Chapter 2

My first impression of this life is I hated being a baby. I had so many diaper rashes and randomly did the- you know what- into the diaper. I can’t walk or talk, but I do get VIP treatment all the time. My parents just get everything for me, and if I show them my cute, adorable, handsome -ahem- face, they would let me do it or forgive me.

Anyway, it has been a few months since that day I discovered I received a second chance at life. I have been pleased so far. Arthur always kept me company and even saved me from a bunch of bees, even though it was his fault for accidentally throwing a rock at a tree that I was sitting right underneath at. Arthur covered me with his body and ran while half of my body was being dragged through the grass. He never holds me right either. Arthur chokes me half the time, but I am satisfied that he has been trying to be a good brother. He even shares toys with me, even his favorite wooden horse toy that dad made him.

A loud crash snapped me out of my thoughts. I crawled all the way towards the kitchen and peeked in to see what had happened. The plate must have fallen out of her hand and broke into pieces. I went inside to see if I could do anything to help, but all I caused was more worrying for her as I yelped in pain as something small stabbed into my hand. It was a shard from the broken plate. My mom rushed over and picked me up. I didn’t even realize I was crying until my cheeks got all wet. Mom took me to the living room, where Arthur was playing with the wooden horse. He got up as soon as he saw my teary eyes.

“W-what happened to Alex?”

"He got cut, baby. Make sure you don’t go near the kitchen.”

“Okay, mom.”

Mom carefully took the tiny shard out of my hand while I reflexively held my breath. When she took it out, blood started to trail down to my elbow and began to drip. Mom gently took my hand and put her other hand over it. I watched as a bright green light went over my hand. I looked at the wound closer to see the wound was closing up abnormally fast. Is this magic?

So this world has magic. I was clearly astonished. My world didn’t have magic, so this was fairly new to me. I couldn’t stop staring at the green light until mom had finished up healing my wound.

“I’m home!”

It was my dad. He just got back from gathering firewood for the upcoming cold winter season. Dad came to the living room and raised an eyebrow.

“What’s going on here?”

“Oh Alex got accidentally cut and I was healing him.”

“Is he ok?” He was concerned from the tone of his voice.

“Yea, he is fine. Why don’t you take both of them to the back and you can train Arthur?”

“But he just recently turned six, I don’t think he will understand how to do it and usually kids learn it on their own. You can’t force it.”

“I’m not saying you have to make results. All I want you to do is try.”

“You know the magic academy will only let him in until he is of age, right?”

Mom started to get angry.

“Arthur, let’s go training.”

Dad picked me up and took me outside. Once we arrived at the training ground, he made me sit on a bunch of grass. Damn, my diaper rashes were starting up again, so I moved against the grass and adjusted my diaper.

“Ok Arthur, let’s start training you to be a swordsman.”

Arthur nodded eagerly.

Dad sat down on the sandy floor and closed his eyes. Arthur went over and sat down next to dad, repeating what he had done. 

“I’m only going to say this once, so listen closely.” Dad opened his eyes and tilted his body towards Arthur. “To be a swordsman, you need a little bit of mana to create Aura. Mana is all around us, so what we have to do is pull it towards us and make it our own.”

I looked at Arthur. He was staring at dad, dumbfounded. Even if I did understand it, I knew Arthur was too young to understand it.

I heard mom give out a sigh. I guess she was watching us the entire time.

“I told you, honey. He is way too young to understand this. If you really want him to learn right now, why don’t we go to Flores Kingdom?”

“But that is too far and I’m not letting him go, he needs his parents.”

“We are not letting him go there alone. We are going with him, plus a few of our friends are coming along.”

“I guess, but what about our home here.”

“You know, we have to go sooner or later. If they find us here, we won’t have back up like we usually do.”

They? Was someone targeting us or something? I looked up to see mom’s worried face. She look very troubled, and then she looked at me.

“You know, the king used to be a good friend of mine, so he can help.”

Wow! I did not expect a king to be my dad’s friend. I got even more curious on what my dad really is.

“So do you want to go?” Dad looked up at her probably hoping for a positive answer. They stared at each other for a while before my mom gave him a slow nod.

“But before we do, I need to go shopping for some things for the trip. Do you know when they are going to come?”

“They won’t get here probably till tomorrow evening.”

“Okay then I’m going to the town with Alex.” Dad just nodded in response.

My mom picked me up and headed towards the place we were going. It was really my first time going somewhere since I had been born. She got a towel and wrapped me with it on her back, so it was basically a piggy ride. My mom walked for around two hour till we got to a small town. There were all sorts of things being selled here like jewelry, animals, food and all sorts of things.

A magician caught my eye. He was juggling balls of fire with his bare hands. It was quite interesting to watch. I saw different types of fruits that did not exist in my past life. My eyes explored many other things that it saw foreign. My mom bought me a little toy for me. She gave the guy from the store eight copper coins. I learned the currency of this world from mom trying to teach it to Arthur last week

I knew that a hundred copper coins equal to one silver coin, a hundred silver coins equal to one gold, and a hundred gold equals to one diamond pearl. Apparently, no one was rich enough to get gold and diamonds unless they were kings. 

The sun had begun to set by the time we got our supplies for the trip. We headed out to the house. The woods were a dangerous place to walk through at night time. There could be dangerous animals lurking at night. My mom was walking fast, so that we could reach the house sooner.

“Damn, we should have gone to the house sooner.” My mom mumbled loudly to herself. She had not dropped the pace. I knew she was getting tired from her breathing rapidly. Her carrying me wasn’t making it any better either, since I probably had gotten weight from these last few months. 

Snap. Crack. Crunch.

My mom quickly stopped, scanning the area. We probably still had an hour or so till we got to the house. Dad must have noticed the time too. Right?

Snap.

That sounded closer than the last sound. I turned toward the noise and squinted my eyes to see if I could figure out what it was. It could just be a cute little bunny, hurrying home.

As if to prove my thoughts wrong, a nasty growl was let out by the beast. There was only one by the noises and that one growl.

A large wolf and tiger hybrid stepped out into the moonlight. Well, I thought it looked like a wolf and tiger hybrid. It was something.