Maybe my mother realizing her pregnancy wasn't as much of an issue as I thought. Everyone's so cautious of me, that she's basically forced to stay home and do almost nothing. And it's way easier for me to coax her to read basic and intermediate stuff now that she knows she's pregnant.
She doesn't spend her entire day reading though. She plans a couple of celebrations then and there. Her birthday, though, was a surprise. Considering how large the mansion is(4-5 stories, each packed with their own extravagant set of rooms), I'm more surprised at the fact they hid the party so well, rather than the fact that there was a surprise birthday party at all.
I didn't get to see anyone who was there, mainly because I wasn't sure if the old guy was there. Luckily, he was, or I would've been wasting my time, moping around in my mother's body. It seems that as long as I remain close to my mother's soul, he can't sense me.
Also it turns out the old guy is supposed to be vaguely related to my mother. I have no clue the actual closeness in blood relations but I heard someone say uncle so that's what I'm going with.
I wonder a lot what the connection between my brain and soul is. In my prior lives, my memories were in my brain and my soul wasn't something I was really aware of. I'd already grown a brain but if I were to go back into my body, what would happen to my memories? Would I be turned into a baby mentally? It's a scary thought if I'm being honest. Best case scenario, I'm just wasting 9 months. Or I might lose all my memories including those from previous lives. Or my mind might simply collapse killing me and destroying my soul.
I don't really have a choice either. If I go out into the world, without a soul, I doubt my body will move. Then I'll be considered dead and trashed. The only thing I can really do right now is learn, grow and hope for the best.
Speaking of learning, that's been going along well. Without practice, my writing skills still suck. However, I should be able to listen to a decent conversation or read a book, without much difficulty. And again, it's way easier to get access to these simple books. If anyone asks, she could simply say that it's to help teach the baby.
Sure, it gets her a few weird looks since with her supposed high status, it's usually a cast of tutors that'll take care of all that. However, it's nothing a couple of angry protective mother glares can't fix.
Of course, I'm not the one making her do this. She seems really sentimental about having a child and actually plans to help raise me which is both heartwarming and annoying. Annoying because this probably means she'll be spending way too much time with me. Well, at least too much time for my liking.
Prince Charming, my father, I presume, is pretty unenthusiastic about the whole affair. I can't tell if he really cares for my mother or if he's just horny. It seems like a mix of the two if I had to guess. Either way, he seems pretty hesitant, having suggested an abortion at least a couple times already.
Still, every time he actually pushes the idea forward, my mother argues him down. Hopefully, his care for my mom will prevent him from leaving for milk and never coming back, turning me into an anime main character. Or maybe his conscience will remind him he should've took control of his gallon and not fired his actual milk every which way.
Even if his care or his conscience aren't enough, I doubt my mother's family would let him just dip right after getting their daughter pregnant, especially considering the dude is engaged to her.
Their engagement is supposedly important because it links two noble families together. The only thing I could really understand about the situation is that my mother belongs to the Manour Famiily while my father is part of the larger Cazenarch Family.
Besides that, I don't really know much about the world outside this mansion. It turns out that the political climate isn't really the hot topic in this world. Either that or this woman just doesn't care much about the outside world, which is likely.
This isn't to say my mother is shallow but that she follows a set routine and rarely deviates from it. Involving yourself in family drama and politics is the perfect way to fuck up a schedule. This, of course, made it easier to get her to read more since I'd just get her to do it in her free time which would prompt her to make "reading for baby" time an actual part of her schedule.
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This allowed me to go down a rabbit hole, verifying my theories with everything I read.
Mana is the magical energy that flows through pretty much everything that breathes, right? So unless my mother is somehow not living, she should have her own mana. I just had to learn how to sense it.
Unlike the book described it to be, sensing mana was honestly quite easy. Maybe it's because as a soul, I'm pretty much a ball of senses or maybe I'm just built different. Either way, I began singling out some sort of energy hiding inside everyone's bodies.
You know, it took a couple suspicious/confused expressions until I was able to realize that people could sense when someone is focusing in on their mana.
Except for my mother. No matter how much I focused on her mana, she either didn't notice or her mind would start gushing about me, her child.
Again, it took a bit more reading until I discovered that babies feed off their mothers' mana. Because of this, it's not abnormal for a mother to feel something sorta focusing in on their mana or even "stealing" it. It wasn't really stealing though since 1. it's their child and it's more of a mutual relationship and 2. the amount taken is minuscule to the point the mother can replenish it fairly easily.
Without a constant supply of mana, a baby will die. It's almost like a sort of life energy, mana, that is.
Looking inwards at my mother with my mana sense, I was able to notice that mana did trickle down to me in a constant flow. By this point, I looked like an actual human baby. Looking at some alien shit for months really does some shit to you.
Anyways, yeah I noticed my mother's mana flowing into me. So I reasoned that since I was able to connect to her soul, and since I can sense mana as a soul, I should be able to screw up with the mana flowing into me.
The good news was that I was right. The bad news is that meant that I had to be a little more careful. I'm definitely vulnerable to magic, if I can interact with mana.
Thank.. God or maybe.. the universe, I guess? Maybe thank reincarnation? Thank Reincarnation that I was paranoid enough to experiment with mana sense while inside my mother. Bleh, it doesn't have the same ring to it.
Anyways, chances are that I have my own mana flow, in which case I'm incredibly lucky my grand-uncle didn't use mana sense. I doubt he'd have left some UFO floating around his niece's head. But then what was that? Did he just use some super instinct to catch me?
Well, regardless of what he did, I'm probably gonna find out soon. Or at least I won't have to worry about it.
When experimenting with the mana flow, I tried increasing the flow of mana from my mother's body to mine. I'd use the minuscule amount of mana I could sense from my body to pull more mana from her.
Such an action didn't go unnoticed but she wrote it off as her baby getting hungrier which she isn't totally wrong with, I guess. However, I did end up going too far, to the point where she got a little worried. Not for her though, for me. It was honestly really sweet that when getting her life energy sucked out, she thought her baby was somehow dying and needed more mana.
It makes me feel like a goddamn parasite. Not the best feeling, I admit. I do plan to make it up to her. She's a better mother than more than half of the ones I've already had. I don't remember 90% of them but once this life is over, I hope she ends up in that 10% for at least a while.
The doctor ended up writing it off. The more babies grow, the more energy they need. If I was sucking up so much mana, it's because I needed more to grow. The only abnormality would be how fast it progressed. 6 months in and I was pulling in enough energy to put a woman in labor. Not that I was taking up a significant chunk of my mother's energy but usually by the time I'd be feeding on that much energy, I'd be fully developed and ready to be born.
Hearing this, this absolute angel of a woman decided to actively start pushing mana to me, trying to help me grow. Well at first the doctor made her, so she could discern what I was doing. Obviously I sucked that shit up. She loved the feeling. Over time, it became a sort of calming routine for her, to make sure that I was fine.
About a month later, I'm somewhere. I can't really tell where we -I and my mother- are because I'm back in my body. I guess my worries about losing all my memories were baseless but that honestly raises more questions.
Thank God I'm not claustrophobic or I would die out of fear right now. It's entirely dark and I can feel myself pushing against my mother's cervix. Or actually, maybe it's pushing against me. Either way, it's oddly comforting like being in a tight hug. Still, every minute, I feel more and more like a Xenomorph.
I didn't know birth takes this long. I never reincarnated as a woman, and even if I did, you'd have to kill me to put a baby into me, let alone make me force one out.
I feel bad for my mother, my one on Earth, I mean. She wasn't the best mother if such a title even exists, but I know she cared about me. I wonder how she's doing now. Is she even still alive? How does time work with the whole reincarnation business? I wish I could-
Hold up, am I finally being born? I can feel my mother here pushing me out. Still, it's less getting crushed and more like a really powerful hug.
I see a light now and I think a hand? The opening is there and the hands pull me out as I take my first sight of the world as- holy fucking shit, it's cold!