Time passed. Before I know it, I have already spent two years in this world. And of course, I’m still alive and healthy as ever.

I have growth a bit since then. My arms and legs got stronger, so I can now crawl around the house. I still can’t walk though. But I’ll certainly try when my body become more mature. Though with how handful I currently am to my mother, it certainly won’t be good for her if I gain full access to my legs. But still, there’s nothing wrong with a healthy and energetic child.

Which is a very good news, since apparently after a month passed from my health check up incident, a flu season hit the area, resulting in the death of some infants who didn’t have a strong enough immune system to fight the disease. The vaccine helped, but it’s not ominpotent. People die, children die. Nobody wants it but before we can completely stop it, it will just happen and happen again.

Talk about vaccine, since after that health check up, I was given a drinkable vaccine by that doctor, but it’s still weaker than the syringe type. That results in several checkups afterward from the same doctor. Gotta give the man a medal for his dedication as a doctor. He is this small town’s only doctor, and he still need to help several nearby villages to fight off the flu as well.

Long story short, a flu season hit our town, and I’m still healthy despite lacking medication. Well, I would wonder more about my impenetrable flesh rather than vaccination at this point, but let’s leave it later.

On another note, I’m still getting used the language people here used. The scientists are right about the brain’s capability of babies. Even though I have no knowledge of this world’s language, the more time I spend living here, the easier it becomes to understand what people here meant when speaking. I also secretly practice speaking the common phases when nobody’s around. And before long…

“Mama!”

I am able to speak coherently.

“Look, Dear. Our son spoke his first words!”

I spoke as my mom Nana and my brother Ein are playing in the house’s yard under the shiny gold sun, all while the house husband Acht is busy drying the family members’s freshly washed laundry. The last part is a real surprise for me, I didn’t think such a brooding man is the household master type. The guy is a very awesome cook, even more so than the mother of the house.

“My son spoke, and his first word is Mama!”

My mom Nana picks me up and spin me around like a happy maiden. Well, I would be happy as well if my child’s first word is Papa (or in her case, Mama).

“Hey hey lil bro, call me big bro!”

The now six-years old Ein spoke. It’s too easy to understand what’s he asking me to do.

“Big bro!”

I made my brother a very happy kid with my second (publicly speaking) word. Hmm, kids.

“Now, how about Papa’s turn?”

My mom turns me to the direction of the house husband. His brooding and edgy face certainly doesn’t fit the image of a guy drying clean baby diaper under the sun. Of course, despite our charade, the guy paid no mind to our little family bonding activity. What a lousy father.

There’s only one word beffiting this guy.

“Jerk!”

I can already hear the sound of jaws dropping to the ground. Of course, that’s just a figure of speaking, but my mom and brother certainly do sound shocked. Even Acht is stunned, I made that guy bat an eyerow toward my face as I spoke the J word.

“Bad Zero! Bad bad Zero! Where did you learn that word!?”

“Babuuu.”

I avert my gaze while trying to keep the innocent kid act, which prompts my mother to direct her fury at the eldest son.

“Ein!!!”

“I swear I didn’t teach him that! Though I think probably one of my friends did…”

“EIN!!!!”

My mother screamed. Her face is as scary as an orge. She pinches my brother’s left ear for punishment, despite it’s his friends that are at fault.

“Ouch ouch! It hurts, mom!”

It looks hurt and sounds hurt, but that was his fault for being honest though. Some of his bratty friends did come here to play, and so I took the chance to learn some… inappropriate phrases. Well, this is a backwater town in some nameless countryside, not a palace or a royal court of sort. Who would expect the most proper of behaviors in such a place?

“How about you consider picking some good friends to play with, son!?”

“I will I will!”

Ein quickly admits defeat, which makes my mom releases her hand from his ear and allow the boy to caresses the wound in hope to ease his pain. However, my mom’s fury hasn’t ended yet, when the guilty party is still roaming free.

“And you…young man! I would prefer you keep your tongue in check!”

I don’t know how my mom thinks her words can reach the mind of a barely two years old baby…but I guess the terrifying face is enough to convey her words. Scary enough to almost make me shit my pant again. Bad move I made back there.

“Aguuu…”

“Children these days…they just learn whatever they want without thinking straight.”

Said my mom. Suddenly, she turns her face to the house husband’s direction before continuing.

“How about you teach them some proper manners, dear?”

Acht had already finished his laundry drying work, but he however still remains silent despite the housewife’s prompt to make him answer. After picking up the emptied basket, Acht walks back inside the house without giving his wife any proper response, all under the watch of his wife and children.

This charade has been continuing for two whole years.

At first, Acht just stayed silent around my presence, but eventually, he decided to ignore my whole being and just pretend I wasn’t there. While he behave like a normal man around his wife and his eldest son, only when I jump into the picture did he turn off his reaction switch. Of course, my mom didn’t want that to continue, so she spent her freetime with me whenever she can, and something she tried to rub that to Acht’s face just to prompt him to answer. Well, you can already guess how well that went out.

And to think that I am the one with problems.

-------------------

Another peaceful year passed. I am currently three years old, in case people forgot the numbers.

A daily day of a child isn’t exactly an eventful one. Well, that only applies to a child without a grown young man’s consciousness though.

After this year when my language recognition ability has become better, I finally found out more information of my family. 

My mom is part of the town’s guard, and a high ranking one on top of that. She somehow landed a job that usually isn’t for woman and exceled at it. Due to the respect the other town guards treat her whenever they go to this house to report, I would say she is the strongest woman of this town, if not stronger than the town’s strongest man. My mom would occasionally go out on patrol to slay monsters, and when she don’t she stays in town to train people how to fight, adults and children alike. What a mom.

In contrast, Acht - the house husband, is apparently a scholar and a teacher. He occasionally go out to town to teach at a small spontaneous community school. Whenever he don’t have to teach, he just stays indoor and continues his research. Due to my mother’s job, she usually isn’t home when he’s done with his. Thus, Acht was tasked with the job of looking out for me when she isn’t here. With how beloved I am inside his heart, it’s very obvious to know what would usually happen when he and I are in the same room. Before long, he stopped caring and just stay inside his study in all of his freetime.

My brother Ein is a growing kid. He studies under his father at the town’s community school, and trains in combat by his mother along with other aspiring kids. When he has time, he usually spend that to play with his young brother, which is me of course. At first, it’s just playing with toys. But when he grew up, toys become boring (both to him and me as well), so he started reading picture books to his brother. It’s not exactly boring, but Aesop-style stories aren’t exactly the cup of my tea. Those still help a lot to my language learning though. Eventually, the kid gained friends other than his brother, so he spent more time to them as well. Ein still loves his brother dearly, though. When he has the permission from our mom, he occasionally take me to town for sight-seeing, which is very interesting for me who spent years under a house roof. But aside from that, let’s just say that Ein got busy with his life as well.

That means the more time passed by, the more freedom I have to freely act the way I want.

I behaved well enough under those years just to let others lower their guard around me. When everybody left, they just assume I’m still sleeping in my lovely cradle. Hehehe, I want to see their face when they become aware of how wrong they were.

“One…two!”

I stand up, grab the edge of the wooden cradle with my hands and climb outside. The height doesn’t hurt me when I landed, and practically all the free time I have were spent to find out the things that CAN hurt me.

Yes, before I can start to desire learning Magic and Fighting, I need to know exactly what I am first. The memory of that health checkup still haunts me, especially that needle.

I am aware that I was born different than the others, in more ways than one. The question is: How different I am?

“An ant.”

An ant crawls by, right under my cradle. A lone ant wandering around a two years old child. That always went well.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

*SLAMP*

I put my right feet upon the ant, squashing it to the ground. After a second, I pull my feet back…

…and find out that the squashed ant wasn’t squashed as expected, it’s still alive and going strong, like the weight of a human kid means nothing to it. When there’s nothing bothering it anymore, the ant crawls away.

“Just like always…”

I find this out on the first day I started the experiments, in circumstances similar to this. With how that went out, I concluded that I cannot harm others or living beings. However, I am allowed some limited interactions with objects, which I confirmed the time I pick up a stray kitchen knife and start scratcing the wall.

I also experimented further through the indirectly use of objects, like this one time where I throw a small rock at a bystander walking by. He looked more surprise by how he didn’t feel a thing more than the fact that he got hit in the head from a rock. That’s…good, I guess. 

With how those experiments usually went out, I decided to end it and move on to the next phase, which is how to damage my body.

The needle that day did nothing. So after sometime, I chose a more daring approach and used a kitchen knife to cut my wrist. Thankfully I was dissapointed and was allowed to live another day.

But still, despite the fultileness, I want to continue experimenting my own power. Like the old saying goes: Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

Today, I already got another experiment in mind to test my ability.

Am I truly invulnerable? Let’s find out if that’s true when my oxygen is cut off.

I walk into the house’s bathroom. There’s already a bowl full of cold water. That’s convinient.

“Here goes nothing.”

I dump my face into the water bowl without taking any breath. The cold sensation reaches my skin. I open my eyes to see the depth of the wooden bowl. Suprisingly my eyes feel no pain from contact with water. However, the thing that matters is oxygen. Soon, my oxygen will deprive, and we shall know if I am capable of living without oxygen.

Four, Three, Two, One…

Zero…

Still no change!

I can already feel the lack of oxygen inside my body, but aside from a slight irritation, there’s nothing harmful happening to my body yet.

I still need to continue, which is why I haven’t put my head up from the water yet. I need to put on a goal of sort. How about I stay like this for ten minutes? Yeah, let’s roll with it.

Time slowly passed, especially when you are deprived of oxygen with your head underwater. However, the feeling…it isn’t bad. Is this what a fish feels like when it roams the ocean?

Before long, five minutes passed, and I feel more bored rather than afraid of death.

Does this confirm that I can live without breathing? I don’t know what to make out of that…

“Zero!!!!”

Suddenly, I was dragged out of the water bowl. Someone strongly pat my back, probably to push out whatever water I may have drink during that time. When my senses become accustomed to the life in the surface once again, I saw her, my mother Nana with a terrified look on her face. I was dense at first, still have no clue of what is happening, then it hits me…

My god, what have I done…?

-------------------

The sky is raining. The gray clouds gathered, hiding away the arrays of sunlight.

I was put to sleep back in my cradle. The house is silent, but that’s only because of the sound made by the falling water droplets has overwhelmed all the other ones. However, if someone pay enough attention, they can hear the sounds of argument coming from the direction near the yard.

“…”

My mother finished her work sooner than expected. When she went home and saw the empty cradle, she went wild as she searches for her son around the house. The sight of her immobile son dipping his head into a water bowl may haunt her for the rest of her life should I actually be dead from oxygen deprivation.

This is totally my fault…yet who would blame a child for his foolishness? But the blame still need to be pushed on someone.

That “someone” is the only one in the house the moment this incident happened.

Once again, I crawl out of the cradle, and slowly crawl my way to near the yard. In the hallway, I can see my parents talking, mostly my mom. But Acht, he just stands there looking bewildered. This is unlike his natural cold attitude, there’s nothing that seems forced. His frozen face seems genuine. Yet, I still can’t read what’s going inside the man’s head.

“And that’s…what happened.”

Said my mom.

“Dear…what were you doing…when Zero almost killed himself?”

Acht averts his gaze to outside.

“Researching in my study room…”

Suddenly, my mom lunges at the man. Holding him by the collar, she slams Acht to the wall and holds him in mid air, all while without breaking a sweat. I’m more surprised that even Acht himself is unfazed at this sudden burst of outrage coming from his wife.

“Your son…Our son…almost died, while you just stay in your room staring at books!?”

My mother screams, but with teary eyes and a bleeding lower-lip.

“You pretend like your son didn’t exist, then this happened! You are even worse than an abusive father! Why, Acht? Why!!? What did our son…do to you…to the point you treating him like his whole existence…is a mistake?”

My mom is on the verge of breaking down, but her arms are not, they are still firmly holding Acht in the sky. The man can only mutter.

“That child…is an abomination…”

Acht isn’t wrong. In fact, he’s absolutely right.

A child born to another world with the consiousness of a grown man is one thing, the whole “nigh- invulnerable body” is another. And that’s not counting the “unable to damage living beings” part.

No matter what angle you look from, Acht is saying the truth.

The child that was born that day. The child that was named zero. The child that is an abomination.

The child that is…me.

*SMASH*

Something broke, two of them in fact. One of them is my mom’s patience, the other is the wall behind Acht. She let go one of her arm and used it to punch the wall behind Acht’s head. A small crack was made after the woman pull her arm back, along with some wooden crumbs. Her teary eyes are gone, only a woman with a strong conviction remains.

“He is still my son. And I will not allow anyone to call him an abomination, even you, Acht.”

Acht doesn’t look scared. However, he looks like he gave up. He just left his arms hanging and his own fate to the mercy of his wife. Due to my own dislike of the man, I haven’t notice it, but right now, I can saw some eyebag under his eyes. The man doesn’t look like he had a nice sleep in ages.

However, put that aside. This is bad. Real bad. Arguments like this are always the first step lead to the parting of married couples. Even though I hate to admit it, Acht is still my and Ein’s blood father. My mother Nana also doesn’t seem to have any discontent in her earlier life with Acht before my birth. Yet, their happiness is starting to crumble…all because a child like me…

At times like this, it’s a child’s job to do something stupid.

Then what am I waiting for?

“Aguuubuu!”

After standing up and climbing several obstacles, I found myself crawling on top of a wooden table. When the preparation is ready, I shouted some gibberish, enough to gain the attention of my parents. And when everything is in place…

“ZERO!!!”

I allow myself to fall from the wooden table.

My mother screamed. She instantly let go of Acht and lunges at me as fast as she can.

However, she was one second too late.

“Ughu?”

While I’m certain I won’t take any damage when falling to the ground, I can still feel the sensation of objects I interacted with. Like a hard rock is hard, and hot water is hot (though I don’t feel pain when interact with hot water), and everything like that. But just now, when I fall to the ground, I expected a hard surface, not a soft pillow right under my landing zone.

“Aghu?”

My eyes start gazing at Acht from afar. He’s holding his right arm to the air. His palm is shining with a faint light. Accompanied that is a bewildered look, showing the uncertainty of his own action. Acht is confused. He isn’t even aware he just pushed a soft pillow from the sofa nearby to take the fall of his son. And he’s terrified of it.

“I…I…”

“Dear…?”

Acht runs away like a sinner who just commited some grave mistake. Even my mom doesn’t know how she should reacts from seeing the actions of her husband. But I guess…she thinks the man….her husband still have some hope as a father.

My mom stands up and pick me from the soft pillow, all while whispering.

“You have been a very bad child lately, Zero.”

Nana smiled.

She puts me back to my cradle and quickly ran away, presumbly going after Acht to sort things out. Well, this is their own problem now. I did whatever I could to stop this family from crumbling to pieces. Whenever it can be save or beyond saving depends on the both of them. Yes, I believe so.

They still need to have some proper children accident prevension methods though.

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And that's it for now. Will post new chapters when I finished writing them!