Mushoku Tensei: Life and Strife.

The whole family was made aware that Rudeus had learned intermediate magic. Violently. The hole in the study room was way too big to be covered, and water was pouring out through the hole. Zenith seemed happy about all the mess, so I decided that it was a good time to break the news about me also being a silent magic user. It was a matter of time before Roxy came as a magic tutor.

When you think about a powerful mage, the image in your head is of a wise old man with mystical powers like Gandalf or Dumbledore. Except the fine young woman was not old—at least not in appearances, nor did she look wise. I’m not even kidding. Underage. Scornful eyes. Socially awkward. That right there was the trifecta of problems gathered together in her appearance speaks for itself.

“Kid shows signs of growing up a little fast and the damn parents get it into their heads that he’s got a special talent.”

With a brown coat and the usual big witch hat, the short teenage girl at my front stared at us twins, sighing. She had an arrogant expression as if she were forced to do something beneath her station for money, while at the same time she had a demeanor of someone who’s broke. She looked less like a reliable adult and more like a high school student who had just graduated and was now looking for work.

That was Roxy, a water mage of the Saint realm. Considering she was in her 40s and the number of Saint-rank mages are far and few in between, she was without a question a genius.

Roxy sighed. “All right, then. I suppose I’ll just have to do what I can.” She sounded like she’d already decided it was futile… Was this really my tutor? Ah, wait, never mind, it’s not mine, it’s Rudeus. And with him being so head over heels like a lolicon, there wasn’t much to say.

…

I wished I had said something. This woman does not know how to teach. Okay. Let me get this straight: she has strong fundamentals in magic; no complaints there. But she skims through the basics. Every single goddamn time, that woman just goes you know this so let’s skip this, and if you say this then this works. Like, why, exactly, would I need you to teach me if I could just read the damn book and cast it on my own? Should I be grateful for having someone whose voice could lull me into slumber in the midst of morning?

…

So, instead of relying on my beautiful and lovely but useless sister-in-law—I mean, teacher, I decided to push my own limits. Control. How much control do I have over the water ball? How small or big could I make the water ball? And whether I could force control over others?

This was the training built to improve my overall abilities. First is to cast the miniscule amount of mana to create the biggest water ball in the most efficient manner. Second was to telekinetically move them around like a balloon on a string. And thirdly, to increase the total amount of floating water balls at one moment through multicasting.

The plan was to create balls of water that can simultaneously attack, defend, and even negate the opponents’ magic. And all of that came from the bases of all the spells I have learned.

I made a tiny water ball. Then I made it go in a circle. It wasn’t easy. It took a whole lot of concentration just to make the damn thing move around. Eventually I tire myself out by drawing circles.

As time passes, I increase the difficulty. At first it was a circle. Then number eight, after that a spiral, and then shape after shapes, and even made it spin. I made sure the water ball was smaller, eventually the size of a pinky nail. Slowly, I made more and tried multitasking. After all, there’s not much a child could do to cure a man’s boredom.

And every time I ran out of mana, I simply took a few drops of Rudeus’s absurd mana pool and used my willpower to battle against it, eventually refilling and refining my own. Training makes better control over mana, and strong controls mean better refinement skills, leading to quick refills and continuing the cycle. Eventually, my growth rate has exceeded its original speed tremendously.

…

And so, roughly another year passed by. And I learned advanced magic. Cool!

There were a lot of range attacks. Normally, there’s not much use for it, but having control over your environment always helps in a fight. What baffled me, however, is that you still pour out your mana to control said terrain. So how is it that my telekinesis doesn’t work the same way?

In terms of sheer length, I could reach Mom's favorite tree from indoors. Width, however, was another matter entirely. I can concentrate force into one single spot, but making a force field out of a molehill was not something I could accomplish. I could, in a sense, push the area like wind pouring down, but in terms of sheer combat progress, it wasn’t very helpful.

Hah, seriously, life is such a chore. Can’t I just whoosh whoosh and make everything magically work the way I want it to? Whatever the case, range attacks were possible, so advanced telekinesis could be considered as achieved.

Nope, nope. Positive thoughts, Laurel. I have learned telekinesis. Or if you could call it that. Basically, I turn the mana surrounding the item purple and create force using said mana. It sounds weird, but if you say that wet things freeze faster, then it’ll be easier to understand. I think. I don’t really get the full thing either. Honestly, I would have been jumping around in joy after all that effort. If I knew exactly what happened.

On second thought, why am I explaining this in the first place? It’s telekinesis; what else was there to explain about it? I thought as I lay on the flying blanket. Yeah, not much to complain about here.

Well, if I had to complain, then it’s food. It’s always food. If not oats, then oats. Damn medieval Europeans. It wasn’t filled with meat or rich flavors like my Asian home. Still, I wasn’t going to cry about it. I’m just going to eat out of necessity. The bare minimum. I’ll probably wait until I grow older and hunt down monsters for meat… Hm, I wonder what a dragon tastes like.

And so, I stumbled upon my brother’s room. Yes, my younger—ah, no, he was older. Tch, it’s hard to get used to calling a guy like that as older brother. Anyway, my older twin brother’s room. A room filled with figurines. They were, in fact, surprisingly well made. Very well made. I want to learn how to do that. I thought. It made me stare down at my own fingers.

Tiny slender fingers. It was no longer big or rough. They no longer carry the flaws I used to hate anymore. Nor was this life the same one I used to live in. A few spells to help villagers here and there were enough for a living, so money wasn’t even an issue.

Maybe this life was worth something after all.

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