In the midst a forest, there was a small wooden cottage.
Its windows were opened to allow the warm sunlight to enter the house.
There were also birds gathered on the window sill and chirping happily as they listened to the humming coming from within the cottage.
The humming came from a young woman in long white dress sitting on a rocking chair.
Her hands danced fluidly to finish knitting a near complete garment resting on her lap.
On the carpet right next the chair was a wolf taking a nap.
Its size was as big as the woman and its long black-and-white fur made it look even more bigger.
The woman's bedroom was simple.
Just a bed, a shelf and a chair were all the furnitures she had.
Thanks to the simpleness of her room, the woman was able to keep the room tidy at all time.
Small thin books with long and colourful titles were neatly placed on the shelf sorted in the numbering underneath their names. The shelf was mostly packed with those books and the different titles on the books indicate the massive variety of books she has.
Other than the books there were some round objects with unknown function on the shelf as well.
At one corner of the shelf, a space was left out for a glass container.
The glass container was nothing special but the objects inside it does have special values.
The objects were various editions of figurines of Magical Heroine Luliruka.
What made them even more special was that all of them were Limited Edition products from a certain famous sculptor.
Be it Swimsuit edition, Private Clothing edition or Pajamas edition - all of them which the woman managed to get her hands on were kept inside the glass container to prevent them from collecting dust.
Of course the shelf was not the only furniture to keep her belongings.
Her bed was specially made so that it has a hidden compartment to store her additional belongings.
However, whatever were inside were not important.
"I've finished it!" The woman exclaimed.
The wolf next to her was startled at first, then it realized this was a normal occurrence so the wolf sighed.
It look towards the woman and the object she held high in the air.
It was a beanie.
The beanie has a pattern of black and white that seemed similar to the wolf's fur pattern. Additionally, the woman have attached two pointy ears on the beanie which the wolf immediately understood what inspired her to make such beanie.
"Look over here, Ulric!" She put the beanie over her long silver hair. "Do I look cute?"
"..."
The wolf turned its head away and went back to napping.
"What's this? If it's not cute then just say so! It's rude to ignore someone like that!"
The woman pouted and sat back on her rocking chair.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
She has decided to ignore the wolf's dinner tonight.
Then soft footsteps came from the room outside.
"Mother!"
A little girl with light blue hair came running into the woman's room.
Her eyes were only focused on the woman that she forgot there was a wolf on the floor. She did not notice she have stepped on the wolf's face and used it to aid her jump into the woman's embrace.
"Mother!" The little girl hugged the woman and rubbed her face against the woman's chest.
"Geez, Dear... Aren't you a little spoiled girl." The woman gently stroked the little girl's head.
Seeing this warm scene, even the birds stopped chirping and they felt like they were about to melt from the warmth.
The wolf, however, was not too happy to be stepped on the face. But having seen the smiles of the two ladies, the wolf just sighed and left the room.
"So what made you so excited today?"
The woman asked as she put the little girl on her lap.
The little girl's smile bloomed when she heard the woman asked, the little girl held up a book with a colourful cover.
"This! This book that I read!"
"Oh, this... the one about five high schoolers from Japan were transported to a different world to become Heroes of the world."
"Yes! This one was really interesting!" The little girl flipped through the pages to several illustrations in it. "The main character was caught in by the summoning magic by mistake so he was transported to the different world without the blessing to be a Hero. But unknown to all the other people, the main character actually had a unique power only he has and he later became the key person to unite and save the world!"
"Mn, looks like you read quite far into the series." The woman smiled. "Did you enjoyed it that much?"
"Yes, of course! I really enjoyed this one a lot! Especially the main character was someone who I really admire! He can do..."
The little girl began mentioning the main character's power and accomplishments in the series.
There seemed to be stars in the little girl's eyes as she talked about the main character from the book she read.
After the little girl was done, she asked:
"Does Mother think I can also summon a Hero?"
"You want to summon a Hero?"
"Yes!" The little girl answered with a bright smile. "I want to summon a Hero so powerful that he will protect both of us from harm and beat up any bad guys!"
"I see..." The woman gently stroked the little girl's head once agian. "If it's you, Dear, I'm sure you can do it. You definitely can summon a Hero who will also come to your aid and help you overcome situations you found impossible to get through."
"Really?! I am so happy!"
The little girl hugged the woman tightly.
Then, suddenly, the little girl made a sudden realization.
"Ah, I forgot! There was a question I wanted to ask Mother!" She turned the book to the back side. "While I can read what were written inside the books but somehow I am struggling with the words written over here."
"Oh, these! No wonder you can't read them, I was the one who wrote these after-all." The woman scratched cheek embarrassingly. "Since my handwriting is bad so this usually becomes a case. Don't worry about it Dear, there's no need for you to try so hard to learn these words."
"But they are also written in Mother's language, right?"
"Yes, they are written in Japanese."
"Then I want to learn them! Does not matter what they look like, as long as they are Mother's language then I want to learn them!"
"Oh, I see. Then it can't be helped." The woman pointed at the words. "Then follow me as I read them, okay?"
"Okay!"
The woman smile.
"Ready? Here goes..."
"Haibara Rei."
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Haibara Rei?
Yes, Dear. The words are read as Haibara Rei.
Many people from my country have a habit of writing their names on their possession. Just like this light novel, I bought it so I wrote my name at the back of it.
Oooh! So Mother's name is Haibara Rei!!
Yes, Dear.
Also this is why your name is...
Haibara Nia
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Side Story: A Time with Zero
Ends