Futari De Hitori No Fuguu Hime-tachi Ha Jiyuu Ni Ikitai~ Isekai Tensei O Shitara, Bishoujo No Nake De, Utahime O Suru Kotoninarimashita~ Chapter 3

From the first time I saw the man, a few day's has pa.s.sed— I think.

After all, I can't see outside from in the cell, I don't need sleep and all the baby seems to do is sleep, so it's hard for me to keep track of time.

Ever since then, the man regularly appears, cuts a part of the baby's body and pours some liquid it.

It's a nauseating sight to see but it looks like that fluid serves as a replacement to this child's meal.

That's because even though he haven't fed us anything, the child hasn't shown any signs of weakening. That's why even if I could stop him, I can't.

Other than the man, I haven't seen any other people and he most likely only comes once a day for feeding time. So then what about all the dirt and sweat? Well, it seems like the white cloth just automatically cleans it.

I've seen the wound being healed so I knew it, but it seems that magic exists in this world.

That's also firm proof that this place is somewhere different from Earth.

It's not like I got absolutely no lingering attachment to Earth, but as someone who is already dead, it's not really something for me to cling on. And even before this, it's not something I should be shaken about.

I've vaguely wondered if this is the so called another world reincarnation. But seeing my current state, it's more of a teleportation if I had to say.

I don't really understand a lot, but what's clear to me is that this place isn't on Earth.
Other than this, another thing I do know is that this baby is a girl.

The places where the man had cut isn't limited to the arms, at worst he even cut her stomach from top to bottom. That time, he needed to take the cloth off and of course there wasn't a thing hanging.

Well, our senses are linked together so I did have a hunch.

Now then, in this situation, the question is how do I protect this girl? I think that learning to use magic is my best option.

Rather, the only thing I can do now is finding out if I can use magic.

After all, even if I borrow her body, the limbs can barely even move and it's not like we have any weapons to use.

If you ask me, by the process of elimination the only thing I can probably do in this infant body is magic.

Besides, since the man has been using healing magic on me everyday, I've got a grasps on that something — I'll just call  it magic power — that's needed to use magic.

Just the fact that I'm not starting from scratch makes me think I can manage somehow.

Still, I need a body to use magic. From what I felt from seeing the man work, circulating the magic power in the body and then doing something about it is how magic works.

Borrowing the girl's body is my only option but I've already confirmed that I can't take control while she's awake.

That's why I've decided to act while she's asleep.

First of all, I try to borrow her body. No problems here. It's chained to the bed, so I can't really move much but the body moves to my will.

Next, to circulate magic power through the body, I attempt to sense magic power.

It's hard to describe but it feels like something nice and warm gently flowing through my body.

Maybe it was because the man uses magic to force the liquid through the veins in feeding time, but this step was surprisingly easy.

Then, I attempt to move it intentionally. I try gathering it to the hands and feet and then make it move fast through the whole body.

So to not injure her body, I do stop immediately when something feels strange. Still, since the man practically taught me how to do it on a regular basis, I can do this easily.

However, there are some problems.

One, maybe it's just the age but, compared to that man, my magic power is tiny. Rather, if you imagine mine as a cup of water, then his would be a 25 meter pool or so. It's that much different.

Well, it's better than nothing, so it'll depend on how I use it. But when talking about the sheer amount, we definitely can't win.

Next, I have absolutely no idea on how to do magic.

One thing that comes to mind is that something he whispers before using healing magic. If that was some sort of spell chant, then the chances of being able to protect this child with magic is slim. However, when he forced the liquid from the flask into the veins, he didn't do any kind of chanting.

For that reason, I think that there may be spells that don't need chanting. But if they do need magic circles or the like, there's nothing I can do about it.

Another thing is what magic is the best for me to learn.

Thinking on a purely emotional level, I want a magic that can harm that man — enough to kill him dead. I may need that kind of magic in the future, but I don't need it right now.

I have nothing but anger for that man, but it's because he is taking care of her now that this child continues to live.

In short, if I kill the man and stop getting “food”, this child wouldn't last three days. As you'd expect, that can't happen.

Well, then what magic would be best? First, a barrier-like magic to protect her from external threats. Another would be a magic to sense any surrounding threat beforehand. Another would be healing magic, just in case she ever gets hurt.

And lastly, to make sure that the use of these magics would hidden to others, some sort of concealment magic.

If magic can do just about anything, I would've considered things like magic that can teleport her to escape, magic that can provide her nutrition, or magic that can brainwash the man. But I just can't imagine those happening.

While I figured out that chants probably are necessary, I skipped some steps and attempted to use chant-less magic so I decided that it's best that I don't try anything that I feels impossible to achieve.

On the opposite side of things, the ones that I did enumerate are — healing in particular is something I actually experienced myself — those that I somewhat feel possible to do. Well to be honest, I just think it's better to just try anything I can than to just idle think about stuff.

First of all, to a.s.ses the surroundings, a detection magic. After all, it would be useful when we escape and if I know beforehand when the man would visit, we could avoid bringing unneeded suspicion. As how to do it, I have a few ideas.

First I'll try to detect by emitting a ripple of magic power in the shape of a sphere. To test it I circulate my magic power and release it from my body indiscriminately.

As soon as I felt something escaping my body, a thin film like something suddenly spread out.

And when it hit the prison walls, it vanished.

I did slightly notice that something hit it, but to be honest it's not useful. Well, that's probably just how things are the first time around. Rather, just having some kind of result is plenty enough.

Only problem is that, just now, this child ran out of magic power. Unexpectedly, I don't feel tired or anything.

Does this mean that I actually need to start by increasing her magic power? In the first place, do you recover used magic power? Thinking about these, I decided to return her body for today.

Then next day — I guess? — it seems that my worry was unfounded and her magic power fully recovered.

In a lot of fantasy works, magic power or Mana or so recovers overnight but I didn't have any a.s.surance that it would be the same in reality, so that's a relief.

But the thing is, the total amount of magic power didn't increase. Like this, I can barely do anything I want.

For that reason, this time I'll need to think of how to increase magic power somehow.

Being that it did recover, that means that magic power comes from somewhere. So if I know it's source, then there should be something I can figure out.

Following the magic power flowing through the body, I found the only thin trace unaffected by everything circulating all around.

It's roughly near the heart and the magic power stored in it is a lot more that the amount flowing through the body.

However, I tried to draw some magic power like how I moved the circulating flow but it's now going too well.

The answer is just in front of me, just within my grasp. Yet I can't reach it. That fact just increasingly vexes me. So, while I focused on following the flow of magic power, I separate myself from the baby's body.

As a change of pace, I thinking about flying about in this ever unchanging prison cell when I noticed that a thin cord-like something made of magic power was also connected to me.

It feels similar to the flow connected near the heart I saw earlier, but what is this?

Just to test it, I tried pouring magic power to the part where it's connected and it flowed into the body with practically no resistance.

At the same time, a slight feeling of emptiness suddenly hit me.

The magic power that flowed in was easy to control.

I attempted to spread that magic power like I did yesterday and as a result I understand the room's structure much better than I did before.

The part where it couldn't pa.s.s through the wall stayed the same but after echoing it kept it's shape.

It became a lot more useful and, at the same time, I now somehow constructed a few theories about magic power.

Magic power is stored in the soul — -like thing, at least. And using magic power other than yours is worse in efficiency.

The reason why I ran out of magic power after one use yesterday was probably due to that magic power not being my own.

And while I'm probably the only person who can test this, you can still use magic even when the soul is separated from the body. However, the farther you are from your body, the lesser the magics effect.

I don't know if this sounds right but, the further you are the more it feels like when you stretch your arms just as far and do some precision work.

On the other hand, the fact that I can still use magic to some extent even when separated is good news. This means that I should be able to circulate my own magic power, use magic, and protect her even when she's awake.

While looking at the baby from the side, I got a bit too excited and repeatedly used detection when I suddenly felt dizzy.

Yup. It seems like when you use too much magic power, regardless of the lack of a body, you just shut down.

And as I calmly though so, I slowly drown to the darkness.

It's been a long time since I did something that felt like sleeping.

Since I've got a lot of spare time not sleeping, it's good to know that I can sleep. But the fact that I need to exhaust my magic power to do so is something I'd like to fix.

More importantly, I've practiced magic since then and I somehow managed to give it shape.

For detection magic, rather than releasing magic power like an echo, I formed the thin magic power into a three dimensional mesh and spread it in the surrounding area. While for the the barrier magic, on top of also making the magic power thin enough for it to seemingly melt into the air, it only barely extends from her body and can expand to about half a meter radius, while still being somewhat strong… I think.

Particularly, I can't run endurance tests on the barrier magic, so I don't know close it is to my imagination.

Anyway, the reason for all the thinness is that it's also meant to conceal them, but I don't actually know if it's practical or not, so I'll need to test it on the man someday.

As for why I'm putting effort on the concealment, it's because I don't want that man to know I can use magic.

If by any chance I gain his attention, I don't know what he'll try to do.

For now, healing magic is on hold. Unlike barrier and detection, which just use magic power as it is, it seems that I need to change the property of the magic power to something else or it won't work. And above all, this child doesn't get hurt outside of feeding time, so I can't really experiment.

At worst, I need to consider putting more effort on barrier and detection even if I need to abandon healing magic.

The goal, to be the s.h.i.+eld protecting her from every possible attack and to be the eyes and ears that preemptively sense all with ill intent.

It may seem over-the-top, but if I don't set my goals this high, I don't think I can keep my spirit high.

Still, there is some solace these days. While working on my magic research, when I hum to myself some songs from j.a.pan, the baby giggled and laughed.

Until then, she never even smiled and when I stop singing, she seemed really disgruntled, so I'd like to think that she liked my song.

From them on, I began singing everyday and before I noticed, she started moving her body to the beat of my song.

Obviously, she could barely even move. But her smile and seeing her move her body to the beat of my song was salvation in this empty world.

Heya! I've run out of Snake jokes, so that's that.

Anyway, I'm back for now! For now, I'll be doing this series for a while. I'll be continuing Succubus and the other one next week or so. For the meantime, I'll just be focusing on getting back to weekly, so after the upcoming chapters in this series, I'll be back to weekly slow time.

Anyway, until I finish Succubus, PunishedLyly is me! As usual, please feel free to comment any typos, constructive criticism, nonconstructive criticism if you're feeling spicy, general opinions, theory crafting even, edit fixes needed and any suggestions. Thank you for waiting and see you soon.

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