So This Is How The World Works, I Have Questions

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Countess Virac. Should I take you accepting my invitation to join me for the evening, as a yes to the thing we discussed before.” I’m in a dark room, all I could see was a man facing a large window watching a cloudy night. “Why, my dear lord, who could possibly reject such a tempting offer from a man as dashing as yourself.”

I feel this body saunter over, I can’t control what it does. Every step sounded louder and louder as I approached the man whose figure scares me. With each clack of my heel, my anxiety grows. This body slows down in front of a study desk, lightly touching it with its fingertips. The man was still looking at the clouds moving in the night sky. “Is that so? I’m happy you agreed, my lady. I’ve always found you quite intriguing, I’ve been drawn to you since I first saw you in tears.”

The man chuckles to himself and my body stops, as if planned, “It was an embarrassing night to say the least, but it led me to meet such a wonderful man. Who’s to say it wasn’t a blessing given to me by the Goddess.”

“I’m not sure your parents would agree with you, they would probably say you made a deal with Lucifer himself.” The body didn’t even look up to see, it already knew the man was smiling. The gaze of this body was directed on the small details carved into the desk, around the edges were snakes. The body felt tense, trying to suppress its killing intent, at any moment this body could kill this man. “Now, now, why would a man I’m spending the evening with ruin the mood by mentioning a woman’s parents. I worked so hard to set a good mood, I’m not sure if I can continue with our plans tonight.”

“Always the playful, confident woman, I can’t wait to have fun with you. I hope you don’t break too soon.” Those words sent shivers through this body, but the body picks up a glass and takes a sip to reveal its bourbon, a drink for the loyal old souls. The body continues to walk until she is right next to the man, she hands him the bourbon, to which he takes and just holds. I felt the body not wanting to focus on his hands for too long, so it looked forward, towards the moon that’s starting to peek through the clouds. “How can you break, what’s already been broken.”

The body looks straight ahead to reveal a woman with sparkling violet eyes, smirking at her reflection. “Whoever attempted to break you first, won’t be done with you until you have shattered.”

The man sets the bourbon on his desk and turns to the woman and extends his hand. In turn, the woman gives her hand to him and forces a smile. The moonlight sets in, illuminating the scene, as the man bends down and kisses the back of the woman’s hand. “It seems you haven’t been shattered yet.”

“My Duke, the game is only just beginning.” The man’s head raised to show...

I woke up from my first nightmare in this world, I was so startled I started to cry. My mother came running to sooth me, she held me in her arms, while humming her favorite tunes, and I felt at peace again. I’ve calmed down a bit, but I can’t forget that dream. Who was that man? Why was I so afraid of him? Who was the woman with the violet eyes? That couldn’t have been me, right? My parents now are regular village people, they live in a cottage in a small village, there’s no way a Countess’ family would live like this. In this second life, I want to live a normal life with my parents, I’ll never leave them.

It’s already been four months since I’ve been reincarnated. From overhearing conversations my parents have and listening to the villagers that visit with gifts, I’ve found some new things. The Edraevia Empire is ruled over by the royal bloodline, and the current ruler is the third woman to ever rule the Empire, Empress Ellenia Alexandria Edraevia II. She’s a well respected Empress that brought prosperity to the once failing Empire. The Empress looked for new ways to support the people, while still appeasing the nobles. She found her answer in a war, this war could appease the greed of the nobles for more power and a stronger presenting Empire. With this war, she could employ the common people to learn to make weapons and medicine, fund new agricultural projects, and with the spoils of war she could help start small businesses and schools. In order to teach the common people new technical skills, she made deals with the Elves and Dwarves in exchange for their knowledge, we would provide them with precious metals and rare mana stones that could only be mined with holy light magic or cursed dark magic.

Magic, in this world, is built off of six elements: fire, water, earth, wind, light, and dark. All magic is a variation of those six elements, and as knowledge about it has only grown, so has the regular use of magic. It has replaced science, in most cases, because magic itself is similar to science in the way people learn it. Every being can use magic, but not every race can use every magic. Elves have an affinity to wind and water, while Dwarves have an affinity for fire and earth. Beast men have an affinity for water, wind, earth, and fire depending on the type of animal they are and whether they are connected to the royal line of beast people. Some make contracts with spirits to increase their affinities to certain elemental types of magic, but they can’t raise their affinity to light or dark magic. The only race that can use every type of magic are humans. Light magic comes from the Goddess that first blessed the Empire and dark magic comes from Lucifer who came to balance the Empire.

The founding story goes, the Goddess Esperanza walked all over the land until she found a dying land. Feeling sorry for the land, she blessed it to grow beautiful and bountiful. After blessing the land, she slept for seven days. The land kept growing and growing, until it stretched across all the land. Lucifer, the King of Demons, noticed the abnormal growth and decided to use his dark magic to destroy the forever growing lands before it interfered with other lands. The Goddess awakened to find a perfectly grown land, so happy she celebrated by inviting humans to live in the land. This created the first Edraevia Kingdom, which later became an Empire. The Goddess lived happily with the humans, she even fell in love with the leader of the humans living in the new land of Edraevia. This created the royal bloodline of the Empire. The next part of the story changes depending on what part of the Empire you lived in, but the most popular rendition is Lucifer’s dark magic he cast to stop the overgrowth of the blessing that went out of control. It created monsters of the animals and different races, threatening the peace. The Goddess set out to stop Lucifer with her light magic, upon meeting Lucifer he refused to rescind the spell. This led to an all out battle of light and dark magic, in the end the Goddess won and made Lucifer swear allegiance to the humans of Edraevia. In refusal, he cursed one of the humans with his blood, creating the Ducal household of violet eyed demons, Mortem.

The Goddess only blesses her human followers or sends an angel servant with light magic, while Lucifer’s blood or a demon servant lets humans use dark magic. This means there are no spirits of light and dark, the only way to increase your affinity is to catch the attention of the Goddess or Lucifer and have them give you one of their servants. No other race is able to make a connection with them, like this one.

Even though the Empress was a remarkable leader, it didn’t change the fact that she was a woman in the eyes of the male dominated royal court. They forced her to marry and birth an heir to ensure a stable future for the Empire. In the selection process, the Empress fell in love with the third son of a Count in the opposing faction. Believing in her love and hoping this would bring internal stability to the Empire, they married and had a child. The child, however, was a little girl. The Empress proclaimed her daughter to be her successor, the court was in disarray begging the Empress to birth another child, but she refused and hid her daughter away to continue to raise her to be the next Empress. While this happened, the Royal Consort of the Empress was having an affair with the Duchess of Mortem. This affair came to light after the Duchess died giving birth to the Royal Consort’s son, leaving the title of Duke of Mortem to her younger brother, who didn’t have violet eyes. The Capital of the Empire erupted with talk of the affair, as the son of the Royal Consort was being raised in the palace. The princess was only a one-year-old. The opposing faction used this as a chance to demand the son of the Royal Consort be the heir to the throne. Duke Mortem, head of the opposing faction, believed that the Mortem family deserved the throne because their ancestor, Lucifer, helped balance the land.

This happened two years ago, the factions are at a standstill, waiting for both children to grow up and preparing for the possible civil war that could break out. My parents seemed stressed and anxious every time the villagers would talk about the story. My mother never reads history books to me, in my last life my mother would read all genres of books to me because she believed it would help me be more well-rounded. Both of them seem to avoid talking or reading about the Empire as much as possible and focus on magic, swordsmanship, alchemy, hunting, trading, management and communication.

They read me a new book every night, and I’m able to draw a vivid mental picture of how I can use them. When I do this, I learn skills that I can utilize when my body is old enough. In this world, people have status windows similar to the ones seen in video games. People see their information and skills and use them the way game characters would, this was apparently gifted to all beings. All skills have levels, the highest you can level up a skill is ten, then it becomes a MAX level skill that you have mastery over or an evolved version of the skill is created that you can continue to level up to ten again. The only real difference is you can learn skills that are locked until you meet a certain requirement or are locked for the safety of your body.

When my parents go to sleep, I explore my capabilities and learn more about my skills. The first time I opened my window was while my mother was reading “Beginning Magic Theory”, the book explained the creation of skills and spells through image, action and possibility. It scared me when I was just thinking of status in my mind and the screen just appearing with my stats and skills. For some, feeling like a game character is a dream come true, but it made me feel fake. I was freaking out so much, my mother was concerned, I was wide-eyed, and my head was bobbing all over the place. I drooled all over myself since my mouth was open and my hands were just hitting the screen, I hate being a baby.

Through finding the status window, I realized my mother couldn’t see it, so I felt safe experimenting with it. Using the knowledge my mother read to me, I would try to create new skills and spells. Skills varied from those that create magic, spells, those that help with physical skills, like alchemy or hunting, and special technical skills that are connected to life experience, like communication or management. Creating spells, like flying, you have to have knowledge of gravity and mass. Science goes into magic a lot more than I thought. Another thing I found interesting is how ancient magic spells use geometric shapes, this is especially true for light and dark magic. You can either draw the shapes in the air or in your mind, and then cast powerful magic.

My status window had the following: my name, age, title(s), level, HP, MP, EXP, strength, defense, dexterity, agility, stamina, intelligence, luck, points, skills. My level is one, my HP is 50 and MP is 200. The MP seems very high, I wonder what the reason is. My title’s include: one blessed by the Goddess, Lucifer’s descendant, child of historical figures and reader. Wait, what does the child of historical figures mean? Does this mean my parents did something important in history? Maybe I’m overreacting, it’s probably just a contribution to the town that is in the town’s history. The reader title is probably from my parents reading me so many books, right? The things I’m curious about are the blessing and descendant titles. The blessing means I can use light magic, but why am I blessed by the goddess? Does it have to do with my parents being historical figures for the town? There is also Lucifer’s descendant, does this mean I have a connection to the Mortem Duchy, they are the main descendants of Lucifer. This is a blood connection, maybe I’ve been cursed with Lucifer’s blood by Lucifer? That doesn’t seem plausible because I have the Goddesses blessing. The blood connection is probably from an ancestor that had a child with a member of the Mortem Duchy. My parents are normal people, and we live in the west of the Empire, while the Mortem Duchy resides in the North. That connection is probably small. Each title gives me a buff, the Goddesses blessing makes light magic 10% more effective, while Lucifer’s descendant makes dark magic 10% more effective. The child of historical figures gives all stats a 10% increase, and allows me to inherit skills from my parents. The reader title helps me understand the books I read immediately, but the second part of the description is locked.

Moving on, it seems that all of my points are at two, except intelligence and luck, which have 20 already. I had ten unused points that I could apply to anything I wanted. I can infer that intelligence is connected to magic and MP, like in games. Stamina is probably connected to HP, and leveling up probably helps all my stats. I’m not surprised by my low stats because I’m still a four-month-old baby. I’ll save my points for when I might really need them.

Finally, looking at my skills, I have the following: Blessings, Charm, Balance, Steal, Shadows, Manipulation, Clairvoyance, Combination, Translator, Summon, Connection, Enchanting Eyes, Weapon User, Alchemy, Hunter, Chain Control, Heal, Third Eye. Just by the names of these skills, I already feel my future becoming grim. All of my skills are locked, except Charm, Third Eye, Translator, Heal, and Blessings. Charm allows me to use my beauty to put someone in a trance to give me what I want. This reminds me of a game I played as a kid, with the little animals that were caught in balls. What was it called again? Anyway, I feel like those little animals because the smaller animals would have the skill charm. This doesn’t make me feel better about my skills. Third Eye allows me to visualize vivid images and situations and act them out in a simulation in my mind. Translator helps me understand different languages and is the most likely reason I can understand this world’s language. Healing allows me to heal my or someone else’s HP, while blessing allows me to power up all stats to myself or someone else by praying to the Goddess. Each of these skills is at level one, except Third Eye, which is at level three.

I’m already adept at using Third Eye, subconsciously, while my mother is reading stories to me. I can’t use Charm because I have to voice commands, and as of right now I can barely make syllables without spitting. Blessing seems like the next best skill to try, I put my tiny hands together and close my eyes. In my mind, I pray, “Dear Goddess Esperanza, let you light bless those in the darkness to give them strength to fight the evils of this world.”

As I pray, a light shines around me and is cast around my parents. Once the blessing is complete, I open my eyes to find my parents fully awake and panicking. “What was that? Vivian, did you use magic right now?”

“No, I didn’t, and that’s the problem! Who cast the magic, it’s the middle of the night. Could this be a signal of an attack or a sign of some sort?” My mother got up as she spoke to walk towards my crib. “Vivian, calm down, I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for this. We are far from the Capital, the Empress hasn’t sent us any messages.”

My father comes to hold my mother as she looks panicked, rocking my crib back and forth. Did he just say the Empress? Why would the Empress contact them, and why would anyone attack my parents? “I’m sorry Edwin, it’s just I can’t go back, we built a life here for ourselves, for us and for Violet. That chapter of our lives should be over. Why is something like this happening right now? After a year and a half of being gone, why are they pulling us back into this war, when the last one left such a mark on me, when time is so fleeting. Can’t we just live in peace until the end.”

“Vivian, it’s going to be okay. I won't let them drag us back in, and we will live peaceful lives for the rest of the time we have together. We will also prepare Violet for this.” My father gave my mother a kiss on the forehead and smiled at me in reassurance. I’m still very confused, but I need to calm her down. In my mind, I pray again with my hands together and my eyes closed, “Dear Goddess Esperanza, let you light bless those in the darkness to give them strength to fight the evils of this world.”

As the light flashes around us, I open my eyes to find both my parents in shock, staring at me. I try to play it off with bubbly laughter and moving my arms and legs around to distract from the spell. My mother starts to laugh hysterically, she falls to the floor and the laughs turn to cries. My father followed her to the floor, “It’s okay, we aren’t at war anymore, we just have a curious child who’s been blessed by the Goddess. Isn’t this great news, she is being protected by the Goddess.”

My father holding my mother, who is in a fetal position on the floor in his arms. I just watch the scene unfold, unable to do anything.