡­ Who cares¡­


    As I continue to hold Gryne¡¯s body close against my own, I feel a slightly warm aura build up around Gryne¡¯s body¡­ An aura of sexual arousal¡­


    Oh you little pervert. I thought, as I looked down at Gryne, whose eyes were so focused on my breasts that he didn¡¯t even notice me looking down at him.


    Even still I never had the intention to let go¡­ This isn¡¯t a bad feeling¡­ I¡¯ll hold on for a little longer.


    Thank you¡­


    //


    Since Mister came back I have felt a little less like myself, of course it wasn¡¯t anything to do with him, although we didn¡¯t talk much, he was treating me with respect. I just don¡¯t seem to be able to sleep at night, it wasn¡¯t due to the noise sounds, during my adventuring days I have slept in much louder places with much louder people.


    That isn¡¯t a completely accurate statement, it was due to the sounds¡­ It was making me kind of jealous. I was never into this sort of thing, even after becoming an adult I have never tried to do anything, not with someone else at least¡­


    I rolled around in my bed as the lewd noises echoed through the halls¡­


    Sigh¡ª


    ¡°Maybe this would make me feel a little better¡­¡± I mutter under my heavy breathing¡­ I began slowly taking off the outer layer of my clothes, revealing some of my skin underneath, it was a rather cold day¡­ But at this time, even when there was only one thin layer of fabric separating me from the cold breeze blowing in from the slit of the half shut windows¡­ I felt hot¡­ Blazing hot¡­ I continued to breath heavily, my hand instinctively moved down my covered bosom and down to the area in between my half spread legs¡ª


    Gryne Notros¨CFarion


    I continued to venture through the hallway, trying my best not to peek into father and mother¡¯s bedroom as I went past.


    My plan was to steal one of Rena¡¯s bras and sneak it back into my room, which would allow me to further analyse what cup she was¡­


    As I stealthy went to the end of the hallway, I heard soft long moans. I was sure it wasn¡¯t mother¡¯s, her moans were much quicker and louder when father viciously ¡®attacked¡¯ her. I twist the door knob of Rena¡¯s bedroom door, opening a tiny gap.


    I saw Rena¡¯s body throbbing around on the bed, her body slanted at a 45 degree angle as her hands moved suggestively between her long slender thighs, the movements of her hands were jerky, as her body twitched around¡­ I knew what she was doing¡­


    After staring blankly at the scene I stumbled upon for a few seconds, I slowly closed the bedroom door shut again.


    I shouldn¡¯t disturb someone when they have their own thing to worry about, that was one of the rules I live by.


    I pretty much went to sleep after, completely forgetting my plan to ¡®find out¡¯ Rena¡¯s cup size.


    But damn I just saw something good¡­


    //


    Father left two days after I stumbled upon the scene, now the mansion is all quiet again¡ª


    I¡¯ll still never forget that scene in my whole entire life, this is my childhood memory¡­

 Chapter 8: Memories

    A few months passed¡­


    It¡¯s my 5th anniversary of my reincarnation, also known as my 5th birthday, it¡¯s a tradition here that a rather bigger party would be held during your 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th birthdays, these were indicating the transitions from a newborn to a child to a teen then to an adult. Given that 15 year olds are considered adults in this world, maybe I won¡¯t actually have to wait that long.


    Like two years ago when Claire turned five, we held a whole party with her being the center of attention. At the party was a bunch of nobles and father¡¯s friends, even Von came back that day, taking time out of his studies. Even though that was the case for Claire, I still didn¡¯t get my hopes up, after all I was still just an adopted child, and wasn¡¯t truly announced as a member of the Farion family.


    I woke up like every other morning, ate my morning breakfast like every other morning, went out to practice swordplay with Iris like every other morning¡­ I did get a small happy birthday comment from Iris as we trained. The day continued on like that, I didn¡¯t have lessons with Rena due to her having something to do and couldn¡¯t take the time out of her schedule.


    During that period of freetime, I went outside to get some spells up, practicing some combinations and spell stacks. It was going all fine, I was having no trouble with casting, but one thing stood out to me, a strand of something, dark brown coloured, stuck out from one of the bushes, the strand wiggled around slightly¡­


    There were two people that had that colour, one was father and the other was Von¡­ I originally thought it was father playing around with me, but on second thought I figured that wouldn¡¯t be the case¡­ Father would never do something like that, he was strict with his actions, never goofing around, unless he was flirting with mom of course.


    I chanted the incantation for Conceal¡­


    I walked into the bush stealthily as I turned the corner I saw the one spying on me, the young man had a muscular body, all the lines on his arms were defined, on the young man¡¯s hip was a huge sword, this was the first time I had ever seen one this big. That came out wrong, my bad¡­


    The young man pushed through the bush, putting his head in peeking out to the empty yard¡­ ¡°Huh?¡± The young man mumbled, his face filled with confusion, he peeks again, ¡°Where did he go?¡± The young man turned around, I finally got a good look at his face, he was definitely Von, no doubt about it¡­


    Did he get bigger? I thought as I analysed his body, my gaze slowly moving up his body, up to his face, then up to his head where a strand of bed hair sticks out like a sore thumb.


    As Von scratches his head, confused at where I have gone, I burst into laughter as I see Von¡¯s utterly confused face, my eyes well up in tears as my uncontrollable laughter made me tumble into the bush behind me. Von turned around as he heard the rustling of the bush, Von¡¯s eyes darted around the surrounding area scanning for any anomalies, his hand slid down his waist down to the hilt of his sword, gripping it tightly he began to approach where I was. I continued to laugh loudly even though my voice was concealed for now, as my focus began to waver, the conceal spell started to wear off, revealing my voice and my body which was stuck in the squashed bush.


    Von lets out a soft sigh of relief as my body and voice was revealed, his hand falling off the hilt of his weapon as he sees the familiar face and figure. Chuckling softly, in his deep voice he asked, he seemed genuinely impressed and confused at the same time, ¡°How did you do that?¡±


    ¡°Oh that¡ª¡± I replied, breathing heavily as I recover from the uncontrollable laughter from before, still smiling and chuckling a little, I continued, ¡°It was a new spell I learned¡ª¡±


    Von helped me back up, with a smooth pull, he lifted me out of the bush and back on my feet. We began naturally walking back to the house.


    ¡°So what brings you back?¡± I asked, looking up at Von.


    ¡°Heh?¡± Von stops in his tracks, ¡°Did you forget what day it is?¡±


    ¡°What day?¡±


    ¡°Man, ain¡¯t no way you forget your own birthday, when I was your age, I would be asking for presents the moment I wake up!¡±


    ¡°Ohhh that¡­ You came back for that!?¡±


    ¡°Man, I¡¯m your big brother, of course I would come back for my little brother¡¯s fifth birthday¡­ Why would I ever miss that? It¡¯s your fifth birthday, you are officially not a baby anymore.¡±


    I was surprised by his response, I never had a real close relationship with Von, I mean we could always talk and get close whenever he came by to visit but the occurrence of him visiting in itself was rare. Unless there was a big thing happening he would never leave school to visit, I never thought myself as being a big thing¡­


    Deep inside my heart, I was thanking him, it was something he wasn¡¯t required to do¡­ I wouldn¡¯t be unhappy if he just skipped¡­ But this short conversation just made my day.


    Just before sunset, father came back also.


    //


    As the night went on more and more people started appearing, Iris came later, Rena came out of her room.


    It was finally time, mother placed the final dish on the long table, we all took our seats.


    We began digging into our food, Von took plate after plate, loud conversations were going on from all sides of the table.


    I observed the conversations going around, the chatter was all pretty jumbled up, as I looked to my right, I saw Von, he wasn¡¯t talking to anyone, it¡¯s rare for him to be this quiet¡­ His eyes were dead focused at one place, on one person¡­


    ¡°Hey,¡± Von whispered as he nudged me at the dinner table, ¡°Your teacher¡¯s kind of hot¡­ Mind introducing me to her?¡±


    I looked over to Von, my eyebrows raised, leaning in, I whispered in his ear, ¡°Hell no.¡±


    You might be my big brother, but I¡¯m sorry man¡­ Master Rena is mine.


    Von clicked his tongue before burying his face in the large piece of steak, he seemed genuinely disappointed that I didn¡¯t introduce him.


    We continued to eat our food, after a while, almost all the food was devoured, father clanked his fork against his metal cup.


    The noise of the metal hitting echoed through the room, stopping all the conversations. The room fell completely silent as father stood up from his seat, his golden cup of red wine in his hand.


    ¡°Ahem¡ª¡± Father grunts, ¡°Today is my second son¡¯s lucky fifth birthday, from the beginning I always knew he was something else, at the young age of one he was able to walk and talk, at the age of two I was notified by my wife that this little child had just destroyed the walls of the mansion with an elementary level spell, I didn¡¯t believe her until I came back and saw the gaping hole¡­ Now he¡¯s five I expect lots of good things from you my son¡­ Gryne. Cheers!¡± Father lifts his cup high in the air as he finishes his speech.


    After chugging down the remainder of the red wine in his cup, everyone claps. Father walked over to my seat on the other side of the table, hiding something behind his back, as he kneels down on one knee in front of me he opened his palm, showing me the small object hidden within, in the silence of the room, sounds of ticking filled my ears¡­ I looked down at father¡¯s hand, perched atop his palm was a beautifully crafted watch, a small crystal frame housing golden needles which tick with every second.


    Light clapping and slight applause come from the others as father stands back up and walks back to his seat. Next, mother walked next to my seat, she didn¡¯t kneel down¡­ Her face twisted into a wide smile, as she handed me a piece of clothing, just by feeling the texture of the fabric I knew it was expensive, it was silky smooth, the tight stitching almost perfectly blended the pieces of fabric together. I looked down at the masterfully made tailcoat, I looked back up at mother who was still smiling, her body shadowing me from the light, ¡°Thank you, mom.¡±


    Mother went back to her seat


    A maid walked over, handing Von a long large object. The object was wrapped loosely in pieces of brown paper, it was wrapped up horribly.


    Looking me dead in the eye, Von began speaking, ¡°Gryne, you have grown a lot haven¡¯t you, you would be a man soon, and in being a man we must wield a sword, a sword to protect the ones dear to us, a sword to protect our family¡ª¡±


    ¡°Oh man, Von! Would you shut up already, the kid is five let him have his happy childhood.¡± Mother¡¯s sober voice cut in.


    The whole table bursts out laughing.


    Von sighs¡ª handing me the long gift he got me.


    Placing it on my outreached hands, I feel the heavy object pull me to the ground. With my current body, I would struggle to even hold this object, whatever it is.


    ¡°Open it.¡± Von prompts me to unravel the badly wrapped present.


    I ripped the pieces of loosely bound paper apart revealing the object inside, inside was a long blade, sheathed in a jet black leather cover, the sword was beautifully crafted, clearly made by a master craftsman, a long match black handle blends into the colour of the sheath well.


    ¡°It¡¯s a pretty good gift, ain¡¯t it?¡± Von remarks his voice beaming with hints of pride.


    Iris speaks up, her voice gruff as usual, but there was a slight calmness this time, it wasn¡¯t the aggressive and stern voice she normally speaks in, it was more casual, ¡°I don¡¯t really know what you like, but I always see you burying your head in some book, I don¡¯t really read myself so I won¡¯t know if this is interesting, but just take this here¡­¡± Iris handed me a book,  it was average sized, to what I know, books in this world is actually pretty expensive, given that they are all fully handwritten, Iris continued ¡°I found this in town last time I was there, I knew that your fifth birthday was coming up, so I just bought it for you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Master Iris.¡± I say, grateful for the present she gave me.


    //


    I sat in my room, all my gifts stacked atop my wooden deck.


    Rena gave me a wand, it was a short wooden stick about nine inches, I shouldn¡¯t really call nine inches short should I? Given the fact that mine wasn¡¯t even 3 inches back then¡­ Sigh¡ª The wand was made by Rena herself, hand crafted, there was a small crystal ball stuck to the base of the stick, around the stick hovered 3 small rings. I don¡¯t really understand the uses for the rings, they weren¡¯t runic rings? Were they just there for aesthetics?


    I hear two knocks on my door, then a soft warm voice speaks out, it was Rena¡¯s.


    ¡°Gryne, it¡¯s me. Can I come in?¡±


    I walk towards my door, unlocking it and allowing her to head inside my bedroom. Rena paced around my room, looking around before situating herself comfortably on my bed, her butt digging deep into the soft mattress. Rena was in her sleeping attire, her sleeping gown, it was like a lingerie with thin fabric covering her body, fitted loosely.


    ¡°Gryne¡­¡± Rena said after sitting down atop my soft mattress, ¡°Have you ever thought¡­ About pursuing magic in the future?¡±


    Huh? That was a surprise question. I have never thought about that before. I wonder if I could do that, according to Rena, if I was on the market, parties and schools would be dying to get me with them. Maybe this could be a valid path for me, it''s a fun thing I enjoy doing after all, it would be way better to do this than stay in an office all day working nine to five.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°I have never thought about that.¡± I honestly respond to Rena, hoping to get some more insight into the topic.


    Her voice was kind of somber as she spoke, Rena responds, ¡°If you ever do decide to pursue magic, I would recommend you to find a mage or magic school, and study there, they should provide you with the resources to ascend your magic to a higher level. I have heard pretty good comments about one in the North Ether continent during my travels, if I do recall correctly, it¡¯s called Asta Magic University.¡±


    Why is she talking like we won¡¯t be seeing each other again, I mean I would continue to study with her in the near future right? Why is she giving me options for other schools?


    ¡°In no time¡­ You would surpass me in strength¡­ and then I would run out of things to teach you, it would be a shame if you waste your talent only learning from me¡­¡± Rena continued, ¡°I will hold your final lesson and exam in one month time¡­¡±


    Final lesson? Final exam? What is this? I thought¡ª My eyes begin to well up in tears, as I put down the wand in my hand down on my wooden desk, walking towards my bed, sitting myself next to Rena.


    I sobbed and sniffed up the snot running down my nose and drooling into my mouth, I tried my best not to cry¡­


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡­ You can let it out¡­ It¡¯s okay, Gryne.¡± Rena said warmly, her voice a little shaky as she pulled me in close, into her arms.


    I cried onto Rena¡¯s soft gown, my tears soaking the thin fabric wet, making it damp.


    I feel a cold droplet of water splash onto my head. Was it raining? No way right? We are indoors. I look up slightly curious at the situation, my eyes still red with tears welling up in the corner.


    The droplets never stopped falling onto my face, it was not any rain water, it was the holy tears of my goddess herself.


    Rena was crying.


    I could tell by the view, she was trying to hold it back.


    There was a tiny pause of sobbing as Rena noticed me looking at her. Her facial expression drifts into a calm smile as the tears in her eyes continue to show her real emotions.


    //


    Rena confirmed two days later that she was leaving in one month.


    The news was really sudden, even for Iris and Mother, their reaction when hearing the news showed how shocked they were. Not talking about mother¡¯s reaction, you could have guess how she was like, Rena and mother actually had a pretty cool relationship after the first time they met, I listened into some of their conversations where it was just mother bragging about her past adventure, they seem to have developed some sort of friendly bond with each other where mother just yaps and Rena just listens.


    Even Iris, who stays calm in most situations, had a reasonably big reaction for her standards, to say the very least she was pretty darn shocked. She wasn¡¯t begging Rena to stay like mother but it was clear that she didn¡¯t want Rena to leave.


    Rena had pretty much gotten a pretty good relationship with everyone around the house, in the beginning some of the maids were reluctant to speak to her because of the racial prejudice against demon kin, but after a while I saw them speaking with each other like they were old friends. I am pretty sure that Rena was a genius in terms of getting others to become friends with her.


    I guess you can¡¯t keep an adventurer lounging around.


    //


    Throughout the month, I planned to get as many memories with Rena as possible¡­ But I couldn¡¯t think of anything to do¡­ To be completely honest I don¡¯t even know Rena that well¡­ Her personal life, her story was all things I never dived my head into.


    I never left the comfort of the mansion and the wheat fields since I got reincarnated into this unfamiliar world, I mean I didn¡¯t really have a reason to ever leave.


    That was my intention after all, to not leave, I was scared¡­ There wasn¡¯t really anything to be afraid of but still I feared¡­ I feared that this dream I have now is going to fade once I was faced by reality.


    I don¡¯t want to wake up from this ¡®dream¡¯. Back in the old world, I felt fear¡­ Despair¡­ Depression¡­ And that one feeling of pain when I got my bones crushed by a truck.


    Whenever I look out into the towns from a distance, all those vivid memories rush back into my head, I experience it over and over again¡­ I was cold¡­ Alone.


    Back then, everyday as I lay on my bed, I would dream that one day I would be reincarnated and live my life the way it should be¡­ When I sit around, or pacing around the small apartment I rented, I would dream of a fantasy where there isn¡¯t death¡­ And I wasn¡¯t alone¡­


    This is a normal dream right? I wasn¡¯t anything special¡­ I thought I was before¡­ But I was proven wrong in the few hours before my death¡­ That might have been a good thing, it gave me a reality check, it allowed me to experience life for once and do some good for the world for once in my lifetime. It would be worse if I just died from a heart attack randomly in my apartment wouldn¡¯t it? I had died knowing I saved someone¡­ That was a noble cause¡­ Right?


    I thought this was a dream for quite some time¡­ From getting dumped in the cold alleyway to meeting Rena¡­ It felt like a dream, something I fabricated in my head¡­ Something I made up. Even though this all feels too real, every word that comes out of Rena¡¯s mouth, everytime I feel mother¡¯s touch¡­ It feels too real. If this was just some other dream, I¡¯d wake up back in that world feeling the despair and the depression I felt before¡­


    No¡­ This isn¡¯t a dream, it wasn¡¯t like any other fantasy I have created in my sleep before, it feels too real¡­ This is reality¡­ this isn¡¯t something I could create in my head. I told myself over and over again.


    Even still¡­ I can¡¯t bring myself to head into town, it just feels like if that ever happens I would wake up¡­ I knew I wouldn¡¯t because I ain¡¯t dreaming, but still I fear, it¡¯s like when you unlock a new part of the map and the server crashes on you, deleting all your progress, reverting you to that useless pathetic wimp you were before. When I see other children playing in the wheat field, I look away, I feel their eyes glare at me, the judgement, the hate¡­ I have felt this all too much before¡­ It was one of the main reasons I broke.


    ¡°I have to do this.¡± I mumbled under my breath, my voice muffled as I buried my face in the soft pillow on my bed.


    I decided to make some memories with Rena¡­ I decided to go into town. It¡¯s the least I can do.


    //


    I looked up at the lumbering horse, next to me Rena stands.


    ¡°You told me you wanted to go into town right? What did you call this event, a date?¡± Rena said as she placed the saddles and material we need for travel on the back of the tall horse.


    Somehow I got Rena to agree to heading into town for a date¡­ Hahaha, certainly some things are unexpected. That loosened the mood a little, I took a deep breath in, sighing as I go.


    ¡°Okay then upsies daisies.¡± I hear a voice speak out as I feel soft hands lift me up placing me atop the leather saddle of the horse.


    Rena climbed up after she placed me on top. Wrapping her arms around me, like a makeshift seat belt, she flicks the whip thingy on the horse, whatever it''s called.


    The horse began moving, the horseshoe clicked against the dirt ground.


    I was scared¡­ I shook as the horse moved step by step, closer and closer to the nearby town¡­ I shook in fear, fearing the eyes of judgement, the eyes of hate, the eyes of underclass¡­ Those eyes were the reason I quit school, the main reason I became a shut in shithead.


    ¡°Gryne¡­ Are you okay?¡± Rena asks from behind me, her arms wrapped tightly around my body, bringing me close. I could feel her body warmth against the back of my neck.


    I loosened up a little, my body slowly shivered less, and less. I knew I was going to get stares of judgement and stares of hate¡­ But this time I am not alone to face it, Rena was behind me, facing these eyes with me together.


    After about thirty minutes or so, we arrived in town, as I expected there were the eyes that judged and the eyes that hated, these were mostly directed at Rena but still they existed. I got a lot of other forms of eyes, they were of fear and slight judgement. I didn¡¯t feel the same pressure, the same energy I once faced myself, I didn¡¯t feel that I was going to break as if I was about to collapse, maybe it was because of Rena who walked beside me, holding my tiny hands in her own; maybe it was the different way they stared; maybe it was their different expression; maybe it was their unfamiliar faces; or maybe it was because of my identity, I¡¯m not the guy I once was, not the failure who lost everything. I¡¯m Gryne Notros¨C Farion, son of Ava Estaline, student of Rena Ristalia, that''s who I am now and who I will be going forward.


    Rena and I stayed in town for a while, we got something to eat, bought something, and chatted about. It was the typical stuff you do on a date, but it was something to remember.


    When we were eating at a cafe, I told the lie that I was going to the toilet. I snuck out from the backdoor of the small restaurant and headed to a small stall on the side of the road, the stall had jewelry stacked upon shelves, rings, necklaces, and piercings. I saw Rena eyeing on one of the necklaces here as we passed by.


    It should be this purple one here, or is it that bluish violet one there. I stood at the stall, staring at the two strings of necklaces, both had a gold chain and a similar coloured gemstone, so which one is it?


    ¡°Hey, little man, whatchu lookin¡¯ for.¡± A raspy voice asks.


    I look to see the old jeweler, his gray beard masking his mouth and the dim sunlight of dusk reflecting off his shiny bald head. ¡°Ummm,¡± I reply, ¡°I want to get a gift for my teacher, which one do you think is better.¡±


    I point at the two glistening necklaces.


    ¡°Is your teacher a she?¡± The old jeweler asks, there wasn¡¯t any judgement in his voice, unlike with all the other people in town.


    ¡°Yes.¡± I replied.


    ¡°Hahahaha,¡± the old man laughs croakily, ¡°So it¡¯s like that huh? Hahaha¡­ I would choose this one if I were you,¡± the jeweler points at the bluish violet gemstone necklace, he continues, ¡°this here represents the blessing of love, I¡¯m sure that your teacher is going to love it, hahaha.¡±


    ¡°Is that so¡­¡± I answer, still indecisive.


    ¡°Just take this one here,¡± the old man says as he hands me the necklace.


    After paying the kind jeweler, I headed back to the restaurant and reunited with Rena. After finishing my meal, we rode the horse back to the mansion.


    That was my first time in town, it was a decent experience after cutting out all the judgemental looks on the people¡¯s faces¡­ What¡¯s wrong with me anyways, why are they staring like I¡¯m some sort of monstrous beast.


    To be honest this time I couldn¡¯t care less, they could stare at me all they want, I had Rena next to me anyways, it¡¯s not like I¡¯m alone anymore.


    //


    Within the blink of an eye the rest of the month passed by, I stood there in the middle of the wheatfield where me and Rena had our first lesson together. Rena stood next to me, her right hand gripped tightly on her staff.


    The cool spring wind blew across the wheat field as the rustling sound of grass filled our ears¡­


    ¡°Finishing where we started off, huh?¡± I heard Rena mutter under her breath as the wind bellowed, her voice was no more than a mere soft whisper.


    ¡°...¡± I let the spring breeze graze across my cheeks¡­ It¡¯s really the last lesson with Rena, huh? I thought as I closed my eyes, determined to show Rena the progress I have made in the last two years.


    ¡°Okay then, let me demonstrate, this is the Imperial level spell¡ª Ashak. It¡¯s a half supporting spell and I can only do this once, so watch carefully.¡± Rena says as she walks about 5 metres away from me, her staff at the ready.


    Rena begins her chant, ¡°Shadows of the abyss, may I use thy strength, explode into a cloud of black mist that blinds me enemy¡­ Abyss, bless me with the darkness that lies within the void, may thee loyal servant show the world a glimpse of thy true strength¡ª Ashak.¡±


    I listened closely to Rena¡¯s incantation as I watched eagerly waiting for the spell to activate. Once the last ¡®k¡¯ sound of Rena¡¯s chant echoes across the barren wheat fields, a black cloud of mist erupts from the tip of her staff shrouding the surrounding area blinding my sight.


    For the next minute, I couldn¡¯t see a thing, there wasn¡¯t anything in sight, it was completely black, it wasn¡¯t dark like a shut room without candles, it was the void itself, not a single flicker of dim light passed through, still I could feel the grains of wheat bushing against my thigh and calves. The darkness slowly dispersed after the minute was up.


    Once the darkness fully went away, all that was left was grains of black sand covering the wheat and soil beneath it. I looked around for Rena, doing a three sixty, I spotted her sitting beneath a tree her back leaned upon the thunk for comfort and support. Taking deep breaths in and out, Rena spoke, gasping for air during the middle of her sentence, ¡°Now¡ª You try¡ª¡±


    It was for sure a powerful spell, not only did it drain Rena of her mana reserves, it also had an area of effect, in video games this spell was the definition of top tier, learning this in the final lesson is not a let down at all.


    I looked down at my hands which tightly gripped my wand, unlike normally I was incredibly stable, there weren¡¯t the usual shaking from the lack of confidence, or the overthinking when I learned a new spell.


    I was still, setting my foot on the ground, clenching my toes which scrunched up my socks inside my shoe, I raised my wand high in the air, doing a motion where I traced a circle in the air.


    How did the incantation go again? Ahh¡­ Yes, I spoke, ¡°Shadows of the abyss, may I use thy strength, explode into a cloud of black mist that blinds me enemy¡­ Abyss, bless me with the darkness that lies within the void, may thee loyal servant show the world a glimpse of thy true strength¡ª Ashak.¡± I finished the whole chant in one swift breath, there were no breaks in between nor was there any doubt¡­ A cloud of black smoke erupts from the tip of my wand blasting forth¡­ I understand the darkness within this spell, it was like an unseen hand crushed my heart, this was a spell that required a sacrifice¡ª Pain.


    A painful spike, as if needles were stabbed into me from all sides, I shivered in pain as I walked out of the black cloud¡­ The spell was strong, it sucked away your mana so much so quickly that it hurt your physical body. I understood that I still wasn¡¯t at the peak yet, that was the truth¡­ I couldn¡¯t deny the factual evidence of my weakness.


    In the end I burnt through nearly three quarters of my mana reserves, I held up the cloud for one and a half minutes before collapsing from exhaustion.


    //


    I woke up laying on a soft pillow under a tall tree, looking up I saw a beautiful view. Wait no, this isn¡¯t a pillow, it was too smooth, too smooth that it didn¡¯t feel like the fabric of a pillowcase.


    I was on Rena¡¯s thighs, she looked afar, not noticing that I woke up. I looked from down under, getting a good look at her neck. Rena looked down at me as I stared. Shit¡­ She must have noticed me staring.


    A warm breeze of spring wind blew across the wheat field as the grains of wheat rustled and rattled, blasting away the black dust left by the spells, the wind blew back Rena¡¯s hair, I looked up at her. A small smirk grew across Rena¡¯s face as she brushed aside her bangs tucking them behind her ear, ¡°Congratulations,¡± She said her tone tweaked with slight pride, ¡°You passed, you are now officially an imperial class mage.¡±


    This was my first real achievement, I haven¡¯t done anything like this before, not in this life or the last one. I looked blankly at Rena¡¯s awkward but warm smirk, then I realised I have finally gotten something to be proud of. I felt a weird sensation build up inside me, it felt new, it felt special, I knew what it was¡­ A sense of true accomplishment.


    This was my real first step into the real world, it wasn¡¯t the time before where I was forced out into the world¡­ I took the first step myself, the bright guiding light of Rena showing me the way forward.


    //


    Early in the morning of the following day, Rena stood outside the mansion with her travelling gear fully equipped, her suitcases in each hand, she was a spitting image of the girl who came two years prior, only more mature and a little older. Mother didn¡¯t look any different either, I guess that''s just how elves are. The only real thing that changed was that I got a little taller and a little bigger.


    A carriage clicks into the driveway surrounded by the tall trees of the garden.


    ¡°You know that you are welcome to stay here whenever you want,¡± Mother said her voice shook with a little sadness.


    ¡°Thank you mistress,¡± Rena replied, ¡°I¡¯m afraid I can¡¯t accept your generous offer¡­ I¡¯m an adventurer after all, I can¡¯t be held within the boundaries of a house¡­ And plus¡­ After getting to know Gryne I realised how truly weak I am, I realised that this isn¡¯t enough, I have to get stronger, I need time to hone my magic skills to truly be a mage worthy to be Gryne¡¯s master.¡±


    I felt a little bad for making her lose confidence in herself, my mind went through different possibilities in order to get her to stay. Maybe I could ask for more insight into other topics, or maybe I could¡­


    No.


    I spaced out deep in my thoughts, unable to find a way to make Rena stay. I felt a hand placed on my head, I snapped back to reality. I look up, Rena¡¯s hand softly placed on top of my head, her eyes warmly looking at me, lively as if they were speaking.


    ¡°Gryne, I wished I could¡¯ve taught you more, it¡¯s my fault I¡¯m an incompetent master, I didn¡¯t have what it takes to teach you¡­¡± Rena grimaced, I sensed slight sorrow in her voice.


    ¡°No master, you taught me lots, you taught me all sorts of things¡­ Miss.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m happy to hear that, Gryne¡­¡± Rena softly replied, ¡°Oh yeah¡­ That reminds me,¡± Rena reached into the inner pocket of her long robe, pulling something out. A pendant, with a small broken stone stung to a small leather cord. I looked closely at the necklace, was that something I¡¯ve seen before? I swear I have seen this before.


    ¡°This would just be a parting gift from me, it¡¯s not much¡­ But I hope you like it.¡± Rena said as she handed me the pendant, as it was placed on my hand the stone stung onto it began to glow with a dim white light.


    I remember now¡­ The shattered mana crystal¡­


    ¡°Thank you¡­¡±


    It wasn¡¯t Mother nor was it any else who gave me the courage to overcome the fear of heading out. It was Rena, that time when we went into town, she was the one who held my hand, giving me courage to face the eyes of the people¡­


    That really meant something.


    I say that she gave me courage when all she really did was hold me when I¡¯m scared and wrap her arms around me when I shook. It¡¯s not much but still I thank her for it. Leaving the safety of the mansion and facing the outside world would have been way worse, it might even have given trauma which I wouldn¡¯t be able to overcome. Her holding me tightly might just have given me that little boost, not losing spirit and breaking through that one beginner¡¯s barrier.


    ¡°That reminds me,¡± I said, ¡°I have got something for you also.¡±


    I took the small box I tucked inside my pocket before out, handing it to Rena, ¡°I hope I got the right one.¡± I said with a playful grin.


    Rena got onto the carriage, putting her hand out of the window waving back at me. I waved until Rena and the carriage disappeared from the view, down the slopes and through the serene pastor fields. In my hands I clutched onto the things she gave me, the wand and the small pendant.


    Because of her I can now step into the world, it was something not Mother or anyone else did for me, I knew that it wasn¡¯t her intention I suggested it in the first place. But¡­ She was the one who gave me strength, the one who did it in the end.


    And¡­ I respected her for that.


    ¡°Thank you Master Rena!¡± I shouted into the fields where the carriage disappeared into. I feel my eyes well up in tears. I promised myself not to cry¡­


    I feel mother¡¯s hand on my head as I let out sobs as the teardrop runs down my cheeks, dripping down onto the floor.


    I would never forget anything she had taught me before.

 Chapter 9: Friend

    Thanks to Rena, I¡¯m no longer scared of the judgement from others, if she could push through, living in a continent built upon racist ideas about Demons, I could do the same. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m in either of those situations but the same thing applies.


    I walked across the snowy fields, I am now almost six years old, it''s been almost a year since Rena left, I don¡¯t really see anything to do, my drive to improve in magic is really starting to diminish, although I still would love to get stronger, right now I feel like I should enjoy my time as a child.


    Well right now I¡¯m already at a level of magic where not many can reach, if I just practice consistently I should still be able to improve.


    I look at the beautiful peaceful snowy landscape, with every step I take, my feet sink deep into the soft snow on the field.


    ¡°So this is what snow is like!¡± I excitedly mutter to myself, throughout the years of my past life I never really went to places that had this much snow, I was more of a city boy, where I lived in Tokyo was relatively warm, although it¡¯s not actually the city it was pretty close to it.


    I never went skiing either, it¡¯s kind of a shame I didn¡¯t get to experience that, of course it was partly my fault.


    ¡°Shut up, you little filth!¡± A voice shouted from afar, echoing in the cold snowy fields, the voice was young, about five or six years old, the pitch of the kid¡¯s shout spiked as he said the word ¡®filth¡¯, there was hate in his voice, a sort of hate I myself is all too familiar with.


    It was natural that I became interested in what was happening over there, maybe it was a squabble between friends or¡­ Bullying. I had all the time in the world right now, I need to head back home yet, it¡¯s still pretty early in the afternoon, there was no reason for me to not get a glimpse at the situation, I mean if someone was getting bullied I would hope that I could help them. I know that it doesn¡¯t feel good, I know that all too well¡­


    ¡°Why not?¡± I shrugged before walking towards where the hostile sound was.


    I hiked up the snowy slope up to the top of the small snow hill. A small girl leaned against the tall willow on the hill, her clothes stripped away leaving her in all but just a small piece of rag which covered her tiny body. The girl looked to be about four or five, she had long golden hair which was wet, she shivered as a stream of water ran down onto her body.


    I hid behind the thick trunk of a leafless tree, peeking out at the situation unfolding in front of me. There was a group of three young boys, about my age or maybe a little older, who stood above the little girl, looking down on her. One held a small leather sack in his hand, tipping it over and pouring the water inside onto the little girl, the boys crackled as they poured the freezing water onto the submissive girl.


    The little girl shook as the icy cold water ran down her body, damping up the thin piece of rag she wore. The evil grins on the three boys'' faces grew larger as they saw the suffering girl.


    One of the boys walked up to the tiny girl, he was fat, his body had the word ¡®ball¡¯ written all over it. A kick was launched, the hard bottom of the fat boy¡¯s snow shoes digging deep into the little girl¡¯s stomach, ¡°That¡¯s what you deserve, you little runt!¡±


    The girl wouldn¡¯t resist as the boys continued to kick her body, tears welled up in the little girl¡¯s eyes, her face scrunched up in pain as she tried to hold in her tears. I couldn¡¯t bear to watch this any longer, seeing this just gave me chills, not from the cold but from my past¡­


    I blinked, a flash of my past blasted in my mind, I saw myself¡­


    The painful memories flooded back into my brain, the horrible nightmares I had, the reason I once locked myself inside the safety of my tiny apartment, the final straw of making me the shut-in bum that I once was¡­


    That tone of hostility, that tone of underclass, that tone of hatred¡­ They remind me of the very tone that my once friends used as they ganged up on me atop the school roof, burying the hard tip of their black leather school shoes into my chest, stomach and legs. That was the tone of someone who used numbers to their advantage, tormenting the one beneath them. Maybe this only applied to me, but I am still pretty darn sure if they went one by one, I would have destroyed all of them back then¡­


    ¡°What do ya think this little runt would scream like if we buried her under the snow?¡± The fat boy asked.


    ¡°I don know man, I mean the other ones all cried and screamed for help.¡± The other boy answered, his face twisted in a disgusting grin.


    ¡°Who can say unless we try this one out? Maybe this one would cry even more, look at her trying to hold in her tears. Pathetic!¡± The boy lifted the little girl by her cheeks, crackling in her face before throwing her back onto the snow which was melting under their body heat becoming a hard mixture of cold water and ice.


    I should stop them now, I thought, it was the ethical thing to do¡­ There is this wise quote from the spider man movie right? Yeah. I should step in.


    I walk out from my hiding space, stepping out into the light.


    I hold out my hand, aiming my palm at one of the boy¡¯s head. I began to image the spell, mixing the intermediate earth spell create-mud with the beginner water spell water-ball together, in front of my palm a brown orb of sludge hovers.


    I push another gush of mana out of the center of my palm, the orb of muddy sludge fling forward.


    Splat¡ª


    The gooey brown liquid splats over the fat boy¡¯s face, the runny mud drips down his face and onto his clothes.


    ¡°Haha,¡± the boy next to him laughed out loud, carrying his stomach in his arms, ¡°Did ya just get shit on by a bird?¡±


    Pointing at the fat boy the other boy on the other side of the fat boy burst in laughter, as the uncontrollable laughter caused him to weep.


    ¡°Guys, it¡¯s not funny.¡± The fat boy stomps on the floor, his arrogant tone becoming annoyed.


    Damn he¡¯s really some brat. I thought as I aimed another orb of sludge at the boy this time, I flinged the orb forward, this time a little faster than last time.


    Smack¡ª


    This time instead of the watery splat sound, the impact of the orb made was a loud smack that echoed across the snowy wheat fields.


    The other boys instantly became alert after the second orb of sludge, the boys scanned around the place looking for the culprit of the offence as the fat boy laid there on the floor clutching his muddy reddened face.


    ¡°It¡¯s dat boy ova there,¡± one of the boys yelled, his finger pointed at me who stood behind a sparse bush.


    ¡°Are ya sure ya wanna mess with us!¡± The other boy yelled.


    I chuckled as I saw the two boys struggle to run towards me with their stubby legs, jogging up and down, their feet sinking deep into the snow with each step, creating small pot holes in the fluffy white snow piled up on the ground.


    They ran about halfway from their original position to my spot.


    ¡°Okay then,¡± I muttered, ¡°This should be within range now.¡±


    I stretched my back before kneeling on the floor with on knee, disappearing behind the bush, I held my gloved hand against the floor, ¡°May the divine blessings of the Goddess of Earth, Mother of all beings hear my plea, may I borrow thy power, slow my enemy, sink down and allow thee to show thy true prowess¡­ Earth¡ª Sinkhole¡ª¡± I chanted softly but confidently.


    By now, I have memorised a lot of the incantations of the commonly used spells. It wasn¡¯t as hard as I thought, I seem to have an improved memory, at least it¡¯s way better than before¡­ Maybe this is just a side effect of being in that learning age.


    I stand up, looking back at the shadow beneath the tree where only the little girl sat. There was no sign of the fat boy, just drops of mud and small potholes in the snow which led to the village.


    ¡°It seems like he fled¡­¡± I grumbled, ¡°I thought I could have taught him a lesson.¡± I walk towards the little girl, undoing the sinkhole spell I did.


    ¡°You¡¯ll¡ª You¡¯ll¡ª pay for this!¡± One of the boys said before running away, heading in the direction of the town.


    For the first time in my life¡­ I have beaten the bullies, not that I have been bullied a lot, nonetheless that was an achievement in its own right.


    As I approached the small girl, I noticed something odd about her, there were two tall spikes in her hair, like bed hair poking out like a sore thumb. She looks to be my age, although she might be a little younger given how skinny she looks, she had rather long eyelashes and long flowing golden locks. Her skin was perfect, smooth and pristine white, there was not even the slightest hint of imperfection on her skin. She was like your cute scared neighbour¡¯s cat, in addition to that she¡¯s a cutie.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    She was the kind of girl that I would have liked when I was school aged and before I became the shut-in that I was. Not trying to brag or anything, I was kinda a looker back then, I had your jock build with that straight clean jawline to match the slightly tanned skin. I would know that because I would have multiple girls try to get my contacts almost everyday.


    Sigh¡ª If I was just able to keep that up.


    The girl turned to look up at me, her eyes watery as her fragile body shook under the cold temperature, ¡°Thank you¡­¡± The little girl said softly, there was still slight fear lingering in her voice.


    I got a close look at her face, she was really a beauty, as I analysed her face, I found that she was missing ears¡­ There weren''t any ears present on either side of her head.


    ¡°Wait what?¡± I said, as my thoughts slipped out of my mind, it was kind of a shocker not seeing any ears in that spot.


    The girl looked at me in confusion, the two spikes of bed hair twitched as she tilted her head cutely.


    Hold on¡­ Are those¡­ Cat ears? I thought to myself, inside I feel like I was about to explode from the extreme feeling of excitement. If I was really into this sorta stuff I am sure that I would have busted a big load when I noticed that.


    Taking a deep breath I remain calm, hiding the excitement I¡¯m feeling to myself.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± I asked the girl, continuing to hold down my urge to rub her head.


    ¡°Yeah¡ª I¡¯m¡­ fine.¡± The girl answered, there was still a sort of hesitance in her voice, stopping in the middle.


    Her gaze met mine, her eyes were as beautiful as any other part of her face, she was like a small animal, a kitten or a puppy, something everyone would want to shield and protect, the feeling was so prominent that I thought I was getting charmed.


    The small rag on her body was all she had on her, not to mention that the rag is filthy, drenched in the dirty cold water the bullies poured on her.


    There was really only one option for me right now, ¡°Why don¡¯t you change into this real quickly.¡± I took off my thick fur coat jacket, handing it to the girl.


    The girl tilted her head in confusion again, even still she began to do as I said. I guess she¡¯s just that sorta kid who just does as they are told, she was definitely not the defiant sort, if she was, I am sure that she would have fought back against the boys who were bullying her. On the spot she began stripping her damp rag off.


    ¡°Hey! Woah there!¡± I said, stopping her midway, her arms pulled up her rag halfway revealing her crystal like skin on her stomach.


    She looked down at herself, before flushing red in embarrassment, turning around and crouching low on the snowy floor.


    I turned around looking the other way, I felt heat build up inside me. Well that was something I was sure not expecting in a time like this and on a day like this¡­ I felt a light bulge and a throb in my pants. I took another deep breath before calming myself down.


    I felt a few light taps on my shoulder after a minute or two, I turned around to see the little girl fitted in my fur coat which was way too big for her, her hands holding the damp rag she wore before.


    ¡°Can you hand me that?¡± I asked, pointing at the wet clothes in her hand.


    The girl handed me her wet rag, I swear I heard a purr just now.


    I lifted the dirty old rag and pants in the air, I conjured a stream of water before heating it with some fire magic, blasting it at the dirty rag. After cleaning up the gunk and dirt off her clothes, I use some fire magic and wind magic to make a blast of hot wind, drying off the clothes.


    ¡°All right,¡± I said, turning back around, ¡°that should do it.¡± I hand her her clothes back, my hand grazing against the soft skin on her hand.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± The girl said, her voice filled with gratitude and still a slight tinge of lingering embarrassment.


    ¡°Hey, why don¡¯t you try to fight back against them,¡± I asked out of pity and genuine curiosity, maybe I could even give her a little advice on how to deal with this sorta thing, I mean I¡¯m quite experienced myself although not really successful in doing so until now.


    ¡°I can¡¯t beat those guys, and even if I do, they would just tell the bigger kids to come¡­¡± The girl muttered under her breath.


    So that was it, if she tried to fight back, those boys would¡¯ve called their buddies, and even though she didn¡¯t say it out loud I knew that they would give her a rough beating. No matter what world we live in, is it Earth or this world, discrimination is a thing, wherever there are people, it¡¯s a thing, there is no way to bypass this disgusting human nature, not laws, not regulations¡­ Rena seemed to have been putten through this sorta thing, maybe not within the boundaries of the mansion, but in town it was pretty clear that they haven¡¯t accepted Demons roaming the street in broad daylight.


    ¡°Have you ever thought of suicide?¡± I mumbled, the thought of that leaked out of my mouth as the memories flooded my mind again.


    ¡°Huh?¡± The girl replied.


    ¡°Uhhh¡­ Nothing.¡± I said. Okay good¡­ She didn¡¯t hear me.


    If I¡¯m not incorrect, she should be a beastmen. Just to confirm I¡¯ll ask.


    ¡°What race do you belong to?¡± I asked, this isn¡¯t a weird question to ask someone, right?


    ¡°I don¡¯t really know¡­¡± The girl replied, shaking her head.


    She doesn¡¯t know? I guess it¡¯s not uncommon¡­


    ¡°I know that mother came from far away, far away across the sea.¡± The girl continued, ¡°And father was also from that place.¡±


    That confirms it, she¡¯s probably one of the beastmen, if I had to be exact, she was probably a descendant of a cat based tribe. That also explains why the boys were bullying her. Rena taught me that humans view themselves as the superior race in their continents while elves and beastmen are lesser. A word they called these were Demi-humans, also known as the impure races.


    All the bullying I have received was from the stupid shit I have done, but not her. No real amount of effort could change how these kids treat her, let alone changing her race. There¡¯s not really any sort of thing I could do either, she was destined to be viewed as a lesser being, there was no escape from that, at least there isn¡¯t an escape in the horrible continent.


    The girl tilts her head, confused at why I stood there looking blankly in front into nothingness.


    ¡°Let''s go then,¡± I said.


    ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you heading somewhere before those kids came up?¡± Hey, there gotta be something that''s she¡¯s doing, a kid¡¯s parents aren¡¯t just going to let their kid roam around the snowy field without a purpose, unless the kid is also an imperial class mage of course.


    ¡°Wah¨C What? Why are you coming with me?¡±


    ¡°Hey, you never know if those guys from before will come back with their buddies, cuz if they do I¡¯ll drive them off and tell them to never mess with you again. Were you going somewhere?¡±


    To my understanding, beastmen had a bunch of different tribes which each of them have different animalistic behaviour, some are like dogs, some cats, some raccoons, and there are way more. And they are all pretty cute right? This wasn¡¯t really based on anything, just my japanese otaku mind. I am sure that this is only a Japanese thing, beastmen in western games have the ugly shaggy animalistic form, and even the Chinese have them look a lot like that.


    This also applies to elves in a way, we mostly think elves as a more beautiful or gorgeous being with humanlike faces and bodies, just more perfect in a way. There is also the ¡®fact¡¯ that they are particularly good at using a bow, daggers and wind magic. And of course we can never forget the long ears. In the foreign cultures they mostly have their elves have angular and pointed facial features, which, as I see it isn¡¯t your common definition of beautiful.


    I can see that we otakus are right about both, elves for one are your perfect blond hair, blue eyed hot lady with the big bosoms, and for the other, beastmen are pretty cute, at least the one in front of me right now is.


    ¡°Umm¡­ Why¨C why are you protecting me¡­¡± The girl asked anxiously, her slightly shaky voice just makes me want to protect her even more.


    ¡°I just don¡¯t want anyone to suffer. Not you, not anyone around me.¡± I replied with a bright smile on my face, I was hoping I got the main character treatment where my teeth would glisten. [I am pretty sure that they didn¡¯t.]


    ¡°What if the other kids do not let you play with them because of this¡­ What if¡ª¡±


    ¡°If that was the case, I will just play with you, from now on we are friends.¡± I said, I was a pretty common case in both worlds, getting bullied for helping the victim.


    ¡°Huh?!¡±


    Maybe it was a quick turn of events for her, I guess it would be surprising when you just got bullied, then after a few minutes someone asks to be your friend. We were all grouped up now, normally there would be some sort of beef between the bully and the bullied, but sometimes people would just pick on someone just because they felt like it. I was sort of an expert in this department, back then I was instigating this sorta stuff after all.


    After understanding how it feels to be bullied, I guess it changed how I view the world. Right now I would rather help out the victim something I would¡¯ve never done before. Hell, I might even help out in the gang up, making it a one v four. Granted this time it wasn¡¯t the same themes as before, this girl hadn¡¯t done anything wrong, the hate was just rooted deep into her blood. This was something I couldn¡¯t stand.


    ¡°Do you have other things to do, housework? Or maybe other things?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No¡ª not really¡­¡± Her voice was still shaky, her timid and unconfident expression.


    ¡°Oh yeah, I haven¡¯t gotten your name yet, haven¡¯t I?¡± I asked, ¡°I¡¯m Gryne, I live up there.¡± Pointing at the horizon where the mansion sits, at our viewing point the mansion was no more than a tiny dot in the far away background.


    ¡°I¡­ I¡¯m¡­ My name is¡­ Rias¡ª¡± Her voice drifted into a soft whisper.


    //


    Turns out Rias was just walking back home when the boys assaulted her, so I went with her¡­ I¡¯m kind of nervous, I haven¡¯t met a girl¡¯s parents, not in the old world nor this one. I guess I can call this a house date, can I?


    We traversed across the snow for about half an hour or so. It was outside of town, a lone pair of houses stood in the middle of the thick piled up snow, the houses were made out of wood, it was clear that one was maintained better than the other. Rias headed towards the shabby old shack on the left side.


    ¡°I¡¯m back.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for having me.¡±


    I looked around the house, the inside was unusually tidy, on the outside it looked to be an abandoned haunted house. The sound of soft crackling flames filled the house, it was warm, even in the cold winter, this broken house had a sort of warmth I have never felt before.


    ¡°Welcome home, Rias!¡± A voice says, as a man walked out from the tight hallway.


    The man had messy golden hair, a pair of long furry cat like ears poked out of the top of his head. He had nothing on, just some baggy jeans which covered up the lower half of his body, his body was built like a brick wall, he looked like a fierce lion to a sense.


    The big man crouched down, Rias jumped into his open arms, with a soft whisper using his deep voice, he asked, ¡°Did you get bullied on the way home again?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but just a little bit. Someone helped me out when I got bullied.¡±


    Rias turned her gaze to me and the man followed, I bowed down slightly.


    ¡°Nice to meet you sir,¡± I said firmly, ¡°I¡¯m Gryne Notros¨CFarion, the second son of the Notros¨CFarion family.¡±


    ¡°Farion? That name sounds familiar, I swear I have heard that before.¡± The man paused, he closed his eyes deep in thought for a moment, he continued, ¡°By chance might your father be Julian?¡±


    Julian? I¡¯m sure that none of the people in Feris would call the lord of the region by his first name, there must be some type of connection between this man and father, I replied, ¡°Yes, sir, he is my father. How did you know?¡±


    ¡°Man that brings back memories,¡± He said, ¡°Julian and I used to adventure together, it¡¯s a shame that he quit after having his first baby, if I recall correctly his name was Von. Well, that was in the past already, I¡¯m sure almost all of us have retired by now,¡± The man stood up and stretched his back, ¡°You are quite the polite boy, Julian¡¯s genes must run pretty strongly inside you. I¡¯m Heyrm, Heyrm the Tank.¡±


    The Tank? Was that his title? He must be a pretty impressive fellow to get the title of ¡®the Tank¡¯. He doesn¡¯t seem to be all that wealthy though, based on this house, I¡¯d say it¡¯s the complete opposite, but both him and Rias don¡¯t seem bothered by this fact at all.


    ¡°You were the one who saved my little girl Rias, huh? Just like a knight with the princess¡­ Sigh¡ª I don¡¯t know what Julian taught you but it sure seems to be working, sigh¡ª I hope you two will be good ¡®friends¡¯ with each other.¡± Heyrm said, patting me on the shoulder, ¡°Just be nice to her, okay?¡±


    ¡°Of course sir Heyrm.¡±


    ¡°You two should go up and get a change of clothes, if not you might catch a cold.¡± Heyrm said, ¡°Gryne, you can take some of mine from the top cupboard.¡±


    Catch a cold? Look at you, you legit have nothing on right now. I thought.


    We walked into the hallway, taking the fresh change of clothes out of the old wooden cupboards. The wooden floorboards creak under our weight as we trekked up the steep wooden stairs.


    As we finally reached the top of the stairs, I stopped in the hallway, ¡°I¡¯ll just change out here.¡± I said.


    ¡°You can come change in my room if you want.¡± Rias replied, ¡°J¨CJust don¡¯t look at me when I change¡­¡± Rias¡¯ cheeks flush red as she pulled me into her room.


    Ehh? I took a moment to process the situation¡­ I¡¯m in a girl¡¯s bedroom?! And she¡¯s changing right in front of me?! This was a surprising turn of events, a moment ago we were strangers and now we are changing in an enclosed room? How naive can a child be?


    Th


    I turned around facing the wall as Rias began buttoning down the fur coat I gave her. ¡°Are you not scared that I¡¯m going to do something to you when we change together?¡± I asked, as I glanced back at Rias,


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you are that typa person¡­ I trust my instincts.¡±


    All was silent for a minute or two¡­


    I arrived home, I was extremely happy, I just made my first real friend.


    Back then I never really thought I needed friends, I have been betrayed and beaten down by the very people I once thought as friends, no they weren¡¯t¡­ It¡¯s closer to allies, allies in bullying, that said, I believe the correct term for the relationship should be accomplices.


    I laid down upon my soft pillowy bed, my body sinking deep into the cushion¡­ As I drifted to sleep, I smiled¡­ knowing that I have gotten my second real achievement.