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THE truth was, not much changed in Amy’s home life since she remembered her previous life. The past and present blended together so seamlessly that when the family would reminisce about the past when they were alone, sometimes their old-life mannerisms would slip out.
But Amy was born in this world, and her ten years of lived experience had permeated into every nook and cranny of her being. Even if she tried to change back into the exact person she was before, it would be impossible. The past was, after all, the past. It didn’t hold a candle against the present.
Amy was quite relieved that although her previous life was a part of her, it wasn’t so strong that it blotted out or completely overwrote the person she was now. Even if it had just been ten years, she had been worried she might not even know where she stood if everything she had ever known was replaced by her previous life.
Her parents and brother had told her they had gone down that same road and worked through those same feelings. Amy certainly felt lucky that they’d all reincarnated together. With so many family members with so much experience close by to guide her, she didn’t suffer too much confusion and disorientation other than the initial shock, and she had been able to rather easily reconcile her past with her present.
Although her mental age had increased, her basic nature of being outgoing at home but timid in public hadn’t changed, so she didn’t exhibit any outwardly perceivable changes. Her tastes in dresses and accessories did become a little less childish, but the servants did not seem to be particularly concerned about this, with one whispering, “It may be a little early, but she is getting to be around that age…”
And then there was Amy’s wish to have a pet…
“What?! Learn healing magic? Me?”
“Yes,” her father replied. “We can’t jump the gun and assume you won’t develop allergies in this life. If there’s a way to prevent them, then of course we should do that, but if an allergy attack does happen, then you must know how to treat it.”
Amy’s father had told her that she had to first learn magic if she wanted to have a pet. His argument was that if Amy could perform healing magic, she could deal with allergy symptoms on her own. Not only that, but if she learned purification and protective magic, she might be able to eliminate allergens and prevent any allergy attacks altogether.
“That makes sense… But couldn’t you just make a magical tool that could treat allergies?”
“I specialized in machines, so I’m not too familiar with the medical field. And in any case, the very idea of ‘allergies’ hasn’t even been discovered in this world yet.”
Luducia’s conflicts with its neighboring kingdoms had recently cooled off, so there had been little need of late for rapidly developed, weaponized magical tools. As a result, the total budget allocated for the development of magical tools was only getting smaller and smaller.
“I mean, peace is a good thing, but still…,” the Earl of Northland complained lightheartedly to his wife and daughter. “I understand why the budget favors the Order of Knights and the Order of Magicians over tools. They’re easy to parade around to deter any attacks, and training the right people takes time and effort. We just don’t have the funds right now to research magical tools that combat completely unknown things like allergies. There’s hardly enough money for our department to keep the lights on.”
“They’re being pretty tightfisted, huh…,” her mother quipped to her father, who smirked back.
“Well…I guess it’s better than wasting money,” Amy piped up, not sure what else to say. “But I understand why you’ve given me a condition to meet,” she continued. “I’ll work harder at studying magic. Then I can get a cat, right?”
“Yes. Achieve an overall mastery of healing magic first, and then you may get one pet to start out with. And how I’ll judge if you’ve truly learned healing is… Ah, that’s it! I’ll ask Hal.”
“Harold?!”
“That’s right! He gets hurt all the time exploring dungeons, so I’m sure he’s familiar with what correct healing magic feels like.”
Students had to be in a group before they were allowed to enter forests, dungeons, or other places where magical beasts lived, and at least one of the group members had to know how to use healing magic.
Amy’s older brother, Harold, had never received any serious, life-threatening injuries, but cuts, scratches, and bruises were commonplace during his adventures. He was patched up every time, so he would definitely be the one in the family most used to receiving healing magic.
The following week, when Harold was visiting home from school, Amy let him in on their plan. He laughed and agreed.
“Sounds great! When the time comes and you feel ready, I’ll skip the healing after a hunt and swing home, then.”
“But let someone heal you there if you get really badly hurt! Then when you get home, maybe you can try getting hurt again. Like you could fall down a few stairs, or open a letter aggressively and cut your hand with the letter opener…”
“That’s not exactly easy to do, you know!”
“You can do it, Harold!” cheered his mother, completely untroubled, from the sidelines. The corners of Harold’s mouth twitched at the absurdity of it all.
Amy also let Harold know about her “otome game” theory, but he didn’t have much in the way of a reaction. He never did have any interest in video games made for girls.
Be that as it may, Amy thought about how much trouble would come if he were to follow the game’s trajectory as a result of being made aware of it, so she reconsidered how much she’d tell him.
“You know, on one of the game’s screens, there was a character that looked a lot like you, except he had a scar just there,” she said, tracing her finger over the outer tip of his eyebrow, right next to the corner of his right eye, to just above his cheekbone.
The scar left behind, just a thin echo of a line, contributed a lot to the character’s “adventurer” and “wild playboy” aura.
But Amy suddenly became very worried… If Hal actually did get an injury by his eye like that, he would be at a very real risk of going blind in that eye!
“A scar, huh?” Harold said. “I do sometimes get injuries on my face, but none deep enough yet to leave a scar. If healing magic is applied soon after, it gets all fixed up, you see. They must have left that scar there on purpose, for sure.”
“But why?”
“Hmm… ’Cause it’d look kinda sexy? Girls would like it? Stuff like that.”
“Spoken just like a pubescent boy…” Isabelle sighed. “Can’t you imagine how sad you would make me if you scarred up your face for a stupid reason like that?”
“I’m not gonna do it! I have a girlfriend, you know.”
Harold surprised his mother once again when the girlfriend in question was different from the one they’d heard about before.
The Northland family never stipulated that their children’s marriages had to be political. They essentially encouraged their children to love whoever they wanted, and it was their parents’ long-standing policy that their children would not be forced into an engagement before they turned eighteen.
This attitude was why Harold was allowed to date around so casually (so long as he could accept personal responsibility for the consequences), and why the conversation in her father’s study about the Third Prince’s engagement was such an unusual occurrence for the Northlands.
“I’m not two-timing these girls or anything!” Harold interjected. “But every single time I get told, ‘Sorry, this just isn’t working out.’ It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.”
“Aren’t you constantly out hunting monsters, though?” Amy asked reasonably. “Can’t you see how they’d get fed up with that and just end up calling it quits?”
“H-Hunting monsters is fun!” Harold said, flustered. “Obviously I’d do it as much as I can!”
“…Harold,” came a threatening voice.
As Harold cowed under his mother’s glare, Amy almost felt like she had been transported to her previous life and her brother was getting scolded for staying up too late playing video games and neglecting his homework.
If something Amy had loved that much had become possible to do in real life, she probably would’ve gotten obsessive about it, too.
Not to mention, he had worked quite hard to make his name known as a real adventurer. With the results of all these efforts on the cusp of coming to fruition, Amy could understand where he was coming from.
“I tell these girls that the biggest loves in my life are my two swords, but they still go on about how lonely they are when I’m in dungeons and how I need to spend more time with them… I just can’t win. What am I supposed to do?”
“I bet even on dates you talk to them about the best way to loot monsters, don’t you?” Amy said, smiling.
“What’s wrong with that? Girls like jewels, don’t they?! They should have fun talking about stuff they enjoy!”
It was certainly possible to get jewels from the corpses of magical beasts. But Amy seriously doubted whether there was a single girl alive who would rejoice at hearing a detailed play-by-play of the gory scene of Harold chopping up the monster’s body to retrieve them.
Isabelle laughed. “Well, Harold! It sounds like we need to have a little chat about how to build interpersonal relationships.”
“M-Mom!” he groaned.
The Northland house had always been full of pleasant conversation, even before Amy had remembered her previous life. But now they were even more unreserved, like some invisible barrier between them had been torn down. Amy was happy—it was more fun this way.
Speaking on behalf of his long line of ex-girlfriends, Isabelle gave Harold sharp but honest advice as he kneeled in repentance on the floor. When all was said and done, he looked very happy to go back to school.