From today on, I was being taught magic. Mom was wearing a slightly complicated expression. Dad was practically bouncing.
“From today, we’re going to teach you a lot of things — but as we saw yesterday with the fire spell, one mistake can be dangerous. So: whatever your father and I say, you follow it absolutely.”
“With magic, the basics are everything. For the foreseeable future, we’ll center your study on the book side first. If you get bored along the way, or you stop following what I say, magic lessons end on the spot. Understood?”
“Yes! Got it, Mom!”
“Good.”
Mom nodded, smiling at my answer. Looking at that face, I wondered what the conflicted look earlier had even been about — but then Dad started in, and I let the thought go.
“I’m going to teach you bow and knife handling. But the live versions are dangerous and frankly too soon. So we’ll use a kid-sized bow, training arrows with no heads, and a wooden practice knife.”
He went on.
“That said, when I’m out hunting I can’t teach you. So when I’m not around, either study with your mom, or go walk around the village.”
Translation: he wanted me to build stamina by walking.
“Got it, Dad!”
The morning was for instructions. Afternoon, magic study. Dad headed out to make preserved food from yesterday’s boar leftovers.
“Right. So — magic has attributes. Things like ‘fire attribute,’ ‘water attribute,’ and so on. Some unusual ones — ‘[Time-Space Magic]’ or ‘[Alchemy]’ — also get counted as attributes. I’ll explain those later. Following so far?”
“Yep!”
“Good. Next, the kinds of attributes. The basics are: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark, and Void. Eight in total.”
“You said ‘basics’ — so there are non-basic ones?”
Mom smiled like good catch.
“There are. I already mentioned [Time-Space Magic] and [Alchemy]. Also: the Light attribute is sometimes called Holy or White; Dark is sometimes called Pitch-Black or just Black; really strong fire magic gets called Flame; ice-type water magic gets called Ice-Snow.”
“A lot of overlap.”
“Right. Which is partly why there’s a school of thought that magic is really just ‘one attribute called mana,’ and the divisions we see come from differences in how individual people think about and use it.”
“Whoever came up with that must’ve been either really smart or really weird.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Because most people don’t think that hard about something they use every day. So they’re either way above average or kind of a contrarian.”
Sheelia froze. Not just at the precocious phrasing from a three-year-old — Tenma had also nailed the actual public reputation of the man who’d proposed that theory. But she decided to chalk it up to him probably picking it up from someone in the village — the priest, maybe — while walking around. She didn’t push, of course, in case asking killed his momentum.
“You’re right, that’s exactly what people say. Anyway. We call those eight ‘basic’ because the others rarely come up — or you could just say, the eight are the most representative.”
“[Time-Space Magic] covers things like ‘[Flight],’ ‘[Levitation],’ ‘[Gravity]’ — though [Flight] can also be done with Wind. [Alchemy] uses magic circles to decompose, separate, or construct objects. But it’s hard to learn and not very practical, so people don’t use it much. Mostly it gets used for, like, separating water from laundry — which Wind magic does better and faster anyway~”
So [Alchemy] was not a fan favorite here, unlike in the manga of my past life. Personally — “summon any object in a snap by just clapping your hands together” sounded amazing, so I privately committed to grinding it later.
After that, Mom kept teaching the basics, mixed with the occasional war story from her adventuring days, until evening.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
— A Chat Among Bored Gods —
War God (hereafter “War”): “Haah~n♡”
Death God (hereafter “Death”): “What’s with the… creepy noise…”
War: “Rude! Creepy! How dare you!”
Life Goddess (hereafter “Life”): “Alright, alright — so what’s up?”
War: “I was watching Tenma-chan.”
Earth Goddess (hereafter “Earth”): “Did something happen with Tenma-chan~?”
Love Goddess (hereafter “Love”): “What what~? What is it~?”
War: “When I look at little Tenma-chan, I get this… like, a warm feeling welling up in my chest…”
Earth: “Ahh~, I get it~. Tenma-chan’s so adorable~.”
Love: “Riiight~?”
Death: “(nod, nod)”
Life: “His mind got resized to fit the body, that part.”
Beast God (hereafter “Beast”): “Mm.”
Life: “Oh, you’re in this too?”
War: “Beast is always watching with me, actually.”
Love: “When he peeks in wearing that wolf pelt, he looks just like a loyal dog watching his master.”
Beast: ”///”
Death: “He’s blushing…”
War: “I have a rival!”
Love: ”…That’s not what’s happening.”
War: “Anyway — this feeling… could this be what they call maternal instinct♡”
Love & Life: ""Wrong!""
Death: “Wrong… also still creepy.”
Earth: “My, my~”
War: “What?! All of you, meanies! That’s cruel!”
Beast: ”…War God.”
War: “Beast, you get me, right?”
Beast: ”…That isn’t maternal. You’re a man, so it’d be paternal…”
War: “Crueeeel, I’m a delicate maideeen~~~~” ”~~~” ”~~”
To the receding wail of the fleeing War God, the rest answered in chorus:
All: """"Not even close.""""
Earth: “My, my~”
———End———
Wrote a small side-chat.
Part of me wants to get Tenma growing up fast, but I’d also like to let him stay small a little longer. I’ll try not to false-advertise on the title.