3 Three Years Old

Green light was emitted from Zenith's palm, and a warm, radiant glow filled my body. I looked down and saw the skinned elbow rapidly mending, and it only took a few moments before it looked like I my fall did not happen at all. Even the dull ache on my bottom from the fall faded like it never existed.

'This… what the hell is this? What kind of sorcery…?'

"Well? It doesn't hurt anymore right? You wouldn't know it but Mama used to be an adventurer." She proudly declared, putting her hands on her hips in a proud stance.

"What happened!?" Paul rushed in from the front door, topless and with his bare chest glistening with sweat. Ah, I was just admiring my dad's physique. No homo.

"I heard a loud sound and your scream…" He continued before Zenith cut him off.

"Dear! Rudy fell from a chair when he was trying to climb it!"

Paul glanced at me and saw that I was already perfectly fine, albeit confused beyond belief.

"Calm down. He's a kid. Of course he'll fall down sometimes. Besides, if he gets hurt we have your healing spells to make him feel better."

'Healing spells? This is… Oh dear, Dorothy, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. No, this pretty much confirms it. This is definitely not Europe. Or at least not the Europe I was familiar with.'

As Zenith and Paul continued talking, while Lilia watched over me with a protective gaze, my thoughts ran a mile a minute.

Could I have been born in a witches' community somewhere deep in the forest? Rather, if I'm even still on Earth, then there's no way I'm still in the 21st century right? Might I have been reborn in the past, where it turns out magic was real and still thriving?

Or is it possible I was transported to an 'Earth-like' alternate dimension where magic was our primary technology instead of fossil fuels and electricity? That would explain why there's nothing remotely resembling electronic devices in the entirety of this house…

Uuu… the implications of this is wrinkling my brain… Hahh… screw it, I'm still a baby anyways. It wouldn't do any good to dwell over this since I wouldn't be able to do anything about it even if I did know the truth.

But with the introduction of this concept of magic, my thoughts and mentality went through a complete 180.

There was not a single person in the world he came from that wouldn't feel their hearts pumping if they found out magic was real.

I see. My destiny is clear! I am fated to become the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Stra- no wait, that's copyrighted… Well, regardless, this magic… I will definitely learn how to cast spells no matter what!

"Mama." I cried out, reaching my hands out towards Zenith.

This wasn't the first time I have spoken to my parents, so they didn't looked too shocked at me speaking. While my vocal chords weren't entirely developed enough to speak fluently, it was still sufficient to force out a few words.

"Yes, what is it Rudy?" Zenith approached and took me in her arms. No matter how many times this happened, it still felt weird being carried around like I weighed nothing.

"Ma-magic. I want learn." I uttered, looking at her with wide eyes filled with wonder.

She blinked twice, a little stunned at my request but grinned in response, "You're too young to be learning magic, Rudy. You're just a wittle baby." She cooed, making baby faces at me.

"Magic! Please Mama." I pleaded, gathering all the cuteness I could muster in my tiny body and blasting it at her. Cute Baby Beam Maximum Power!

"Oh dear, whose child is this? He's soooo cute! Ah right, this adorable thing that wants to learn magic is my son, hohoho. What should I do, I am drowning in his cuteness."

Paul walked up excitedly and groped my cheeks, "Really, baby Rudy is the cutest thing ever!! C'mon Rudy, give Papa a kiss!"

I turned to him and tilted my head, "Papa magic?"

"Ah, I don't know magic."

I turned away mercilessly, directing my Baby Beam back at Zenith.

"Huk! Baby Rudy's indifference is still cute! Even though it hurts…"

Zenith looked like she could no longer hold herself back, "What a deadly power… Fine, fine I'll teach you what I know about Magic…"

"Yay Mama!" I cheered, excited at the prospect of being able to learn the mystic arts of Kamar Taj- ah I keep forgetting that's copyrighted.

"…On one condition." Zenith finished with a slightly serious tone.

"If you want to learn magic, then you need to be able to read and write first!" She concluded before glancing at Paul secretly, "That should take him a couple years, right?"

I shrugged off that condition. I was a fully grown adult albeit in a baby's body. How difficult could it be to learn a new language?

---------

(Two years later; Rudeus Age 3)

…Learning a new language wasn't as easy I thought it would be, as it turned out.

Zenith, and at times Lilia, started teaching him the ABCs of this ancient Earth / Alternate reality. They called it as simply the Human Language. Kinda weird but okay…

Grammatically, it was more similar to Japanese or other East Asian languages as it turns out. So the Human Language's sentence structures, its syntax and morphology were a little unfamiliar initially.

But like the language I was most familiar with, English, it had individual words that were still made up of small little symbols (their alphabet) that joined together to spell out an entire word, rather than a word being represented by a singular symbol like Japanese Kanji or Chinese characters. Phonetically it was similar to the English language as well.

It took longer than I expected but I still managed to progress at a steady pace and learned how to comprehend and speak their language with increasing fluency over time. Reading and writing was also going very well for someone my age.

I attributed my high learning speed to my young, developing brain. No wonder they said kids learned very fast. I could feel my comprehension growing every day in a very distinct manner.

Largely, it was thanks to Paul and Zenith always reading what little books they had to him as both bed time stories and recreationally. Some of these books contained common sense knowledge of this world as well as parts of its history.

It was also through these non-fiction texts that I came to learn I really wasn't on Earth any longer.

The land I lived in was called the Central continent, where her inhabitants spoke the Human Language. Other continents included the Milis continent, the Heaven continent, the Begaritto continent and the Demon continent, all of which had their own languages as well it seemed.

The village I lived in was called Buena Village, a place that could be considered a rural countryside, that belonged to the Fittoa Region which in turn belonged to the Asura Kingdom.

My head spun a little when I first learned of all these places and new names. But it was the most astonishing when I saw a hand-drawn map of what the world looked like. It was another cold reminder that I was now in another world…

Although learning magic and casting spells was still a little out of my reach, I could still run around and use my body in other ways. For me, being physically active was way more fun and important than anything else, not even magic could compare.

After being paralyzed from the waist down from that tragic accident and consequently losing my ability to both walk and play soccer, my one true passion, I had fallen into a deep depression.

So now that I was miraculously given a new body, and by extension, a new lease on life, I was not going to take my mobility for granted.

Running around, jumping off furniture and climbing trees, those were now parts of my daily routine.

Paul was very glad to see he had such an active and energetic son, claiming on more than a few occasions that it was a sign I would grow up to be a great swordsman in the future.

It turned out that not only was magic prevalent in this world apparently, sword fighting along with other medieval weaponry was also the common sense of this new reality of mine.

Hearing that, the immature, kid side of me reared its ugly childish head and drew me to start learning the sword from Paul as well, after seeing him train in the garden of our countryside home.

Though my body was still undeveloped and lacked the fine motor control swordsmanship required, it was still a pleasure to just watch and mimic Paul's upper body movements for now.

I even realized that martial arts in this world was great exaggerated as well, seeing how Paul was able to destroy a boulder with just a swing of his sword when he showed off his skills to his admirer (me).

I asked Paul how he was able to do that, but I only received half-hearted replies like 'Papa is just that cool' or 'It's difficult to explain, I just went whoosh like this and wham like that!'

I rolled my eyes at that explanation, which seemed to shock Paul, seeing such an expression of annoyance on his precious son for the first time. But he still said it looked cute.