Chapter 4: Chapter 4: In which I added to my dark history

It's now the middle of winter, or 'xopvis' as they called it here. I'm two seasons old. I can crawl! I can... well, maybe talk is pushing it a bit, but I can kinda make intelligible noises. Mum has really taken to her teacher persona and dad has been adding his own efforts where possible, and as a result I've gotten a far better understanding of the local language and the world I'm living in.

The second most important thing from the past season is that I found out why my parents aren't completely freaked. Apparently there are traits like [Intelligent] and [Genius] that give large intelligence boosts. Even with that I still think they're being very over trusting, but I'm not going to argue given that I'm the beneficiary here. It also raised the question of whether I should tell them the truth. I decided against it for now; I didn't want to say anything to suggest that I wasn't really 'theirs'. I didn't know how they'd take it, given that a similar thought was what had spooked mum in the first place, and I'd had more than one nightmare about being found out and abandoned. Maybe I was worrying over nothing, but as a baby I was utterly incapable of fending for myself. I could always tell them later, whereas telling them now wasn't something I could undo.

It's not something I've thought about before, but at least their casual blame of traits confirms that the status screen I can see is a world wide thing and not some sort of special power I have from reincarnation. The existence of skills and traits are common knowledge, gifted by something they call the System. Traits apparently are personality based and pop up over the first year of life, after which they are more or less fixed forever.

Except that 'year' is not a perfect translation. Their word for year is the same as they use for something that repeats over a long period. A direct translation might be 'cycle'. This translation quirk extends to all of their units of time. Their smallest unit of time uses the same word used to describe a single move in a game. 'Turn' would be a good literal translation, if not just 'move' itself. The next one up is the same word as used to describe a whole phase of a game. I'd translate that directly as 'round', but it had the same meaning as cricket's 'over' or baseball's 'innings'. Both of those ridiculously game-ish sounding names apparently came from the System, which uses them to measure the length of skill effects. There's no Babylonian influence here and everything is base ten through and through: There are a hundred turns to a round. After that there are a hundred rounds to a bell, named not because of the System but because towns ring a bell once a bell to let everyone know the time. Although I'm assuming 'bell' based on Earth practices. 'Gong' or something else entirely might be more appropriate. I'd have to wait until I saw one. Out here in the sticks knowing the exact time is largely irrelevant and just looking at the position of the sun in the sky is sufficient, so we have no bell to ring.

Then there are ten bells to a day. The word for day is the same as that for something which has completed a single rotation. 'Revolution' would be a good translation. My parents don't know any astronomy, and very little geography, but using a word like that suggests the planet is the traditional shape and does spin, and that if I go for a long walk I'm not going to fall over an edge. Beyond that there are ten revolutions to a week, which seemed to be its own unique word not taken from anywhere, and four hundred and twenty eight revolutions to a cycle, split into four one hundred and seven day seasons. Despite the love of base ten they couldn't do anything about the rotation rate of their planet, resulting in an extra part-week tacked onto the end of each season to make up the extra seven days.

Despite the overlapping terminology, I kept referring to things as seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Thinking in terms of turns and rounds was even more uncomfortable than dealing with ten hours to a day or a hundred seconds to a minute. A day here is approximately the same length as I'm used to, if not a little shorter. With no way of measuring Earth time there was no way to be sure of the exact difference. That resulted in a second being a bit shorter than Earth, a minute a bit longer and an hour being more than double the length. There are more days to a year, but given the slightly shorter days it would partially balance out. I thought I could double check the difference from lifespans, but levels, traits and skills apparently mess with it so much that a 'normal' human lifespan can range from sixty years to a couple of hundred. Not to mention there's no reason for a 'human' here to be biologically identical to an Earth human even without the System.

Money follows the usual fantasy trope of copper, silver, gold and platinum coins. Each step up is worth a hundred times the previous, but there are also large versions of each coin worth ten times the regular version. I've seen a large copper coin and it's not anything close to ten times the weight of a small one, so value can't be based on the actual metal contents. In that case I have no idea what prevents something like melting down a few small copper coins and smelting them into a single large one. I tried to ask, but I wasn't able to successfully explain the concept of counterfeiting. Maybe there's magical watermarks. It doesn't sound like there's a single gold coin in our village, so we do appear to be on the poorer side of things, not that anyone seems to mind.

Weight, volume and distance all use the same word for their measurement, and it would translate literally as 'unit', something which I foresee causing great confusion in the future. Again these are all System defined. There's no differentiation between weight and mass. I've not seen any sign of advanced science here, so I guess no-one has done the experiment of weighing something at the bottom and top of a tall mountain. Or maybe gravity just doesn't work the same way here, and the experiment shows them weighing exactly the same.

All this learning granted me a couple of soul points via [Curious], as well as a level up. Aside from granting another soul point the level up didn't appear to do anything. I haven't had the levelling process explained to me yet, so not sure what's going on there. I've been loath to start asking about the subject in case details of [Abnormal Soul] come out. And alas, despite having soul points I've not been able to get any skills. Trying just gives the same message each time.

Unable to access soul point store due to soul being in flux.

I'm really hoping that this is related to the first year of life thing, and that once I've collected my final set of traits the store will open up. On the other hand, if it's a side effect of [Abnormal Soul] I'm going to be angry. And stuck. The only other System gain I've made is another point to each of my physical stats, courtesy of all the exercise I've been doing. Health and stamina caps are based on endurance plus five, while mana is intelligence plus five, so now I have a little more stamina. I'm still sleeping a lot, but I'm only a half-year old baby. I'm doing well!

And talking about doing well, the first most important thing from the past season is that I've been able to eat some solid foods. My breastfeeding phase will soon be consigned to my dark history, never to be spoken of again! Alas I've not been permitted to use the toilet yet. Until I can stand, crawling around the bathroom has been deemed unhygienic so I'm still suffering the indignity of nappies. Oh, and there is thankfully no slime wriggling in the toilet. It's another magic stone that breaks down waste. And everything else, apparently, needing to be mounted on some sort of special platform to avoid decomposing its way through the floor. It actually sounds far more dangerous than a slime would be, but has the advantage that I'm not going to worry about it jumping out of the toilet and up my bum while I'm sitting on it. Also it's apparently quite slow acting, so it's not as if your hand would dissolve instantly if you dipped it in.

Today mum has been putting extra effort into cooking. Not for us, but for Clana. What goes around comes around and just like the village helped out mum when she became a new mother, now it's our turn to help out. Well, I say 'our', but obviously I'm not going to do anything other than look adorable. I do at least get to come along for the ride. This is the first time I get to leave the house in a while, wrapped up in so many layers of furry blanket that I look like I've been eaten by a giant tribble.

Clana's husband is called Camus, and it's him that opens the door. Unlike Clana's neon ginger, his hair is pitch black. He's also catkin, but at over two metres tall, heavily muscled and with a long scar running from his hairline to his chin he has lost any qualifications to be called cute, despite the best efforts of his black furred ears and tail. Unlike Clana, he has fuzzy fur running over his hands and up his arms. Maybe his feet are the same, but I've never seen him without his long trousers and boots. The pair of them are in their late twenties, quite a lot older than my own parents. Wonder why they waited so long before having a kid?

"Good afternoon Camus. Managing to survive over here?"

"Just barely. I wish our Cluma was as well behaved as yours. Afternoon Lucy, Peter."

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I did my best to wave, managing to shift the pile of blankets by the smallest fraction. So their little one was Cluma? Did all catkin have two syllable names starting with C, or were this family just particularly unimaginative? Mum stepped indoors with me. I've never been inside their house before, but it turned out to be pretty much the same as ours. The layout and even most of the furniture is identical. They don't have all the spools of thread and half finished garments laying around that we do, but they do have a few potted plants growing next to the window and their worktop space was larger.

Clana was sitting in a chair away from the sunlight, carrying the sleeping Cluma in her arms. Cluma was wrapped in a blanket with only her head on display. She had a full head of short, dark orange hair that extended up the backs of her cat-like ears. The front side of her ears were brighter, closer to Clana's hair colour. Aside from the ears the rest of her that was visible looked human, complete with the wrinkly face of a newborn. Not cute yet, but she'd get there before too long.

"She looks well behaved at the moment."

"Hah, just you wait till she wakes up."

Mum started laying out dinner. I still hadn't had a chance to sample Clana's cooking, but it certainly beat out mum's in terms of smell. Doesn't that mean that by 'helping' we're actually providing a downgrade here? To be fair Clana did look very tired, so I'm sure she appreciated the extra helping hand. Clana deposited Cluma into a cot, and everyone sat down at the table. I was released from my blanket prison and sat on mums lap. It was only a couple of minutes before Cluma woke up and immediately started screaming.

Both Clana's and Camus' ears instantly drooped in perfect synchronisation. So this was a more normal baby then? I used to cry when I needed to attract attention and I was literally incapable of doing anything else, but I'm pretty sure I never made a noise like that. Yet another reason for why I was such an idiot for believing I was fooling anyone.

"Already? I swear she'd only just fallen asleep."

"It's your turn this time, dear"

"Let me comfort her. Given how much I lucked out with Peter, it's only fair I get some of the proper experience."

I was handed off to Camus. I'd be fine if they just left me on the floor, but I guess that would have been considered bad manners or something. Mum picked up Cluma, checked there was no obvious reason why she was crying, then started making soothing noises to no visible effect whatsoever. If she behaves like this whenever she's awake, it's no wonder that Clana looks so sleep deprived. It took ten minutes to get her back to sleep, before mum could resume eating her now cold food.

We wandered back home following our outing. This village was about 70% human and 30% beastkin, but I'd heard mum talk about elves living in the nearby forest. Maybe I'd get to visit them at some point. Apparently there were lots of other non-human sentient races living in this world too. I looked forward to meeting them all. Humans were boring by comparison. I'd already met more than enough humans in my past life. In fact, it was a fairly common isekai trope that the reincarnated individual would be born as a gender-swapped catgirl or foxgirl or similar. I wouldn't exactly call myself jealous, but I couldn't deny being curious about what it would have been like. Maybe there's such a thing as transformation magic?

ding

Uh oh. With some trepidation I prodded at my past minute of memory trying to come up with some explanation for that notification that didn't involve my weird thoughts about catgirls. There was nothing. Squinting my eyes as if that would offer some sort of protection, I fearfully opened up the message.

New trait acquired: [Xenophilia]
[Xenophilia] - You are attracted to the exotic. Provides 1 bonus point to charisma. (Rank 1)

Drat. Guess I can't be lucky all the time. This time I really did pick up something strange.

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