Up until now, I was able to determine a few things. First, my name is Aerin. Along with my mother, Lia, and my father, Peter, we make up a pretty lovely family of three.
But ever since the very first day in this world, I have wondered why my family lives in the middle of a forest. Aside from my parents and the doctor, I haven't seen a single soul here these past few months.
"Ma!" Was the only sound I could let out while pointing at a table near the window.
"You really like sitting here, looking out the window, right?" My mom asked gleefully. She put me down at the exact place I asked her to. "You're so curious about the world around you. Reminds me of myself when I was little. Just don't be too curious for your own good, okay?"
After finally freeing her hands from a burden, she quickly planted a kiss on my forehead and began placing ingredients on the table. Meal time was drawing near after all.
I glanced out the window.
I had never felt sunlight. Not in this life anyway. Something was off about the forest that surrounded our house from all sides. I suspect that this is the reason my parents didn’t want me out there.
Perhaps it is too dangerous? Are there any monsters? If that's the case, why on earth did they build a house here of all places?
If only I could talk properly, I could just ask them. I can understand my parents' speech mostly, but speaking with this body is a different story.
I stared at the vast greenery spreading its limbs far and wide. These woods were scary. Something about the way they protracted from the earth at various angles and twisted everywhere made me feel uncanny.
Even though the hut was so well-preserved that it couldn’t have been built too long ago, the tree branches had already enveloped it completely, as if the forest tried to claim this building as part of itself.
If I'm right, and this forest is in fact haunted, then my situation is dire, because I still don't know how to get any exp, and I lack health points.
I smelled something sweet, which distracted my attention from glancing at the bush. Naturally, the scent came from right beside me, where my mom was destemming juicy strawberries.
Ugh, I want to eat already. I wish I could help my mom, but I’m just too useless right now. Unless…
I decided to give it a try. First I managed to pull myself closer and put my hand in a bowl of strawberries. This promptly elicited a reaction.
“No, Aerin, you can’t! These are not ready yet.”
I proceeded to take one out anyway, but instead of eating it, I reached out the other hand and tried to remove the stalk from the rest of the fruit.
'Tried' is the appropriate word as instead of grabbing the stalk I squeezed the fruit and crushed it. My hands were now drenched in wet juice and whatever was left from the strawberry.
Lia looked utterly confused
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“Aerin! Look what you've done!" She rushed to grab a tissue, and then headed to me, frowning.
"You can't waste food! You need to wait, I'll give you food later." She wiped my hands with the tissue.
It's not good. I didn't know my hand synchronization would be that far off. I even made my mom angry. I really just wanted to help.
After cleaning my hands, my mom wiped up the table which I stained with strawberry juice.
I retrieved one more strawberry from the bowl. My mom quickly noticed and scowled at me. "Put that down, Aerin."
Unfazed by my mom's deadly glare I reached the other hand out, and this time very carefully removed the stem from the rest of the fruit.
My mom didn't react to it, so I showed her both of my hands and then put down the fruit to one side, and the stalk to the other.
This got my mom dazed, her mouth slightly open. Perhaps she didn't understand how a baby like me could even comprehend the task I so flawlessly completed just now. Well, maybe not so flawlessly, but I am like what, half a year old? I have the right to make mistakes.
Her eyelids fluttered as I took more strawberries and started repeating the task I did a while ago. It was way easier after doing it once already.
"Wow, so you just wanted to help. Thank you. You already understand so much," She said proudly, but a slight waver in her voice could be heard during the last sentence. She didn't say anything after that, so we both came back to preparing the food in silence.
After I finished dealing with all the strawberries, which took me a lot of time with my clumsy hands, Lia started packing them into round pieces of dough. She then folded the dough with fruits inside. I didn’t help her since It required deft hands, and I obviously didn’t have those.
When she was done, she took all the pieces and put them into a pot full of water. I was a bit disappointed when I saw her warm it up on a stove instead of like… with her own magic or something. I knew magic existed in this world, but I’ve never experienced it so far.
A few minutes later the dish was ready. The food looked astonishing, but I was too occupied looking at the alert that popped up to even care about it.
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Assist in making food: Strawberry dumplings. +15 exp
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***
Having realized that potential sources of experience points might be all around me, I decided to rummage around the house in search of such opportunities.
I considered the kitchen to be the best way to start my search, and as I crawled there another alert popped up.
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+5 exp from physical training
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Does crawling really count as physical training? I decided to check that, crawling around the kitchen.
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+5 exp from physical training
+5 exp from physical training
+5 exp from physical training
+1 point added to agility stat
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As it turned out, every two minutes of crawling I got a new alert, informing me about obtaining experience points.
Incredible. Is it that easy? I suppose getting stat points will get harder as I have more and more of them, but still…
Looks like I won't be that bored anymore.
***
Since the day I noticed that I get some exp for all sorts of usual daily stuff, I meandered between getting as much exp as possible, but also not making my mother think I'm mentally ill. Crawling from left to right and back for multiple hours a day made her look at me very weird.
Other than that, everything has been going smoothly. Well, except for that one day when I decided to check if I'd get exp for peeing upside down. I was frightened to death when I noticed that in the place where I should have a sausage, I have a black hole instead.