Chapter Three: Basic Knowledge

It's been a bit over half a year. I'm finally able to crawl properly... Yes, I did say crawl. I tried to walk, but all my efforts were in vain. I quickly came to my senses when I couldn't even stand up. 

It’s sad since this was one of my proudest moments until I ran into an even bigger hurdle. What I thought to be my greatest accomplishment and one of my proudest moments become just a waste of my efforts.

Learning how to crawl properly has become useless. I had this grand delusion that when I became able to crawl I would be able to escape my Mother's protective grasp. It took me longer than I thought. Since I had already crawled before and I had practiced crawling somewhat recently in my past life.

Yet I still couldn’t surpass the physical limitations of my infant body. I had to let my body develop more naturally, and I was always so drowsy, I mean most days I just slept. The time I was awake I had to listen to my mother speak and learn what she said, so I really had no chance to learn how to crawl again. So I just waited, waited, and waited.

 Until one day I couldn’t wait anymore and I made some progress. Not much, the distance I covered that took all my efforts was probably similar to taking a single step in my original body. Yet I felt excited and proud, I knew that soon I would crawl and when that day came I could begin my plan to have an extraordinary life with my knowledge. 

My Mother was Ecstatic when saw me crawl that teeny bit but her words worried me.

“Awww My little Zachy is sooooo cute who’s the cutest baby? You are! Yes, you are! That's my little Zachy you’re so smart and cute. I’m going to have to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t escape from me aren’t I? Aren’t I, my little Zachy?” She said all this with a cringey voice as if she was talking to a dog but is a newborn child different in intelligence than a dog?

It was nice to know that she cared about me and part of me was excited and happy about being coddled by her. But at the same time, I was terrified and felt sorry for her. What if my secret ever got out? What would I do, How would she react and feel? I mean she looks to be a few years older than I was when I died but still the age gap we have is something more similar to siblings.

Yet here she is raising me as if I was the son she had always wanted. Yet I’m somebody completely different. She seems kind so I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry that I’m going to lie to her and that she can’t have the child she wanted.

Mother seems happy that I can crawl already. To be honest, so was I. But her words really do concern me. I mean she can’t possibly know that I’m trying to sneak out can she? My Birth Mother had the same freaky type of intuition, I guess that’s why people called it Mothers Intuition. Still, it’s freaky if that’s true.

Being locked into a room with no visitors besides the visits of the maids, no way to communicate, or any access to entertainment or knowledge was awful. But not being able to move at all made it much worse.

I guess no entertainment or knowledge isn't the complete truth. I've seen my Mother doing what I assume to be magic. Nothing too fancy besides maybe casting a ball of light or lighting a fire but still, it’s magic who wouldn’t be entertained by that in itself?  Just thinking about the fact that I can do magic in the future is exciting. 

This world that has no technology has magic. And if it’s anything like all the movies and novels I’ve read, especially the last one, it would be amazing. I hope it is. Well, maybe not the last series after the spoilers I kept seeing about the ending. 

Mother doesn't use her magic much, unfortunately. Instead, she reads a typical fairy tale story to me. Thankfully she doesn’t speak to me in a baby voice when she’s reading like how she does when I accomplish something. I think I’d be too creeped out if she did since she can’t be that much older than me if we count both of my lives.

I can't speak yet and it’s frustrating since I think magic is voice-activated. My vocal cords haven't developed enough yet so whenever I do open my mouth it’s just incomprehensible babbling. But I haven’t been slacking I’ve been learning some of this world's or country's language even if I can't talk yet. Thankfully I haven't only been learning to speak, I've been learning to read slowly as well.

Considering she holds me right in front of the same novel, it’s pretty easy to associate what she says with what’s written. And that's right; the same novel has been read to me for the past six months… 

It hasn’t been the worst for me since I’ve been able to learn a lot of different letters and words, but how is Mother not bored of reading the same book every day yet? I mean if I could be complaining right now I would be.

I've tried giving hints that I wanted novels about magic to be read to me by pointing at them and trying to grab them, and thankfully Mother is smart enough to pick up the hints. Sadly she's been purposefully avoiding any of the informational novels on magic. Still, magic isn't the only thing I've learned about.

I've learned much about my Mother, our two maids, and our Family. It seems that I'm the firstborn son of the Grand Duke. I'm not sure about the Empire or kingdom we live in since it hasn't been brought into a conversation. Or how wealthy and influential we are, but we should be sitting at the top considering our nobility title.

My Mother was born into high nobility from a neighboring kingdom or empire. If I had to guess it seems that she was forced to marry my Father. Considering the fact that I haven’t seen him since my birth and I don’t believe my Mother has either it’s probably a loveless marriage between the two of them. I keep feeling more sorry and sorry for her. It must have been tough being forced to move away from your kingdom and live under the roof of one of the most powerful families in a different kingdom. It doesn’t seem like any of the staff are particularly loyal to her either, yet I can’t blame them. I mean who would want to get on a Grand Duke's bad side?

The maids also seem to be nobility although I'm not sure of their families' rank. 

I hit the jackpot! I’ll be able to inherit my family’s territory wealth and status later in life even if my Father isn’t a big fan of mine. Seeing as I won’t have any siblings it should almost be guaranteed. Inventions are going to be interesting, aren’t they? I don’t know the limit of magic but it’s possible a lot of the technology that was in my world at the time won’t be applicable in this one due to there not being a need for it or just better alternatives already. I should focus on small things that can affect people's everyday life instead. Maybe the Typewriter or something?  Maybe this world's hygiene standards are poor I mean I’m not even wearing a diaper. It seems to just be some thick cloth that they wrapped around me.

This is good as long as I’m not a slacker I should be able to live my life any way I intend to in the future. Life’s good so far I have a promising future and thankfully a healthy body with a mother who dotes on me and knows magic. Along with an influential Father with vast amounts of resources that I’ll inherit later in life.

Yawn

I’m getting tired again, aren’t I? I guess I let the excitement get to me and used up all my energy. It’s a shame that I won’t be able to crawl today but it’s ok I deserve a break and some happiness. I’ll just have to put more effort in tomorrow, won’t I?