There’s a saying: Third time’s a charm, which happened to be true for me as well. Kraft took me with him to two goblin elimination missions. The second one was to kill some goblins hiding inside a cave. It was another of those initiation missions where young knight were supposed to stop being little bitches. You are fully armored against a one meter tall, green creature with a wooden club as a weapon, those creatures are so weak they die when you kick them. There were four of us versus 30 goblins. Kraft had to protect the noobs so he let me attack first. The mission went almost the same as the first time, I started laughing like a psycho and killed goblins by smashing their heads with my fists. I killed ten of them and Kraft killed 15 and the two knights killed the rest of them. At first the knights were afraid of the goblins and then they saw me fighting and got scared of me. It’s a good thing Kraft makes me walk because if I had gone back in the same carriage as the knights they would have developed PTSD.

The third encounter opened my eyes. It happened during the second day of the forth month. I was shopping with Kraft when I felt danger coming from the outskirts. I told Kraft that something was wrong and we went to see what was the problem. 12 goblins were marching towards the village led by two black hobgoblins. I scanned them, they were sub species of hobgoblins five times stronger than them and three times faster, threat level 1.

We weren’t lucky at all, we were the only ones capable to fight. I think we really angered the goblins in the vicinity. Behind us was the village center, on our left, right and front were goblins and hobgoblins. One villager was attacked before we could get here. He ran away leaving behind a cart transporting wooden logs. Neither I nor Kraft had any weapons with us so Kraft decided to use a log as a weapon, me on the other hand didn’t feel the need to get one.

I attacked the hobgoblin only to find myself at a disadvantage. The guy knew how to fight and my current way of fighting wasn’t working. Every time I grabbed him I ended up getting knocked down. I didn’t even manage to hit him and I was getting tired. The fact that I couldn’t fight as well as I did in training was beginning to bug me. While I was thinking why I couldn’t beat the hobgoblin, he was busy punching me like there was no tomorrow.

The hobgoblin hit me in the stomach then kicked me in the face. I took a few steps back, holding my stomach. For unknown reasons my battle meditation wasn’t working and Kraft was busy with the other hobgoblin and his minions. Now I doubled as a punching bag. I was angry, not because I was in pain, it was because he was weak.

I got knocked down. It was the second time I was on the verge of passing out. I backed away from the goblin and tried to calm down. A few deep breaths helped me regain my composure. I closed my eyes for a few moments and when I opened them I noticed I calmed down enough to look at the hobgoblin without having the desire to toy with him.

Once I came to my senses I saw how weak he really is. I avoided all his punches without breaking a sweat, and decided to beat him using boxing. Even without any magic my punches dealt a great amount of damage to him. My strikes were more accurate than I expected and because of that I was able to hit his head in the same place until I broke his skull. Hooks are harder to hit than I remembered.

The hobgoblin was killed. When I looked at Kraft I noticed that the log in his hands is broken in half and the missing half was on top of a corpse. The other goblins were killed and the ground was full of holes. Judging by the lack of bodies and the gore around Kraft I bet he squished the goblins. My body was so fucked up I couldn’t even heal it. I will have to endure the pain until I can heal myself with magic.

We went to the village elder to explain what happened. When we reached the elder’s house we saw some knights talking to the elder. From what they told us the knights thought we could handle ourselves and evacuated the people in the vicinity. Kraft got angry and punched the leader of the knights so hard his helmet deformed. Nobody said anything because they knew he deserved it and because they were afraid of Kraft. When we got home I had to tell Ellen what happened.

That happened a month ago. Now it’s the tenth day of May or the month of the fifth dragon. For the past ten days Ellen stopped going to the village instead Mau comes to check-up on Ellen for free. Now I am in charge of cleaning and cooking as long as it doesn’t involve magic stones or crystals. I suck at controlling the magic that leaves my body so Ellen is scared that I might flood the house or burn it down.

I always talk to Mau when she comes here but she won’t tell me anything about the beast people instead she talks to me about medicine. It’s a good thing I remembered everything from my past life, knowing how to perform first aid is a big deal on this world.

After the check-up Mau has lunch with us. Even as a catwoman she rarely ate any fish. Eating with everybody is fun. Next month Ellen was supposed to give birth. After we finished eating Mau had something to talk about with us.

“Alex, you have a strange body odor.”

“Meaning?”

“Beast people’s senses are stronger than a human’s especially smell. Some predators can use the body odor of its prey to track it down. You have a sweet smelling body odor, the kind that attracts females.”

“So I’m a chick magnet?”

“Yes but it also work for combat situations, your smell makes you seem weak so you can be underestimated and above all else your smell can barely be felt. The first effect of your body odor works on both males and females.”

“So I attract both males and females, oh god why?”

“It makes others more responsive towards you not sexually interested in you.”

“You heard what she said kid, go and manipulate people.” Said Kraft while grinning.

“It’s difficult to explain since humans have a weaker sense of smell. Its potency will increase when you grow up, that’s when its real effects will be seen.”

“This was a strange conversation, I didn’t know anything my body odor except the fact that I rarely sweat.”

“It’s something to keep in mind, you might be able to make others fall for you or agree with you regardless of what they think.”

“Good to know but I’m going to stick to being almost impossible to detect by smell.”

“Then I will take my leave. I shall see you all tomorrow.”

“Bye Mau, see you tomorrow.”

Mau never stays for long periods of time because of her jobs as a medic and healer. Now that Mau left it’s up to me to take care of Ellen.

“Before thinking about body odor you should do something about your body enchantment.” I forgot Ellen likes to appear out of nowhere but doing that while pregnant takes real skill.

“You shouldn’t move around too much, it’s bad for you.”

“I’m fine, if something happens you can you can use your powers on me.”

“Kraft, you should say something…”

“Leave her be kid, you should know your mother isn’t so frail, she will be fine.”

“I guess, but don’t blame me if anything bad happens.”

“Ali, I thought about something but I need to know something first.”

“What is it?”

“You can direct magic to your eyes to use your powers?”

“Yes.”

“Do you get tired when using your powers?”

“No, it drains some of my magic with each scan but it depends on what I scan.”

“When you enchant your whole body you waste too much magic so I want you to enchant parts of your body. Start with your hands, arms, legs and so on until you can control your magic.”

“I tried but it didn’t work out.”

“Maybe you are doing something wrong. Give it a try, enchant your right arm.”

“Fine but I tell you…”

“Just do it already kid!”

Easier said than done, if I could do it I would have done it a long time ago. It won’t hurt to give it a try. I entered in my inner world. I was standing at the edge of the lake. When using enchantment you coat yourself in magic. I put my right hand on the surface and I tried coating my hand in magic. It went really well, the veins on my hand turned black and my hand felt heavy. I returned to the real world and looked at my hand. The veins were slightly blacker than normal but I could feel the dark magic empowering my hand. After a few moments I felt dizzy and I fell on the floor.

When I opened my eyes I was on the bed in my room. Ellen was with me in the room sitting on a chair looking at me. My magic was depleted and it started regenerating.

“That went well, didn’t it?”

“I saw what I needed to and I think I’ve found a solution. First I’ve got a question, did you feel something strange?”

“I went into my meditative state and when I coated my hand in magic it felt heavy.”

“We are up to a good start. Your body rejected the magic the first time but now it’s adapting and accepting it. Now you have to repeat what you did until using enchantment feels natural.”

“That’s going to take too long. I can’t even keep up it for a second, during the battle with the wolves I was lucky.”

“You got lucky, that means doing it it’s not impossible. Kraft trained for five years despite having next to no control over his magic and still managed to use body enchantment. I believe you will be able to use it on your hands before you turn seven.”

“Three months to learn how to control the magic I gather on my hands. I might be able to do it.”

“I am going back to bed, when you feel better you can start cleaning.”

My daily routine consisted of running to the village and back, helping Ellen with chores, training with Kraft and strengthening my body and now I have to find a way to fully control my magic. At least I don’t have time to get bored.

In the beginning I thought that having those powers would make me the overpowered peasant but the god decided to make me a late bloomer. My life here is pretty convenient and I really like having a father who isn’t a total bitch. The past will remain in the past, now my first priority is to look after Ellen.

The tenth day of the sixth month was the day Ellen gave birth. Ellen noticed something was wrong with her so she told me to go and fetch Mau. I was impressed by the fact that I outran Mau’s horse when we returned home but thanks to that I had time to get some rags, towels and some of my old clothes. My growth rate was abnormal so I didn’t get to wear the same clothes for long periods of time.

Mau arrived right on time. She told me and Kraft to wait outside while she takes care of Ellen. She told me before that only the patient and the doctors should stay in the room. I was leaning on a wall waiting for Mau to finish while Kraft had his ear on the door. At least he is worried, but he might want to chill.

“Can you stop that?”

“Shut up kid, what happens if anything goes wrong? This not a game, it’s a life we are talking about here.”

“It’s going well, I can hear Mau talking. Ellen’s too loud and I can understand what they say but Mau’s voice doesn’t have any hint of panic or sadness so just wait patiently.”

For a second I thought I heard somebody crying, maybe it’s over?

“If you could hear what’s happening why didn’t you…..”

The door opened and hit Kraft’s head. The sound echoed throughout the room. Mau called us inside. The baby was a girl. She had blue eyes and black hair. She wasn’t as chubby as expected and she isn’t crying, she might be sleeping.

The most surprised was Kraft. He was on his knees next to Ellen looking at the baby, he looked like he was ready to try. I guess I could try smiling.

“Caught you off guard?” said Ellen smiling at me.

“I guess, I don’t know how to react. I’m very happy for you since you were able to give birth after all the things you’ve been through.”

“I guess I can’t ask you to feel the same way we do. Until you are able to feel the joy of being a parent I will have to be thankful that you are here with us. After what you did for us there aren’t many things we could ask of you.”

“Heh, that’s how it is. As for what I did, I did because I wanted to, it’s only natural to help your family.”

“Your family… How about giving her a name?”

I couldn’t even begin thinking about a name. She is a girl, maybe something to go with our family name? Lowe sounds like the german term for lion. The latin for lion was leo and for lioness was lio…OH! Leaena. I guess I could go with Lea, Lea Lowe.

“How about Lea?”

“Lea, I don’t know what to say, maybe something else?”

I expected that much, I don’t have the ability to think of a name for her.

“Still no idea?”

“Not really ones I have are Lea or Maia.”

“A lioness, now I understand. I think we will name her Lea. Now we will have to think of a title for her.”

“A title, I’m lost.”

“I will tell you about it later. For now come here, you are the reason she was born and I want you take care of your sister.”

“I’m really glad, I thought we will never have a child together.” Kraft decided to be a girl and started crying.

Needless to say everybody in the room expect for Kraft started laughing, this day will not be forgotten.

Now I have a sibling but I get the feeling I won’t get to spend much time with her. For now I might as well go with the flow.