The next day, Abel awoke with the sunrise.
It was his first morning in this new life.
And no…. it hadn’t all been a dream.
To his right lay Walter. To his left lay Ayla.
Birdsong filled the air with lively chirps.
When Abel sat up, his parents stirred awake as well.
They quickly opened the wooden shutters wide.
Outside, the world was still dim.
Soft dawn light, like a veil of fine silk, colored the sky.
Because their house stood slightly higher than the surrounding land, the view was excellent.
Two large moons glowed dreamily in the sky, caught in that in-between state between night and morning.
This really is another world…
That was all the man at Abel’s core could think.
Breakfast began by reheating the leftover soup from last night and baking already-kneaded bread.
Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.
The soup steamed, and from the hearth drifted the savory aroma of wheat toasting.
Abel found himself helping with the tableware.
The dining table was high enough that, at his height, he had to stand on a chair to set the dishes in place.
Walter watched this with an expression of quiet delight.
Just as they finished eating, visitors arrived.
There were several voices, slightly flustered.
Walter and Ayla’s warm relaxed mood instantly shifted as they went to respond.
Tension filled the air.
Looking out through the doorway, Abel saw a man with terrible wounds on his legs and arms being carried on something like a stretcher.
Walter led the injured party to a separate building within the same place.
Abel followed. Inside the annex was a wooden platform, where they laid the injured man down.
Ayla began removing his clothes.
The wounds looked as though they had been inflicted by some sort of animal.
Walter began using that same magic to heal them… but not all of the wounds closed.
Through magic, some of the smaller wounds healed to a certain extent.
But the large gash on the man’s shin was only washed with water and then left as it was.
The wound was terrible; it looked as though a chunk had been bitten away.
Abel guessed it might have been the work of a wild beast.
Soon, the man’s limbs were strapped down with leather belts.
Then, tools that seemed completely unsuited to healing a human body like a saw and a chisel were brought out, and without hesitation, the procedure to amputate the leg began.
There was the grating sound of bone being cut, and the man’s screams.
Even though he was bound, the patient writhed in pain, letting out blood-curdling groans.
His companions pinned him down to keep him from thrashing.
Abel felt sick.
He thought he might vomit up the breakfast he had just eaten.
He left the work shed and went into the yard to steady himself.
There, Abel made several observations.
First, his father Walter was without question a doctor.
A doctor who also used magic.
He didn’t know if “healing mage” was the proper term, but that was essentially what Walter was.
And although Abel had thought healing magic was amazing, it seemed that if the injury was too severe, it couldn’t be fully healed.
Or perhaps there were complex, unspoken rules. For example, the type of magic used might depend on how much money a patient could pay.
If that were the case, his father could be quite a cruel man.
Also, the fact that this injured man had been carried here from somewhere else meant that magic users like Walter were rare.
Otherwise, people would heal themselves or simply ask a nearby farmer who knew magic.
But what concerned Abel more was this:
When Walter had used healing magic, Abel had sensed an indescribable heat and a presence of power emanating from within his father’s body.
Could that be magical power?
…I want to try using it myself.
It was a simple desire.
If he could use it, it would be unimaginably convenient.
Abel spotted a stone that was just the right size to sit on.
He perched himself on it.
There was no way he could know how to actually use mana.
For now, he simply focused his awareness on his palms.
Almost immediately, he sensed within himself a feeling he had never once experienced in his previous life.
It felt inevitable.
A kind of sixth sense. Something he had gone decades without knowing was already present within his body.
He couldn’t help but recognize that this was the very force called magical power.
Somewhere in his abdomen, he felt a seething, heat-like source.
Focusing on it, he tried to imagine that heat accelerating and intensifying.
Before long, the warmth spread through his entire body.
Sweat beaded on his skin and started trickling down from his forehead as though he had just run a marathon.
It must have been about twenty minutes.
When his focus finally broke and he reached his limit, Abel stopped his training.
He didn’t know if this method was correct.
But he was certain he had to continue.
A pleasant fatigue settled over him, so he lay down on a bench in the yard.
It was still morning.
The rhythm here was simple: wake with the sunrise, sleep as soon as night fell.
In his previous life, it had been normal to rise at dawn for work and only return home at midnight.
This world’s civilization might seem underdeveloped, but if the night here was truly a time for rest, then perhaps it was more cultured than his old world.
After all, even electric lighting had originally been an invention to help people enjoy the night productively.
But if you couldn’t relax and instead had to work until midnight just to survive… that was worse than slavery.
Speaking of which, did this world have a class or social system?
Most likely, yes.
He would have to familiarize himself with such social structures.
And, if possible, he should leave his parents sooner rather than later.
Family was nothing but a burden to him.
Ideally, he needed a special skill or trade to make a living.
In that sense, learning a healing magic like Walter’s would be ideal.
After that, Abel took a walk around the yard.
It seemed enormous, though part of that was surely because his body was now so small.
Purple violet-like flowers were in bloom.
Since violets bloom in spring, perhaps that was the season here.
But then again… did this land even have four seasons?
As Abel was gazing at the delicate purple violets, he sensed a presence behind him.
A woman who looked to be around twenty was walking with a young child.
He wondered if she might be a patient, but then the woman waved and smiled at him.
It seemed she knew him.
The child she was leading was a girl about the same age as Abel.
Although the woman looked quite young, his instincts told him she could only be the girl’s mother.
He imagined that in this world, the average age for a first marriage was probably around twenty. Or perhaps even younger.
“■■■■■, Shale, ■■■■■■■.”
The woman spoke in an unfamiliar tongue, but as always, Abel couldn’t understand a word.
Unaware of his situation, the woman headed toward Walter’s workplace.
After a short while, Abel cracked the workshop door open just slightly and saw his parents and the woman from earlier working busily together.
She gave the impression of being either an employee or a helper.
Abel met the eyes of the little girl who had followed him.
They were a vivid green, like emeralds.
Her facial features were neatly shaped and charming.
Her hair was a pale, almost blond shade.
“What beautiful eyes…”
The girl tilted her head in curiosity.
Abel pointed at her and tried saying, “Shale?”
She looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded her head.
The girl named Shale turned out to be helpful for his language learning.
Without any sign of suspicion, she would say the names of objects he pointed to.
It seemed she had taken it as part of a game.
By about midday, Abel was starting to feel a little hungry when Ayla beckoned to him.
Following her inside with Shale, he found food laid out on the table.
It was a flatbread topped with something like minced meat and vegetables. It was somewhat similar to a sandwich.
Taking a bite, he found it flavorful and delicious as expected.
Shale smiled and said something in her language.
Abel met her eyes and tried repeating it.
…So that’s how they say “delicious” huh.
He found himself enjoying the meal.
It wasn’t just the good taste; in his previous life, he had almost never eaten with anyone else.
So this is what a shared meal is like.
Walter didn’t show up for lunch.
Ayla also hurried through her meal and then rushed back to work.
That was only natural, since the clinic had been busy ever since an early-morning emergency case.
Apparently, the initial major surgery on a shin injury had been a big task, and they were struggling to keep up with the flow of patients.
Before long, a line had formed.
Abel couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or exasperated. This was certainly a hectic household.
That said, there was nothing a child like him could do to help.
He spent the afternoon enjoying word games with Shale.
After that, he tried once again what seemed to be some kind of magical training.
Sure enough, he could feel an extraordinary surge of power within his body.
But at present, he had no idea how to give it concrete form or make it manifest.
Time passed as he continued his lighthearted play with the girl named Shale.
At some point, Abel noticed the sky shifting to shades of gold and red.
The sunset was truly beautiful…
By evening, work seemed to be done for the day.
Shale went home with her mother.
Today, when Abel had occasionally peeked into the work area, he had noticed that two more women who were likely assistants had joined in.
From observing his parents at work, it seemed Ayla’s main role was less that of a nurse and more akin to an apothecary.
She would mix various medicinal herbs on the spot.
Watching the treatments, Abel saw that his father used magic to heal deeper wounds, such as those made by a sharp blade, but for less serious cases, he would simply apply herbal remedies.
It appeared that magic was something to be reserved.
And there were also wounds that magic could not heal. In such cases, amputation was the only option.
When work was finished, Walter first turned a bucket of water into hot water.
He seemed to be chanting some kind of incantation.
Once the hot water was ready, he used a soaked cloth to wipe down his body.
Ayla carefully wiped his back for him.
The intimacy in their manner spoke of a deeply loving couple. Whether they were husband and wife or just lovers.
Abel instinctively recoiled.
The kind of heartfelt bond shared by this pair was something he had never once seen in his family in his previous life.
And the more beautiful the sight appeared, the more he found himself wondering if it might be an illusion.
A sludge-like feeling began to creep up endlessly inside him.
Unaware of the turmoil within him, Ayla called her son over.
She undressed him and wiped his entire body.
From the quick look Abel had taken earlier that evening, this house had no bathing facilities.
If even this household that seemed wealthier than most in the village lacked a bath, then bathing must be a privilege reserved for kings.
Dinner was a stir-fry of eggs and chicken, barley porridge, cheese, and a salted soup with meat and vegetables.
Knowing now just how busy his parents were, Abel decided to use this limited time together as a chance to learn.
He earnestly studied words and vocabulary.
Then, having discovered about twenty books in a room that looked like a storage, he gestured to indicate that he wanted to be taught the written language.
Though his parents regarded him with some curiosity, they soon brought out wooden tablets, ink, and a quill pen. Paper, it seemed, might be rare.
The wooden tablet already had fifty-one characters carved into it.
His mother pointed to each one and pronounced it aloud.
Surprisingly, he was able to grasp it smoothly.
Each indivisible sound had its own character assigned to it, and like in Japanese, voiced consonants were marked with an added diacritic.
In other words, the system resembled, to some degree, the structure of the language he had used in his previous life.
Japanese, after all, was also built on a set of fifty basic sounds, and the numbers were almost the same.
The tablet also had five vowel-like characters carved separately.
These corresponded to the “a, i, u, e, o” but in the order “a, u, i, e, o”. The sequence differed, yet the pronunciations were similar.
Numbers followed a decimal system as well, which was no surprise. After all, with exactly ten fingers on both hands, the grouping of ten must have held natural significance even before numbers were invented.
In this world, the day was also divided into ten units.
Sunrise was “1” and the hour before dawn was “10”.
How exactly this compared to the twenty-four-hour day of his previous life was unclear, but he felt it wasn’t all that different. A year, however, was set at 370 days.
Abel wondered if such days would simply continue, one after another, until a year or two had passed.
When would the day come when he could stand on his own?
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