I return to Corwen. I leave Milo to do goblin stuff with the goblins and go play with my sister and cousins. I’ve been so busy I haven’t spend much time around them. I barely even know my sister. But then, seeing as she was a baby, there hasn’t really been much to get to know yet. Still, I feel kind of bad about it.

Juniper, Griffin, and Willow are two years old this year. Their naming days were in March, before I went out to go build bridges with goblins.

I’ve driven myself mad chasing skills and I just had an incredibly weird dream about going on a fishing trip except the lake was full of purple tentacles and a mind control monster drew us all in until we drowned. I’m sure this is probably symbolic of something.

Playing with these kids makes me remember how much I hate being aware as a baby. Why couldn’t I regain my memories at puberty or something? Why couldn’t I get isekai’d as an adult?

At the very least, why couldn’t I have been able to convincingly pretend to be a child that long?

And every moment of every day, my thoughts are being read by a reality-controlling crystalline alien thing. That bothers me less than you might expect. After all, I lived in an era where I assumed every device around me was listening to me constantly and still somehow failing to target advertising well enough to realize that I couldn’t even use half the things they were trying to sell me.

I would kill someone for a soda about now.

Aunt Myrtle, at any rate, isn’t going to let me sit around the village moping. If I clearly don’t have anything better to do, I’m getting roped into helping around the hearth.

“You’ve made some admirable efforts,” Aunt Heather asks once she returns from not finding any other reincarnators yet. “But what do you actually want to do with your life?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve just been trying to avoid fighting so that I don’t raise my combat skills, because I was afraid if I did, I would get shoehorned into a combat class since I’m very good at hitting things and I know I’ve been a fighter many times before. I don’t mind fighting. I just don’t want it to define me.”

“I see,” Aunt Heather says. “So you do want to be an adventurer, you just don’t want to get stuck as being a warrior?”

I nod. “Yeah. That exactly. I’d like to build stuff, but I don’t want to just build stuff, too.”

Aunt Heather nods. “I see. I see.”

“What do you suggest I do?” I wonder.

“I suggest you have a little more faith in Corwen,” Aunt Heather says. “It will not force you into a choice you don’t want. Offered classes are generally as diverse as your skills. If you do a lot of fighting and are offered a combat class, you would also be offered a crafter class if you’ve done a lot of crafting, and a magic class if you’ve reached Elite and done a lot of magic.”

“Really?” I ask.

“If your skills are quite varied as I suspect yours will be, you will likely be offered hybrid classes allowing you to do all the different things you want to do,” Aunt Heather goes on. “That may include fighting in some form, but not just fighting.”

“Are you really encouraging a three-year-old to take a path of violence in life?” I ask with a touch of amusement.

“If Corwen says it wants you to do whatever you want, then it behooves you to do whatever you want,” Aunt Heather says. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s clearly not doing whatever you want. You’re three years old, however, so you should be preparing for your life as an adventurer. Do you want to sit and build up a village, or go exploring?”

“… go exploring,” I say. “Although it was kind of nice to build a bridge. I don’t want to do that all the time, though.”

“The world is a dangerous place,” Aunt Heather says. “People who seek peaceful lives usually don’t climb very high. Perhaps you might.”

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“I would rather go exploring to make friends rather than kill them,” I say. “Even if there are sometimes people who really need to be hit.”

“It’s an admirable goal, but you need to be able to defend yourself. And I will not have any nephew of mine leave this Hearth helpless in a fight. I’m going to have a talk with your mother. And Laurel for encouraging this nonsense. There are reasons why we do not normally take children out adventuring even in ‘safe’ dungeons until they’re seven and have a few combat skills. Even in a dungeon as friendly as the Hedge Maze, you never know what will actually happen. Even festivals can be dangerous, but there are Legendary adventurers there to ward off anything of lower rank from harming the weaker people there.”

“I’m glad I met Milo, though,” I say.

Aunt Heather sighs. “If things have worked out so well so far, in your eyes, why are you unhappy?”

“I… didn’t like feeling helpless out with the bear monsters,” I say. “I kept having nightmares afterward. First of wildly driving my cart through wilderness while being chased by a Heroic bear. Then by seeing Snookums and Fluffles breathe fire and kill the bear. Their horns covered in blood. Sometimes I’m not even sure which version of events really happened.”

I’m not sure why I’m telling her all this. Maybe she’s got some Charisma-based skill to force people to speak only truth in her presence. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

“I see,” Aunt Heather says, an unreadable expression on her face. “Tell me more about your dreams. Do you often dream about different versions of events? Things that might have happened?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“You’ve lived over five million lives,” Aunt Heather says. “Chances are, you did experience something like that before.”

“… what level is your Tending (Therapy) at, anyway?”

Aunt Heather doesn’t answer. “Corwen sought to give you free will, but you still feel lost without a quest.”

I sigh. “Maybe a little.”

“Then perhaps you should give yourself a quest. What is your goal in life? You don’t even need to pick just one. Make a list.”

She passes over a pen and paper.

I only think for a moment before writing down the first thing that actually comes to mind. “I want to graduate from Crux Academy.”

Aunt Heather looks over and nods. “That’s definitely a good start. What else?”

“I want to get a skyship and fly to other domains,” I say (and write).

“Do you want to build it yourself?” Aunt Heather asks. “Pilot it yourself?”

“Absolutely yes!” I exclaim.

“Do you want to build it before, during, or after your attendance to Crux Academy?”

I think about that for a moment and shrug. “I’m not picky. After, I think. It would be sad to just have it sit around for months while I attend classes, and I feel ridiculous adventuring while looking like a halfling in boots.”

“Attending Crux Academy will only require reaching Elite rank before you turn 21,” Aunt Heather says. “You are entirely too insane to not either manage that or kill yourself trying.”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be therapy?” I ask.

“What will it require to accomplish your skyship goal?”

“Materials, knowledge, and a crew,” I say, writing each of them on a separate line, then frown a bit at it. “Though I should put ‘knowledge’ first as I don’t even know what materials I would need.”

“Is building a skyship and exploring the Crystalline Heavens your end goal?” Aunt Heather asks. “Are there other things you want to do with your life?”

I sit back and think about it, and shrug. “I’d like to reach a high enough rank that don’t age. But I would prefer not to do that by doing such insanely reckless things that I don’t even survive to adulthood.”

Aunt Heather chuckles softly. “There’s a reason why we generally aim for Elite by 14 and Heroic by 21. Did you look into our skill records? We’ve had two other reincarnators in our history.”

“Neither of them learned very many skills related to Soul.”

Aunt Heather nods. “Neither of them survived to 21, either. Last time Grandma Verbena was here, she regaled us with tales of what a reckless idiot our last reincarnator was. Even when following a quest, he would perform it in the most unnecessarily dangerous way possible. He never even reached Heroic rank.”

“Right, I definitely don’t want to follow in the footsteps of Great-Uncle Whoever,” I say. “But yes. Being able to freely explore this strange, wonderful world is the end goal here.”

“It sounds to me like you have a quest and steps to begin undertaking it,” Aunt Heather says. “You’ve gotten a start on some skills that will be ultimately useful. But don’t let Milo’s goals interfere with your own.”

“I wanted to make sure he didn’t die before I even grew up,” I say.

Aunt Heather sighs. “He probably will. I recognize the signs of an ambitious reincarnator there. I suspect there is a reason why he was incarnated as a goblin.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“What I mean is, don’t be surprised if you see several of his incarnations by the time you grow up.”

“I… didn’t realize that was a thing that happened,” I say.

“Focus on your own goals,” Aunt Heather says. “You need to learn about skyships and build adventuring skills. As you grow up, you will need to form connections with others who will ultimately be your crew, contacts, and allies.”

“I knew all that,” I say. “I guess I just hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Now, you’ve had plenty of time to play around. You’re old enough for preschool now.” She grins at me. “Let’s come up with a study plan, shall we?”

Skill acquired: Discipline (Long-Term Planning)

Why does everything have to be a freaking skill!?