2nd RECORD
Making Money and Paving Path to Future
Unlike their baby days, life as a child wouldn't pass in the blink of an eye since their cognition was clear enough to be on par with an adult by now.
You'd think coming from the future meant they could find ways to make easy money, but reality was never that forgiving. Human Resources and Interior Designer were the wrong professions to take advantage of a transmigration to another world.
An Agriculturist would be able to help their nuns improve their pathetic potato field. A doctor could heal people. Other jobs and other life experiences could help this orphanage. Unfortunately what they got was a history nerd whose work was firing people and a designer with an overactive imagination. He was despairing when Tanya asked whether he had regained his hand coordination, so they found some scrap paper and a pencil to test themselves.
His hand was wobbly, especially so since he was apparently now left-handed. However, he could still draw a decent sketch of a stuffed doll that could pass as drawn by an adult. "Not bad, what else can you do in your first life aside from making rooms look pretty?"
Alberich wanted to protest that a designer's job wasn't 'making rooms look pretty' but he was too happy to be indignant with their new discovery. "Uhm… I can play the piano?" His old self used to go to a music school as part of his therapy.
So that was the next thing they tried, and one of the Sisters was kind enough to help Alberich reach the instrument. He played slowly but it was amazing enough for a kid with short fingers and apparently no former training. The sister was elated! She asked if he wanted to learn in his spare time and in the future Alberich could play for Sunday mass.
"We can make money from this."
Alberich frowned, "Hey, you should contribute too!"
"Of course, I always earn my salary." Apparently Tanya used to play violin, and the reason was no other than her previous mother was a sucker for some advertisement that said music would help their child's brain development. That wasn't wrong, but Alberich remembered some poor kids being forced into it, and some of them happened to have no sense of rhythm whatsoever. The course became a nightmare for both the children and teacher.
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Desperation was the best motivator next to survival. It didn't take long for both Tanya and Alberich to regain their motoric skill in music. He felt a bit sick when Tanya, with her cutest look, asked the nuns if they could use their musical skill to get money. Tanya had no qualms using her cuteness to get what she wanted. When she made demands to not wear a dress but pants like him, the nuns were fooled into thinking that Tanya just wanted to wear the same thing her best friend did. Those gullible nuns… Tanya was unbearably smug that she got to wear pants unlike the other girls. Her shirt was still frilly though.
Since then, they would go to a big church in Berun to play for morning mass three times a week. Tanya wasn't so smug when she found out that kids like them couldn't play in a café or restaurant for petty cash and became even less smug every time they played in the church. She looked like she wanted to puke for performing music to worship Being X. But money was money and the chance to visit Berun was too good to pass up. Especially since Alberich managed to get some paper from the priest, and after the mass some impressionable young ladies and madams were more than happy to be his model and pay for the portrait he drew. Tanya couldn't draw, but their combined charm brought more customers.
Some even payed him to draw her.
It was impressive how Tanya endured being cuddled and cooed at by these ladies because she was so cute. Tanya made an interesting face when one of the noble ladies made a comment about their names, Alberich and Tanya. He had been wondering for a while if Tanya would ever find out about Sister Petronella's terrible naming sense. Or perhaps all Imperial ladies had no naming sense if they thought the names the orphans were bestowed with were sophisticated and wonderful.
"You already knew." Tanya growled at him on their way home.
"Eeh… I like Scandinavian mythology and watched Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream once." Alberich admitted sheepishly. "There's a good reason why the sisters sometimes call us 'Little Fairies.'" It wasn't just because of their looks.
Tanya was a variation of Tatiana, the fairy queen in Midsummer Night's dream, while Alberich was the Germanic variation of Oberon, the husband of Tatiana. Quite a cheesy name, and thankfully no children in the orphanage were literate or the both of them would be the butt of many jokes. Then again, the children were all too busy and hungry to spare energy for bullying when food wasn't involved. Tanya and Alberich weren't close to any of them, but most of the other orphans were grateful the two reincarnates put extra food on the table.
While they had to give most of their earnings to their orphanage, much to Tanya's ire, they still could set some aside for themselves.
"Just think of it as a lodging fee," suggested Alberich. It was easier work than what their fellow orphans had to do in the mines and fields, after all.
Overall they had a pretty decent life for two orphans, but Tanya worried about the increasing hostility from over the border and their own country's frustration with their adverse geopolitical situation. Even though Alberich didn't get politics and economics as well as Tanya did, he understood the precarious condition of the Empire as a young great power in the middle of a continent. There were enemies on all sides, and even though the Empire was stronger one on one even against another Great Power, their geographical location could easily turn them into the common enemy of their neighbors.
"This world won't necessarily turn out the same as ours, but the tension in the air is the same… all it takes is the straw that breaks the camel's back." Tanya analyzed. "There won't even be any prince assassinated out of nowhere… not to mention-"
Prior to the First World War and after the Industrial Revolution, humanity hadn't yet learned the true horrors of war fought with gunfire and shells. In the Empire, especially in the central region, all they knew was the occasional skirmish that happened at the border. Judging from how gungho the recruiter in Berun had been and the infatuated looks from housewives when watching an army parade Alberich had a suspicion that the Imperial citizens were still in the age of romantic and chivalrous war.
Alberich thought Tanya was worrying too much, even if they were in the age of territory expansion at least international laws made by ethicists already existed. As long as they were civilians, all they needed to worry about was poverty due to economic collapse, not a hail of bullets. Especially so since they lived in Berun, far away from the hostile borders.
Or so Alberich thought.
After getting dragged to this world by Tanya and a petty old deity he shouldn't have let his guard down.
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The day started a bit differently than usual as he and Tanya weren't told to put on their suits to go to church but were instead lined up with their fellow orphans for a health check-up. Alarms started to ring inside Alberich's mind while Tanya's eyes narrowed at the medical staff. They were from the military, why was the one conducting the checkup a military doctor?!
"Tanya… what kind of check up involves holding a stopwatch?" Or perhaps it was a pocket watch, from this far away that was all he could determine.
"Some sort of scanner maybe?" Tanya wondered, cupping her chin in a manner that was not child-like.
Alberich was getting uncomfortable in the long line of children, "I have a bad feeling…"
"Nonsense, you're an adult inside," Tanya asked in a deadpan tone, "What could be worse than an injection in this kind of setting?"
He was never afraid of injections, even as a kid. It took a while for him and Tanya to reach the doctor and nurse, and since he was right in front of Tanya he was the one who got examined first. It was standard procedure, like measuring his height, weight and other physical attributes. Nothing as thorough as in his previous world. Then came the strange exam where the nurse held up a circular device that, from up close, looked like some sort of steampunk art piece. The nurse smiled comfortingly as she put the medal like device on his neck and told him to focus on it.
As someone with ADHD, he was terrible at focusing. However there was something that drew his attention to the device, an energy that he never knew existed surged like waves from within. A miracle happened, or something close to it as the loose objects around him started to float. A soft glow was emitted by the strange orb he wore. Alberich was enthralled, and his mind willed the ink bottle, pens, pocket watch and thermometer to dance in the air.
'Magic… so this is what he meant by an unscientific world!' Alberich couldn't stop himself from smiling, as someone with an overactive imagination he had always wished to have magic. It was a dream come true to him!
"Ooh… his magic capacity and output is off the charts for a child his age." The doctor looked bewildered but also elated. "He would be a fine mage for our Empire."
His mind came to a halt at that, and together with it the floating objects all froze. The nurse paid it no mind and gathered the objects Alberich had hung in the air and put them back on the table. Everyone was moving around him but Alberich wasn't paying attention, but once he was back to reality the doctor was already filling a form with his name, age, gender and origin. If he read it correctly it was an examination form for magical potential that was issued by 'The General Staff Office of the Mage Bureau' of the Fatherland.
Alberich didn't know who led him out of line to make way for Tanya, but he snapped back to reality when Tanya –the competitive girl that she was- made a show with launching her surrounding objects into the ceiling. The pens and thermometers were now lodged in the ceiling and it made for terrible decoration in Alberich's opinion as a designer.
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It was only after everyone was done that Sister Petronella took the two of them aside and explained what the military medical staff were there for. It was as Alberich feared, they had come to scout for potential conscripts and orphans were an easy target with no family to protect them. This was especially true for children born with mana in their bodies; they were rare commodities that made up not even one percent of the child population of the Empire. It was also not an exaggeration to say that the Empire's military superiority was largely due to their advanced magical sciences. Mages were a resource that it never hurt to have more of.
Or rather, their scarcity made sure that the Empire would never have enough of them to suit its needs...
In short, this damned expansionist and militaristic empire wouldn't let him go. How old would he be when the Empire decided he would be ripe for the taking and conscript him by force? Even though child protection services didn't exist yet, surely the government was above sending their lovely children to war?
"It's okay, Alberich… Tanya… I am sure we can find a scholarship for music or art for you. Both of you are intelligent children, there're plenty of paths for you." Sister Petronella said with a soothing voice, but the trembling hands that held Tanya and Alberich's shoulders said she didn't believe that either.
"We will protect you." Sister Anna added, her fingers that crossed in prayer were even more obvious. What could these powerless nuns do?
A militaristic country like the Empire didn't need painters or musicians, they needed soldiers and mages. Alberich appreciated the sister's attempt to console him, but the die was cast for himself and Tanya. In a few years they would be taken away and whipped to shape for military duties. In his previous life there had been a foreigner co-worker who had returned to his homeland to finish his quota of compulsory national service. He had lamented about it jokingly in front of everyone, but Alberich believed everything he said about crappy rations, early morning wakeup calls and killer drill instructors.
Maybe he should save more money like Tanya suggested and make a run to another country like… the Republic? Nope, it was the Empire's main enemy. Legadonia seemed to be a nice and small country but he disliked the cold weather. Rus Union, nope- he would never step foot into a Communist country. Dacia was also a no-no, that small state could be gobbled up at anytime by other countries. So maybe Iltoa kingdom? But he hated their food... Speaking of food, there was an alternate Japan here by the name of the Akitsukushima Empire, and it was quite far on the east and only had a dispute with the Rus Union.
"Maybe we should go…"
"Indeed we should."
Alberich beamed, Tanya rarely agreed with the plans she deemed cowardly and uninspirational. "Really?" The next few years would be tough without money but viva miso and rice!
Tanya smirked and Alberich felt goosebumps appear all over his skin at how demonic she made her angelic face look. "We should just volunteer now, and become military mages…"
WHAT?!
"Hurry, we have to catch the officers before they leave and tell them… Arranging an interview would be a hassle otherwise later."
"Tell them what?" Alberich asked with dread in his voice.
"What patriotic future mages we are~" Tanya was almost singing this as she let this blatant lie roll off her tongue. "We're volunteering to defend the Fatherland, Sir!" She already sounded like an enthusiastic recruit.
Alberich stomped his foot down, "No-no-no… how is it a brilliant idea to join the military when war can break out at any moment, Tanya?! Are you crazy?!" Wasn't she the rationalistic and pragmatic one here?
Tanya sighed, "So you'd rather be dawdling in this place and drafted by force in a few years?"
"Uuh, no?"
"And there's no way you can make enough money to move to the Japan of this world before your time is up."
It was a wishful thinking indeed, he admitted. "Unfortunately…"
She crossed her arms, "Now… no matter how poor your knowledge about the military is, could you guess how conscripted recruits would be treated in an army?"
Alberich frowned at that, "Uhm… terribly?" It was a choice to defend your country, but patriotic superiors would be less sympathetic to those who get dragged by force. Comrades would assume they were cowards, and then they would be used as cannon fodder. "I guess?"
"It's a given, the upper brass in the military is made up of people who choose to be soldiers. They would favor their own people more and be biased against conscripts." Tanya pointed out.
The red headed boy groaned, "So you want us to volunteer so we can get better treatment?" Becoming military wunderkind would surely give them preferential treatment.
"Exactly!" The azure eyed girl looked smug. "If we will get conscripted anyway, it would be better to volunteer and receive officer training."
Officer training, which meant they won't automatically be foot soldiers? This sounded like a sensible idea coming from Tanya, but Alberich was still skeptical. "I see…"
She could tell he wasn't entirely convinced, "And also! Once we get on this career path, as long as we work hard I am sure we could live an easy life in the rear echelon!"
"Oooh…" Hook
"I understand if you don't like the idea of working as a soldier, but we can always quit once we make enough money to pay for school and get a better career!"
"Ahaaa…" Line!
"Not to mention, we're kids! The Empire isn't above using child soldiers, but surely they care about their reputation a lot so they won't post kids like us to dangerous places!"
The Empire is certainly a very proud country. "That… doesn't sound so bad." Alberich conceded.
And sinker!
"Great! Now, let's go and tell them we volunteer to protect our Fatherland!"
Alberich would remember this day vividly for the rest of his life, and years later under hails of bullets the red haired Aerial Mage was full of regret. He wished he had shoved his foot down Tanya's throat that day for the worst idea she had ever come up with in this life. First she dragged him in front of a moving train. Then to another world. And now… to war.
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This is an edited version by , while it's impossible to reupload for every tiny mistake... if you point and put a corrected version in review it would be a great help!
