Over a year has passed since I made that decision. And since then, I’ve been working hard to improve myself in many fields.

As of now, I can wield over twelve different spells and even have pretty much full control of my expanded thinking.

Since the spell seems to still be working as long as I utter the final word, the rest of the incantation will be processed through my body.

Once I realized that, I started training myself to cast spells at a much more rapid pace.

While there were a lot of restrictions, I’ve managed to find three loopholes that have made it possible to cast my spells less than two seconds after I begin chanting. So that’s going pretty well.

However, the same can’t be said for my physical strength sadly.

For some reason, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to make myself any stronger. Even my expanded thinking is drawing a blank as to what the cause is behind this.

Hmm…maybe the reason behind it is because all my strength is being put into my magic abilities?

That didn’t sound right, but since nothing else I came up with worked, it would have to do for now.

Leaving that talk about training be for now, I also needed three very important things to get myself into the school in the first place. Those being money for the academy entrance fee, incredible accomplishments so that the royals and nobles recognize my abilities and find me worth bringing into the school, and a mode of transportation so I can get there without issue.

To complete all three of these, I first had to focus on finding a way to make money.

Despite my understanding of the game, I didn’t necessarily know where every little thing is located.

While my expanded thinking seems to know a lot of how my own body works in this world, it doesn’t know much of anything when it comes to anything else.

That’s why every now and then, I’d see the same bird from before fly by my house and I’d use some magic that boosted my leg strength to jump up and grab a paper before the bird was gone.

Thanks to that, I’ve managed to keep up to date with what was going on in the world.

Unlike in the game where named characters are extremely limited and a majority of the characters are nameless NPCs, everyone here seemed to have completely fleshed-out stories that showed how different this was to the game world.

How did a world like this even come to be? And why?

I’d ponder these questions time and time again. But in the end, I just decided to forget about it for the time being since I was sure I wouldn’t get the answers any time soon.

Anyway, before I knew it, another year had passed and I was finally in full control of my expanded thinking.

Every thought was now my own and I’d become more calm and calculating than I’d ever been back in my old world.

Sadly, I still couldn’t find a way to get any stronger physically. So I began thinking up other ideas that could help me protect myself since while some say brain trumps brawn, there are times when having brawn can still win in the end.

Since magic exists here, maybe it’d be possible for me to remake a gun here in this medieval world.

As crazy as that sounded, I’d already begun drawing up blueprints using some newspapers while using water and air magic to clean off the ink. It almost astounded me how easily I was able to create the blueprints. Especially since I never had any knowledge of how to build a gun in my previous world.

Although, after attempting the building process several times, none of my blueprints seemed to work so I ended up scrapping the idea of a gun for the time being.

But moving past that, I only had three more years before school started. And if I was gonna make any progress, I needed to do it sooner rather than later.

Two more months passed before I was finally ready to leave my little hut.

Hunking a bag over my shoulder, I checked to make sure my meals, clothes, and other necessities were all set and ready to go.

I wasn’t gonna get anywhere if I continued to stay here after all. So I needed to start exploring.

Waving goodbye to the house I’d been staying in ever since I got here, I took in a deep breath before letting it out. After that, I turned to look out at the sun which had already risen high into the sky.

As of today, my adventure into this familiar yet unknown world had officially begun.

A month later, I found myself trudging through a murky forest as I was looking for something.

Upon leaving my home, I spent about two weeks searching for a town. Thankfully I managed to find one, but it wasn’t exactly a fun place to be.

It was old, run-down, and lacked any cute girls. Well…they did have a few, but they were already married and I’m not exactly into girls who already have lovers.

You might say I’m simple-minded for only really caring if a town had cute girls or not, but it was more the fact that since I already planned to make a harem, I might as well grow my roster. That’s just how I feel.

But moving past that, when I went into town, I managed to find what seemed to be an adventurers guild that was run by some strange muscular dude who kept giving me a look that creeped me out.

Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any registration fees required to get a license so I was handed one almost immediately.

Upon receiving it, I took a job right away that seemed to require the least amount of physical labor. That choice ended up being a search for a lost child in some nearby woods.

Thanks to my expanded thinking, I easily managed to find a trail and began following it in hopes of finding the kid sooner rather than later.

“Hm?”

Hearing a strange rustling nearby, I hid behind some bushes and peeked my head out through an opening.

“Gotta tell ya dude, that little girl you found was great!”

“Hah! Yeah. She didn’t even put up a fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if her mind’s broken after that lesson we gave her!”

Two bulky and ugly men walked past me on a path back to town.

“Little girl?”

The job didn’t say what gender the kid was, but considering I was just handed this blatant clue, I might as well check it out.

Stealthily making my way through the woods, I figured it’d be imperative I completed this quest without fail. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t receive the payment for the job.

A few minutes later I came across a small cave.

Walking into said cave, the whole place was dimly lit which made it a bit hard to look around. However, my eyes could just make out a single small girl lying there chained up to the walls.

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She didn’t look to be older than the age of ten. Her clothes were ripped to shreds and her body was bleeding like crazy.

Judging from the mix of urine and blood under her legs, I assumed she wet herself after being assaulted and deflowered. Talk about a disturbing sight. It was strange though. Despite staring at the girl's condition, I felt surprisingly calm about this.

That was a bit weird, but even so, this situation still didn’t sit right with me.

It didn’t anger me that much, I just felt frustrated that this girl, who was just a child, would need to carry this scar for the rest of her life. And that sounded absolutely awful.

And with her purity destroyed, there’s no doubt she’d struggle to find a good husband in the future.

I wanted to heal her wounds, but seeing as I couldn’t use healing magic, there wasn’t much I could do.

That meant I needed to get her to the town doctor as soon as possible. That is if there is one. But now’s not the time for what-ifs. She needed help right now and that’s exactly what I was gonna give.

Walking up to the girl, I saw an empty void within her pupils. She looked completely dead inside. Her mind looked like it was on the brink of breaking.

“Fireball.”

As I uttered those words, a ball of flames appeared in my hand.

Being as careful as possible, I slowly melted the chains enough to the point they no longer prohibited the girl from moving.

Her hands fell to the ground and I lifted her face up to mine.

“Hey there. Can you move?”

She gave me no response. Her lips barely moved. “Geez.”

Holding her up with one of my arms, I tried my best to keep a good grip on her. However, she was surprisingly heavy. A kid really shouldn’t weigh this much. Or maybe it’s just because I’m still physically weak. Yeah. That’s probably it.

Thus, I wrapped her arm around my shoulder and started to walk out.

But just then, I heard footsteps ahead of me.

“Hey now. Where the hell do you think you’re going with me and my bro’s toy?”

Hearing a deep voice, I looked at the entrance to find a man with muscular arms standing there with two other dudes behind him who looked like the guys I had overheard earlier.

I stared at them with a blank expression.

“I’m bringing her back to the village. You got a problem with that?”

Despite my calm exterior, my voice had begun to rise little by little. I couldn’t explain why, but just looking at these guys really pissed me off.

More than likely it’s because they look exactly like the exact definition of the ugly bastard tag in a certain genre of nsfw content.

Yeah. That was probably why.

With no weapons at my disposal, I didn’t have anything to protect me and the girl. Well, besides my magic. So I guess that’s why I’ll need to rely on for the time being.

“Yeah. I do actually. You see, my bro’s here messed with her so much, all I get is the leftovers. But if you’re gonna try to take her away, I wouldn’t mind ending your life here and now.”

What a stupid threat.

Looking the man in the eye, I couldn’t help but let a small laugh slip from my lips. This caused a vein to pulse on the man's forehead.

“What’s so funny punk?”

I shrugged.

“Just that I find your threat amusing. You really shouldn’t try to make threats you can’t back up.”

The man gritted his teeth in frustration.

“Why you!”

He charged straight at me just as expected of a loser like him. I let out a bored sigh and my hand began to glow.

“Earth Guillotine!”

It all happened so fast it was almost impossible to see as the moment the man stepped into the cave, the walls slammed into him at full force. Making his body explode into a mountain of blood.

Making sure the kid's eyes were closed, I pushed my hand out towards the earth once more.

“Earth Absorption.”

The blood and guts immediately sunk into the ground and less than a few seconds later, it was like there was never a murder in the first place.

The two other guys took a step back in horror.

“Now tell me, are either of you as foolish as he was?”

I glared at the two men for a moment. Terrified, the duo ran away as fast as their legs could carry them. Wise choice. Now I don’t have to put any extra effort to kill them.

Finally finished with that, I made my way out of the cave with the girl still in my arms.

After several minutes of walking, I was met with a pit in the road. Inside, I was met with the dead bodies of the two who had run away earlier. Looks like setting up a spike trap was worth it. However, I was still confused about how they didn’t fall into it on their way back to the cave.

More than likely they took a different path to get here before.

Well, whatever.

Pulling out the bodies, I took all their extra equipment and money before burying them deep in the ground. They’ll more than likely be found by some archeologist in the future who’ll assume these guys just died of natural selection or something like that.

Putting the extra items in a bag, I heaved it over my spare shoulder and I began making my way back to town.

But y’know, I’m almost surprised how calm I was during all that.

I’d thought I’d feel bad taking a human life, but nothing really came to me. I just did what needed to be done and moved on. That’s a bit concerning, but maybe I should just forget about that for the time being since I need to get this girl back safely.

Reaching town, I gave the kid over to the authorities. Turns out this girl was in fact the missing kid I was looking for.

She was immediately brought to a doctor and I was given my reward for the quest.

Adding it to my bag, I stretched my free arm while the other kept hold of the money and equipment. But as I did so, my pants started to slip a little bit. They’d been doing that a lot since recently.

It might be best to get a belt.

That was probably for the best. With that in mind, I made my way over to a clothing store that was run by an elderly woman and bought a belt that I wrapped around my waist. It was actually a pretty nice belt for its price. I even made sure I wasn’t being ripped off in any way by inspecting the belt before my purchase. From what my expanded thinking said, it was a great belt. So with that, I also bought myself a cool looking red cloak and wrapped it around my neck.

Glancing at myself in the mirror, I almost started looking like an adventurer.

If this was a normal fantasy story, I’d one hundred percent be down for being an adventurer. Who knows, I might have even gotten myself a harem.

But my mind was set. If I was gonna be brought to another world that was identical to the game I played, I’d rather steal the heroines for myself rather than let them all fall for some half-ass excuse for an MC.

About a day later, I learned the girl was gonna need some time to recover, but she’d be fine. That was nice to hear, but considering she wasn’t someone I was close to, I couldn’t exactly feel happy or sad about the news.

So, without saying a word, I left the town and continued my journey once more.

Oddly enough, that wasn’t a bad first adventure. Though I definitely would’ve preferred for it to be less gruesome.

All I really hope for it that the girl I saved grows up to be a beautiful woman who finds a guy who’ll treat her kindly.

Had she been a little older, I might’ve taken her for myself. Though, I’m not really one to talk since I’m technically only twelve years old. Although I was about to be thirteen…I think. Though I wasn’t too sure.

Trying to figure that out, I ended up asking some citizens before I left the town and learned that apparently, this world worked under the same month and day schedule as my world did.

That made it pretty convenient for me, but it was also a bit strange since I thought other worlds were supposed to be different from my own.

Not wanting to think about it any further, I made my way across the land in hopes of finding a new town where I could make some money.

As of right now, I’d made forty copr, and stole six silvr from those disgusting assholes that died before.

To quickly explain, copr was basically just copper. In terms of money, one coin was around fifty cents. As for silvr, you might have already guessed they were meant to refer to silver which was about two dollars. There were two other types of coins. Those were Gld and Platnm. Gld equated to around a hundred dollars each, while Platnm equated to about a thousand dollars each. And of course, they’re referring to Gold and Platinum.

With all these calculations in mind, the robbers also had around twenty copr coins on them along with the silvr. Doing the math, that meant in total I had around forty-two dollars on me right now. That’d be just enough for a full-course meal at a small diner.

That’s what I calculated at least.

Before I knew it, the moon was high in the sky above me.

Using my earth magic, I created a small box to rest inside and lied down while using my bag of coins as a pillow.

While I didn’t look to be anything of worth right now, I was sure things would change in the future.

As a saying went in my world, “You don’t choose your moment to shine. That moment chooses you.”

If I had been patient and waited for that moment, I’d finally accomplish my goal of taking the MC’s harem for myself.

So, as my eyes began to shut, I found myself getting lost in my thoughts. Thinking about the amazing future that awaited me.

And before long, I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.