Novels2Search
Neo Cosmos
Chapter 12 - Distress

Chapter 12 - Distress

Author's Note: Took a little long to update, chapter is also quite long. The updates will be a little slow, but the first arc will be completed in some time.Thank you for reading Neo Cosmos:). No author's joke section since i can't come up with a good one right now. Also the complete Status window(with tables) will be shown on the next chapter.

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Distress

……………………

Hn!........... Ah! What happened?

Last thing, I remember is healing Olivia and everything went dark after that. I remember feeling a strong headache, just before I fainted. I can see something, did I wake up?

Ah…Olivia’s watching me, but…….

Her skin, it’s completely dried up. It’s like she’s mummified. Didn’t my method work? No…….this can’t be. The virus shouldn’t be alive, it shouldn’t be able to replicate. Did I miss them? But then shouldn’t it still take time to act, since most of them were cleared off by me. Then…..why? why did it fail?

“O…ri…..a..n”(Olivia)

She’s speaking, what is it? Come on, get a grip over yourself. Why can’t I move, damn it? No, I’m standing but I can’t seem to move.

“For…..gi…ve….me”(Olivia)

No, no , no…..don’t die. It’s not your time, I won’t let it be. Please, anyone… someone ……. help her please. What are Dari and Sara doing? And who’s this guy in the same room? Don’t just stand there, do something for god’s sake? Don’t let her leave like this?

Ah…… my body….it’s hurting…..the headache it’s increasing. Where am I? What happened to Olivia? Who was that other person? Again, I can see something.

Did I get……taller?

Ah……. I know where this is. This is the front gate of the village. why am I outside? I still can’t control my body. I’m running towards the forest, this is the safe path used for travelling to the city. Why am I going there? Did I run away?

Why?........ why are you throwing stones at me? Why are you looking at me that way? Who are all these people? It hurts, I’m bleeding. Why didn’t I simply use my defense form? Wait…..this blood, it isn’t mine? Who is this woman? Did I kill her?

Agh……. Again, this headache…… it’s occurring too many times now. It’s dark again. I still can’t move.

………

This time I’m in a room full of books, is this a library? There’s someone else here, he’s trying to tell me…..no, he’s teaching me something. This old guy, he’s got a serious look. Aughhhh…. Damn it. Again, when will they stop?

Huh? Who are these people? There’s a group of five in front of me. All of them are males. They’re all holding weapons facing against me. Wait, why are you attacking me? I need to get ready quickly or I’m dead. I can’t use [Enchanted Defense ].

Ughh…my throat.

*cough* *cough* why is there……. blood?

My hands are pale…… I can’t move, my body is completely in pain. By the time I raise my head to see what’s going on, the guy who was at the forefront of the group is already in front of me. He’s holding a sword, its coming at great force.

No, no , no ….don’t come near me. Go away……… GET AWAY FROM ME.

It was only an instant. I don’t clearly understand what happened. But my vision had shifted. I was looking at the sky and fell with a thud. Ah….my head. Did I land?

I look to my front, I can’t seem to move my neck. It’s the one who attacked and my body….its headless. He… he  …..he chopped my head off. I died.

“NOOOOOOOO”(Orian)

Gah!........ what happened? I touch my neck, to check my state.

Phew…it’s still attached. What the heck? Was that a dream? No, I should’ve realized it was. It wasn’t the first bad dream, I had. But the pain I felt in this one was all too real. Well, it isn’t like people haven’t tried to realize they were in a dream. They’ve been trying for a long time, but there were only a few. Rather, I don’t believe them, even if they told me they did it.

But this dream, it felt like I died and wound up here. It felt all too real. I shouldn’t feel pain in a dream. Let’s leave that aside for now.

*whack*

“oww…. Who hit me?”(Orian)

“Shut it, Orian. What were you doing here? Shouldn’t you be asleep in your room?”(Sara)

Ah…. It’s the nemesis for all little kids. The tyrant elder one. It has a wicked mind and it bothers you and attacks you for no reason.

“ now…now … stop that, Sara”(Olivia)

“But, Mother…..he was too noisy. You should be-“(Sara)

“it’s alright now. I’m feeling much better. I’m sure Orian was just worried. You know how much he cries.”(Olivia)

And the boss of the tyrant elder one. This one brings up such embarrassing memories.

Wait……..

Olivia, she’s fine….. She looks healthy. She’s still pale, but it seems to have gotten better. No, I can’t stop. Tears are welling up……..

I hugged her. I want to stop crying. Damn it, I’m old as who knows what. But my emotions won’t let up. She’s fine, it worked. Inoculation worked.

“that’s enough, Orian. You’re going to be a crybaby in the future too. Rather, come here already. Mother is still weak.”(Sara)

Sara pulled me away from Olivia. I didn’t want to let go of her. But I let go, thinking my strength would be too much if I continued any further. Sara pulled me out of the room. owww….why smack my head again? She sighed and spoke.

“ Mother needs more food for her recovery. Go and get the things on this list.”(Sara)

“Ah! Alright”(Orian)

“Good….. seriously, you’re being a brat. Sleeping till late in the afternoon, waking up being so noisy. Luckily mother had gotten well and was already awake in the morning. She told me not to wake you up.”(Sara)

“Mother….. was awake and well……wait I slept so late”(Orian)

Sara sighs and nods at me. She couldn’t be wrong about the timing, could she? But then again, she wakes up much earlier than me and usually handles most of the housework. How can some people, wake up without an alarm?

So that meant Olivia had gotten well over the night. I think I heard about this from Dari, prior when her body was weak. After she had taken medicine, she didn’t fall sick again for a long time. Does that mean she would have a strong immunity against the rot in case, she were to be inoculated beforehand?

But why did I wake up so late? Even if I was drained of mana, I shouldn’t have taken so much time. Was it the dream?

“Orian, get going..”(Sara)

Sara has angry look, I better head right now. I can think of this later.

…………

Phew….I didn’t think, she’d have me bring so much boar’s meat. I had to drug the entire boar. Claw wolves are easy to kill, but going against boars is still annoying. If the fight goes for enough time, then the boar could use [ Force Rush ] to escape or even come at me. But this is the first time, Sara actually requested me to get boar meat considering she didn’t want to harm Boa. Fortunately, Gina’s taking care of him right now.

The list had quite the amount of food, were there more people coming? Did Dari somehow receive the news of her recovery? If Guez and Gina are coming, I should get more, maybe some viper meat.

I should get more fruits and edible roots. The roots are minced and also a paste is mixed with the boar meat to give it a deep flavor. I’m already salivating just thinking about what will be cooked with a whole boar.

………

…….what am….I..seeing?

It’s Olivia, right? It is really my mother, right. No, I must be mistaken.

*chew**chew**chew* *swallow*

Empty plates are gathering on the table, Sara is reusing them to place more food on the table.

*swoosh* My eyes aren’t lying to me, right? It was only a moment, that plate was full, but now it sits there completely empty before me. What type of Magic is this?

After watching the entire event with my mind still in a daze, I could see Olivia returning back to her usual complexion. It felt like I didn’t do anything much at all, that the rot never existed in the first place. While I was happy over this fact, I still couldn’t believe what had happened before that.

Sara explained to me that this was how much she would consume whenever she recovered from some form of exhaustion. It had happened when I was born as well. The day after I had been born, Olivia had munched heavily on food. I wonder how her body works or is it the same for all humans? When she’s sick, she hardly has any appetite but when she gets better her hunger rises to its peak.

This explains where my gluttonous behavior stems from. Sara didn’t inherit that part though. After having a good meal myself, I went outside to clear my head.

I had to get all the information in my head sorted. Firstly, the method to kill the virus was a success and recovery seems to be fine. Rather healing magic is quite convenient. I don’t know how old average humans live, but I’d like her to live long enough to reach that old age. If her condition gets better, I won’t have to worry about the rot attacking her again since her body would be immune to it by then. But that doesn’t mean, the rest of us are in the clear.

The rot could aim any of the family members, this much I will assume considering its previous pattern. Rather I’m certain now, because of that downpour of memories.

Yes, I can confirm that was the side effect of using [ Message ]. The future changed and his timeline doesn’t exist anymore. But then what about the other ones which failed to change, will their memories also pass onto me? I suppose not, since now I sorted all the memories that entered my mind, and I can conclude it was only from the one who sent me. The reason I accepted this would be, since there was a understandable flow in them, but then again various memories from different timelines which got erased could also be mixed into them and I couldn’t see it.

It’s not something I can determine right now anyway. For now, I have a good amount of information from him.

The fires above the pillars were lit and even though it was dark, I walked as I saw my reflection in the lake. Blonde hair, black eyes, the height which was close to a five year old and light skin, I imagined my figure when I would become 10 years old since I didn’t find my older image in the memories. The current me and the older me who had died at the age of 13, it looks like he experienced a lot worse than I gave him credit for.

I could understand why he hesitated slightly to send me the message. He didn’t want others in his timeline to suffer.

……….

{AN: the other timeline’s memories are being read as his own}

On the day when Olivia breathed her last, Dari had somehow found a doctor from the city to accompany him to the village. But it was too late and even if he had arrived earlier, I don’t think the situation would have changed. The Doctor had confirmed her dead, with the cause being the rot, only sadness loomed that day in the house. But calling the doctor had made it worse for our situation. The information that someone in the village had been affected by the rot was leaked to the city, this made the good trade we established with them to wither.

Things went south after that, Dari’s license to trade was revoked and development halted. Guez and a few hunters were imprisoned by the knight guards when they went to the city. The Knight Commander must have been changed by the church. The village was in shambles, it wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t gone out to hunt. Dari and Sara somehow held strong, but even though I myself seemed alright, I always had the urge to use [ Message ] to save her somehow. Not letting go of the past, I left after doing all I can for the village. Gina also confessed her feelings to me, but I couldn’t answer them. I still wanted to save my mother and left the village with her behind as well.

I was eight years old at the time and when I reached the city, I somehow lied about my age and became an adventurer. I was able to earn much and raise my rank to S within a year. The guild members were happy to be able to employ me, but there were a few who held envy.

There were many people who I had helped, some I had saved and gotten along with. There were only two S ranked in the city including me and I was the one most available for the dangerous jobs, I gained a lot of contacts over time. I never met the other S ranker in the time I was there in the city. There were certain quests such as escorting an important person and some of them took quite long to finish but they paid well. Such quests were S ranked, so it was common I was the only one available,  since I didn’t have much interest in accepting such tasks.

After some incident with the church, they found out I was from the village and almost everyone in the city came to hate me.

The civilian’s wrath ensued, stones were pelted at me. I escaped the city and took route to the City of Veda. From the information, I had gathered I could find something about the rot from the grand library there.

On my travel, I had to fight against certain adventurers. It was later that I found out, there was a bounty placed on me by the church. Although none were clearly strong enough to catch much less kill me, I was able to continue. But there was an S ranked adventurer who also took up the bounty.

She was an elf, I could guess from her long ears. While I was hunting some monsters for food, she attacked me with magic imbued arrow to kill me quickly. But thanks to fourth level of enhanced defense, at best they made scratched the surface. But that was only her gauging my strength. Her attacks became much fierce and even with my defense I took enough damage. If an S ranked adventurer has enough advantage, they could kill even an army of 500 by themselves. I realized that fact and made use of [ Backtrack ] and as many skills and tactics to finally defeat her.

Although she was an enemy, I felt remorse when I killed her. It was later I had found out, she had been tricked into attacking me. They had framed me for killing the children at the orphanage in Lafrice city. She was the other S rank, who had returned after completing her work. But when she came back, she found out a relative of hers who lived in the orphanage had died by the hands of a human who was clad in grey defense armor. She assumed it had to be a high level adventurer and since I had run away, the most suitable culprit would be me.

She died with a sad look on her face, after realizing that I wasn’t the one. I felt that this world was a cruel one similar to the one I came from.

I continued on my path to the City of Veda. There I wasn’t discriminated against at least, so I was able to gain information on the rot. I met a friend of Olivia, who was a mage working in the grand library. She told me how she couldn’t come to visit us, since the cities guard didn’t allow anyone to enter the village. Since she knew my mother, I was able to easily gain access to the library to study about the rot. There I met an enthusiastic professor who was also researching the subject.

He started to teach me what he knew, since I was also interested in learning as much as I could about the rot. Later, he accepted me as a student to test the skills I could learn. He was really strict, but he taught me a lot about magic and I was able to learn [ Healing Magic ] as well as few others.

I had reached a bottleneck, after trying and thinking of various methods, there wasn’t a single solution to the rot. After a long time, I was about to give up. I wanted to return to the village, to see everyone again. Sara had gotten married to one of the villagers when I was four years old, I could probably meet my nephew or niece by now. Even though I wasted so much of my life trying to save Olivia, I was able to accept her death and I knew my younger self couldn’t find a cure even if I sent him everything I learnt.

I set out from Veda, to go back to the village. After giving my regards, I departed to the nearest town. There I acquired some information about the village. I should have expected something like this could have happened.

But news reached me too late, the church had sent the Inquisition to the village. After barring them as heretics, everyone in the village had been killed. Various thoughts filled me that time, I wanted to destroy the church of light which made our life unfair. I was devoured by revenge but thoughts of regret also flew by. If only I stayed back, I could’ve avoided this.

I calmed down and returned as quickly as I could. But all that was left, was nothing but barren land. The huts were burnt, the bodies were placed on stakes. I searched for any survivor I could find. The stench was horrendous.

Gina, Targ….. I found their mangled corpses near the lake….. tears were welling up in my eyes, but I  held back.. someone had to be alive. Our house was destroyed, the place where we buried Olivia was desecrated.

I held my anger and kept searching, after a while I found Dari’s corpse protecting the door and when I looked inside, Sara was…..her corpse was….

….( Guh!.. that image hurts my conscience… reading all these memories is hard)

I buried the bodies and gave them the funeral they deserved. I couldn’t find any children within the village. They were mostly captured and sold as slaves. I blamed myself and this world, this was something I was supposed to be used to. But at those times, I never had my emotions peak up like this. The thought then came to me, if only Olivia was alive. Maybe I wouldn’t have taken such a path. The church wouldn’t have a reason to attack us, Guez wouldn’t be captured, Dari could still trade and I wouldn’t be framed. The desire which I had lost, became stronger.

I wanted to find a cure to the rot no matter what happened. I hated my powerlessness, but I had no choice but to accept that I couldn’t do anything by myself. I wished that this reality wouldn’t exist. I began preparing to head to the unknown lands, from where I could find a solution to the rot, a way to stop all these events from unfolding.

I left the village for the last time and headed towards the southern kingdom which would allow me access to the unknown lands. I was feeling weak and tired, I simply ignored it thinking it was due to what I experienced a few days ago.

It was en route I was intercepted.

I hadn’t realized when I was drowning in my emotions, that this information reaching me so late would be a trap. I was surrounded by five adventurers. A prominent figure among them came forth drawing a sword, he attacked a few times but couldn’t breach my defense. Then he used [ Enhanced defense ] himself.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

It all came rushing back to me, the gray skin colored culprit, the one who had enough strength to capture A rank hunters from the village. This person was the reason…..

He started laughing and told me how much he enjoyed killing all the villagers. He was behind that as well? The tattoo that was on his face was similar to the church. The church probably hired him or he’s probably one of the church’s dogs. I escaped to the cliff side to think of a plan, but my breathing became harder.

*cough* *cough*

I could see blood and my throat felt dry. My hands seemed pale. It was a little late, but I could understand my body was suffering from the rot. Damn it, why now? Was the rot also his doing?

I couldn’t make it to the cliff, I fell to the ground near the lake in the forest. I turned back and saw that they had already reached where I was. I tried to activate my defense but I didn’t have the strength to, the rot was eating away at me each second. I tried using the elementary magic I learned from my teacher, but before I could muster my strength, he had closed the distance between us. He beheaded me before I could react, I hadn’t expected for him to be so agile. I held what little conscious I had left to use [ Message ].

Everything is completely dark………..

………………

*sigh*

Looks like the rot won’t leave me or my family so soon. But still, I can feel a little of what he felt at those times. Did a part of his emotions also pass into me? I don’t really want more than what I already have. Those same emotions which give me purpose can also cloud my judgment. These memories aren’t a part of me, but I feel like in some way they are. It’s like when you lose sight of your own personality and start doubting your own memories. Let’s just hope using [ Message ] doesn’t result in too many side effects.

Fortunately with this, the future has changed. I also have information on two possible enemies, at least how they may fight and also a lot of information on the outside world. It’s a major loss on his timeline but a good trade off when compared to mine. Why does it feel like I’m taking advantage of myself?

The language that I speak here in the village is called [ Rigian ] and the one which most of the Carthos Continent speaks in, is called [ Luminus ]. Luckily I had studied most of it from the books in the study room, but I didn’t have anyone to converse before in [ Lumina ]. Thanks to him, I have what you could call Fake Experience.

There were many tribes that existed outside the village. Although humans were the majority, there was also the Elven race, which had long lifespan because of their mana density. Humans could also have long lives, but one couldn’t compare it to the elves which always looked young no matter the age. They speak the magic language which is also used in incantations called [ Qunad ]. I had to learn it, if I wanted to use magic. Thankfully, he learned it for me.

From what I know about S rank adventurers, it seems most of them can use [ Enhanced Defense ], but none of them refer to it in the same way. They use [ Qunad ] term called [ Raksha ] throughout the whole continent. Was it because that’s how the [ Status ] showed it to them?

But I could gauge how strong someone could be thanks to them using the skill, though it’s not like they would be weak just because they couldn’t use it. The S ranked Elf-girl who fought never used [ Raksha ], but she wasn’t weak in the least. She could fire stronger arrows if she concentrated enough mana into them and what’s worse is, the attack is long ranged. If I hadn’t developed my sixth sense in my previous life, I don’t think I could escape unharmed from a sniping.

From what I can guess, [ Raksha ] could be classified like this…..

[ Enhanced Defense +1 ] -> No change in skin color, stone-hard body

[ Enhanced Defense +2 ] -> Light gray skin color, stronger defense than first level

[ Enhanced Defense +3 ] -> Slightly Darker grey skin color, Strongest compared to both almost hard as certain steel or metal, but unnecessarily hard to maintain on the body. Also restricts movements.

[ Enhanced Defense +4] -> Soot colored, feels a little stronger but it’s probably due to binding all three layers.

The elf girl could break even the fourth level if she used enough magic power, so I’ll have to really careful. The guy who killed me, used the second level [ Raksha ] I think. That’s a minimum requirement for people to quickly recognize you as a S rank. No wonder Guez looked proud whenever I used this skill.

But even with that, this world is annoying to figure out. Rather why do I have so many enemies so quickly? I must’ve underestimated how dangerous the rot was. I don’t think I could use the same method on myself like I did with Olivia.

Ah…right, shouldn’t I also be able to use elementary magic now? I’ll take some time off to practice them later.

It’s getting quite late. I headed home after sorting out most of the details and slept a good night’s sleep after what felt like a long time.

------Two Days Later-----

Dari returned as quickly as he heard the news. Since he hadn’t taken the whole carriage, he was able to make it back fast. It looked like he had almost found a Doctor, but rushed here instead. You could’ve had him check her at least once, you know just to be careful.

But it would be better if he didn’t come and declare she had the rot. I already knew what I’d face outside in case that happened. He was crying and hugging Olivia who had recovered to such an extent, there wasn’t even a single sign of the symptoms. But it probably would’ve affected her life span in some way. Then again, I had met quite long lived humans who were even past 100 that were quite active.

-------Four Days later-----

My second birthday went by without too many problems, we had a feast that night and many people were invited. Targ and Gina came to give me their regards; I couldn’t face Gina right now because there was that memory of her confession. She might’ve noticed it, hope she doesn’t misunderstand. It’s not like I could explain it to her anyway.

But what was interesting was what happened after that night. My now two year old body had grown again, it was just like the morning of my first birthday. Do humans have growth spurts almost every year, exactly after they age? It really will take me some time to figure these things out.

……

Today, I had entered the forest to practice elementary magic by reciting the incantations in [ Qunad ]. It took a while but I was able succeed in using Fire and Earth attributes. I hadn’t learned how to use the other two. Instead of remembering the incantations, it seems one could use it the same way as the other skills. But for magic this required desire, control and imagination to do so.

If one had to use Fire magic, he should not only use mana correctly to control the flow but should also know how it would look as well as what it would do. If you simply imagined how fire looked and didn’t know how it felt or what it exactly did then you would produce something which only looked like fire or should I say [ Fake Fire ]? Even if you touched such fire it wouldn’t feel warm or hot in any way. If you used the fire to burn leaves then it would only appear on the leaf and would hardly consume any air to burn it. [ Fake Fire ] could only be categorized as some form of illusion rather than actual fire itself.

But Earth magic was quite different, all you had to was bend the surrounding earth using your mana directly. By injecting your mana into the earth and giving it a shape using your mind, you could manipulate it in various ways.

I knew how touching Fire felt like, since I burned my hand using the tool in the kitchen once. But I could already feel the use of Earth magic, in creating traps and also building something made of mud or rocks.

I checked [ Status ] to see the changes.

Language Comprehension improved to +1

Skill: Fire Magic Learned

Fire Magic Improved to +1

Skill: Earth Magic Learned

Earth Magic Improved to +1

Earth Magic Improved to +2

Hmm….. the levels are quite low. But even with [ Mana Sight ] I don’t know how to improve them. The other me, didn’t learn too much about magic since he was researching the rot. But just these two skills, give a wide variety of uses for me improve my tactics for now. I could learn myself if go to Veda at any point.

I spent the whole time practicing them and trying to create short strategies which I could use at a moment’s notice.

……….

I returned home after the training, Olivia seems to have recovered completely. While she was handling the work in the kitchen, she cut her finger. I rushed to her, to use [ Healing Magic ].

……when I saw the bleeding finger, I stopped. Instead of healing her, I placed her finger in my mouth and began to suck out the blood until it clotted. Don’t look at me like that mother, I am no pervert neither do I have any such fetish?

It was just a wild thought that ran across my mind. What if I could also be inoculated by using her blood as the source? Would I be able to gain immunity against the rot in the future? It was worth checking, but I wouldn’t know the effects until I became much older. I stored a vial of blood thinking it would come to use later. I added a few drops of it to the food that day as well. The whole family could have immunity to the rot that way.

---------1 year later--------

Ah…by the time I realized it, looks like my third birthday is almost nearing. Sara is now already an adult. Because of the growth spurt from my previous birthday, my height was at 45 inches and my muscles felt a little denser. I wonder how much I would grow this time.

The days have been passing by as usual, but I still don’t know what to do against S rank adventurers. I’m trying to improve my current level of [ Raksha ] right now. I got a better grasp on how the smaller particles of mana are around my [ Enhanced Defense ] covering my body. It was now possible to see these incredibly smaller particles due to my improved [ Mana Sight ].

After weeks of trial and error, I used to mana needles to change the shape in which the particles had been arranged in. Mostly I was just playing around with the arrangement anyway, but the way they had formed to make the defense was somehow familiar. It took me some time, but I changed the shape of the particles to that of honeycomb. Joining multiple regular hexagons, it looked just like a honeycomb.

Although it was an accident, the armor covering me had changed. I had pitch black skin, it wasn’t the same color where one would have more melanin. My skin was completely dark, black colored like one of the armors I used to wear during my previous life.

I checked [ Status ] to see if anything had changed.

Enhanced Defense improved to +5

The fifth level of defense. The user’s body is covered by mana which is changed at the atomic level. The user is protected against all physical attacks without the defense wearing down at any point.

I touch the armor with my bare fingers on one hand. This is……

There’s no doubt about it, this is Graphene. Now that I think about it, Graphene has a Honeycomb lattice structure.

This is the same alloy my armor was made of during my previous life. If I said it was unbreakable armor it was no joke. An estimation of how strong it is, it’s at least 100 times stronger than most steel. They only ever used Graphene to make nano-sheets. To make armor it would cost hundreds thousands in my previous world. But this defense which made this possible…..

The world of mana is truly convenient in every way. Wearing this would not only increase my defense to a great level, but it’s also very flexible since it’s forming over my skin.

Then again, since [ Status ] named it, someone else in this world might have also found out how to do the same.

Well I learnt one more skill in case, but I don’t know how I can use it perfectly yet.

…………..

I could see the main gate was being opened today for some reason. Who even visits the village? Dari hasn’t left yet.

The person who entered wore a long robe which was also hiding a part of their face. That getup just screams suspicious.

Wait… they’re heading over to my house, I don’t think we were expecting any guests. I should carefully follow this person.

Olivia as soon as she saw the hooded figure rushed to meet him….. or her?

She raised her hood, it was a face I could recognize from the memories of the other me. She was the mage who was a close friend with my mother. She looked like a elf, but the ears were shorter than the normal ones. She had blue colored hair which was seemed shining in the light. She was the same height as Olivia.

Her name was Jena from what I knew. She was quite a looker. I wonder if she’s married. It’s not like I’m into older women, but considering my actual age …..

When the other me met her at Veda, she helped him by allowing access to most of the books there. Someone with enough authority needed to vouch for you to be permitted to enter the library. From what I had seen, she was a close friend of Olivia and she chose to help me after hearing my story. All in all she was a nice person.

I assumed it was only to meet Olivia that she had come to the village, but there were other matters as well. Olivia explained to me that since Sara had become 10 years old, she would take the first step to learn magic. Jena had a ecstatic look on her face when she met me, I on the other hand felt like I met someone who I couldn’t quite remember well.

She hugged me outright.

“ Olivia, your son looks just like you. He’s very cute. I wonder how he’ll look when he grows up.”(Jena)

“Ah… I suppose. He’s also very talented. He learnt Status magic by himself.”(Olivia)

“Awa…. Is that so? You could send him to Veda once he grows up, I can teach him myself. He’ll make a great mage in the future, if he’s already that much of genius. By the way Orian, are you also blessed?”(Jena)

“I don’t know…..”(Orian)

“I suppose it should show up on your [ Status ], but I don’t think you’d know even if you saw it. We can have you checked in the Magi Kingdom. I have a relative there who could ready the procedure for you.”(Jena)

“haha…. Orian seems to want to adventure by himself once he leaves the village, if you do meet him by any chance please take care of him.”(Olivia)

“you can count on me”(Jena)

Jena let go of me and continued speaking with Olivia for a long time. She stayed at our house in the village and used my room. I didn’t much of a good sleep, she kept hugging me like a pillow most of the night. I would’ve liked this if I was older, but within this body it just feels suffocating.

……..

Jena and Sara entered a room and were there for some time. The first step to teach magic would be to use [ Status ]. Jena is probably teaching her right now, but to pull mana onto your brain isn’t easy. I use [ Mana Sight ] and I can see both of their mana through the wall.

I can see Sara trying to push the mana up through her spinal cord but she keeps failing.

……

It’s been two hours already, aren’t they going to come out? I’m getting bored simply waiting, should I go out?

When I stood up, the door suddenly opened. Sara rushed out, it seemed like she was running away for some reason. Jena came out of the room and looked sad.

Olivia came from the kitchen to find out what was happening. She had a faint idea what had happened.

“ ….so it didn’t work.”(Olivia)

Jena sighed and spoke.

“Looks like, she doesn’t have much talent for magic. This happens much too often but I didn’t think it would happen to her. I thought she would also do well, considering your son did it by himself.”(Jane)

“mu……. Well she will come back later. I wanted her to learn magic as well, but…. She’s angry for another reason.”(Olivia)

Ah…. Sara could probably be jealous?...... this isn’t all to uncommon between siblings though. It’s best if I don’t meet her right now. I’ll just do the chores she was assigned to.

…….

The next day arrived and Sara had returned late during the night. When I saw her eyes, I could see she’d been crying for a long time. I don’t know how to comfort another person, never was good at it. It would be wise leave them alone when such things happen. Jena also left, she was escorted by a few hunters back to the city. Wonder if she would come back when I also grew up to be 10?

Sara didn’t talk to me, I only helped her with the chores and left. I played the morning with Targ and Gina but even I was growing bored this way. Rather I didn’t have any desire to be blissful while someone else was feeling worse.

I took a walk to the lake during the night, when the pillars were lit. I had been resting in my secret place, but someone had also arrived there today. So much for it being a secret.

It was Sara, she was looking down on me. While patting my head, she spoke.

“ Orian…… I want a favor from you.”(Sara)

“What?”(Orian)

“ I want you to Train me.”(Sara)