“What’s wrong?”
Hearing Zenith’s scream, the man named Paul poked his head in through the window.
He’d been swinging his sword just moments before.
He was drenched in sweat.
“Darling, listen — Rudy just got hit on the head by a book off the shelf.
He must be scared right now.”
“Oh, boys only grow by getting hurt.”
A slightly neurotic mother.
A father with a breezy answer for everything.
This was a scene I’d watched play out many times since coming into this world.
This time, though, probably because my head really had gotten hit, the mother named Zenith wasn’t backing down.
“But darling, this child is barely a year old!
You should be more worried about him!”
Paul scratched the back of his head.
“You say that, but kids only grow by falling down a lot — especially boys.
And even if he gets hurt, as long as you’re here, he’ll be fine, won’t he?”
“But…
whenever I imagine him suffering a serious injury I can’t heal, I just get so worried…”
“It’ll be fine.”
Father said it simply, then pulled both Mother and me into his arms at once.
A blush spread across Mother’s face.
“Not even crying after getting hurt.
My child really will become a gifted swordsman.”
He kissed her.
After that, they carried me to the next room and laid me down, then moved upstairs and began the session of making little brothers and sisters.
I had assumed this was just how ordinary medieval life worked — people didn’t have many forms of entertainment back then, so making children was the main pastime.
But…
“Magic, huh…”
…
After that incident, I started listening carefully to the conversations between my parents and the servants.
And I found a lot of unfamiliar terms.
Country names, knight titles, regional names, none of them existed anywhere in the history I had studied.
So this world…
was not Earth.
I hadn’t reincarnated into Earth’s past.
I had reincarnated from Earth into an entirely different world.
Hmm.
Everything I had assumed I could do would need to be thrown out.
In a world where magic existed, the knowledge from my previous life was probably worth very little.
Defying common sense was the main theme of this world.
Clutching a book, I crawled off to find the family maid, Lilia.
She was probably resting in her room right now.
Every time I crawled over like this, she would pick me up and read to me.
I knocked on her door with the book.
“Young Master Rudeus, you’ve come again?”
I nodded and patted the cover with my hand.
“Read…”
“Of course.
I’ll read it for you.”
Lilia picked me up, settled me onto her bed, and began.
Literacy.
It was an extremely important step.
Since this world was completely different from my previous life, even the language had to be built from scratch.
I had always loved experiencing the charm of different languages, and that hadn’t changed here.
Lilia read slowly, almost as if she knew I was working to recognize the characters.
Her voice was gentle.
That was why I always ended up coming to her.
If I had to choose who in this household was more like a mother, Lilia was clearly the answer.
Zenith wasn’t even close.
After an hour, the book was finished.
I supposed that was just how children were built, the capacity to absorb language was far faster than I had expected.
I opened the book again.
Most of the words were still there, clear in my mind.
A few more sessions and I probably wouldn’t need to come to Lilia at all.
I could just go to the study and read on my own.
“Th…
thank you.” My speech came out slurred, but that couldn’t be helped.
A 1-year-old wasn’t capable of speaking clearly.
Lilia smiled gently and picked me up.
“What does the young master plan to do next?”
I wanted to say the study, but this body really was tired.
Just listening and looking at a book for an hour had worn me out.
A child’s body really was a nuisance.
“Sleep…”
Lilia smiled and carried me back to the bed.
“Would the young master like to sleep here with me?”
I nodded and closed my eyes.
“Mm…”
➤ Next: Magic — Ascension