-Chapter: 13: A day for Rudeus-
AN: Sorry, I decided to take a break from writing this last week even though I said that I would post something last week, but it turns out grandma was staying until mid-January so I'm spending a lot of time with that going on. Also, my parents are looking at moving so we've been using the break to look at houses. They were of course talking about this earlier, but they've been talking about getting a new house for years, so I didn't expect anything to come of it. If you want to know the exact status of what's going on check my profile where I report on what's effecting my series (this being the only running one for now) constantly. I think my brain doesn't do so well making these kind of things on breaks because, at least for me, my brain wants to be lazy for as long as possible without interruption. It took it a while to get back into the swing of things. And on setting dates for this series' updates, I should mention that my family has never been good at planning things. Which is what I'm used to, and I hate it but because that's what I'm used to, but I never got used to having a plan.
- Rudeus POV-
Today there was no snow on the ground. My father was holding me next to the window and pointing at random objects and saying them aloud in Demon-God. I can only assume he's attempting to teach me the local language. He also speaks to them in Human as well, which would be a useful skill to learn for a baby. He's been doing this many times within the past week. Not that we have any weeks around here but that's about the time frame. At first, I was a little confused at the randomly thrown about words but then realized that he was trying to teach me how to speak. I only realized that he was teaching me when Saleyakt tried speaking part of a word. Now I feel like an idiot, but I suppose it doesn't matter. No one will know about my mess up. I might have recognized it sooner had I been there when my own children began to speak. Unfortunately, with most of my time being spent helping Orsted defeat Hitogami around that time I didn't see most of my children's first words let alone the education process. I wish I could've seen them more…
My father noticed my single tear and began to panic. Ha. I was very much the same. I wonder if that's how all parents were at the start of the parenthood journey. Or is that just fathers? First there was my original father of this world known as Paul, then there was me, and now there's my newest father. I don't remember my parents from Earth very much so I can't say anything about that. While on the female side there's my first mom of this world, Zenith, Sylphy, Roxy, and Eris all seemed to catch on quickly. I was surprised at how well Eris did, although I would never say anything like that to her face. It did make Roxy nervous having a child, but she caught on quicker than I ever did. Maybe it's female instinct? I feel like I should know about this instinct… maybe it was something I learned about on Earth? I don't remember… I guess my time here in this world has allowed me to forget things. Well, I would've forgotten many of these things no matter where I was. Time does these things to a person.
It seems my father has begun to check my diapers. He's probably going through what a normal baby would need checking. Personally, I clean out my diapers myself with the assistance of gravity magic and earth magic. It need not be said the process for my diaper changings.
After checking my diaper my father has moved onto feeding me. Eating as a Superd is a bit different than a human, especially in babies. My teeth are sharper, and my jaw is stronger than a human baby's. When I first came across this it was surprising but after some thought it makes sense. On the demon continent Superd needed to be able to eat meat and not vegetables. Superd are the inverse of humans on their diet. Our main source of sustenance is red meats and has been for thousands of years, as a baby milk is the next best thing for me, then you got sea meats, and finally fruits and vegetables which having too much of could be harmful. At least if the Superd had a dietary guide that would be the case. Most of the Superd just get meat because it's the easiest things for us to get and we told the local humans that we would get rid of the invisible wolves roaming through the forest. As such I get a large portion of smashed meat in my meal. If I were human, I would probably still survive off milk but Superd, and maybe other demons, grow their teeth faster than humans. I don't know if that makes much sense with us being a longer-lived race than humans, but I guess that's just how it is. Maybe the Demon Continent forced us to evolve faster growth in childhood. I remember hearing from somewhere that all races reach adulthood at the same time, but growth might still be slightly different between all the different races.
My father realized that I didn't want food after a few minutes and just stared at me confused. That or thinking about what to do. Which he'll eventually give up on finding the answer, he doesn't exactly have a simple way to understand my thoughts and emotions. Not if he thinks of me like a baby as he should. Even if I tried to act un-baby-like it would be hard with the lack of muscle and aspects of certain body parts. I've only had my teeth for a month or so and my tail hasn't fallen off yet. I still wonder when my tail will fall off. A month? A year? Five years? Maybe even a decade? I would ask but I'm not supposed to be able to speak yet. If I did that would be another point of suspicion. It's easy to act like a child now because I can't do much other than be a baby.
My father seems to have given up on figuring out my problem. Maybe he's waiting for mom? I could see him doing something like that. He's gone back to pointing at things and stating what they're called. I wonder if Saleyakt is picking up on this. He's not learned Demon-God yet like I have and as such he needs this experience. He may be able to communicate with me now but that's because we share a brain. I don't think he speaks any language other than maybe the Migurd's telepathy. I'm not sure if us communicating like we are now the same as the Migurd's communication but it's the closest thing I can compare to. e
Mom came in the door and instantly went towards me and dad and held out a finger for me to grab onto. I grabbed on. Why not? It's not like she's going to do anything to me. It also helps towards my goal of seeming like a baby and letting them raise a baby like every parent deserves to have the experience of. I do save them the pain of what babies normally give you. Like a full rest when we whine in the night. My parents haven't experienced sleeplessness, or at least not because of me.
They do occasionally cause their own problems such as stressing over some news from the southern Demon-continent. Something about the Demon-God's revival. Sounds bad but I'm sure Orsted can handle it. It's not like this is his first time, or second, or a lot of other numbers. I'm confident that he can deal with the Demon-God as necessary or at least be a good judge of how powerful he is. Besides, even if I wanted to do something I'm not in a good position to do anything about it.
This time my parents were simply talking about their job hours. In this household my parents want to keep the schedule so that at least one parent is home at all times. Normally, in this world, you have one parent that works and the other raises children. For whatever reason my parents decided to instead switch off, if I had to guess it would be some equality between wife and husband thing but then again, I don't know Superd customs. Maybe this is normal. I lived in this village before and heard about some of the things from Norn but for one Norn is human and as such is treated like one. For two she married Ruijerd who is considered a hero by the Superd and as such might get special treatment or something of the sort. And for three it's been many, many years and things could easily have changed. For all I know my parents would through me out at the age of five for some weird custom around here. Granted I find that extremely unlikely.
What I could guess would be that the world's become more modern since I last experienced it. When I worked under Orsted, I spent pretty much all my time with my family or on the job. Sure, I could experience a new thing here or there but that wasn't ever my intended purpose in any of those missions and after the age of 24, Orsted never really had me spending a lot of time in one area. Instead, he sent me on tasks such as maintaining bonds with strong kingdoms for when the Demon-God reincarnates and potentially causes a war but based on my parent's conversation the Demon-God was only born recently and hasn't been able to rile up the Demons against humanity. As such I get to remain here in my nice cozy home with my parents. Although, if the Demon-God is on the southern part of the demon continent then I could sneak off into a portal at the Rudo mercenary building directly to the new Superd settlement and keep an eye on the Demon-God. Just as an extra line of security.