The next two days quickly passed for the three kids as Katherine took them outside of school to explore the capital.
Even though all they did was walk around the street, it was still an eye-opening experience as they saw a variety of different things.
Over a hundred churches openly worshipped their god or goddess, and most of them openly denounced the others as heretics.
Some were even different species, with the three kids finally seeing an elf and half-humans for the first time.
The elf was very similar to humans, albeit much skinnier, and had pointy ears.
Meanwhile, the half-humans were, as the name implies, a hybrid of some species and humans.
When Alex saw the god each of them worshipped, he instantly reconganized them as just regular animals on Earth.
An animal similar to horses was being worshipped by Centaur as gods, with Minotaur worshipping cows.
But when Alex decided to ask Katherine about it, she instantly covered his mouth as if he asked something forbidden.
Only when he asked back at home did she explain to him that that 'regular animal' doesn't exist in this world.
The 'horse' that Alex's family used to drag their wagon was actually another animal that just looked like a horse.
The 'steak' he ate at his grandparents' house was also meat from an animal similar to a cow.
Besides going to see different churches, Katherine also brought the three a ticket to the Grand Colosseum.
When they entered, hundreds and thousands of people were already inside, with the entire spotlight in the middle of the field.
It was the first time the three kids had seen an actual duel, with a mage fighting a swordsman.
The duel went back and forth as the swordsman could never get close to the mage with the constant ice zoning him away.
The swordsman, meanwhile, was also dodging every single spell being thrown at him, with fireballs and ice spikes flying everywhere.
Some were even flying directly into the crowd, only to be blocked by an invisible barrier.
In the end, the swordsman won through attrition as the mage ran out of mana to throw back.
All four of them eventually joined the crowd, cheering for the swordsman as he went on to beat two mages in a row before leaving.
The three kids could feel their blood pumping as they left the Colosseum to head back home.
---
"Wake up! It's time for your first day of school!"
Katherine shook all three of them from their beds before changing Mary's clothes while her eyes were still closed.
Meanwhile, the other two kids began changing out of their pajamas, albeit their eyes were barely open as they were still a little sleepy.
"Why are you guys so sleepy?" Katherine curiously asked as she helped Mary put on her socks.
"All because of Alex's fault." Sophia blamed before running into the bathroom first.
"Alex?"
"I-I need to go brush my teeth."
Alex quickly ran into the bathroom as well, brushing his teeth to keep himself unable to talk.
Meanwhile, Katherine brought Mary over to the bathroom as well, helping Mary tie her hair as Mary was finally awake enough to brush her teeth.
"You're going to talk sooner or later."
Alex made a gulp sound as he thought back to what happened last night in the end.
---
The night before school starts...
As the three of them lay in bed silently in the dark, Alex couldn't fall asleep.
The duel in the Colosseum was making his heart too excited to sleep, his head filled with the imagination of being the swordsman fighting.
Despite his dream of being a mage, he knew what the swordsman was using to make himself so fast.
As Paul once told him, there was an ancient technique called' Qi' that people from the East used to make them stronger.
At first, Alex didn't think much of it.
But he later reconganized the word, as his memories told him it was stuff from those Eastern Cultiviation novels his friends read back on Earth.
"Come on, Alex, you still have school tomorrow. Just go to sleep..."
Despite Alex's attempt to clear his mind, it was still filled with the duel.
"Alex, you okay?"
Sophia's voice appeared, waking up from her sleep from Alex's constant movement on the bed.
"Sorry. I'm just too excited to sleep." Alex apologized.
"Still excited about the Colosseum duel?" Sophia asked as she turned around to face him directly.
Alex shyly nodded as the room fell back into silence, with neither side talking.
But both of them were now wide awake, with their eyes staring at each other in the dark.
"Let's go do a duel." Alex suddenly suggested.
"A duel?" Sophia questioned with uncertainty.
"Yes, it's just a small duel. Me and you with the wooden sword. First to knock each other down wins."
"But what if mom catches us up at night?"
"Come on, Mom's already asleep. You know she's a deep sleeper. She's not going wake up."
After a short consideration, Sophia accepted Alex's offer. Her heart started to beat faster as she thought back to the Colosseum duel.
"Fine, just a small duel."
The two slowly got up from the bed, sneaking past Mary, who was deep asleep on the bed.
Next, they immediately headed straight to the storage room at the end of the house.
After picking out their wooden sword from one of the boxes they had brought with them, they immediately took a step back from each other.
Despite the room being dead silent, the duel for them had already begun as they both waited for their opponent to move first.
Eventually, Alex's patient ran out as he lunged forward with the sword, aiming it right at Sophia's chest.
As Sophia easily parried his sword to the side, she quickly realized it was Alex's feint attack as it shifted to her elbow.
At the last second, she quickly leans to the left, dodging the stab as she ripostes forward with a stab.
Alex quickly found himself at a disadvantage as he was forced to take a step back to reposition his sword.
However, Sophia didn't give him any room as she advanced rapidly, striking where his chest was just a millisecond ago.
With less and less space, Alex's mind started to panic as he was constantly forced to be in a defensive position, parrying with his sword.
Suddenly, he finds a small opening in Sophia's slow attack, which allows him to riposte back for once.
Soon, Alex felt something was off, as Sophia hadn't even tried to block it with her sword.
But it was far too late.
Sophia chose to dodge it by turning her body to the side, making the stab miss completely.
Still, Alex wasn't going to lose so easily as he tackled Sophia's body before she could stab at his elbow to declare victory.
"Look like it's a tie."
Alex smiled as he accidentally moved his sword onto Sophia's elbow, and Sophia also hit his elbow with her sword.
"Y-You cheated!" Sophia angrily yelled, unable to believe the match ended in a tie despite her advantages.
"Did I say there were any rules? All I said was that whoever knocks each other down wins.
Technically, I would be the one who won since I'm directly on top of you right——"
Before Alex finished talking, Sophia suddenly pushed him over to the floor and sat directly on top of him.
"I'm the one who won, not you," Sophia threatened as she began to tickle Alex on the side.
"Okay, okay. You won." Alex surrendered as he raised his hands into the air.
"Hmph! You should have said that from the beginning..."
As the room fell into silence, Sophia's face started blushing red as she felt something hard bumping against her crotch.
"Ahem, let's go back to sleep. We still have school tomorrow." Sophia murmured as she quickly got up from Alex.
"Okay."
---
"Alex?"
Katherine's voice made Alex snap back into reality as he had been instinctively brushing his teeth the whole time.
"Y-Yes, mom?"
"Aren't you going to say what you did yesterday?" Katherine questioned again as she helped Mary rinse her mouth.
"I was rolling on the bed, too excited to sleep last night," Alex replied, not flinching a single bit.
"Really?"
Katherine looked over to Sophia, who nodded in agreement as she washed her face.
"Mom!"
"Sorry!" Katherine apologized, having accidentally forgotten to move the cup to let Mary spit out the water.
As Sophia headed to the toilet to pee, Alex was still rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth while Mary was now washing her face.
Watching the three in the bathroom, disregarding each other's privacy, Katherine suddenly felt the urge to separate them and wait in line.
Still, she remained silent, not wanting to exclude Alex from the family just for the sake of 'privacy' that only she felt.
Deep inside, her mind also started to categorize Alex as a daughter rather than a son, as his appearance started to be similar to the other two girls.