"Kyle, don't worry about what year it is, just focus on being strong for the future." Elena hugged Kyle for a while now that he was awake again. She had been endlessly worried about him from the time he first became unconscious.
'It's been 3,000 years...' Kyle was shocked. He still had come to terms with everything about his past life being changed, but 3,000 was much more than he expected. A kingdom could fall within 3,000 years, but to his knowledge everything was the same.
'I have to get a library membership.' It was going to be the only way for him to learn about the world. It would be absolutely essential to find out more of what changed. 100 years could be glossed over, 200 years could be picked up over time, 3,000 years needed some serious studying.
'3,000 years... Asura has trained for 3,000 years.' This was the most difficult thing for Kyle to grasp. Asura was in a place called Nirvana, and right now Kyle was in Limbo. He suspected that the black void was Oblivion.
'Asura sure was knowledgeable.' Kyle knew he would need to know more and develop his powers better. Asura had done something to him that lasted a long while and put Kyle through incredible pain. This was the exact thing he needed to use against Asura.
"Kyle, i'm going to make some breakfast, so if you feel up for it why don't you get something to eat?" Elena was hugging Kyle as he thought about what he needed to do. Kyle knew he needed to get smarter, get stronger, and possibly gain allies.
"Okay mom." Kyle said to Elena and then she left the room. It's was Kyle's and Dave's shared room, so when Kyle looked over he could see Dave in his bed.
'Wait a second.... 20 days!' Kyle was only paying attention to what year it was, if the date was correct, he had been inside the black void for 20 days, even though it felt like only a few minutes.
'If time goes significantly faster in Oblivion, then I might still have time!' Kyle was determined to kill Asura, but when he thought about Asura having 3,000 years to get stronger, he was crushed. With the new revelation though, if 20 days in Limbo was 10 minutes in Oblivion, then 3,000 years in Limbo was.... Kyle was not good at math, so he would have to go some math to figure it out, but he figured it was a lot less than 3,000 years.
'Okay, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day... 1800 minutes in a day.' Math did not have very much use to an adventurer after addition and subtraction. Kyle truly believed multiplication to be bullshit only merchants needed to know.
'And a year is 365 days, so.... 700,000 minutes in a year.' Killing monsters was easy for Kyle, but finding the number of minutes in a year.... not so much.
'And if it was 3,000 years, that would be 2,100,000,000 minutes.' Kyle knew his single digit multiplication and division, but anything more turned into guess work.
'And if every 10 minutes is 20 days then that means.... damn it, it's still a long time.' Kyle gave up trying to find the amount of time Asura trained for because the math got too hard. Kyle laid in bed for a few minutes fermenting in the hate for mathematics and was called by Elena to eat breakfast.
"Kyle, wake up Dave and let's eat breakfast." A cheerful voice coming from the living room said. It was still morning, so everyone in the family should be there. Kyle got up from his bed and put his feet on the ground. It was strange moving after not having done so after 20 days, and he felt a little stiff.
Kyle then went over to Dave to wake him up. Dave slept a long time every day and most of the time had to be woken up by Kyle in the morning. Kyle reached out his hand and placed it on his brother's shoulder.
"Wake up Dave, it's time to eat breakfast." Kyle said in softer voice than normal and gently shook Dave's shoulder. Dave reacted unpleasantly towards the shaking and tried to get away. This was normal though, and Kyle knew the turn of events that would follow. Dave had already slept for so long that he certainly would not be able to go back to sleep, so in a few minutes he would want someone to get him off from his bed.
'You can't fool me, in a couple minutes you'll be begging me to let you down.' Kyle thought as he walked into the living room. The house was small, so when it came to available rooms for gathering in, the living room was all they had, and it was right next to the bedrooms.
"Kyle, I just knew you would be fine." Fred said while waiting at the table to eat. He said this, but Fred was secretly very worried about Kyle. Fred had mobilized the town guard to look for Kyle when he did not come home after a few hours, and even took a day off of work to stay beside him with Elena and Dave.
It was the oldest son's job to surpass the father, so Kyle was going to have to be a great swordsman. If Kyle continued to collapse and remain unconscious for days at a time, his future as a swordsman where every second was life or death would be in jeopardy. It was 2 years between events, but if it happened during a battle one time, Kyle would die. Additionally, Kyle was out for over 4 times as long this second time. Kyle would truly have a bleak future with this chronic disease, or so Fred thought.
"Let's eat a healthy breakfast and have a healthy day." Fred smiled as he looked at Elena in the kitchen who was now starting to bring out the usual slop they had to eat.
'Unidentifiable soup again... yay!' Kyle truly loved that soup now. It was made lovingly by someone that cared about him and wouldn't betray him, unlike 4 bastards he knew. Enthusiasm for the soup does not make it taste any better though.
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"Dad, I think I just need a sword made for my size." Kyle said across the table as the 4 of them ate. Fred put down his spoon and made a pouting face.
"I'd like to get you a sword, but somebody doesn't want you to learn swords." Fred said and then turned to Elena who stopped eating with the spoon in her mouth. Elena looked at Fred with wide eyes and pulled out the spoon from her mouth, then changed her eyes into angry eyes.
"No swords, besides Kyle, even if we wanted to get you a sword, we wouldn't have the money needed to buy a sword from a blacksmith." Elena quickly went to a normal tone when he turned to speak with Kyle. It was true that their financial situation was not good, and a sword might cost over 8,000 coins. A children's sword would probably cost less, but not by much.
Kyle did not really want a sword though, he just wanted to know how to earn money so that he could buy a library membership. The library membership was only 100 coins so it would be much easier to get than a sword.
"Then, how can I make money?" Kyle asked the both of his parents. He was always an adventurer in his past life when he needed money, but he had not seen a guild in this town so that would be out of the question. Unfortunately, many skills learned while killing monsters and diving deep into mysterious caves in the sides of mountains did not translate well to jobs in town.
Kyle knew of 3 solid methods of making money with the adventurer's guild. First, monster subjugation quest. When a population of monster got out of control, the guild would provide an intermediary body for citizens or lords of the county to hire adventurers to kill the monsters.
Second was healing magic. Kyle did not like doing these because people would then continuously hound him to heal others because of how rare healing mages were. With his limited mana, Kyle was only able to heal a few dozen people a day in his past life. In a town of over 5,000 people, the request would never stop.
Third and finally was fetch quest. These were Kyle's favorite. Just use fly magic to get to another town and pick up an item, then bring it back. These quest usually gave more if done quickly, and Kyle could do these in a few hours that took others days to do.
Unfortunately for Kyle though, all three of these methods would be impossible for him as a 3 year old child. He just need to find a job he could do in the town that didn't use magic.
"Well, if you want to make money you should..." Elena was going to say something but remembered she never had a job. She married Fred and moved from her parents house to Fred's in this neighboring town. They knew each other for a while back in her previous town and people said it would never work, but Fred had come through for her and she never had to work for money.
"I know Kyle, how about you get a job as a food delivery man?" Fred was proud of his suggestion. It was the perfect job for a 3 year old child who collapsed late a night in a far section of town.
"Fred, you had that job when you were 10! Kyle is only 3!" Elena must have been the only sane one at the table, because nobody else thought it would be strange for a 3 year old to be running around the town carrying food.
Kyle did not know how to earn money inside of towns and cities other than using magic, but he knew orphans earned money somehow and they didn't even have jobs. There must be a method he could use, he thought.
'Maybe they were pickpockets?' Kyle thought as he remembered the orphanage. The orphanage mother and father did have a large amount of jewelry, and small hands made easy entry into pockets.
"Alright, no sword and no job, I get it!" Fred was disappointed but he accepted his wife's wishes. Fred only brought home about 40,000 coins a year, so he knew that a sword would cost way too much for him to afford.
The 4 of them finished eating without further discussion of the topic and Fred left for the guard barracks. Everyone finished their meal and left a clean bowl on the table.
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"You know who would like to see you Kyle?" Elena asked him as she cleaned up. The 3 males in the house just left their plates on the table while Elena gathered them and washed them with minimal water, then placed them in their rack. The spoons were cleaned a similar way.
"Who?" Kyle asked, but he had an idea who it was that was constantly saying his name. The total number of people he knew in this life not counting his family was 3. Paul, Kathy, and Claire. The doctor didn't really count as someone he knew, more like someone he knew about.
"Claire." Elena beamed a huge smile as she turned around to look at Kyle. It was very funny to both Elena and Kathy how much Claire liked Kyle.
'Claire... that girl ain't right.' Kyle thought as he remembered her. He had used magic to bring her back from the dead, but now she was overly attached to him. Kyle was worried about it being a curse she picked up when he used the Resurrect spell, but she was a year old now and it was too late to fix it.
A curse from birth would have disastrous effects if removed even a year from birth. When a curse is gained later in life it is easy to tell because the effects from it will suddenly show, and it can be removed with the healing spell Dispel. A curse from birth will become a part of the person's personality after a few weeks, and make removing it undesirable.
Though it could be done, if Kyle used Dispel on Claire, she would never be the same and would probably be an outcast. It was better to learn to live with a curse from birth.
Being brought back to life came at a price.