Volume1

Chapter4

Even I am not so dense as not to realize what father is doing.

I mean, I was at a loss in the beginning, but now it’s clear. Because he is using detoxification and healing magic in front of me and all at literally every chance he has.

When some food smells funny, or when someone has a bruise from training. Even as a way to get beer to be less bitter. It tastes just like water after being detoxified.

And he always gets mine and Jacen’s attention as well. He says “Al, Jacen, want to see magic?” and we go “yes!”.

But I have to say, wouldn’t it been easier if he had just said “try by yourselves now” instead of waiting until we copied him out our own initiative?

Well, maybe there’s a learning in this as well. Thinking back… how did father learn magic in the first place?

When I asked him, he said it was by listening attentively when someone casted heal or detoxification, and then trying to imitate it by himself.

“This is the way adventurers usually learn it.”

So, that’s why.

Thinking better on that, those kinds of basic magic should be easy to use if you need only to sing a few tunes. No need to know the theory behind it, uhm… guess I will need to learn the theory later.

And that is why I have been trying to do it by myself. After seeing me trying Jacen has decided to try as well.

I am faring better so far. Having perfect memory helps a lot. Since I remember every single time father has used magic I can compare each of them and see the differences – that is, roughly calculate how far off one can sing the tunes and still do the magic.

It isn’t much, I have to say. Maybe a quarter of a tune up or down, tops. I don’t remember very well those music stuff, since the last time I studied about that was on my previous life, not to mention on my previous childhood-teen years, so I’m not sure. But what I am sure is that even this amount of variation changes de magic itself.

I focused on trying to imitate de strongest I had seen father use so far – that is, the one which produced more light and gave a feeling of being more ~intense~.

It’s hard!

It’s really hard, since I don’t know the first thing about singing!

Also, singing only pieces of the magic isn’t something harmless. Once I sung a piece totally out of tune and a small explosion happened on my hand. It didn’t injure me, but it hurt, specially my ears.

That’s when I discovered mother can cast healing magic as well. Later it was sister’s turn to help me and Jacen.

Both are better than father.

…. Seriously, if you guys know so much why the hell haven’t you used it so far?!

So I trained and trained until… I collapsed.

The last thing I saw was mother jiggling.

Ok, I get it.

***

So it seems magic has nothing to do with mental power, but rather with stamina.

Since me and Jacen have been training with sister non-stop both of us had quite a lot to spare. But even us would run out after a few uses of magic.

That is why training took me so much time. I must have expended three whole days trying by myself until I was finally able to cast healing properly. Detoxification came easier after since I was already used to sing in the weird tunes, but it was hard nonetheless.

Also, holly molly, it expends a LOT of stamina!

I mean, healing expends a fixed amount. Around the same amount one would need to train sword swinging for a couple hours.

But detoxification expends more as the amount of things to detoxify increases.

I collapsed after a single use to try and remove toxins from an old piece of meat.

Father is amazing. Just how much stamina does he have to be able to use it on that tremendous amount of food we had laying around at winter?

Well, he can lift a 300kg pig and carry it on his back all the way home without breaking a sweat, so… yeah, father surely has a lot of stamina.

I’m a bit envious. I want to be like that too!

But at least it seems my learning speed is top class. Not only have I learned faster than Jacen, which is still struggling with the third or fourth tone in the sequence, as I have also been praised by the whole family.

It was fun.

The moment sister saw me using the healing the first time she hurried to get mother.

“Ma, look! All can use healing already!”

“Don’t be silly Ann, there is no way your brother could… good heavens…”

Mother just saw the light coming from my hands and lost her speech.

I feel so special!

Later that night father also couldn’t believe it, but when he saw me using it his jaw also dropped.

“Ha! That’s All for you! Jacen, hurry up or he will leave you behind!”

Yeah, Jacen didn’t like it so much. Lately he has been training so hard I have even got used to see he collapsed on the floor.

It seems he has forgotten a piece of the enchantment, as he is jumping a few tones here and there.

Let me help you, poop-brother. Hey, don’t look at me like that! I’m a cheater reincarnated person, so you don’t need to feel inferior.

I didn’t tell him that, of course. Maybe later I will ask for advice on something. It will be bad if he grows with an inferiority complex after all.

***

My daily routine has changed a lot recently. Ever since I managed to do healing and detoxification magic sister has been insisting that I train harder with her, so we have been training most of the day together.

I only help mother when sister is out to do her chores or when for some reason mother needs me a lot – like when she is cooking and need something fresh from the garden, or when someone brings a lot of yarn and they need extra hands.

Of course, what this means is that they have been trying to get me into knitting and crocheting. I have to say – it is tough as nails!

I have been able to learn the basics, but goddamn, I just don’t have the skills to do this!

Well, at least this happens only a couple times every week, so the overall time expend listening to the distilled venom of these hags have decreased considerably.

On the bad side, I’m not making any childhood bonds with the other kids.

Some of them get around to the yard and try imitating me or sister sometimes, but they quickly lose focus and go do other things.

As I am not much interested in nose-picking, playing with marbles or just generally acting like a usual kid, that means I don’t expend much time with them.

Anyhow, I am becoming isolated from the world. It’s just me and sister training all of spring, so I’m not making any real bonds with others.

Well, no matter. Maybe it’s better this way. I am a reincarnated person after all. Pretending to be a child in order to bond with them may go a little too far into immersing myself in the toddler role. If I was up for doing that then I would have asked to be born without my memories.

Which may have been a little less embarrassing at some point, since my south parts are now very cold.

Because I am constantly naked in my bottom.

That is right. You guessed it.

It’s potty training.

I have it easy since I remember how to clench my sphincters from my previous life, but using the latrine still scares me.

I mean, the smell alone! There is no flushing, so it’s the smell of years of accumulated waste at the bottom of that thing.

Also, it’s dark in there. We have to light a ceramic lamp to have some light inside, while doing our stuff. But this may be for the best. I definitely don’t want to have a look at the state of things inside the hole.

Anyway, it is just too weird being crouched in a dark and smelly space, doing your business in such a precarious position.

Plus, the straw!

It has been taking its toll on my behind. So much I just don’t want to wipe myself after finishing.

Luckily I have learned healing magic, so I’m not losing too much blood from using this barbaric method of cleaning yourself.

Anyhow, I won’t be using diapers no more. And that means walking around with my bottom naked, since mother won’t be making pants for me. It would be just a waste, since I am constantly growing a lot.

Well, I shall get at least a robe when I am older, but kids around 2 and 3 usually run around totally naked or with just a shirt.

It’s a way to avoid them soiling the clothes because of poor sphincter control.

So, here I am.

Bottom naked, training sword swings with my sister in the yard while the gossiping midwives knit in the kitchen right at my side and a bunch of kids I barely know run around the place.

How can I endure this?

Because I am a toddler!

I have to say, the first day I wanted to just hide and wait until everyone was gone. The kids and the wives even made some mean comments when sister forcefully brought me to the yard. My face red as a tomato.

Still, soon no one gave a damn about me.

I mean, it’s natural. Kids run around naked and that is that. So what?

This is so liberating.

I can totally understand nudists after this experience.

I am now capable of accepting the idea that being naked doesn’t make me vulnerable. It’s just a way of being.

I feel stronger somehow.

Thank you poop-world! Your backwards methods and customs have made me prideful of dangling my manhood around like a boss!

So, I have been training with sister most of the day. Still… am I becoming any stronger?

I have managed to become ambidextrous and after two months I can already train for hours non-stop.

I don’t know if this is a good learning speed for this world, but sister seems pretty satisfied. Father even promised he would teach us both how to use the spear, as soon as winter came and he could have some time off.

Still… after reaching this point, am I improving?

Thinking back on that, sister does this training constantly, and doesn’t increase its difficulty at all.

The twig she uses is still the same from the beginning.

Is she becoming stronger somehow?

Maybe it’s just simple repetition. I am not used to concentrate deeply on what I am doing, so I may not be seeing it good.

To have a straighter sword. To make it more precise and accurate. Is this the kind of training sister is doing?

I guess so. Still… I am not good at concentrating so deeply. I find it so boring to just have “beat yourself” as my main objective.

I need a goal.

Something exciting.

Maybe… should I try asking for a sparring session?

Yeah, let’s do that.

Except… what was the word for “sparing” again? I… guess I never heard it.

Well, I can make myself understood, so….

“Onee-chan! Fight me!”

“What… All, are you out of your mind?”

“U-uhm! It’s just pretend! So we can train!”

“Pretend fighting you say…. You mean [joint training] ?”

“Yes!”

Sister is serious.

“All, put your sword down”

Ah… oh… okay..

“Now, where did you learn about [joint training]?”

“Uhm… I just thought we could pretend to fight, so training would be fun…”

*sigh* “So it isn’t [joint training]. Listen well, this is impossible.”

Uhm?

“Impossible? Why?”

“Have you ever heard of [aura] ?”

“[aura] ?”

“Yeah. You know how when you use magic and feel something inside of you gets empty and then you get very tired?”

Oh, it’s the MP-stamina relationship hum. I never thought I would learn it from this sister of mine. Isn’t she less of a muscle-head than one could think at first?

“Yes.”

“This is your aura. It’s your inside power.”

Yeah, my stamina, right? But what does it have to do with sparing?

“Uhm.”

“If you eat plenty and make a good amount of exercise, you can also make more of it. It becomes thicker and stronger, and it goes all around your body, making it stronger.”

“Uhm.”

“And that is why we cannot make [joint training], got it?”

“… sister is too strong?”

“That is right. I could hurt you badly.”

“But it is just pretending!”

Sister looked at me doubtfully.

“It’s not just pretending. Your aura is already too strong for me to fight without using mine, and you don’t know how to deplete yours, do you?”

“I… no.”

“I surely won't deplete mine, and I also don’t have enough control over my own, so we cannot do [joint training], ok?”

“Ok.”

So the training isn’t made in order to horn her skills…. It’s just exercise to accumulate this aura thing.

On the other hand, if when we use magic it becomes empty… aren’t we using the accumulated aura and becoming weaker because of that?

Also, sister knows how much aura I have even without me doing any feats of strength… is this because I am able to use magic? Or can she feel it?

… I would ask more, but she is so focused in training I just feel out of place interrupting it.

That is right. Sister has to train in order to become a knight someday. I cannot stop her training to become stronger.

Also, since father likes to tell stories, maybe he can tell me more about it.

That’s it. Let’s ask father about aura tonight.

I resumed training with sister after that.

***

We are already at the end of spring, so tonight’s dinner isn’t much impressive.

Since we are on the planting season most of the fruits on threes aren’t ripe yet, and hunting is meager after winter.

Also, we still have to wait until Autumn for the next harvest, so we can’t just gobble down our grain stocks.

I had never noticed it back on earth, but spring isn’t a plentiful season in terms of foods, is it?

I mean, there is a lot of flowers and we have a lot of wild edible herbs and roots, not to mention mushrooms, but in terms of reserves of grain and meat we cannot exactly make feasts.

Summer is the time of ripe fruits, so we can eat a lot of them. Autumn is the season of harvest and when animals are the fattest, so there is plenty of grain and meat. Winter is the season when there is no fruit and game is the worst, so we need to eat what we have in stock. And Spring is a season when things get a little better, but it’s planting season and also when animals are recovering from winter and a lot of females get pregnant, meaning the hunters won’t hunt them - so it isn’t exactly plentiful. It’s just a little better than winter.

And this is why tonight’s dinner isn’t impressive at all. We have some rice and a stew made with eggs, roots, mushrooms and the such.

But no meat. We ate the last of the sausages and ham weeks ago.

I really feel a little bit of regret on these kind of days. On earth I could eat meat every day if I wanted to. Here it depends on the season.

Well, let’s put this blues aside.

Yes, because today I will ask father about aura.

It’s my first step on learning a supernatural skill with endless romance.

What, my magic?

Oh, that’s… just not much impressive I guess?

It isn’t like I have learned the fireball spell. Or how to summon demons and bind them to my will.

It’s just a faint glow in my hands which heals small cuts and bruises. It is very useful as it can mend one’s injuries, but it needs lots of uses for something big and cannot act on internal injuries – the healed things are just the ones the light can reach, so if someone gets a ruptured spleen they can’t be helped.

…. That is. I have a theory that it would be possible to heal the organ by opening their bellies and casting the light directly on it, but I don’t intend to test it on anyone so soon. So for now it’s just a hypothesis.

Gastric surgery made by a toddler may be a little too much for a medievalish world to deal with. Even when this world is one of swords and magic.

And this is why learning aura is the first step on becoming superhuman!

Lift enormous weights! Split mountains with a karate chop! Jump so high I can reach the other side of a river in one go! Run so fast I can do all of that in under three minutes!

Hell yeah, aura!

So, that is what I learned about it…

Everyone has an Aura. It can be strong or weak, and it can reach far or stay inside their bodies.

It’s made of a lot of things, and father don’t know how to express it well, but it seems to circulate all the way both inside and outside of the body.

We use it for everything in our lives. It seems to be connected even to how much physical energy we have, as some people can fast for months depending only on their auras to keep their bodies alive. When it is trained it will give you a stronger and more powerful body, which is able to withstand hits, have great physical might and even heal faster. One has to learn how to control their auras in order to be able to clad equipment and weapons with it, or use it to sense other’s auras, absurdly increase their strength momentarily and things like that. When you use too much of it the body isn’t able to resupply in the same amount fast enough, and your aura grows weaker until you accumulate a good amount again. This is called Aura Damage, and makes your body vulnerable to disease, soft and cold. It can also make you collapse and get weak as if you had anemia.

Aura is produced and stored inside of the body when someone eats, exercise and sleeps on good amounts. The passive effects are always active and make the person stronger at a low aura cost, meaning simple exercise is enough to resupply it. But the high-end active aura powers consume a lot.

A good aura is thick like armor, fluid like water, strong like steel and flexible like thread – both inside and outside of the body. If it has too much of any of those characteristics, that is, if it is too thick for example and becomes little fluid, it can damage the whole body and even kill.

Also, at a certain point the body won’t be able to naturally accumulate more aura, meaning one need to learn techniques which allow for transformations to take place in their bodies.

People who go through this kind of process are called “superior beings” because they can withstand a greater amount of aura than a normal human being. Sometimes a human gets this spontaneously, but It usually is something gotten from secret practices at a dojo. It seems common animals can also go through a similar process and become monsters.

That is why sister trains the same way everyday – it would be useless and maybe even dangerous for her try and accumulate more aura than her body can withstand.

Which is also the reason why she needs to join a good Dojo before trying to win the Kingdom Tournament – so she can learn proper ways to control her aura and the needed techniques to go through the transformation process.

Warriors who knows how to precisely control their auras are capable of many things, like deciding exactly how much they will use at any moment, controlling their passive auras, feeling the environment with aura like a sonar, cladding their equipment on it or even throwing it like offensively – being borderline magicians at this point.

Or maybe we could say they are a kind of magician, since magic power indeed comes from Aura, naturally consuming aura by chanting.

I was kind of amazed father knew so much about the subject. Still, mother and sister acted as if that was normal.

Even Jacen is a bit bored.

Is this much common sense in this world?!

Not to mention magic also consumes aura, which was a surprise for me. It means there is some kind of relationship between sounds produced by someone and how their auras reacted.

However, shouldn’t someone be able to use sounds to control someone else’s aura? Isn’t there any aura in the environment which can be used to power spells in place of someone else’s aura?

When I asked father he shrugged and said he didn’t really understand much about magic besides what he had taught me.

The idea of someone being able to control my aura by singing isn’t very comfortable. Not at all.

Anyhow, tomorrow sister starts my aura control training. With that I may be able to learn the basics – how to sense my own aura, how to get it to the maximum and the minimum outputs, and how to sense other people’s aura.

I have some suspicions in regards on how it works, so let’s pay attention closely.

***