I couldn’t help but laugh.
Yep, that’s it.
In this damn boring world, I finally found something enjoyable for the first time.
“Oh, ahh! Exus! Exus is smiling! For the first time, for the first…!”
Ignoring my crying mother, I continued with my vocal exercises…
At two years old.
I finally managed to take a few steps.
After force-feeding myself the disgusting baby food until I was about to collapse, I spent my days on muscle training and vocal exercises, and finally managed to walk a little.
And today…
I tried using magic for the first time.
My voice is decent, and I can see things okay.
Ever since I became aware of the shining aura coming from my chest, I’ve been practicing moving it without fail.
This is probably magic power.
I know that by enveloping something with this magic power, its strength increases.
I tried it out on objects, using things around the house, and found that if I flow it into a substance, the substance becomes stronger.
But forget about that for now, it’s magic time!
Here we go…!
“Pop Fire Mana Ad One Output Front.”
At that moment, light burst in front of me.
Success!
“Ha ha…! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! I did it!!!”
I did it! I did it!
And now, there’s something else I want to try.
I’ll chant again.
“Pop Fire Mana Ad Two Output Front.”
Let’s see how it goes.
The fireball created by the second chant was twice as big as the first one.
“I knew it! Magic spells are like ‘assembly language’!!!”
Before I was reincarnated, I was a programmer.
If you’re a programmer, you’ve probably heard of the term ‘assembly language’.
First… yeah.
You might have heard that computers can only understand sequences of 0s and 1s, right?
People in the science field know that humans can’t understand mere sequences of 0s and 1s, so they created “programming languages” to make it understandable for humans.
And assembly language is a representation of simple opcodes (instructions) using mnemonics (symbols).
From a programming perspective, the incantation of magic in this world looks like this.
Let’s take the earlier magic as an example.
“Pop Fire Mana Ad One Output Front”
In assembly language, “pop” is an instruction to load data.
So, “Pop Fire” would mean extracting a block of data named “Fire”. I have no idea where the data file is, but let’s leave that aside for now.
As for “Mana Ad,” I’m not entirely sure, but “Ad” means addition.
If “Mana” is magic power, then adding one to magic power would mean increasing it by one. But isn’t it too simple? It’s obvious that magic uses magic power, and where are we adding it? In programming, defining the location is crucial.
“Output” refers to output, right? And “Front” indicates a location, perhaps? It’s a stretch, but is it something like “printf”?
Hmm, it’s not exactly 100% like assembly language, and if I were to input this into Earth’s computers, it wouldn’t work at all. Moreover, if I were to display it all in assembly language, it would be ridiculously long. Well, that’s something to figure out later.
So, how about this?
“Pop Water Mana Ad One Output Front”
When I chant this, a blob of water the size of a ping-pong ball is output.
“Pop Soil Mana Ad One Output Front”
Next is a blob of soil.
“Pop Salt Mana Ad One Output Front”
A blob of salt.
Let’s taste the salt.
“…Salty!”
It’s salt.
Real salt!
With just this, I could live!
Oh, wait. That means others can do it too.
I’ve never been outside, so I don’t know, but it seems like the outside world is a place where you can produce anything with magic.
…No, that can’t be it, right?
Our meals are ridiculously bland, and the attire of the people at home is rather shabby.
So, either magic like producing salt isn’t known, or there aren’t enough mages to bother with tasks as trivial as that. It’s one or the other.
First, let’s gather information…
“Mother.”
I approached my mother, who was affectionately stroking her recently enlarged belly with a perfect fake smile plastered on her face.
Despite being an engineer, I have a knack for fake smiles.
Recently, even the people in this household who made such a fuss about me being the “child of a demon” seemed to have completely forgotten about it.
They treat me like a prodigy, smart for my age.
But regardless of being reincarnated or whatever, my only parents are the ones back in Japan.
If this world could provide a better environment than my parents did, I might have some gratitude toward these parents who kept me in poverty during my childhood.
Well, thinking of them as strangers allows for a more business-like relationship, which is rather convenient, and I can convince myself it’s better this way.
“Oh, Exus? What’s wrong?”
Um, well, let’s see.
If I say something too clever, it might weird her out.
How should I approach this…?
Maybe like this?
“Mother, what are you doing?”
“I’m raising the baby in my belly.”
“No, I mean, what do you usually do?”
“Usually? Well… I talk to customers, listen to the people of the land.”
People of the land, huh?
I had a vague sense of it, but are we nobles?
“Who are the people of the land?”
“Well… you see, Exus. Your father is a noble.”
“A noble?”
“Being a noble means protecting everyone.”
“Is Mom a noble too?”
“No, it’s rare for women to become nobles.”
Is it a male-dominated society?
“But if Dad is a noble, isn’t it strange that Mom isn’t a noble?”
I deliberately ask a foolish question.
“It might be complicated, but titles… well, the job of a noble is usually inherited by the eldest son of that noble.”
“So, does that mean I’ll become a noble?”
“Yes, you’ll inherit the Ravane Knight Baronet when you grow up.”
I see, so it’s still primogeniture.
“So, what about my brother? Or if I have a brother or sister, they won’t be nobles?”
Shall I throw in a sharp question?
In reality, they’d be my spares, right…?
How about it?
“…If you have a brother, he’ll assist you with your duties. If you have a sister, she’ll marry into another family.”
So, that’s how it goes.
Of course, you wouldn’t say to a child, “This is your spare.”
