World Teacher

Chapter 3-1

Maybe she was showing the other girl how to do it? After feeding me a couple of spoonfuls, she handed the food over to the girl and left the room. The girl smiled from ear to ear, which made me notice something strange. Why did she have cat ears?

She was a cute girl, with her red hair tied up in a ponytail. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about the cat ears on her head. There were a lot of younger kids in my day who liked cosplaying as various characters, but these were different. The ears moved just like the real thing.

As I lay there, confused, the girl brought the spoon to my mouth. I had a lot of questions about the whole situation, but hunger still came first, so I complied and opened my mouth wide.

“@@@@!”

For some reason, the girl practically trembled with joy each time I ate. Once I had finished, she just stood there gazing at me. Maybe she was one of those girls who just couldn’t look away when faced with something cute. Then again, I hadn’t seen myself in the mirror or anything, so I couldn’t attest to whether I was cute or not.

Were those ears actually real? To find out, I tried reaching out to touch them, but the girl smiled brightly and caught my hands in hers. This went on for a while until she finally seemed to get what I was trying to grab and leaned down. Just as I thought. After touching her fluffy ears for a bit, I could tell that they were definitely real. Not only that—when I looked down, I also spotted a tail. Was she really human?

“@@! @@ @@@@.”

As I was reeling over the fact that I’d just seen a girl with real animal features, her expression changed. She looked like she’d just had a great idea. She closed her eyes, raised her index finger, and muttered something to herself.

“@@@@@@!”

She put emphasis on the final part of whatever she was saying. Suddenly, a small fireball appeared above her finger. Whoa, wait a second. A fireball? It looked too real to be a party trick. How did she manage to get the fire to float in such a perfect sphere?

“@@ @@@!”

Upon realizing my surprise, the girl smiled and started to make the fireball fly around the room. Clearly, this wasn’t merely an illusion. Was she using real magic?

“@@@?”

The blue-haired woman returned, spotted the fireball, and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. The woman had a smile on her face, but the girl started sweating bullets and apologized over and over again. Within a moment, the fireball vanished.

She had real cat ears, a tail, and could make fire out of thin air—all traits thought to be scientifically impossible. Obviously, there was only one explanation for this: I was not in my own world.

※※※

Three months had passed since I realized I was in another world. I had finally grown more stable, so I was able to crawl around on my own. I now spent my days sneaking away from the maids, and crawled around the house in an attempt to gather information. What I learned only helped confirm my suspicions: that this was indeed not my world. Since there was magic and whatnot, it seemed logical to conclude I wasn’t merely in a different country or continent; rather, I was in a completely different reality.

Throughout my life, I had assumed that if I were to go somewhere after death, it would have been hell. Being reborn into another world never crossed my mind. I’d experienced a lot already, but life sure is full of mysteries.

Overall, this world seemed similar to medieval Europe in many ways. There was no electricity, so you’d need candles for light. Since people could use magic to produce fire at will, this didn’t seem to be too big of a problem.

I had just snuck out of my room to investigate further, but I realized it was almost time for dinner. I quickly headed back to bed.

“Time to eat, so open wiiide! I have lots of food for you! Say ‘aaah!’”

I had started understanding more and more of what the maids were saying. They say babies learn fast, but my cat-eared friend here was likely the biggest reason. She was very talkative—almost to an annoying degree. Soon I learned quite a lot, including my own name: Sirius. That’s what they called me. While it felt strange, that’s how I got my new name. I had forgotten my own name from my previous life, so I decided to embrace my new identity.

“Would Sirius happen to be finished yet?”

The blue-haired maid, Erina, came in to check on us. I didn’t know exactly how old she was, but she was definitely an older woman. As you’d expect, her mannerisms were about everything you’d look for in a maid.

“Yes, we just finished. I must say, Sirius has such great manners when eating. I thought feeding a baby would be much harder than this.”

“Sirius is a special child. I am certain he will grow to be no less than a great man.”

Erina was quite the doting parent. At first, I thought she was my mom. Based on the way the two maids talked, though, it seems I was wrong. So a doting “parent” might not be correct, but the loving way she looked at me was definitely motherly.

“Yeah, it’s almost like he understands us. And he’s so cute too!”

The cat-eared maid, Noel, hardly ever took her eyes off me. She appeared to be younger—around 30—and still learning the ropes of the job from Erina. Despite her age, there was still a sense of childishness to her.

“Do you think he’ll call me big sister? Oh, I’d love that so much.”

She was a bit of an i***t, to be honest.

“You can fantasize about that later. There is cleaning to be done.”

“On it!” Noel answered energetically as she burst off.

Erina gently picked me up and left the room. She continued down the hallway, taking me outside for the first time since I was reborn. I didn’t know how the seasons here worked yet, but it was nice and warm. Perfect weather for a pleasant afternoon nap.

“It’s warm today, isn’t it? Let’s go for a little walk.”

Erina slowly walked around the house. This was my first time seeing the place from the outside. It was a beautiful wooden house with three stories. From the looks of things, I’d say it had at least six rooms. That made it a bit bigger than your standard house. The garden was also quite large, with various patches to grow vegetables and other botanicals. The house was surrounded by woods, and I couldn’t see any neighbors nearby. There seemed to be nothing but empty fields and trees beyond the house"s front gate.

As I watched my surroundings, lost in thought, I saw a red rabbit jump out from a nearby thicket.

“Sirius, look. That’s a holabi. It’s quite a timid creature, but it’s still a monster. You should stay away from them.”

So there were monsters in this world. I figured as much after I"d learned that magic exists. In other words, it seemed like you could end up running into something like a dragon if you were unlucky. I decided I’d start training to defend myself as soon as I was able to. Obviously, there wasn’t much I could do in terms of training as a baby. I also needed to be careful about how much growth I displayed. For example, I would start with crawling. After a while, I"d move to walking and, eventually, running.

“Erina.”

“Oh my, did you just finish pruning?”

“Yes.”

Erina turned as someone called out to her from behind. A man holding a pair of gardening shears walked toward us. He had short, brown hair, and an intense stare. Between that and his tall stature, he didn’t seem like the most sociable person. He was the type of person you’d hesitate to call out to when first meeting him.

“These aps seem ripe, so I picked them. I’ll use them for dinner.”

“I see. Noel loves those, so I’m sure she’ll be delighted.”

“Right.”

He didn’t speak much, as if any form of speech was uncomfortable. His expression didn’t change at all during the conversation either. He definitely seemed socially anxious. Erina must have noticed me watching him, because she held me out toward him and introduced us.

“Sirius, this is Dimas, our cook.”

“Erina, he’s a baby. I doubt he understands.”

“That might be, but it’s important for him to start recognizing the master’s helpers. Go ahead and introduce yourself.”

“Okay. You can call me Dii, Sirius.”

“Bii!”

He clearly did not expect me to reply and stared at me in shock. For some reason, I felt like I’d just won something.

“It will be fun watching him grow.”

“Yes, indeed.”

They both looked down at me. Internally, I promised myself that I’d train hard. I also thought about the two mysterious figures who were supposed to be vital to my future—my parents. I hadn’t seen their faces since I was born; not even in a picture. I’d pretended that I hadn’t noticed until now, but I was getting curious. Where and who were they?

I didn’t know my parents in my past life. I couldn’t even remember their faces. I grew up in an orphanage, although it was soon taken away from me when it blew up in a terrorist attack. I was rescued, but my savior had no love for children. He only knew how to train someone, not raise a child. I wanted to grow stronger, though, so I called him my master. He trained me well, although without a shred of love or mercy. I had my master to thank for surviving the harsh world of an agent for as long as I did.

At any rate, I was familiar with the feeling of not knowing my parents. This was nothing new to me. Besides, my mind was that of a 60-year-old man, so I didn’t need parents to raise me. Plus, I was never lonely thanks to Erina and Noel.

※※※

Half a year had passed since I was reborn. Like usual, I continued to sneak away from the maids in order to train. Well, calling it “training” might have been an exaggeration. I was only performing simple stretches that were safe for my young body. I was proceeding as planned. At the pace I was going, I would surely develop unrivaled mental and physical strength. I knew that it was a ridiculous plan, but I hadn’t been the one to come up with it—actually, it came from my old master.

“If only I had found you when you when you were younger. I’d be able to make you into a perfect soldier. Even stronger than me.”

“I doubt I would have survived your training back then.”

“Well, that would have been a good learning experience, no?”

“But I’d be dead...”

He called it the “training program from hell.” I never would have thought I’d actually end up doing it one day. The training program was very harsh, but that was perfect for my goal, so I went with it. Since babies grow so fast, I had fun seeing how much I grew day by day.