Chapter 12:
Forwards

I turned 8.

I'd like to think that I was growing up nicely. I was just under a meter and a half, which surprised me. I began to grow out my hair more, and my ponytail had become part of my look. I recently looked in the mirror and saw that my neutral face was uncharacteristically smug looking. Aside from that, I was shaping up to be a looker.

Now that it was winter again, my lessons migrated once more to the inside of my room.

"You know Phi," I began, as I lay back on my bed. "I really haven't continued your healing magic lessons in a while."

"That's fine, I'm learning a lot right now so you don't have to worry about that."

I had these short little conversations with her all the time. She finally mastered Advanced-tier fire magic, so she had been caught up to speed with the majority of the stuff. However, she was still intermediate-tier with Healing magic, so I had a decent amount of things to teach her. She was progressing very well with arithmetic, thanks in part to the small amount of mathematics I remembered from high school.

She was able to read and write completely fine, save for some longer words that had very specific uses. Kind of reminded me of English.

Speaking of foreign languages, I had left the guidebook that I had gotten last fall to collect dust. It was about time I opened it up. A Short Guide of Languages Around the World was a small but thick handbook, filled to the brim with translations, pronunciations, and grammar.

One half of the book covered Beast God, a language used primarily by the beastfolk residing in areas all around the world. The other half covered the Demon God language, which was used in the Demon Continent on the other side of the ocean that borders the east side of the Central Continent.

It only had material on those two, but it did detail some other languages. Those were as follows:

The Fighting God Language: used on the Begaritt continent, which was the one at the bottom left of the map, and the one just south of the Central Continent.

The Sea God Language: used all over the world, but exclusively in the oceans. If there were sea folk, would that mean that there would be underwater mega cities? Most likely, no. But it did make me wonder what a civilization underwater would be like.

The Sky God Language: used on the Divine Continent, which was just about as much of a continent as Greenland was. It connected the Northeastern Central Continent to the Northwestern Demon Continent. Why was it considered a separate landmass from the Central continent even if it was connected? There was also nothing particularly "divine" about the land, just that the whole thing was a measly three thousand meters above sea level. This world was seriously outlandish.

Learning more about the world made me acutely aware of just how absurdly diverse it really was. There were all sorts of races of demons, beast folk, elves, dwarves, and apparently even people with wings! And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Earth was just so dull in comparison. I was really fond of this world, even if I hadn't gone out of the village for very long.

Back to the topic at hand. Beast God was tough to learn. I didn't have anything to compare it to from my previous life, so that shortcut wasn't available to me. I had to learn how to speak it the hard way. And so I spent the next month or two studying, employing a legion of all-nighters to learn it as fast as humanly possible.

Why? You may ask. Well, you never know when life is gonna hit you like a truck. So, if I was going to learn something or improve myself, I needed to do it fast and swiftly. Okay, I say that, but most of the time I ended up with nothing to do during my free time because of this mentality.

By the end of my two month long studying marathon, I still wouldn't call myself fluent, but I could probably hold a decent conversation. I was going to study further in my free time, so I could say I was fluent in time.

I tried learning Demon God, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was frustratingly difficult, and the amount of special characters and words were absolutely absurd. So I decided to try it when I got a better way of teaching myself. The "library" had little in the way of educational material, so that sucked.

Anyways, I considered teaching Sylphie a little Beast God, but that would just tack on at least six months to my lesson plans, so I decided against it. She was still on schedule to graduate around her tenth birthday, so I aimed for it.

Tutoring for a few years really made one realize just how much work it takes. I should really thank Roxas or something…

Oh. That's right, I could. I wrote a short letter to him detailing my current situation and my complaints about the difficulty of the Demon God language. I hoped he would give me a few pointers.

My daily schedule went something like this:

Wake up, → Breakfast, → Clinic, → Lunch, → Tutoring, → Snack Break, → Tutoring, → Dinner, → Studying, → Sleep.

I was beginning to get burnt out. It was a horrible realization, waking up with bags under my eyes and generally being sluggish during lessons. But I carried on. We were getting closer and closer to Sylphie's graduation by the minute, so I had to hold on.

I told myself that, until I reached a breaking point. In the state I was in, I couldn't teach anything to Sylphie. And so, I racked my tired brain for a solution. Vacation days? I had to be on schedule. Cutting lessons short? That'd just make my life harder. Sundays? Sigh. It was good enough.

I decided to bring it up to Paul. "Father, can I discuss something with you?" I asked.

"Sure," Paul said. "What's on your mind, sweetie?"

"I wanted to talk a little about the whole lesson schedule for Sylphie," I said. "For the most part, my days have been completely filled up."

"Yep. Laws really praised you, saying that Sylphie was progressing so fast that he was worrying if it was a robbery to pay that little for it." Paul said, chuckling.

"Sure, it may be going smoothly for Sylphie, but there's a little problem on my end. Could you hear me out?" I said.

"A problem, eh?" He asked, placing his chin on his fist.

"Yes. I think I've been accumulating a little too much stress. Physical stress, I mean. For the past six months or so, I've had little to no down time." I said.

"We might get through with it for a little longer," I continued. "But honestly, at this rate the strain on me is going to hurt the lessons."

"Yeah, I was wondering when you'd finally start acting human again. You've been going at it for so long now, kiddo. You've got to be more self-aware."

"Right. In that case, I thought up a solution of sorts." I said. "Could I have one day off every seven days?"

"Err, that's not up to me to decide. But it does sound like it would work, and I doubt Laws would deny you it considering how hard you work. I'll talk to him as soon as possible." He said, nodding.

"Thank you, father."

And that's how I managed to procure a Sunday, in this world. I slept through the whole day, but that's what I call some quality time off.

Sigh. I had seriously steeled myself not to get myself involved in politics, but seriously. It was like fate itself was laughing in my face.

The Greyrat family was nobility. High nobility, if I may add. Paul sat me down and told me all about it the other day.

Paul's birth name was Paul Notos Greyrat, a branch of the very influential and powerful family that was Greyrat. But Paul grew tired of it. His father would constantly berate him, look down on him, and generally just be an asshole to him. So one day, at twelve years old, Paul took off, threw away the Notos name, and never looked back.

At 19, he scoured for a place to live. Thankfully, the lord of Roa helped him out. That was because the lord was Sauros Boreas Greyrat, his uncle. And with the use of that connection, he managed to land himself a job as a knight, and that was that.

Let's talk about the Boreas family a little more. This particular branch consisted of Sauros, his wife, and his son, Philip. However, the generation had fought to own the right to the future head of the family, and Philip didn't win. Here's where what I said about trying to avoid politics like the plague comes in. The winner of the competition held a right to politically abduct all male heirs into their household. And Philip had three sons, all shipped off to the capital of Asura Kingdom, Ars.

When I first heard that, I scoffed in disbelief. Due to me having the general morality of an average Japanese citizen, hearing about something like this shocked me. Was it just normal to carry a baby for nine months, go through all the struggle of birth, and then just go, "Oh, sure. Take my baby." It was beyond absurd. But, it wasn't like I could do anything about it. I couldn't just make the whole family disappear, after all.

Paul warned me not to get too involved with the Boreas branch, as they could try to coerce me into political marriage. I was already thinking that I would never interact with them, but when I heard that, I instantly listed them as "forbidden." I recalled how that conversation went.

"Political marriage? Absolutely not." I said, uncharacteristically.

"I feel you on that one, sweetie. They tried to get me to marry one of those preppy noblewomen. I was interested at first, but as it turns out, they do not look pretty under those dresses of theirs." He shook his head, as if he were recalling a bad memory.

Hey! I'm right here, you know!

Enough about politics. Paul himself was a pretty scummy guy. He'd occasionally grope Lilia even though I told him off. Sigh. He didn't have to be pent up anymore, so the chances of an affair happening was pretty low. I made sure to drill it into Lilia's mind that she should call out for help should Paul ever try anything crossing the line with her.

It was funny enough having to do that, so I started seeing Paul in a lens that wasn't rose-tinted. Sure, he was a pretty dependable guy when it mattered. He even protected the whole village from monsters every day. But, he really needed to keep his lower brain in check. Was this guy always a lowlife or what?

Spring was upon us. It was that time of year again. Time really had flown by. Norn and Sirius were now 2 years old, and were walking around.

Norn was shy. She hid behind me every time Sylphie came to the house for her lessons, and she would constantly follow Zenith behind.

"Big sis! Why do you an' mama leave every day?" She asked, one day.

"Ah, it's because we have to work real hard to keep you happy and fed, Nornie." I responded. Oh, how great it felt to be called Big Sis. I felt young again…err, not that I was old.

Norn was shy, sure. But she was a real chatterbox when she got interested in something. We'd have small little conversations all the time.

"Big sis! Are the bedtime stories that papa reads to me really real?" She asked, with a glimmer in her eyes. Ugh, I couldn't ruin it. Most likely, tales like The Legend of Perugius and Great Hero Arus were not true. But I couldn't just tell her that.

"Err…Yes, they are!" I said enthusiastically.

"Really? That's amazing!" She said, equally as enthusiastic.

Ah, I would do anything to protect my little sister's smile. Not because she was the only one who called me Big Sis, or anything. I'd never.

Right. The other baby. Sirius was a very energetic child, but I've said that before. He also didn't ever call me Big Sis, which was devastating.

Sirius wasn't too strange, but he definitely wasn't a normal baby. He'd seem to investigate all over the house, and would occasionally walk out into the yard and play. He was intelligent. Maybe Paul's genes were that overpowered.

Regardless, I still wanted to test something out.

When he was sitting on one of the chairs, and no one was in earshot, I began to speak in Japanese. He looked impervious at first, but I did notice him averting his eyes a few times, in tandem with a couple of keywords. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

What were the chances that two people would be reincarnated into a child of a single man and woman? Slim to none. Or so I thought. I still didn't know anything about how or why I was reincarnated, so I could just be out of the loop.

It didn't matter much anyways. Even if he were reincarnated, he didn't look to be dangerous. And if he wasn't, he was just a really cute and smart baby. Oh god, I'm starting to sound just like those weird girls who swoon over any baby they see. Sigh.

Anyways, one day he wandered into my room one Sunday. I was laying down for a nap, like always, when I heard a crash. That better not be… I thought, as I shot up.

Oh no. Sirius was standing there, arms outstretched as if they were holding something just before. And at his feet were broken pieces of my figurine in the likeness of my friend.

"MY SYLPHIE!" I yelled out. Sirius widened his brown eyes in surprise.

"I-I'm sorry, b-big sis." He stammered out. Oh, so now you call me big sis?

I sighed. "Haven't I told you to not go inside my room?" I said.

"Mhm, but it's the only place I haven't…" He trailed off. He really was investigating the house.

"Also, are these…figurines? Was that one Big sis Sylphie?" He pointed at the pile of stone on the ground. "It looked weally good. Can you teach me?"

I nodded. "Good that you appreciate the art, but I'm afraid I can't teach you, at least not now."

To be frank, I didn't know if I could teach this to a 2 year old. As much as I wanted him to increase his mana, he was destined to be a swordsman. Maybe I could teach him to carve them out of clay? Ah, but I didn't know how to do that, so it would pose an issue. Whatever, I'll just teach him when he's like five or so.

"Okay, then. Thank you, Big sis!"

From that day on, Sirius began to call me Big Sis. Oh, the joys of life.

Author's Note:
Thank you for reading! Slowly getting used to writing completely original scenarios from Lumi, so I hope you like them. The story will be picking up speed very soon, so stay tuned!