So my name is Kenji Izanagi... Why does that give me a bad feeling. Stupid Deku (nickname for previous world Kenji)
While I am still only able to communicate basic words, I have a thorough enough understanding of the language of this world (at least the one used in my household).
However, I am still trying to understand how the writing system of this language works. I cant clearly convey my thoughts and wants yet so nobody has tried to teach me writing. Please work a little faster stupid brain.
Through conversations I have learned a couple of key details though. That beautiful dragon woman isn't my mother, she is my adopted mother. When they started talking about my actual mother I heard words I did not recognize and as such am currently assuming that either my mother or both of my biological parents are dead.
I think I heard something about a human curse but again this is only inference off of what I heard and understood.
It appears magic exists in this world, as a fundamental law of nature. That would put the behavior of magic and study the study of it, in the realm of science. So basically magic and science go hand and hand.
There also seems to be several races in this world, many of them are human-like with a range from slight differences to only sharing the bipedal aspect of humans. I think humans might be a rarity in this world, it's probably related to the aforementioned curse.
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My eyes and ears seem to be developing well, the background of my surroundings which I couldn't focus on before have now become visible to me. I have been in this room since my birth, a once white tiled room with black char forming large circles on the center of every wall. The walls which were probably once pure white, are about %90 black or ashen. From what i can tell it looks like paint, but the way it goes from white to ashen to charcoal makes me think it could also be burns.
For some reason the only people to attend to me have been dragon people I think. They always have thick scales and vertical eyes.
The burn painting and the dragon people are probably not a coincidence but i myself haven't been able to figure out much. I might be in a village of dragon people, but when I was born I was sure I had seen other types of beast people as well, so that may not be the case.
There's one window on the opposite wall from the door, smaller than my head and at least several times taller than my tallest attendant. Am I a prisoner?
Besides the design of the room, its almost completely void of any personalization and life. I have my bed directly under the window. The frame itself is a metallic silver with, surprise more burn and chars on it. What the hell happened in here?
My bedding is a red and clear goo like substance similar to a food I started eating recently called gelatin. My mattress is also of a similar substance but a little more firm. As for a blanket, it seems the dragon people either don't have a concept of one since they have no problems with heat retention, or don't believe I need one.
I hear the sounds of two females arguing outside my door, but its too muffled. I think I'll sneak over to the door and listen in. I've been hiding the fact that I know how to walk just in case, I'd rather not stand out as a demon baby or something like that.
'We can't afford to keep nurturing this demon, just last night its night tantrums scorched the arm of another dragon maid! You remember how much we were paying them to attend it? They have all quit! They said it was not worth the pay anymore! We are running out of options to deal with this trouble child. We are an orphanage not a charity, If you do not get its mana under control we will not only be forced to remove it, it will cause our whole orphanage to shut down!' {Female Voice 1}
"Yes I understand my lady, we have ridden your hospitality too long, I will begin its 5 year instruction early outside in the fields near the slums" {Female Voice 2}
"Count Drask is going to come back again soon trying to force us under his patronage, I assume you know what happens when he does right?" {FV1}
'Yes my lady'{FV2}
"Good, begin the training by tomorrow at the latest. You have 6 months to teach the child to walk, talk, read, write, and most importantly control its output. Failure results in the worst case scenario for all the children here"{FV1}
It seems I have already stood out as a demon baby...
Judging from that conversation this Count Drask guy is looking to fund the orphanage. If they are in need of funds wouldn't that be a good thing? Unless he is some war mongering Count, Or... a shudder ran down my spine, maybe he is in the slave business...
Either way the only things I can't already do from the Noble ladies checklist was: write, read, and output control (whatever that means).
She said something about mana, and output...
Am I unconsciously spewing mana from my body? How would I be able to tell? That would be some valuable information... stupid deku
Well... maybe the scorch marks would indicate that. But that means mana has properties? or at least is highly volatile, and why am I unharmed?
I have so many questions which only lead me to more questions, I really could use my memories of that talk with the goddess right now. I remember the fact that I had a talk with her, but when I try to recall it, its like a live scene with no sound. Did the goddess herself block the whole conversation out of my memories as well? But then why would I remember the fact I even had it in the first place? There's just too many questions, let's just learn to read, write, and control my mana first, maybe we can get somewhere with that.
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6 months have passed, I turned 5 about 1 month ago. I still have not seen how this world's calendar system works so I have no idea what date it actually was or is currently. Those lessons are supposed to start when you turn 5, my lessons even started early. However because of other problems... I had to delay the actual studious lessons until after I could, not scorch the people trying to teach me.
Mana was explained to me like this: Mana is in the blood of all living beings, the more beast blood in you, the more the mana is actively and unconsciously spread to the muscles and other body parts. Meaning that you have less overall mana active in your blood stream, but higher physical, instinctual, and sensual prowess.
As you get closer to the human side, bodies start to alter slightly. It seems that those with %50 or higher human blood are born with a sub-organ referred to as the mana-heart. It is attached to the heart and is where mana is generated and spread throughout all circulation systems of the body. It also makes the muscle mass, instincts, and senses of humans inferior to that of beast races. As the humans mana heart takes up so much energy, that enhancing the characteristics of the humans unconsciously like in the beast race, would be too inefficient and unsustainable.
In order to regain ones mana both races are able to eat, sleep, and breathe away mana dehydration. So essentially just like physical recovery, but humans recuperate it through those means slower since they have the mana heart.
Now all this information is great. But how does that help me control my mana. In fact it only asks even more questions, why is my mana constantly radiating out of me? What race would I have to be in order to have such an unprecedented amount of mana in my body? Is my constant mana generation the reason that I am always so angry and in pain when I get hungry? And lastly, how do I use this mana?
I have managed to keep my mana from burning my surroundings by being able to unconsciously control the density of it being poured around me. I am basically envisioning it as water, where the more you add it just keeps on falling flat. And by spreading it out like this I stopped scorching the things around me even in my sleep. Now just anyone within a 10 meter radius around me will notice a slight temperature increase near their feet. The only ones able to notice such a minute difference were the elite beast guards at the gates to the slums, I'd estimate they were at least %70 beast blooded.
Throughout my travels to the fields near the slums in these last 6 months, I have noticed quite a few things about the outside world.
1. Although it is called the slums, the living quality isn't as bad as the name sounds, while there may be some unfortunate people, it seems the weak are always chased out in beast societies.
2. There are no pure breeds in this world. The average person I saw in the city was about %40-60 of their respective race (either beast or human).
3. Diversity is common but majority exists. It seems that of the people here, the largest majority was the dragon-like people. I'd estimate they make up roughly %30 of the population. The rest of the percentages would just be mere conjecture and I have no way to know if there are bloodlines or not based on what I've seen
4. I lied there are pure breeds. Animals we eat are pure breeds of their respective animal. So they are different from the people animals in the city. I believe it might be because when a species becomes able to use mana, it almost always develops intelligence within a few generations. Meaning that the meat foods in this world are creatures unable to use mana consciously.
5. The ability to use mana is based in the human blood. That's why there are no pure bred beastkin. The strongest of the beastkin are at most %90 beast, while in folktales there are some fantasized to be %99. This information was in a possibly religious folktale book called "Drow the Bloodthirsty Howler".
6. Humans are probably the most rare in this city. The closest looking human in this city was a little slums boy I saw who seemed almost human like with some notable patches of fur, fox ears, and a snub tail. I would guess he was about %40 human. When walking out, Eliza my trainer would put similar ears, fur, and a tail on me to not make me stand out from the rest. I might be the closest to a human look ever found she thinks.
7. The "beast" blood is not a specific beast like pig, donkey, cow. But instead refers to the total amount of animal blood in the body. Meaning that literally every race in this world can mate with each other. The only times Beast people take pride in a specific amount of animal blood in them would be if they are in a faction war against an enemy. Say the Coyote Faction has a dispute with the Sheep Faction (those are just random names I chose, I don't know if they actually exist yet)
8. The human curse has popped up in several of the books I've read so far. But they are so old that nobody has seen a pure blood human in almost 10,000 years. However, the book i find to be the most believable states that the Humans incurred the wrath of the divine, and because of that the Goddess used her gift to humanity against them.
That was all I found. I wonder what it means (if it's even true)
What gift did she give humanity? Oh no the questions are flooding in again... stupid deku