Status

‘Just because something sounds like a horse, doesn’t mean it is a horse.’ This was something I realized after my steps out through the front door into the shed. Because I couldn’t go outside by myself, I simply followed Sara into the shed where she would feed ‘them’.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was deluding myself when I thought there were horses. What I saw was indeed a four-legged creature but it was no horse. It would be a mistake, if I said I couldn’t recognize it because I only saw horses from pictures and never actually met them in real life. But that would be wrong, because no matter how unfamiliar I am with them I could never make a mistake identifying them from the head.

That’s right its head resembled a bird’s with a beak, feathers and everything. It’s body was completely covered in fur. I’m still doubting how this thing could make a neigh sound. It’s best to say it wasn’t a horse and something else. While I was making a dumb face, Sara smiled.

“Aren’t they nice Orian? They’re called Land Griffons. They’re similar to the Griffons I showed you in the picture book, but they these ones don’t have wings.”(Sara)

I just nodded. I still couldn’t speak, my vocal cords still hadn’t developed. It was hard to make a proper sound. Sara was happy showing me the Griffons and explaining them. Trying to impress the younger brother. How mature sister.

But really, this world has strange creatures. I thought a few were familiar but even they had a lot of differences to the ones from my previous life. If I had to check for one which had 90% resemblance, then there would be none. I assumed since the there were humans in this world similar to most species of the previous one and the technology was near similar to the primitive ones, even animals would also be the same.

But wait I can’t start thinking that these guys are humans at all, they’re different and I just haven’t observed enough to understand how different they exactly are.

It was nearing night and I was still stuck at home. So much for going outside, I didn’t get to see much at all. Maybe it’s time to start practicing my vocals, if I can learn to speak faster it’ll be a huge help.

So I tried to speak with small grunts and a little more louder noises. Was the idea of speaking the same as in the previous world? Was it the same actions?

I already mastered walking by following my previous methods of balancing and moving, so I don’t think it should be any different. I’ll refrain from making use of my tongue for the first few steps, then I can start making normal sounds according to alphabet-wise.

I tried the whole night, I almost got the hang of it but kept failing after a while. I was tired. Maybe because I’ve been walking around the whole house since I woke up in the morning. I forget that infants need more rest, they sleep during the morning too. I wanted to sleep but I got hungry.

I went to the kitchen where Olivia normally would be. I walked towards her and pulled at her clothes, pointed to my mouth to show I was hungry. She smiled and started preparing something in a small bowl. Then she picked me up and laid me down on her lap while sitting in a cross legged position. She held the bowl in her hand and took something like a spoon in her other hand.

When I observed what was in the bowl, it looked like some sort ooze or goo like substance. The most liquid-like food I ate was jelly in my previous life, but this thing wasn’t jelly. It was brown in color and something which I really didn’t eat. Is this…..maybe…’baby food’?

I regretted it. I shouldn’t have come here even if I was hungry. That’s what I thought. Okay, let’s behave. Maybe it’s tasty and I have to eat it either way since I need to learn about this world. It’s okay, this is for research and a mother always gives her child food which is most nutritious ….right?

The spoon along with goo came slowly towards me reaching my lips. Olivia was careful enough blow the hot food for it cool it down. She was still smiling. Well , here it goes test batch 1 . As soon as the spoon was in my mouth and I slurped the food on it, I felt a sensation. It was absolute disgust, it was sweet but its texture was weird.

I wanted to barf it out quickly. It was like some slime like creature was dwelling in my mouth. Is this some sort of punishment? I never felt this much agony before. My respect for Sara increased, she had to eat it too when she was a still my age I believe. This world truly had a sadistic form of approach against children.

As I thought about the food which was still in my mouth making me uncomfortable. I saw Olivia’s face and she was smiling waiting for me to swallow so she could provide me the next scoop. I couldn’t oppose that smile. I gulped it down, swallowed it quickly hoping for the sensation to end. I didn’t need to chew it in the first place. Was this a mother’s love and kindness I felt? I couldn’t bring that smile down and got ready for the next wave.

After 20 more gulping, finally that hell was over. But doesn’t that mean I have to start eating that from tomorrow as well. Does that mean no more milk time for me?

After I was finally done with my meal Olivia was really beaming with smiles, it was like she was incredibly happy when I took the food without much problems. Wait so how did Sara react when she had that monstrosity go through her mouth? Yeah I can probably imagine.

She finally used the spoon to get some syrupy substance from a jar and placed that in my mouth. It was incredibly sweet, and I wanted to keep sucking the spoon. Compared to the goo I had earlier, it felt like this syrup was slowly cleansing my mouth removing the foul taste. My throat also felt a little better, it gave off a good feeling. I think I read this somewhere, something about giving a baby honey to soothe the throat. It was a tradition some primitive tribes followed on the still evolving planets.

Finishing my dinner Olivia wrapped me in a thin cloth and carried me in her arms to my room where my cradle was present. She sang a deep song, I suppose this must be a lullaby. My previous parents never did so. Probably by that time the tradition had died down but I still had remembered reading it from my history.

As I was getting sleepy, I felt my throat feel a little bit more relaxed. I tried speaking this time.

“O…Oli…..bia”(Orian)

She stopped humming and slowly looked at me. She was smiling but this one was different. If the previous one was to represent satisfaction, I think this showed euphoria.

She held me and called for Dari and Sara. They rushed and I saw them near the door. She looked at me again. I immediately understood and looked at the two.

“Da….li…..Sa…la”(Orian)

Weird. I couldn’t make the ‘ra’ sound. It was probably because I couldn’t move my tongue freely yet.

The three who were in my room, all had surprised faces. Dari’s eyes were watery and he looked like he would cry in happiness any second now. Sara was jumping and smothered my face with her hands. I need sleep, I don’t need you make it harder for me.

The room was filled with joy and had a great atmosphere. Dari realized the time and motioned Sara and himself to exit the room. They understood someone needed rest, otherwise he’d be awake the rest of the night. Fear my tears.

As Olivia slowly rocked me to sleep, I dozed off without a worry.

---------Dari’s POV-----------

My son can speak and at such a young age too. Sara was about a year late with her first words but she did fine. Who knows? He could start writing by himself soon enough too.

I wonder how I should treat him, should I be strict? But that’s hard he looks too much like his mother. Truly cute.

If possible I don’t want to succeed the family, rather I’m basically a merchant. But in the future if he wants to achieve something, I won’t stop him from leaving this place. He called my name for his first word. There shouldn’t really be anything else for a father to be more happy about. Hearing his child’s first words the name of his father is a great thing.

Huh? Olivia told me Orian had spoke her name first. But it’s alright, it wasn’t a competition to begin with. I’m alright with it. I’m not jealous at all.

--------One Month Later------------

I can walk and run around the house without much problems, I wear only small clothes to cover my lower body and the rest is bare. I don’t go out of the house anyway so it isn’t really much of a problem.

Now I can speak a bit better, I can form sentences but they’re usually incomplete. It’s not like I understand the language completely but its improving. I also needed to learn the letter and how to write it if I want to get better. So I go to the study room and get some picture books, Sara lets me borrow them but is careful thinking I may ruin the books. My Sister can’t be this smart.

I’ve tried to decrypt the words and having books with more pictures seemed easier. In my previous life, decrypting unknown languages was a hefty task. Many tools were available for the task, but one needed to understand the basics of how to decrypt by hand to actually do it. I was incredibly good at it when I wasn’t yet placed in the combat force.

It had taken me a few days, but I could slowly understand certain words and also identify some parts of the grammar. Maybe it’s because this language was easier or because I had easier references but one could be happy at this level of progress. I only did walking, speaking and learning since I was stuck in the house anyway so I was able to improve faster during the month. I also thanked Sara for teaching me a little from time to time.

I could understand the titles on the books by now. The encyclopedia I was reading had the name – [ All the found animals and plants by Hwetn ]. A good naming sense indeed. At least it’s simpler.

As I was reading picture books every day, I wanted to read something with more information. Of course it shouldn’t be a story, currently I needed some information. I saw one particular book in the study table that day, I reached out and somehow got it myself.

The book’s title read – [ Magic The Basics ].

There wasn’t an author though, it was mostly an information based text book.

But magic? Why would father have a book about tricks and illusions? Was he that much interested in it to even leave his job as a merchant? Or was it a gift from someone for Sara? I really didn’t want to read it. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy tricks, maybe it had stories about the miracles people formed in their life. I wanted to place it back, I’d rather read such a book only if I had too many delusions about myself.

Just as I was about to place the book I stopped for a moment. Should I just read it in case? Maybe it was the science of this world. I mean that was the name people gave it when such things about life were unexplored and people had been ignorant of the basic laws. Perhaps it was a similar case, whatever normally happened people would claim magic when one person showed it could be done but it was thought be impossible before

So I opened the book and started reading. There were few words I couldn’t understand quickly and I took my time analyzing them one by one. I could see the word [ Mana ] repeated a few times every page and so I slowly formed the sentences so I could understand.

The book described [ Mana ] as the force behind the creation and use of magic. I think I could [ Mana ] would be similar to energy around us. And I thought [ Magic ] would be the forces that existed due to [ Mana ]. Similar to how energy was converted to form heat, electricity, wind and so on. [ Mana ] was said to be omnipotent. So I confirmed it really was like energy. Not like I could see energy in my previous world.

That was what the introduction had in the book. Now the book held me curious and I started thinking maybe what I was reading was actually properties of this world. And then there was one of the basic magic which was described in the book and its uses. The book said that anyone could use it, so I guessed there must be a tool somewhere for it. Maybe it was in the house.

The name of the magic was [ Status ] which wouldn’t actually use any [ Mana] or a negligible amount. I was thinking about the weird naming the author had given to the [ Magic ]. I mean what type of status? Was it social, marriage or health? Maybe it was describing about writing about yourself? Did the author or the people of this world think writing took no [ Mana ]?

I didn’t really understand, but the book had provided information how to use [ Status ] so I stopped pondering. What the book said next was really weird? In order to use [ Status ] I had to close my eyes and think in my mind while wanting to learn about myself. Those words were really confusing.

Wanting to learn about myself? What was that feeling like? Well, Couldn’t hurt to try….

I closed my eyes , everything being dark I took slow breaths. Every time I saw complete darkness, it reminded about space and dark matter of the universe. I yelled [ Status ] in my mind and anticipated for something to happen. I waited for a while and nothing happened…….

A few minutes passed and still nothing…….how long should I stay like this?

I thought it failed because I did wrong or maybe the book really was about party tricks. Either way I felt it was a let down that nothing happened. I simply glanced over the pages with disinterest. It was really boring now that I had lost any expectation for it. Why would someone go so far as to write a book like this? Thoughts like wandered for a while. I didn’t hold too many expectations from the book anyway. I only got interested since it had some interesting points similar to science, but mostly this was a failed theory which would be disproved later in the future like many such theories.

I wanted to try it one last time, since someone had gone so far as to write a book for this and then abandon it. This time I read it in detail in case I missed something. It looks like I did. It said I had to use a little [ Mana ]. I needed to feel the power from my centre slowly enter my mind. I didn’t really understand this one. He described [ Mana ] flow would be similar to flow of blood. So I had to control my blood from my body to the brain. Doesn’t the heart do that?

I tried it this time laying down and raising my legs straight up into the air. This was a method of allowing blood to flow to the brain faster, in case someone had lost too much blood and was feeling anemic. To make sure the victim didn’t faint doctors would use this method when sometimes the blood wouldn’t clot quickly after a blood transfusion.

This time I made sure I felt the feeling of wanting to know myself to be at the highest as possible. Who am I? What am I? How did I come here? Why did I come here? All such self imposing thoughts were swirling around in my mind and as I closed my eyes and felt the darkness, I yelled [ Status ] in my mind.

………….

……….

What the….?

[ Status ]

[ Name: Orian Mellinus ]

[ Age: 5 months 14 days ]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Growth: 1 ]

[ Skills ]

[ Language Comprehension ]

[ Strength: 1 ]

[ Intelligence: 100 ]

[ Resistance: none ]

[ Endurance: none ]

[ Mana: 400 ]

………

It was like a slab of details……details about me. It looked like a grey stone which had all these details. I read them one by one. Everything about me was weak, except my intelligence. Was it because of my experience? My [ Mana ] was quite high too, but I didn’t know as I could compare it anyone yet. But it was better than having none or 1 like the rest of them.

So Mellinus is my last name, could it be my family name?

Today I learnt, this world had different possibilities. But I am going to find each and every thing it holds.

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Author's Note: Sorry for posting it late, my internet service provider is a pain. Services are bad and good ones aren't found where i live. Thank for reading guys, I'll keep the length of the chapter to be high.