I’m nearly four years old now, and Roxy is living happily at our house.
At first, she was a bit uncomfortable, not to mention not knowing how to get along with Zenith, a follower of the Millis Church, which is famous for ostracizing the Demon Race.
But after spending time together, she found that Zenith is a very kind person who doesn’t discriminate against Roxy for being a Demon at all.
Our whole family treats her very well.
So she settled in peacefully.
After arranging our lessons during the day, she would go to the village to help bring rain to the fields or till the soil.
Her reputation among the villagers is very high.
Bang!
I’ve burned out and collapsed weakly again.
It seems the gap between my mana capacity and Rudy’s is too large, though it’s about the same as Roxy’s.
How on earth did Rudy train such a massive amount of mana?
Suddenly, with two thumping sounds, a leather ball bounced into our yard.
It was accidentally kicked in by the children playing outside.
“Sorry, could you give us our ball back?”
The ball landed at Rudy’s feet.
He hesitated for a moment, picked it up, and then, as if terrified of something, closed his eyes and threw it.
Naturally, due to poor force or aim, it hit the yard wall and bounced back, landing at Rudy’s feet again.
Perhaps because Paul is a knight, those children playing ball stood politely at our gate this time, hoping we would return the ball to them.
“If you can’t throw it accurately, why don’t you just carry the ball out there?”
“No, I don’t want to!
I…
I don’t want to go out!”
Looking closely at him, Rudy was breaking into a cold sweat, his pupils dilated as if he were seeing something unspeakable.
He ran back into the house without looking back.
The children at the gate were confused, and I also couldn’t understand why he was acting like this.
I had to be the one to return the ball to the children.
They thanked me politely and invited me to play with them, but I declined.
“Rudy, what’s wrong?”
“I…
I don’t want to go outside.”
I suddenly realized that he really hasn’t stepped out of the door once.
He seems terrified of going out and always huddles at home.
Even in the yard, he looks restless and is afraid of being seen by anyone outside the family.
Has he suffered some kind of psychological trauma?
“Are you afraid of something?
Is it the gaze of the people around you?”
Rudy said nothing, which was a silent admission.
It’s fine for now; he’s only four and can afford to be stubborn about not going out.
But what will happen when he’s a bit older?
Will he stubbornly refuse to leave the house until the day he dies?
Paul doesn’t seem like the type to spoil a child.
Currently, Rudy acts like a mature, good boy in front of him, but when he gets older and isn’t so cute anymore, Paul will definitely resort to ‘tough love’ education.
“Rudy, in my old world, we have a saying: ‘Don’t advise others to be kind if you haven’t suffered their pain.’ I don’t know what kind of pain you’ve been through, so I won’t self-righteously lecture you.
Anyway, just let nature take its course.
If you need help with anything, just tell me, and I’ll do my best to help.”
“…”
Rudy remained sitting on the bed, hugging his knees, looking completely like a withdrawn youth.
In the days that followed, Rudy’s situation didn’t improve.
Practicing magic in the yard would still make him restless.
Perhaps the spiritual trauma from his previous life was too severe.
Dragging him out by force might cause even worse consequences.
Maybe I should discuss how to solve Rudy’s problem with Roxy or Paul later.
But for now, it’s fine; he’s still very young, and Paul and the others wouldn’t feel safe letting him out anyway.
“Luna-chan, Luna-chan, come down quickly!
If you don’t come down, the Superd race will eat you!”
Haha, Zenith is bluffing again.
It turns out even this other world has ‘bogeyman’ stories.
The Superd race, according to Roxy and Zenith, is an extremely violent race that kills every living thing they see and enjoys eating children raw.
Zenith and the others love using these words to scare disobedient children.
Of course, I’m currently in a very disobedient state.
I’m currently several meters above the ground in a tree, picking some fruit to eat.
They’re very sweet and taste a lot like pears.
My control over this body seems very high; it’s agile and has great flexibility.
So, to test my physical strength and taste the fruit, I climbed the tree.
The process was quite easy; I could say I climbed up without breaking a sweat.
Anyway, it’s not too high from the ground, and the ground is all grass.
As long as I don’t land on my head, I won’t die.
Swish, swish, swish.
A few moves and a perfect landing, almost comparable to a gymnast.
Below, Zenith was already waiting for me with a face full of anger.
“Mama, this is for you.”
Putting on the act of an innocent young girl, I handed Zenith a piece of fruit.
She subconsciously took it and had a taste.
“So sweet!”
However, she only realized something was wrong after eating half of it.
Her delighted face immediately turned serious.
“Luna!
Don’t do such dangerous things anymore!”
Caring for a child is every parent’s nature.
Moreover, Zenith wasn’t being overly worried; after all, I was climbing around in a tree like a monkey.
One slip and I’d fall—at best I’d be injured, at worst I’d die.
However, Paul didn’t think so.
“Oh, it’s no big deal.
She’s a kid; it’s normal to be active.”
“But dear, Luna is a girl!
If she’s as wild as a boy, she won’t be able to get married in the future!”
“True.
Luna, don’t do that again!”
In the end, I was still warned by Paul, and he gave me no room for rebuttal.
Today’s mana was already used up, so I could only sit huffily on a tree stump watching Paul teach Rudy swordsmanship.
At this point, Rudy was very clumsy.
Even though Paul was being very careful and holding back his strength while practicing with him, Rudy would subconsciously close his eyes every time he saw Paul swing the sword.
He’s very timid, lacks confidence, and has a bit of an inferiority complex.
His wooden sword is often knocked out of his hand by Paul.
Although he’s only four and doesn’t have much wrist strength, I don’t think it should be falling out of his hand that easily.
Bang!
Rudy’s wooden sword was knocked out of his hand by Paul again.
Paul helplessly rested the sword on his shoulder and sighed.
Zenith and Roxy, who were tending the vegetable garden nearby, saw this and shared a smile.
I walked over and picked up the wooden sword from the ground.
Seeing me pick up the sword and take a sparring stance, Paul was first stunned, then let out a chuckle.
“Girls shouldn’t learn swordsmanship.”
“No, why can Rudy learn both swordsmanship and magic, but I can’t?”
“Sigh…
alright then.
Don’t cry when it starts to hurt later.”
With that, Paul began to teach me swordsmanship.
According to Paul, there are three styles of swordsmanship in this world that people learn the most.
They are the Sword God Style, Water God Style, and North God Style.
The Sword God Style focuses on rapid offense, requiring the user to have extremely fast movement.
The Water God Style is for defensive counters, similar to the ‘Master Strike’ in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, emphasizing striking after the opponent has moved.
The North God Style is the most unique; it could be said that any means can be used for the sake of combat.
Things like throwing lime, kicking up sand, throwing poisoned darts, or launching pre-emptive ambushes are commonplace.
It’s also the style most used by criminals and is quite looked down upon by orthodox swordsmen of the Sword God and Water God Styles.
Thwack!
Thwack!
Crack!
Paul started teaching me swordsmanship casually, but as he saw me keeping up with the rhythm, he began to get serious.
“Good, very good, Luna.
Use more force in your forearms, use the power from your waist when striking, don’t just defend blindly…”
After an hour, I was covered in sweat.
The dress Zenith made for me was soaked; I strongly suggest switching to pants tomorrow.
“Very good, that’s enough for today.
Luna has a lot of talent; we’ll practice swordsmanship together tomorrow.”
After Paul praised me, he glanced at Rudy, whose expression was a bit dejected.
“Rudy, you continue practicing tomorrow too.
Take it slow; initial setbacks are no big deal.”
After comforting Rudy, Paul headed back into the house first.
I walked over, patted his shoulder, and whispered words of comfort.
“Don’t lose heart, Rudy.
You’re already much stronger than me in magic.
If you were stronger in swordsmanship too, then I’d be too pitiful.”
Rudy seemed to take my hint and thought of his own strengths.
The dejection from a moment ago vanished, and a smile appeared on his face.
“True.
But thanks, Luna.”
“Don’t mention it.
When mazinger z is in danger, his brother great mazinger will definitely come to his aid!”
I kept a straight face and played along with an old robot anime meme.
Of course, I hadn’t watched much of the anime; I knew it all from playing games.
“Haha, I don’t like mazinger z; it’s too old.”
“But I like it a lot.
Every time I played Super Robot Wars…”
Facing the setting sun, Rudy and I returned to our warm home, talking and laughing.
Perhaps having a brother like this isn’t bad.
Even though he’s not ‘original’ and has various issues, at least he’s quite kind.
But I have to find a way to help him overcome the barrier in his heart—at least enough to step out of the yard.
Although I’m no psychiatrist, there’s always a way.
The next day at noon, I lay across Zenith’s lap, my body rocking rhythmically back and forth as I cried out things like, “No, Mommy, I was wrong!
I won’t do it again!”
Then, I used chantless Water Magic to create tears for myself.
Ah, that’s right—I’m currently getting spanked by Zenith.
The reason being, I climbed a tree again and accidentally tore my skirt while coming down.
Ruining clothes is a small matter, but climbing trees is a serious one.
To make sure I remember the lesson, Zenith gave me some physical education.
However, she hit very lightly, and plus my acting was quite realistic, so after a bit, she gave up and switched to a verbal lecture.
Rudy gave me a look of contempt, probably thinking it wasn’t right to deceive people like that.
“Next time, don’t cry so miserably.
Your acting was a bit too fake, and you even used Japanese.”
“Ah, sorry.
I’ve watched too many videos in my past life, so I’m a bit used to it.”
Wait, a sudden flash of inspiration hit me.
I think I’ve found a way to get Rudy to step out of the house.