Narrator's P.O.V
{'What are you doing out here all by yourself, Princess?' Duchess Kim said once she spotted the golden hair beauty leaning against the stone railings of the balcony.
'Lamenting my misfortune.', said the princess before taking a deep sign. She did not turn to acknowledge the most powerful Nobel lady of her kingdom. She knew that things like these would not anger her
'Why must I marry him?' She said, finally turning to look at her. The Duchess of Steelhorn was a tomboy of sorts. Wearing men's clothing instead of dresses. Shoulder-length deep blue hair and graceful conduct that puts many gentlemen at shame.
'What elicits such a response-'}
"Is he playing with those dolls again?"
Joseph asked his wife with a smirk on his face after looking at the crib.
"Yes, he sure does love them." She replied while changing from the sleeping gown into a modest dress.
"That's good then." Joseph's expressions darkened while his voice got quieter.
Sensing the shift in his emotions, Mariah embraced him in a tight hug.
"Don't worry, darling. Nothing will happen to our child this time."
***
Peter's P.O.V
From that day henceforth, I had an outlet to use my limited time. The existence of the system presented a lot of things for me to ponder upon.
Now, I could have speculated on everything that I could conjure inside my brain but that would have been really stupid.
There was no way I could reach out to confirm or deny my assumptions.
Yet I did exactly that. Not for long though. Just three to four days by my rough estimate.
Am I the special one? The chosen one.
The only one who has a system, so to speak? Or was it one of those novels where everyone had one? Am I living in a novel?
No, I decided to ignore the last one. I had enough reasons to have an existential crisis already. Plenty of them.
If everyone had a system from birth, how many skills do they have on average? What about stats?
Where were my Strength, Agility, Mana, Dexterity, and Intelligence indicators?
What will happen on my fifth birthday? Would I see stats after that? Am I only seeing a limited status window? How to gain skills? How do they work? Can they be evolved?
These and many more. I had (or rather was) unable to do anything but think due to my body limitations.
***
Then, I calmed down a bit. A lull came and I decided to stop speculating about things whose answers cannot be confirmed for some time.
Thus, I decided to focus on researching things.
I tried to summon my status while I was with my mother. She did not react to it. I was fairly sure that it was because it was invisible to her.
Next, I tried to experiment with my only skill. I did not have much success with it on the very first try.
Similar to last time, as soon as I used it and it materialized, I felt exhausted and quickly fell asleep.
Good night.
…
…
Why did that happen? Was I not ready to use it yet? Was it due to my age?
These questions were answered after two weeks. I was using it almost every day before hitting bed.
I noticed that now I could keep it open a little bit longer. That meant that it used some kind of fuel to run. An energy of sorts. Then, I had a dreadful thought. What if it was using my life as energy and I was slowly decreasing my lifetime?
Scared, I decided not to use it.
It took a day before I was able to denounce that thought too and build enough courage to keep using my skill.
I hypothesized that the reason I felt exhausted was because I was emptying my reserves of whatever energy that the skill used.
If it was my life force, I should already be dead.
I was increasing my reserve the more I used it which should be impossible if it was lifeforce. Proof of that was the increased time I was able to keep it open.
For now, I named this energy 'Mana'; and as unoriginal it was, it happened to be a wee little tribute to all the novels that I read.
***
Life commenced. Confined in a crib inside my parents' bedroom, spending my days drinking milk, shitting my clothes, playing with dolls, or using my skill to increase my mana.
Soon I was four months old. My vision improved, and so did my nervous control. I gained some control over my body.
Able to sit properly, command my hands to move, and not have my leg move instead.
It was not always successful but hooray for the small gains. Small wins are wins too, indeed.
In these 3 months, I learned that mother and father loved each other a lot. Kissing and cuddling every night, calling each other with buttery names that were equivalent to baby, darling, my love.
I could not understand the language but even I could tell what they were.
I believe they would have done much more than just cuddling if I was not in the room and required attention. Mother's weak body after childbirth might have been another reason.
I tried to learn their language and while I was able to memorize a lot of words due to the dynamic nature of a child's brain.
I was still only memorizing, not learning. Learning a new language was hard. It would take time. I believed by the time my vocal cords finished developing completely, I would have learned it.
Let's hope for the best.
***
Not all things were sad though. I finally know my name.
Peter. That's my name.
"What are you _____ about, Pete?" My mother picked me up with a smile that caused two dimples to emerge on her face.
Her touch was gentle as she brought me close, holding me to face her. She leaned forward and touched her nose with mine, which only led to me laughing more. Mother was soft to touch.
She looked at me and then at the door, a cute pout soon replaced her smile and her eyes turned to stare at the ceiling.
I guessed whatever internal thought she was having ended because she then stood up, and put my head on her left shoulder to rest while one of her arms supported my weight and the other wrapped around me.
Once she was sure that I would be comfortable, she started to walk to the door.
Four whole months plus some days later, I was finally getting out of the only room I knew. Another small win?
***
(P.O.V. will shift to third person from here on out)
Rose was quite surprised when Aunt Mariah decided to bring little Pete with her when she came to have her breakfast in the hall. She was overly protective of her child, almost like a mental disease.
Rose pitied her. Gods were cruel to her. Even the healers, with all their holy magic, were unable to cure the rare disease that took her first child within a week.
Her second child was stillborn. That might have been the final straw.
She did not have children after that for a few years.
She could somewhat understand then when at the age of 31 she finally had a third child, why she would be so overprotective of him.
She smiled at the child who was staring at her without blinking while his mother sat down on a chair beside the dinner table.
She noted that he looked almost like a small version of his mother. The same tiny nose, small lovely mouth, and those ocean blue eyes. The only thing he inherited from his father was his ashen brown hair.
He smiled back.
"When did Joseph leave, dear?" Mariah put her child on the table before, ensuring that Little Pete didn't go unnoticed by her eyes for even a mere second.
"It has been an hour. I served him his breakfast. Eggs, ham, and toast like you have told me to do." Rose replied while serving her the morning meal. She made sure to put it a bit further from the baby in case he tried to reach out.
"Mhm, did he say anything before leaving?" Mariah smiled after noting that the child made no moves to disturb her breakfast.
"Aren't you quite understanding, my sweet baby boy?" She said while caressing his head and receiving a giggle in reply.
"He did not," Rose shook her head.
She had been working for them for almost a year now.
Joseph and Mariah had quite a big house for a couple in their early thirties. The second largest in the entire Shimon village, just after the village elder.
And of course, their house was some distance away from the village, closer to the forest in the east.
When it became clear that Mariah was pregnant for the third time, everyone in the village was surprised.
That's when Joseph reached out to their family. He explained that his wife was unable to take care of their house due to pregnancy and he was unable to be at home all the time owing to his duty at the village garrison. He was willing to pay good money if Rose, who was sixteen at the time, could help them take care of the house and do chores.
Since their house was only around three hundred meters from the village outskirts, she could travel back to her house in the evening every day.
"Mhm, what will you be doing now?" Mariah asked while chewing her breakfast. Rose already had hers. She was allowed to eat whatever she cooked for them. It was a generous thing to do. Spices were plenty expensive.
"First, I will be washing kitchen utensils then dusting the whole house. I washed all the clothes yesterday so I only have to clean whatever Peter soiled after yesterday. That only leaves making lunch and dinner." Something like this was quite an improvement from working in their field with her father or taking care of the animals.
"You can do all those a bit later then. First, boil some vegetables and make a soft mush out of it. It is about time he starts eating solid food. Also, the grass in the backyard had grown a lot. Cut them smaller once you are done cleaning the house and making lunch. The sickle should be where Joseph keeps his sword."
***
Peter observed Mariah, from where he rested on the table. Once Pete had his first food besides milk, he was scooped up in his mother's arms and carried to the first floor.
There were only two rooms on that floor and they entered one of them. It looked like a study room. There was a giant and by giant, he meant a huge bear skin rug used as a carpet for the floor. It was big enough to cover the whole floor. There was a cabinet full of books and parchments on one side of the room. Beside it was a window. There was no glass window. Like the rest of the house, the gates were made up of wood.
The window lock was molded of metal though. From the window, sunrays fell softly on the potted plants.
The study table was large enough for two people to use and two wooden chairs.
The room smelled of dried ink and surprisingly some sort of flower fragrance.
When Pete was lowered to the right side of the table, he saw the flickering wick of the candle, still burning. It was a purple-colored thing. Something told him, it was not normal.
Then for the next two hours, he observed his mother from his position.
His diaper needed to be changed once but that was beside the point.
If he was not wrong, then she was doing something with numbers. Accounting, perhaps.
The day so far had been exceptionally great. Thus, he decided to make full use of it.
***
Mariah tilted her head a bit and looked at her child from the corner of her eyes from her position on the chair, busy meticulously organizing the sales records from a book into a parchment.
He was so focused on what she doing, even though surely, he had no idea what she was doing. It made him all the more adorable in her eyes.
He was an oddly obedient child. Never created any problems for her.
Sure, like any other child, he cried his eyes out whenever he felt hungry. Frequently soiled his clothes, but besides that he was well-behaved.
He would not try to grab anything in reach and put it in his mouth, and he would not suck on his fingers like most children his age. He would just play with his dolls whenever he was awake. Even today, when she decided to feed him mashed vegetables; she thought he would create a mess by repeatedly throwing out whatever she would put in his mouth. None of that happened.
Joseph found it odd. He would often joke with her.
'How could you give birth to such an obedient child? The girl who used to be known as the menace of the Brooks Inn among the adventures. Tell me.'