"It's a lovely day, isn't it?" I said this as I drew the curtain open.

Beyond the Rosetta Manor domain, I could see the verdant forest that seemed to go on forever from the windows of my room.

" It is, indeed," Syrus said in a very zealous tone hardly to differenciable from sarcasm.

"Where is Maa ?"

"She's discussing what they should bring over for the next week with the merchant and his wife."

Maa had returned from her errand.

Of course, she was back; after all, it's been three years since she was summoned to the main house.

And over the last three years, a lot has changed.

Maa returned in the third month after her departure, as promised, with over a dozen new books from the castle as a souvenir. After that, everything went pretty smoothly, at least, until the third day, on which Maa learned of my accident, and both I and Syrus received the scolding of the century. I had been expecting her to unleash her wrath on us for months, but she strangely let it go after a few days, and it might sound very masochist of me to admit this, but a part of me was disappointed.

One of our housemaids and a guard have arrived; she was apparently impregnated by one of the guards. One has to admit that with this location and setting, something like this was bound to happen; in fact, I was wondering why it hadn't happened sooner. Their departure was extremely emotional, even bringing tears to my eyes. I wasn't particularly attached to them, but seeing the four maids hugging and bidding each other farewell was… It was really moving stuff.

The other maids were still mourning their not-really-dead comrade when a carriage arrived, anticlimactically, to deliver a new guard and a new maid.

Apparently, Maa had requested a replacement the moment she heard about the pregnancy of the previous maid.

As expected of Maa, as professional as ever.

The merchant and his wife had a daughter, who is now nearly five years old. Her parents named her Shania. She regularly joins her parents on their way to the manor. She's the first child I've seen in this world besides myself. Thanks to a certain person, I've become quite acquainted with her.

I still haven't heard from my parents, which surprised me because I wasn't expecting any.

I have yet to receive any updates from my parents, not that I was expecting any.

Physically, I grew taller, but not to the extent that would be considered exceptional. Aside from that, there had been no major changes; I was still as handsome as ever, and my hair had grown to the point where I had to ponytail it since I wasn't allowed to cut it. Yes, this house had two ponytailed men: me and Roger the gardener.

Over the last three years, I've spent the majority of my time in the library, whether reading books with the hope of finding some insight into my current situation or training my aina.

After failing to find anything that could explain why I was the way I was when I was born, coupled with the fact that I’d read every particularly interesting book in the library, it was pretty normal that I had gradually lost interest in the library.

Recently, my attention has been drawn to something entirely new, well, not really new because it has always existed: the Iharana forest.

And about my aina training;

Oh god, how should I explain it?

I had spent the previous two years solely focused on perceiving and controlling the aina, and my efforts had paid off.

Three big changes happened with it:

The first big change is that I no longer had to close my eyes to perceive aina. I was even able to do it while running.

The second change is in how I perceived Aina. Initially, I saw aina as a floating ball of light, but recently, instead of floating balls, I saw a dark fog. I see the black fog while perceiving Aina, but it does not obscure my vision. This black fog was still present, but I could see clearly through it without difficulty.

The third and most significant change was in aina enhancement, which included things like sending a superhuman punch and lifting an object twice my weight. In fact, it was so simple that it was frightening. To use enhancement, all I had to do was attract a portion of the fog (because I can) and wrap it around the part of my body I wanted to enhance.

For example, if I wanted to improve my hand grip, I could simply control the fog to form a glove-shaped membrane around my hand.

The experiment I performed on Aina became increasingly difficult to carry out in the library as time passed.

It was spacious, I'll admit, but sending a herculean punch in a closed room surrounded by bookshelves is extremely difficult. Basically, I was forced to hold back on whatever I wanted to do in the library.

I once attempted to conduct my experiment discreetly outside the manor, but the mere sight of me outside the manor was such a rare occurrence that every eye in the manor was cast on me.

This is why I've been considering going into the forest to train my aina recently.

I know it's a dangerous place, but the book says monsters despise the enclosed feelings created by the barrier, so I should be fine as long as I stay within the first five kilometers.

For the time being, I have not ventured into the forest for two reasons. The first is that I haven't yet discovered a way to sneak outside the domain without being discovered. There are eleven people living in this house, and the yard is so large and the lawn so well kept that if I ran to the fence, I'm sure someone from the house would notice me. After much deliberation, I decided to abandon that idea. After all, who knows what monstrosities lurk deep in that forest at night, and doing it at night would throw my sleep schedule off; after all, I still have a growing body.

The second reason is the barrier. The barrier is a dome-shaped force field that encircles the entire human continent. It was designed to keep monsters out of the human continent, but it also keeps humans from venturing outside the monster continent.

I unintentionally guffawed.

Why did they design it that way, as if there was someone stupid enough to want to go there willingly?

During a crusade, such as the one Syrus participated in, he stated that they were able to pass through the barrier without being obstructed by it thanks to a special belt they were wearing. Those belts were provided by the legion to every legionnaire and were to be returned when one resigned from being a legionnaire. Whether or not a noble needed a similar item, he had no idea. After all, he wasn’t a paladin.

So, even if I managed to sneak out of the manor domain unnoticed, there was still a fifty-fifty chance that I'd end up in the forest.

Ahh...

It's pointless to worry about that right now; we'll see when the time comes. The issue at hand right now is figuring out how to avoid this manor's surveillance.

If only aina could turn people invisible. I’m pretty sure magic can do that.

If only the baptismal hadn't taken away my ability to use magic, I might have been able to use something like invisibility or flight to avoid Maa and Co's watchful eyes.

"Damn you, Clergyman! "

"Pardon?" Syrus wondered, surprised by the words that suddenly came out of my mouth.

Oops, it came out loud.

"Oh, nothing, I was just deep in thought. You said Maa was speaking with the merchant, right"

"Is her daughter also there?"

"Yes, do I brin-summon her over?" asked Syrus in a humorous tone.

His question may appear to be a little fishy, but this is far from being the case.

Ever since the merchant and his wife began bringing their daughter to the mansion for their weekly delivery. Maa would frequently snatch the baby from her parents to show it to me.

I believe she did that to push me to interact with something other than books.

Or maybe to show me, what a normal baby should be like?

Now that I think about it, there was a slight growth difference between a commoner, an aina user, and a noble.

Generally, nobles and aina-users grow faster than the average commoner, but this rate of growth, almost imperceptible, means that if you aren’t particularly watchful, you won’t notice the difference.

In any case, my interaction with Shania has become such a common occurrence that it has become something normal.

"There's no need; I'll go there myself, and I have a special command for the merchant."

"A special command?"

"Yeah, Syrus, a very special one."