I was back in my room again. I wanted to speak to Mom a bit more, but I couldn’t do that with Robert back. He wanted to speak to Mom alone, so I ended up in my room. Though I wanted to know more about the situation, I didn’t hold it against Robert. He’s doing what he thinks is best to protect me. Even Mom only shared the least that she could get away with. Despite having the mind of an adult, I couldn’t expect everyone to treat me like one.
I wish I could grow up quickly. But I scratched that thought soon after. I needed to take a positive outlook on the matter. Kids can adapt to things much faster than adults, and even though I was technically an adult, I still had the advantage of no work and no responsibility until a certain age. Hence, I could focus on my interests without any worries.
Now that I think about it, I didn’t take a good look around the last time. Indeed, I had quite a spacious room, at least compared to the one-room apartment I was living in during my past life. There was a large enough window right beside my bed. I had many fond memories of looking out into the distance standing by its side. The stars looked especially pretty at night, though it was not night at the moment.
I walked towards the bookshelf on the side. It was neatly organized with all sorts of children’s books, mostly fairy tales. I could see titles like ‘Sunfairies in the Dandelion Forest’, ‘Arthur and the Cursed Sword’, ‘The Giant Princess’, ‘In the Land of Dragons’, and many more. I think it would be hard to find a boy who hasn’t dreamed of being a hero, just like the ones in such stories. I wasn’t any different in my last life, just as I wasn’t any different in the current one.
Maybe that’s why I felt so intrigued, by this new world, by the endless possibilities. It was quite a bummer that I didn’t have an attribute, but I wasn’t too upset about it at the moment. I had lived to become an adult before, and I knew such fantasy daydreams are filled with plot armor. Because if the protagonist is dead, the story ends prematurely. Wanting to find out the end of a story is the same as wanting the protagonist to survive till the end. One cannot happen without the other.
But in real life, the world doesn’t stop for any individual. Even after we are dead, others will continue living their lives. Just as no one’s life will stop because Hugo is dead, not even Hugo’s own. I suppose that’s why I didn’t feel the urge for a great adventure. It only remained a daydream, despite the possibilities of this new world. But I won’t say no to an adventure if it knocked on my door. That’s how I felt. In the first place, I didn’t think I could do much in my tiny body.
I rummaged through the bookshelf to see if I could find anything… anything interesting.
Hmm?
I found a book called ‘The Light of Dawn’. I could remember the title, as it appeared in the story that Mom read to me. Unlike the other titles that look like they’ve been barely opened, this one was a little worn out. Dylan didn’t enjoy reading books all that much, so I didn’t think I caused that wear and tear. I opened the book and looked through a few pages… I closed it right after.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I didn’t struggle to speak, so I completely forgot that I didn’t know how to read. As a result, I could only look at the strange symbols and struggle to figure out what they meant.
Just in case, I flipped through a few other books, but they were all written in the same language. But how did I know the titles of the books then? I wasn’t sure. I looked at their titles again and discovered that I could read them just fine, but the letters looked the same as the ones inside the book. Thinking about it a while longer, I realized that there had to be some magical interference going on. I could think of a few possibilities.
For instance, the books might have a recognition magic placed on them, even if one couldn’t read the contents, they could at least read the titles to know what book they had in their hands. If this turned out to be true, then the overall literacy rate of this world might not be too high. Another possibility is that my Obligation System comes with language or item recognition. That’s quite common in RPG novels. Given that I could read the titles but not the content, it’s more likely that the books had been recognized as items.
I didn’t know which of the two conjectures was true, but I kept them in the back of my mind. I couldn’t be sure of the implications for either option, so I wasn’t especially hoping for either. But I felt like I could take advantage of the situation no matter the case.
For now, I needed to learn how to read the language. With all these books in my room, I figured there should also be one like that… ‘An Introduction to the Written Language’. I finally found it. Looking at the book also made me remember how much I hated reading, well, Dylan at least. And this was the book I felt the most aversion to since it was purchased for my studies.
Thankfully, I wasn’t an inexperienced child anymore. I knew the importance of literacy and what it would mean for me moving ahead… especially if literacy wasn’t very common. And if that wasn’t the case, then I had all the more reason to learn to read and write so I wouldn’t fall behind.
I opened the book to find various pictures of animals and objects with their names on the side. I was a bit taken aback because I could recognize some of the animals but most of them were unknown to me. I think the book also included some monsters and what appeared to me to be mythical beasts. That made it difficult for me to be sure which creatures were harmless and which could endanger my life. Maybe they should’ve considered that a bit…
The names of the creatures had their first letter in a larger font. It wasn’t any different from the children’s alphabet books I’d seen on Earth. But, once again, I could read the names and the letters that constituted them. That pretty much confirmed my suspicion that recognition magic had been placed on the books.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I flipped through the pages to find a column of identical symbols, but I could only read the symbols on the left row. That’s a strange implementation. I was a little confused at first, but I figured out the reason after a while.
The recognition magic was only placed on the left column, while the right column was plain and void of any magical effect. That much was obvious, but I also figured out why the book was made this way… it was by design!
The intention of the author, I assumed, was to help the reader get used to the written symbols without the influence of recognition. That’s because recognition through magic didn’t increase knowledge of the language and felt like something happening in the background. If I were to explain that with a comparison, it’s like watching a foreign-language movie with subtitles. When you focus on the subtitles, you don’t learn the language you’re hearing. If you think back to what a character said, you remember the meaning you understood from the subtitles, not the actual language. If you keep on consuming foreign media like that, you will eventually start to recognize some words and phrases. But that will most likely never turn into complete comprehension.
The book I was holding was built around a similar concept, but it resolved the dilemma with a unique solution. If you could recognize a letter with magic and then continued to recognize it without that magic, you had essentially learned that letter. In a sense, it was like a teacher teaching me a letter and then asking me if I could remember it.
But I also had a trick up my sleeve. I instinctively gained insight into the skill when I first activated it, so I at least had an inkling that it might work.
Skill ‘Immortal Journal’ activated.
I looked at each page in the book carefully as I flipped through them. I did this under the assumption that the skill worked like memorization. Maybe I should experiment with that a bit. I flipped some of the pages with only a glance as a test.
When I was done with the whole book, and it was a pretty thin book, I closed my eyes and tried to remember its contents. I could picture the complete book with my eyes closed. I could flip the pages of that book and read what was written. Only a few pages looked blurry, and I had my answer.
Through the experiment, I learned that I needed to pay enough attention for the Immortal Journal to properly capture everything. That’s why some of the pages were blurry. I decided to look through the pages I previously glossed over to complete the journal entry.
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While Dylan was busy rummaging through his books, Maria and Robert were having a difficult time deciding on their next course of action.
“We need to leave this village. You know it’s not safe for us here!” Robert was half screaming with desperation clearly visible on his face.
“We have a son now. We can’t live like nomads anymore.”
“Don’t you think I’m worried about him as well? He was the one in danger this time around. Do you think he will be safe living here?”
“No. I’m not saying we should live in this village. I’m saying that I’m tired of running.”
“What? You can’t be seriously thinking about…?”
“I’m not giving myself up. We both know that won’t turn out well for any of us. If it were only my life on the line, I could be as reckless as I pleased. But there’s a lot more at risk here.”
“That’s why–”
“That’s not a good enough ‘why’ to put Dylan through this,” Maria interjected before Robert could finish.
They both stood silent, but neither avoided the other’s gaze.
Robert broke the silence first, “What do you think we should do?”
“I just…”, Maria hesitated just a moment but continued, “I just want Dylan to live a normal life. You and I– we chose this life where we have to live on the run. But our son deserves better. I don’t want him to die beside us, or live in seclusion, hiding from the world.”
Robert was silent again. He was well aware of what Maria was talking about, no, he was aware of it long before the incident happened. But there was that one concern–
“How can we protect him if we’re not with him?”, Robert inquired with a look of helplessness.
“We will protect him by not associating him with our name. You know about my ability. Even though it has weakened, I can muster enough force to give him a clean slate.”
“But he’s just four, and he survived such a dangerous ordeal. You want him to deal with all of that on his own?”
“Robert… We don’t have to do it right away. He needs your– no, our guidance. We can steer him in the direction first.”
“He’s going to have a hard time without an attribute. Must we still do this?”
“All the more reason for him to be prepared. We will always have people chasing us. If the two of us died tomorrow, what will he do then?” Maria questioned with a serious look, and Robert could only agree with her in the end.
“All right,” responded Robert.
“Then–”
“But…”, continued Robert, “But we need to get out of here. There’s no way we can do anything in this place since we’ve been found out already.”
“Okay. We’ll go into hiding again. But it will be the last time.”
“And that’s why I have a condition. You can’t go around healing the villagers in the new place. We can’t have rumors spreading.”
Maria felt conflicted. She wanted the best for her son, but she also couldn’t ignore the needs of the people. Eventually, she decided to prioritize Dylan’s well-being.
“I understand,” said Maria, “I won’t heal anyone without your permission.”
Robert understood his wife more than anyone, and he knew this was already a great concession on her part. They’d just have to be careful in the future.
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With my journal entry complete for the book at hand, I was now able to read the books before me to some extent. While I could read all the words, the more complex books still had words I’d never heard before. As a result, I could only infer their meaning but not understand them completely.
I need to memorize a dictionary. But I couldn’t see a dictionary on the shelf. That was normal, I suppose since all the books on my shelf had pictures on them. A dictionary is probably a bit too advanced for a child.
I continued memorizing the books on the shelf one by one with the help of my ‘Immortal Journal’. I figured I could look back at them when my language proficiency was higher. Soon, I could hear the same notification tone, and then a popup appeared in blue–
Skill: “Language Proficiency (Weak)” acquired.
I could swear Mom said gaining skills would be much more difficult without attributes. Since I had the Obligation System, it was possible that I would be gaining skills without much struggle. I’m going to find out sooner or later, I surmised.
For now, though, I continued with my binge reading.