21Chapter 2: ...It's a Kind of Magic...
Before anything else, I would like to present the thesis of this short narrative, and that is that I have somehow been reincarnated as a baby in a world where magic exists.
As for the proofs that would support this assertion, we must start right after my brother and I were killed by truck-san
The first thing I saw after the crash was the color red. Immediately, there was a sense of wrongness that permeated the mysterious, cramped, and dimly lit room but I didn't really think about it until a few minutes later. The situation was something like this: there was a strange feeling of foreboding in the air, as if something very, very, VERY BAD was going to happen, but I had no way of knowing just how horrible I had it until everything went to shit.
Let's just focus on something else, shall we...
Ever since I watched my youngest brother being born, I wondered if babies could remember what was happening around them. It took a few years before I could understand some of the jargon, but I found out that such a thing would be impossible because scientifically speaking their brains aren't developed enough to form the neural pathways that we associate with long term memory. Different studies reported that the brains of babies tend to retain very little of 'true memory' or rather the events and narratives that we call memories and instead they more easily retain certain skills or behaviors. Supposedly, this is one of the reasons why we remember how to walk, or what the names of certain objects are rather than when and how we learned them.
Today I learned that even if babies could remember what it was like to be born into the world, they would most likely choose to forget it, just as how I was desperately trying to forget mine.
How do I know I was just born, you ask? The answer was simpler than expected.
We must first establish that I was screaming. This is by no means proof, but I would like to assert that after being forced through some slick, writhing passage from strange and definitely wrong warmth to shockingly cold light, anyone would be screaming for their lives. Anyway, I didn't know exactly when I stopped screaming, but when I did decide to give my lungs a bit of rest, I noticed something very strange about my surroundings.
For one, I couldn't move my head very well, and I was somehow trapped within a strange enclosure, that had thick wooden bars arranged in a fence-like fashion a few feet away from me. Despite the crude design of the bars, forgive my lack of focus as my eyes still had trouble with light at this point, it was obvious that this enclosure was made to keep things in rather than keep things out. Though, that didn't make too much sense to me as I, despite being somewhere in the middle of the prison, was comfortably wrapped in a bundle of cloth while a very soft pillow cradled my head. At first, it made no sense to me; if you were going to cage someone, even if that someone was just run over by a truck, you didn't go out of your way to make sure they were comfortable.
And then I felt something moving behind me.
I couldn't move. There could have been many reasons for this, be it the cloth that was wrapped around me, or the injuries that I should have sustained when the truck made impact. I could have been stuck in some coma for a while that my muscles have were afflicted with atrophy that required rehabilitation to remedy. No matter what I thought at the time, all I knew was that I was held against my will and that something within the strange prison was moving behind me.
So I screamed.
The next thing I knew, I was being lifted up and held against something soft and warm, but that little tidbit was relegated to the back of my mind as I looked over my own body.
A much smaller body.
There was no mistaking it; even if I couldn't see how large my head was, I could definitely see the small blanket that enveloped my smaller body. It even had a cute little pattern to serve as decoration as bright feminine colors dyed the fabric and caught my eyes...
Wait...
So this body influences thoughts too?
Never mind, that is a discussion for another time.
Now that we have established that I was currently a baby, allow me to explain how I reached the conclusion about magic and my being in another world.
To be perfectly honest, that assertion was born of despair more than anything else.
Traditional reincarnation didn't allow for the carrying over of memories at least in the context of earth, or what we like to call the real world, so the only other explanation, though highly implausible, would be that I've been reincarnated in another world. To that effect, my soul was transferred into the body the woman who was to be my new mother and science did the rest. The justification of the existence of magic would then hinge on the assumption that the memories of my old life were stored in what we know as the soul and that with the transfer of my soul, the memories also followed.
And that made some measure of sense, since it was quite obvious that a baby couldn't remember things so early on, much less its thoughts mere hours after its birth.
Well, it was that or babies forgot their past lives during their early years and I could live my new life with some measure of peace.
Neither option was particularly attractive at this point, but they had their own advantages.
If ever I would forget then it wouldn't matter to me anymore...
But if Magic really did exist, and I retained a measure of what I learned then things would prove to be interesting.
Of course, those thoughts came later, when I finally got over the shock, my death, and the death of my little bother.
At that time, I could only weep as I took in my new form as a baby, and fear for the uncertain future.
I didn't stop crying for a long time.
As a woman who once had to work more than eighteen hours a day, I'd say that being a baby had its perks.
The first, of course, was the fact that I didn't have to so much as move if I wanted anything. My mother, a beautiful woman with the face of an angel as depicted by some famous European Master, a figure that would make statues of Greek Goddesses crack in shame, and a voice that never failed to make me feel warm, safe, and loved, dutifully attended to me whenever I had a problem.
If I was hungry, all I had to do was cry, and she would come to me like the angel she was, bring me up to her considerable bosom, and allow me to suckle until I had my fill. If I made a mess of myself, to my shame as an adult if only in mind, I would only have to cry and she would relieve me of my burden and clean up after whatever mess I made. If I was ever tired or felt anything other than hunger or discomfort, I would only have to cry out and she would bring me to bed, either with her and our father, or in the small crib I mistook as a prison on the day I was born.
And I was never bored as there was always someone or something to keep my attention occupied. On the list of people, was my beloved mother, the saint that she was, my father, and my aunt.
Now father was rarely there and that must have been because of whatever he did for work, but whenever he was around, the man would always try his best to make me smile. The man himself was handsome, with features of a hero and a body to match, his form one more suited to sprinters or soldiers rather than muscled strong men or those heavy weight lifters. Despite his sharpness and the strange fire he held in his gaze, whenever he was with either mother or me, he would always put up a genuine smile and he never failed to draw a smile from either my mother, or my aunt. I would try to ignore him, as petty as it was, because mother and auntie would always laugh whenever he failed to make me smile, but he would always win in the end.
For some reason, I was even more ticklish now than I ever was in my past life.
Now my aunt, didn't feel like she was my aunt, but she didn't feel like she was a simple servant or midwife either. She was the most efficient at taking care of me, and she was always able to tell why I was crying as opposed to my parents who would always flounder between the three main reasons before trying all three and eventually satisfying me. She wasn't one to smile very often, but when she did she shined as brightly as my mother did, especially when I could see tenderness and genuine love in her eyes.
Those eyes were just as strange as mother's by the way, something in between blue, violet, and red, while her hair was a rich dark brown and just a shade darker than my fathers. It was that combination of attributes, my mother's eyes, her beauty, and my father's hair, that first suggested that she was my sister but that was quickly pushed aside when I saw that she was just as old as my mother was.
Magic or not, I didn't think she could look that much like my mother and still be my sister, or if that was the case then they would have to tell it to me straight before I believed it.
Anyway, other than being waited on hand and foot, I was also able to, more likely forced to, interact more with my twin brother.
Not that I was complaining about it because that boy, he was just so...
That's right, I had a twin brother, who was younger by a few minutes I think, and he was just the most adorable little mass of cute baby fat, moonlight, and rainbows. He was the one moving behind me on the day I was born, because someone, father, thought it would be a good idea to bring a struggling mass of newborn baby beside a supposedly peacefully slumbering one.
I made sure he understood my opinion regarding that idiotic move, but not only because he scared me half to death while I was in shock, but because he didn't let me see the adorable face of my little brother until I woke up beside him the next day. I redoubled my volume and the degree of pain my wails inflicted when my parents thought it was a good idea to take him away from me; on account of me crying too much I assume.
But he was my adorable little bundle of chubby cheeks and gurgling gibberish, dammit! That was the day I fell in love with the little miracle; he had my heart in the palm of his tiny widdle hands as soon as our eyes met.
He was as perfect as my little brothers were the day they were born, with a face that you couldn't help but love unless you kicked puppies for fun and eyes that simply screamed innocence that you couldn't help but want to protect them. And the best part about him was he didn't cry nearly as much as I did during the first few weeks, so I never had to deal with anything other than my own grief and sorrow until such a time that I made peace with the fact that I would never be able to see my family and friends again.
He was very quiet for a baby, and admittedly that sparked a little bit of worry from me, but he seemed as strong and healthy as babies came, and I was a little bit preoccupied with my shock to find out why he was so silent.
On a side note, weeping nonstop and wailing at the top of your lungs for hours was oddly therapeutic and after a couple of days, I could finally focus on something other than the hopelessness that took over me and the wish to just cease existing. Those were not my best moments, but at the very least my mother, my aunt, and my brother were nothing but supportive, all of them, yes even the little cutie, trying to comfort me in their own way while I drowned in negativity.
The moment that he crawled to my side and tried to hug me with his tiny widdle arms, I promised myself to live this life to the best of my ability, if not just for myself, then for the new family I was given.
And that meant doing what I did best.
Learning about Everything.
Being a baby, and by extension, having nothing to do for almost hours on end helped with that very much.
At this point, I knew that we did live in an entirely different world on account that our parents spoke gibberish. I wouldn't have been so easily convinced if they simply spoke gibberish only in our presence, because let's face is, the itty bitty other half of my heart and I were babies and even I knew that babytalk could not be avoided when in the presence of a baby.
If they were using babytalk on us, and I'd admit that father could be funny at times, I would have let it go but that qualifier was quickly rendered invalid when they continued speaking the same gibberish among themselves, as if my mother, my father, and my aunt were all babies. That meant that, though they could be using babytalk when trying to make us laugh, they were indeed using another language when speaking to each other; a language so far from most Asian and European Languages that it seemed like gibberish to a polyglot like myself.
It sounded nothing like English, French, German, or Spanish, and it was most definitely far from Mandarin and Japanese or any language I ever heard. In terms of actual vocabulary, it seemed to be totally different from what I was used to, maybe being closer to an esoteric language like Ancient Sumerian or the mythical, and strangely inconsistent, Enochian but after really listening to it for a few hours, it seemed to have the structure closer to Asian Languages, especially with the short, monosyllabic suffixes that seem to resemble our own honorifics.
I was sure that I would be able to be proficient enough in the language to make conversation in a few months, at least if I was able to talk in a few months.
Language aside, what really interested me these past few weeks was the discovery of magic, which like most things, began with an accident.
Up until now, I have been talking about what was good about being a baby, so lets begin with what is bad.
Of course, let's take away the obvious problems first; my body hated me more than anything ever could. I basically had no control over what I did and my mind could have been something entirely separate from my little baby body. Sure, I was trying to develop my motor skills again, but it was a process that involved much trial and even more error, and I must add that those were on good days.
If my body didn't want to move, it didn't move and no matter how much I say 'mind over matter' in this case matter won every single time. It goes without saying that bladder and bowel control were a few years out of my reach, I didn't have a set sleeping and eating schedule, and everything that bothered me did so enough that I was reduced to tears every few hours. On the forty year old woman stuck in a baby side, things were less qualified as problems and more properly defined as inconveniences.
For example: aside from all the free time I'm normally allowed, time I've spent either feigning sleep and depressing myself, smiling at my new little pudgy human plush to-twin brother, or actually sleeping, being a baby is tiring. Now many may argue that some babies can be infuriatingly energetic, and yes that happens but the converse applied to me in that I always had just enough energy to stay awake for a few hours. And in those hours of brief lucidity, I was expected to play around mother, father, and auntie.
Don't get me wrong, it was fun; especially when mother was feeling particularly playful and we were brought to the garden, but two things ruined that for me.
First of all, my brother would always seem to cry whenever either mother, father, or auntie brought him outside the house, and as annoying as it was, I was more bothered by the fact that he didn't like it outside rather than the fact that a baby crying was real hell on the ears.
Another, and the more common problem plaguing me, was that whenever we would play, I would usually get father instead of mother. That wouldn't have been such a bad, if father wasn't... such a boy.
I was a baby for crying out loud, not some sort of ball you could play catch with!
Still, I guess his more... active version of play wasn't so bad if that was what lead me to using magic for the first time.
Thankfully, it was just after lunch and for some reason father was home instead of being out of the house like he usually was at this time. He might have been required to work on certain days every week, but at this time his schedule had been so erratic that I couldn't tell for sure. Still, I digress; father was home, and he had tired me out doing... dad things. Seriously, someone please tell him that when I scream with him, it's because I'm terrified, not having fun.
Anyway, he let me down after making sure I was sufficiently tired but as fate would have it, the heat in the room was something else that afternoon. If I was a bit less tired, a bit more patient, and a bit more lucid, I would have been able to distract myself from the discomfort, maybe even think myself to sleep and ignore the annoying way I seemed to be unable to sweat properly with a blanket on. If I was just a bit more tired, I would have fallen asleep as soon as I touched the soft fabric that was my blanket, and if my father remembered to open a window before leaving me be, I wouldn't have had a problem with the strange heat wave in the first place.
But as it was, I had the strangest sensation that the new universe was somehow conspiring against me to test my tenuous patience.
It was as if fate decided to do everything it can to get me do snap, and I would admit right here and now that it succeeded that afternoon.
As a baby, I wasn't in my right mind; compound that with fatigue, helplessness, annoyance, and irrational anger and you have a volatile combination of emotions that would manifest themselves in the most explosive way possible. Really, the only way it could have gotten any worse at that point -shut up; even if it does seem trivial, I was in a really bad place- was if someone rushed in and told me my father dropped and killed my little brother.
So I reacted appropriately.
"JUST DIE ALREADY, HEAT!"
Of course, it came out as a muffled shriek that didn't resemble any language I was thinking of using, but at that moment, all that mattered was the uncomfortable heat in the room.
And I really, really, really wanted it gone.
Now.
Sometimes, people, no matter strange it might seem, want to escape reality; it's the reason why fiction is still a popular genre, why things like alcohol and drugs are consumed, why people tend to do anything that would make them forget what was happening to them. Escapism, as the word implies, is defined as the tendency to turn to things like fantasies to ignore the unpleasant reality; to seek what is not real to find relief from what was.
So in that moment; I believed with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my very being that I could change the temperature of the room. I believed that if I wanted it, I could freeze the sun over with a snap of my fingers and evaporate the very oceans with but a simple thought. For a single moment, I returned to who I was as a child; a delusional little girl who believed that the world sat in the palm of my hand to do with as I wished.
Now at that point, most people would take a breath to center themselves, to move on from the very temporary insanity while reality reasserts it's dominance. Once those delusions of grandeur cross a person's mind, and the universe once more proves that it is the master and it doesn't owe anyone anything, everything is returned to order and that person returns to the struggle against what life is. Because most of the time, people could say and think whatever they want and more often than not, it doesn't change a thing.
Wishes shouldn't come true just because you wished for them.
The world shouldn't bend over backwards for you just because you do nothing but stay put and want something.
Thoughts are powerful in any form, but without articulation they are nothing but wisps of madness caged by the mind, and without action they are but fantasies known only to the thinker.
So the room shouldn't have been overcome by a chill so frigid that I had to snuggle deeper into my gossamer cocoon. The room should have stayed as hot as it always was, and I should have been annoyed, angry, tired, and defeated by the time I recovered from my lapse in focus and was returned to harsh, unforgiving reality. Absolutely nothing should have happened; my thoughts on the matter, no matter how strong, how desperate, should have had no effect since they were not acted upon.
But no one told the universe that.
No one told the universe to attend to the little girl who just had enough of the heat that overtaken the air around her.
That didn't stop the universe.
I fell asleep soon after the chill turned from surprising to pleasant, and I would only figure out when I woke up in time for my next feeding that I had managed to cast magic at the tender age of... two months.
I verified that fact by doing the very same thing; I entered the mindset of someone with middle school syndrome and willed the air to cool, though this time I imagined something like a gentle breeze instead of trying to freeze the sun.
The result was a much more comfortable draft, though when I say draft it is more the cold air sinking due to the behavior of the denser mass rather than a wind actually blowing past me. Either way, the effect was the same; I had managed to somehow affect the world in a way that didn't require direct action. In short, I somehow managed to 'wish' for something and it was granted; I was able to affect the world with nothing but my will, my imagination.
No understanding of physics required; I wanted the air colder and so it was.
That was the last nail in the coffin; my parents and aunt spoke a language so alien that it couldn't be anything from earth, I was a baby despite having the memories of a woman who lived for over forty years, and I discovered that I could do magic.
I could have done a lot of things after such a startling revelation.
"Pa-pa" I driveled adorably, garnering an excited cheer from my father as he took me into his arms and rushed to my mother.
I'll think about what to do with my magic later.
I guess my father deserves some love every now and again.
AN
There once was one, and now there are four; Mushoku Tensei is more popular than I though :))
I'll be honest and say I'm just writing this now because my beta is still helping me correct Silly Songbird so that's put on the back burner for now. I don't think anyone who reads that reads this but just in case, that's the story.
For the first few chapters, I'm thinking of going on to what the children do as children, since so many SI's just get to the meet of things and rob the story of more development than it should have. I mean, sure Magic and Power is a fun road to travel, but Rudeus only stayed in the house because he really was just too scared to leave it. I have a chance to fix that now, so instead of just munchkining around, he could have other relationships with other villagers.
Don't worry, I plan to retain all canon characters, so our (my) favorite elf will still be included, though she may be included much earlier.
If any of you guys like what Kaocakeman is doing by diversifying POV, then please just go there since I don't intend to switch POV from the main cast, (OC, Rudi, Paul, Zenith, and Lilia) just yet. He does good work, and is the reason why this thing is here in the first place.
If you guys want to talk how magic works around here... well canon calls it 'omnipotent' so you're arguments against how OC casts are literally invalid.
That's it; Review if you want to tell me anything (flames will be laughed at) and don't expect me to update this too often.
I'll see anyone still here next update =))