Another month slipped by in a blur, Magna practicing his speech, trying again and again to cast a spell, only to fail every single time.
He was growing at a pace well beyond any ordinary baby’s, sure, but his inability to cast even the simplest spell grew more frustrating with each passing day.
The real trouble was that he knew almost nothing about this world, or how spellcasting actually worked in it. Without that, he had no way of knowing what he was doing wrong, let alone how to fix it.
At least, not until he finally grew strong enough to crawl.
The very first thing he did, the moment he had the strength to move on his own, was drag his heavy little body toward the corner of the cave where the spellbooks sat stacked.
He’d picked up plenty from his goblin mother over the past months, but the language barrier meant there was only so much she could actually teach him. Reading the books himself was, in the end, still his best shot.
His early attempts at crawling were, frankly, a disaster.
More than once, he found himself wishing he’d picked arm strength back when Gaia gave him the choice.
Still, after days of trying and failing, he finally got the hang of it.
One day, once his goblin mother had left the cave to hunt, he finally made it to the spellbooks.
There were only three of them, all covered in dust and worn thin by time. One had a blue cover, one red, and the last, green.
Struggling to sit himself upright, he settled in, and with a broad, excited grin and trembling, worn-out hands, he pulled the blue book toward him and opened the cover.
Large, bold letters greeted him right there on the first page.
...Theoretical Principles of Spellcasting...
Seeing the book written in a language he could actually read brought him no small relief. At least he wouldn’t have to spend years cracking some foreign language before he could even start learning.
Unable to contain his excitement, he flipped the page and dove in, reading with total focus, careful not to miss a single word.
But the further he read, his expression began to shift, bewilderment first, then shock, and finally a bitter mix of disappointment and frustration.
"So... da’s why... I was... abandond... jus’ ’cause... I was bo’n... a boy...?"
The first twelve pages covered the basic requirements for manipulating mana and casting spells, laying out who could actually use magic, and how.
The single most important thing was this, to have any aptitude for it at all, one had to be born female.
According to the book, a man could never sense or use mana without some kind of outside help.
Struck by the sheer weight of it, he collapsed flat onto his back, his head cracking against the cold stone floor with a dull thud.
He was far too demoralized to even care about the impact, or the pain of it.
’What now? What am I even supposed to do?’
For a moment, it felt like he’d lost his whole reason for living.
Being unable to use magic in a fantasy world was, to him, about the cruelest fate imaginable.
What was he even meant to become, once he grew up?
A farmer, living out some dull, uneventful life with a family of his own? A merchant, spending his whole existence in a caravan, wetting himself the moment bandits showed up?
He wasn’t even sure warriors or hunters, the sort of men who actually went off on adventures, existed here at all.
Every future he pictured led to the same dead end of dull, uninspired nothing. The kind of story no one, ever, would want to read in a reincarnation tale.
Until, that is, he remembered the one thing that might still change everything.
Staring up at the beams of sunlight slipping through the cracks in the ceiling, he called out.
"Gaia... if you’re sti’ dewe... ansa me..."
If there was one ember of hope left worth holding onto, it was that mysterious AI, silent as it had been for so long now.
It was magical enough to transform and mutate his body already, so surely granting him the talent to manipulate mana wasn’t asking too much.
Unfortunately, the only answer to his call was a soft breeze, drifting in through the cracks in the cave.
Before long, that breeze was joined by something else, the faint sound of footsteps, echoing down the corridor.
’Oh, is she back already?’ Realizing Green had returned, Magna quickly rolled onto his stomach and started crawling back toward the bed of leaves as fast as his small limbs could carry him.
It wasn’t that his goblin mother would punish him for reading her books, exactly, but he still didn’t look much like some freakish little prodigy, reading books the moment he learned to crawl.
Pouring every last scrap of energy he had left into it, he scrambled onto the bed and threw himself down, squeezing his eyes shut to fake sleep, just as the footsteps reached the chamber.
Except something was wrong. The footsteps echoing through the cave sounded nothing at all like the ones he was used to.
They were faster, messier, and a good deal cruder.
Wondering what was going on, he cracked one eye open for a quick look, only to freeze in sheer horror as a loud, hideous screech tore through the whole cave.
"SKREEH! GRAHK! KHEH! RAAK!"
That was not his goblin mother’s voice.
Swallowing down the fear rising in his chest, Magna turned toward the intruder, and his heart sank at the sight.
Closing in on him was an unfamiliar goblin, short and hunched, with deep green skin, a small, rusted knife gripped in its hand.