In Laws and Debbie’s eyes, Gawain seemed to have integrated into the family in an instant, without any signs of discomfort.
The only thing that concerned them was that Gawain was unwilling to call them “Dad” and “Mom.”
But that was normal.
After all, wasn’t Gawain raised by Grandma Elinalise?
With Elinalise’s appearance, it was natural that he had long regarded her as his mother.
On the second day after Gawain arrived in this household,
it was a bright and sunny day.
The whole family went out together, purchasing a wooden desk, two adjustable high-quality wooden chairs, and a small bookshelf.
They also bought quite a lot of fresh ingredients.
Debbie, full of fighting spirit, declared she would hold a grand welcome party.
The reason they hadn’t prepared anything the day before seemed to be because Laws and Debbie had assumed that even if they were willing to adopt Gawain, once he saw their actual financial situation, he would definitely refuse, so they conservatively saved that expense.
Laws had originally planned to directly buy the cabinets he mentioned earlier, but Gawain stopped him and said he wanted them handmade.
This moved Laws so much he almost cried, while Gawain, who was simply curious about the carpentry process, had no idea why Laws showed such an expression.
After buying everything and returning home, everyone worked together to reorganize Gawain and Sylphiette’s bedroom.
They also cleared out two wooden boxes specifically to store the siblings’ personal belongings, including their limited number of clothes.
After Gawain sorted and arranged his personal items, the Laws household began preparing the welcome party.
As the main character of the party, Gawain also had to participate.
It was said to be grand, but in reality, there were only four people.
Seeing that everyone seemed very happy, Gawain did not spoil the mood.
The next day.
The news that the Laws family had adopted a son of about five years old spread throughout the entire village.
Paul Greyrat, one of Laws’s few friends, naturally came to visit and thus learned that Gawain had once been Elinalise’s adopted son.
“Elinalise told me not to hold back and to come learn the three major sword styles from you.”
Having been raised by Elinalise until now, Gawain’s attitude toward the brown-haired, green-eyed man with a small braid and tear mole in front of him was quite poor.
“Ah, just like my son, still just a brat.”
Paul’s wording was very similar to Elinalise’s, which made Gawain’s attitude toward Paul even worse.
“Kid, what level is your swordsmanship at?”
“Only Intermediate Water God Style.”
Sword God Style, North God Style, Water God Style—these three were the most popular, refined, and powerful schools of swordsmanship in this world.
Mastering any one of them to its peak would grant power at the level of the Seven Great Powers—that is, strength comparable to a nation—and was the best path for those with a bit of talent to climb upward.
However, Elinalise was a magic swordswoman who used sword, shield, and magic.
The styles she excelled in had little to do with the three major schools, and the bit of Water God Style she knew had already been completely learned by Gawain.
As for Elinalise’s suggestion to teach Gawain sword-and-shield techniques, it had also been rejected by him.
In his view, as a Viltrumite, he had no need to use a shield at all.
After all, it might not even be possible to find materials stronger than his own body to make a shield.
Even sword techniques could only serve as references, as whetstones to refine combat skills.
After all, even the Longsword of Light, which Sword God Style was proud of, was in his eyes nothing more than an ordinary slash at low multiples of supersonic speed.
Why would such a thing require technique?
Only the magic of this world made Gawain praise it.
The knowledge base within the [Development System] also contained a large amount of information about magic or similar power systems, but the magic of this “Human World” was exceptionally outstanding and outrageous in certain aspects.
First was attack magic.
The casting principle of converting mana into matter was, in his view, absurd to the point of lacking logic.
Second was healing magic.
He still remembered when he first arrived on this planet—after being repeatedly tormented by the malfunctioning protective pod system, when the medical module’s resources were exhausted, Elinalise had saved him and used basic healing magic.
Just by reciting a line, consuming a bit of mana, his severe injuries were healed.
Was that reasonable?
In Gawain’s view, the magic inherited in the Human World could greatly conserve resources, shorten the time required to achieve goals, and might even accomplish feats that could be called “miracles” even by his standards.
It was extremely, extremely important knowledge.
In comparison, swordsmanship, which was more developed and valued, was nothing but trivial scraps.
Four and a half years old, Intermediate Water God Style—just somewhat talented, though perhaps better than my kid.
After making this simple judgment, Paul suddenly seemed to recall something and asked:
“By the way, kid, can you use magic?”
Gawain said frankly:
“Everything Elinalise can do, I can do.”
Receiving an unexpected answer and understanding the implication, Paul was surprised.
He laughed exaggeratedly:
“I really wish my kid had talent like yours!
From now on, you can come to my house anytime.
I’ll teach you swordsmanship, and you can study together with Rudeus!”
Carried away, Paul seemed to forget that his precious son was only three years old.
That said, less than half a month later, the first snow fell.
Heavy snow quickly buried the village almost entirely.
The adult men of the village had to go into the forest to resist magical beasts, and lessons naturally stopped because of this.
Gawain did not insist on going to the Greyrat house.
He simply stayed quietly at home.
He did not practice swordsmanship, nor did he borrow magic textbooks from the Greyrat household.
He only patiently taught Sylphiette human writing at the desk, while also training his mana according to the methods Rudeus had taught, occasionally using magic to provide heating or water for the house.
Whenever the sky grew dim, Gawain would stop making Sylphiette study and instead tell her all sorts of random stories.
Laws told Gawain there was no need to save on lamp oil, but Gawain only explained that dim lighting was bad for the eyes.
No one seemed to believe him.
Of course, he was not worried about his own eyesight deteriorating.
In fact, he could easily see at night without any light.
Gawain simply thought that insufficient lighting might cause Sylphiette to become nearsighted, and there was no need to take that risk.
Because of this, he also noticed another flaw of this world—the technology was too underdeveloped; even primitive electric lamps did not exist.
Magic of all systems was somewhat detached from daily life, and there was no such thing as “light magic,” making it inconvenient.
And so, it went on.
Laws was away from home most of the time.
Debbie was always busy with housework, maintaining the home’s heating and water supply, and planning the remaining resources.
Aside from teaching Sylphiette writing, arithmetic, and basic science, Gawain spent his time trying to recall new knowledge from his mind to respond to Sylphiette’s expectation of “wanting to play with big brother.”
Finally, after enduring the long snow season, spring arrived with the melting of the snow.
At Gawain’s suggestion, Laws withdrew a small portion of that money to purchase farmland near their home, partially giving up his identity as a hunter and becoming a respectable self-sufficient farmer.
By the time the villagers finished their spring plowing and planting, and the seedlings began to sprout, Gawain had been in Buena Village for nearly half a year.