CH 1.2

V1: CHAPTER 1 PART 2 — REINCARNATION

Now then, this was about all I knew about my status. If possible, I’d like to read a book and learn about magic soon. As to be expected of a noble family, and a relatively high status Margrave House to boot, there should be at least some books about magic. Mommy was a magician too, after all.

With that decided, it was time to start moving to read books immediately. I went out of my room with tottering steps—I was still four years old but had already been given my own room; that’s a noble for you…—and began my quest for the study room I hadn’t come across yet. There was an expression of ‘knowing someone else’s house like your own,’ but I didn’t even know much about my own house except for the dining room, salon, and bathroom—the salon was like the nobility version of a living room; It was super fancy and just huge. Since using stairs was still risky physically for me, I basically wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere except the first floor unless I was accompanied by a guardian. I didn’t even get a chance to go outside except when taking a walk in the garden with mommy—the garden was also very wide. It was like a combination of an English and a French garden.

I’d like to get bigger soon so I could have more freedom in my movements. When you got nothing to do in your childhood, it’d just be plain boring.

While being careful not to tumble because I wasn’t that tall yet, I explored the mansion.

Unlike a Japanese house, the house of a noble got ten or twenty doors of the same shape and color, so I felt like I’d get lost in my own house one of these days.

First, it was the small dining room right at the front. My family would usually eat in this room, while the servants would use the servants’ dining room in the servants’ compound. Having said that, maybe as to be expected of a Margrave House; even the servants’ dining room was quite fancy and well-equipped, just like the hotels in my previous life. It seemed that the welfare of our family’s servants was perfect.

After the dining room was the parlor. Usually, I didn’t go to this room much. My father seemed to often use this room to have talks with messengers from the imperial capital, merchants, or nobles from other territories, but it was still too early for me. I was still four years old after all.

Next to the parlor was the guest room. This room seemed to be the place for guests to stay the night. I’d never been in this room either.

Next was the bathroom. And holy cow this bathroom got a large bath!

Well, it was an exaggeration calling it large and it wasn’t something like a natural source hot spring; just a bath water that was boiled with magic tools. That said, it had an a-bit-fancy-public bath-like feel to it that I’d used to go to occasionally in my previous life, so I really loved it. Now I was still a kid, so I’d often enter the bath together with my family, and was already learning the joys of soaking in hot water like an old geezer from Edo. Just a secret between us that I got slightly panicked whether it was found out I was reincarnated when my father said, ‘somehow, you look strangely like an old geezer, Eberhard,’ when he saw me continuing to relax even when my big sis was splashing bath water on me.

Enough of that, and to the next room. I’d be entering the area where I still didn’t know what was what. Because the rooms necessary for daily life were tucked away in the area up to here, I didn’t quite get the chance to go beyond this point. While thinking things like: it’s gonna be cool if there’s a hidden room or something that leads to the basement, typical of a noble’s house…; I pattered my way down the dimly lit corridor because there was no electric light, though it was daytime.

“Har-sama?”

“WAAAAAAHHH!!”

A shiver ran down my spine. Although it was my own house, I still didn’t have a good familiarity with all of it yet, and it was dim to boot. Just when somehow it was becoming eerie, this sudden voice called to me. Just at the age of four, I’d almost died of a heart attack.

“I-is something the matter?”

“What… Alisa huh… C’mon, don’t scare me.”

For the second time, overlook my unsmooth way of talking. I was only four years old.1

“M-my apologies. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, that’s fine.”

This servant… err this maid was called Alisa. She was actually the one who’d been secretly cleaning when I’d shouted ‘shock!’ to test the effect of Shock in my room.

This mansion had a lot of servants. They were divided into various groups to maintain this vast mansion and premises. And among them, Alisa belonged to the butler and lady’s maid group; the caretaker of our family to sum it up.

“Har-sama, what could it be you are doing here?”

“I just wanna read some books.”

“Books, is it? If it’s books you are looking for, they are in the second floor study.”

Seriously? Then it ain’t possible. Not like the stairs in a Japanese kindergarten, each step of the stairs in this mansion was so big that it was a bit difficult for a four-year-old kid to climb.

“You shouldn’t go upstairs alone because it’s dangerous, okay? So this time I will be making a special offer to take you there.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Alisa then picked me up and carried me in her arms. Being hugged tightly to her ample breasts made me happy. This was the privilege of being a child. Guhehe.

We went up the stairs and proceeded down the second floor for about three rooms, where there was a quite spacious and magnificent room.

“This is the study. There are also materials that the House Fahrenheit has been passing down for generations, so I suppose it’s already a small library.”

“Oooh.”

Certainly, the study was considerably big for a study. It might even be as big as a library in an elementary school. While looking at the mountain of books, which seemed to be tens of thousands of books, in Alisa’s arms, I asked her. “Are there magic books?”

“Magic books? Yes, there are. But still… fufu, after seeing the Master and the Madam, did it make you want to try magic too, Har-sama?”

“Well, something like that.”

While still holding me in her arms, Alisa approached the shelf on the opposite side of the window. She then showed me a bookshelf with many books as thick as a dictionary. “This shelf is a shelf entirely about magic. From which book would you like to read first?”

“From the beginning.”

“Then let’s learn from the basics, shall we?” Alisa picked up a book called ‘The Complete Book of Magic —The Basics—’. It was a book giving a sense of profoundness with a splendid leather binding.

I was set down on the desk and chair for reading that had been placed in the study, received ‘The Complete Book of Magic —The Basics—’, and opened the page. And then in the next moment, I was frozen in shock.

“……………………I can’t read.”

That was obvious. I was a four years old kid after all. Naturally, I was never taught to read by my parents or a private tutor. For me, who had spent my previous life in the education-intensive present day Japan, I believed a four-year-old should at least be able to read by now, but in this world, it seemed to be normal to learn such a thing after you were a bit older. I guess I’ll have to directly talk to my parents so they can get me a tutor.

“Alisa, read it.”

“Sure, with pleasure,” Alisa said, sitting down next to me and starting to read aloud, looking in from the side. “Then please excuse me⸻ ’There are five miracles that the great God has given us. The first is reason. The second is words. The third is dexterous hands. The fourth is fire. And then the fifth is magic. To learn and study magic is to express gratitude and respect for God’.”

An incredible passage just came out of nowhere. It was extremely much like the radical beliefs of the Western Middle Ages.

“‘Once the great God had created the world, the God then brought God’s own child down to earth and entrusted him to govern the world. And that child was the first His Majesty the Emperor. From now on, all those who study magic should always bear in mind that it is in accordance with the will of God that we learn magic and serve His Majesty the Emperor’ ⸻When studying magic, this is always the first thing you will be taught in any school, book, or even shrine. Magic is a great power, so it would be a huge problem if it were to be used against the country under the wrong thought. It is said that the aim is to teach that with power comes responsibility, as well as loyalty to the Empire… but having said that, it’s probably still a little difficult for you, Har-sama.”

“Well, I kind of get it, you know.”

“Eh?”

Perhaps this was similar to the historically close relationship that a religion and moral education had on Earth. No, in fact, probably exactly the same. In the form of the teachings of God and Buddha, churches and temples would provide moral education to the people. And the influential people would protect the churches to protect its teachings that were convenient for the country. Thus, in this give-and-take relationship, the religious and the civils came to maintain the equilibrium. It was probably also the same in this world. If anything, due to the existence of the more mystical power called magic, religious education might have more importance than on Earth.

“Do you have an understanding of the explanation!?”

“I guess. Anyway, c’mon quickly read the rest.”

“Y-yes… Then I will continue reading it. ‘In addition to non-attribute magic that does not involve any attribute change, there are four attributes called the four basic attributes of fire, water, wind, and earth that require attribute change. Every person, although varying in strength, possess the disposition of any of these four attributes’ ⸻Indeed. It ranges from the unusual to the common one, but everyone, for some reason, does have some sort of attribute. By the way, mine is a fire attribute. That said, I can only start small fires; hardly usable for any practical magic, though… Wait, huh? Har-sama? Is something the matter?”

No… way…

I, once again, was frozen in shock.

⸻’Every person, although varying in strength, possess the disposition of any of these four attributes’?

The Magic Attribute section of my status is this ‘ Magic Attribute : — ’, though….!?

What does this mean? In short, does this mean I’ve totally no aptitude for attribute magic?

In that case, the only possibilities left for me currently are non-attribute magic, and my Inherent Magic ‘ Shock .’

Every person would always have an attribute that they had an aptitude for, so why only me who didn’t? The clue for the answer would probably be the difference between me and everyone other than me. I was not of this world, possessing the memories of my previous life. Probably, that got something to do with it. It could be something like this: there must be something like a limit to the amount of information that could be crammed into a soul; in my case, I got my previous life’s memories, and it ended up destroying the memory that should’ve been used to store the information about Magic Attribute.

In that case, there was no point in worrying about not being able to use attribute magic. Then I’d put that aside for now and think about the magic I could use.

First, regarding Shock, I undoubtedly would be able to use it. Actually, if I couldn’t use it, it wouldn’t be in my status to begin with. The fact that it was displayed there, meant it was paradoxically usable.

And as for non-attribute magic, I figured that I could probably use it. This was because I already got a track record of about a year and a half in mana manipulation training. If I totally had no aptitude for mana manipulation, or I got no mana in the first place, then I might indeed surely not be able to use magic. But I could do mana manipulation with such precision, and on top of that, my mana was about three times that of my dad. It’d be weird if I couldn’t use magic.

And so, I decided to train in non-attribute magic and my inherent magic. I didn’t know the way to use magic, or how to use Shock, but it probably involved controlling the mana somehow. My parents probably wouldn’t teach me things like magic when I was still this young, and surely the same for Alisa who was hired by my parents.

Then there’s only one thing for me to do. First to learn how to read, tackle this ‘The Complete Book of Magic —The Basics—’, and then study magic on my own!

“Alisa.”

“What is it?”

“Teach me, reading.”

“Do you already want to learn how to read?”

“Yep.”

“Hmmm, let’s see. Setting aside if it’s technical, I think I can teach at least how to read… Yeah, I understand. Then I shall teach you how!”

“Thanks!”

From that day on, I began to study with Alisa for an hour or so every day at noon. First, we started with the basic alphabet—something like that—then moved on to more complex letters—probably, akin to kanji in Japan—then symbols, and then to more complex letters of a completely different system.

“Alisa, what’s this, complicated thing?”

Several days later after the start of studying. I tried to ask Alisa something I had a question about. It was these letters in a system completely different from normal letters; I completely had no idea what it was. It was like when you were learning English and suddenly Sanskritt came out of nowhere.

“Oh, these are called runes, and they are the letters necessary to use magic. That said, these are just some of the most basic runes that we use in our daily lives, though.”

“Ooh. With runes huh.”

“These runes, it is said to be letters with mysterious powers that were used during the era of ancient magic civilization, you know.”

“Whoa.”

There were also runes on Earth. Like the letters of the Proto-Germanic language group, which were used in Scandinavia until relatively recently, or something like that. Of course, the runes of this world were completely different from those on Earth. However, the fact that it was used in ancient times was interesting because it was very similar.

“I also don’t know much about it, though. It seems there are several methods to use magic. The method of just manipulating mana, the method of using magic circles, and then the method of using these runes. I have also heard that even incantations are a derivation of these runes. …Oh well, I’m just an amateur at magic, so I only know to the extent of general knowledge. If you ask the Master, or the Madam, I believe they will be able to give you a more detailed explanation.”

“Okay, I’ll try asking next time.”

“Now then, let’s continue, shall we?”

Having cleared my question, I felt refreshed and started studying again. I’d already learned most of the simple alphabet, so lately I was reading books aimed for children. I planned to learn the more subtle grammar and idioms by reading books like this. Basic grammar and simple phrases were already in my head from daily conversations, so it wasn’t that difficult. The most important thing in learning a new language was to accumulate it day by day.

＊

TL notes:

^1. With my limited knowledge of Japanese and tiny brain, I’d assume this is because when talking, he’s only using hiragana/katakana. No kanji. Well, this is not obvious in the TL, so I make this note.

Other changes:

1. In a certain paragraph from chapter 1 part 1, I added something new I’ve forgotten about (highlighted in orange):

Rango fruit was a fruit like an apple on Earth. The taste and texture were just like an apple, but for some reason, the color was poisonous-looking deep blue—I couldn’t speak smoothly yet because I was a young child; it couldn’t be helped. Overlook it!

I’ve also added the same extra note of this part in the bottom of previous part.