Why did I reincarnate before the plot?!

Chapter One

It had only been a few months since I was reborn and I was already bored as hell. There was absolutely nothing to do as a baby! Well, except for laughing out loud at the blunders of the stupid nanny that had to take care of me.

As far as I understood, it seemed my family wasn't poor but also not that wealthy. They were more like a middle class. But they were busy none the less, the reason I had a nanny to begin with. And this nanny, or Claire, didn't seem to be good at her job. She didn't know how to properly hold a baby or feed one and it's utterly devastating. Please don't hold a baby at the arms! It hurts alright! The clumsy part aside, Claire was a really good cook. At least I knew her food smelled delicious. Because I couldn't taste it, I was still a milk drinker of course.

Apart from that, I had another way to not feel that bored. It was magic. In the Otome Game, there was a special magic system and it was thought out very well. When I read the description of the game online, they explained it in a very long paragraph. It was like a combination of the Chinese Qi system and the modern RPG.

Before being able to even know what sort of magic you had, you would meditate to somehow pull magic inside of you. A bit like breathing, but it didn't go that easily. Well, it seemed more like how Qi works.

When you had accumulated enough magic, you could start feeling it slightly. The description of the game said 'Like how you sometimes feel the blood flowing and pulsing, the magic feels as if it rushes through newly formed veins'. How that would be possible, I didn't know. But it sounded amazingly scientific for a fantasy genre.

If I remembered it well, kids at the age of ten to fifteen started to feel it. Because they couldn't grasp the right way to meditate before that age. That made me think, could I meditate at an earlier age and become an amazing mage? So I tried it, but I guess it was too early. I couldn't even sit up to meditate. But even so, as I had nothing else to do anyway, I meditated while lying down and not sleeping. Well, I slept a lot. But probably not as much as a normal baby did. Is that unhealthy? I hope not.

Going on, after someone started feeling the magic, they would take a test that was provided by their kingdom or an academy. The kingdom only provided tests for the noble houses. The academies did it for children of ex-students or if they seemed promising, which happened when they manifested magic for others to see.

This happened with the heroine in the game. She manifested her magic when she was fourteen years old. She was at the street and healed a wounded person, who otherwise would bleed to death. Her magic wasn't strong or anything, but she managed to close off enough of the wound to make it so he didn't die. Obviously, the people on the street saw it and reported it to some officers, who informed the closest academy.

But the start of the game was only after the heroine started her studies at that academy. Which was at the beginning of the year after, when she was already fifteen years old. This was already late for someone to start magic studies and that made her stand out, which of course got the attention of the capture targets. But that was another story which wasn't told in the description to not give spoilers.

Back to the present, I was lost in my thoughts and Claire had come inside the room. Talking about the room, it was just a normal baby room I guess. It had sky blue walls and a white ceiling.  Some simple furniture stood against the walls and the crib, I was laying in most of the time, stood in the middle of the room. Claire walked towards me and made some weird noises, probably to coax me like always. I gave her my usual look, which was a 'what the hell are you doing' look. But she didn't seem to understand my meaning though. As she just smiled brightly at me and clapped in her hands as if I was retarded and did something well. Idiot.

After she had given me my meal and tried to talk with me by using incoherent noises, I finally was left alone again. I started to meditate by closing my eyes and trying to feel my environment. Sigh. It seemed it was not working again. But I still tried it anyway.

This went on for a few years and finally, it was my third birthday. Like the previous ones, my mother baked the cake and my father put the candles on top of it. Speaking about my parents, they looked Asian. In my past life, I was half British and half Japanese. But this life, it seemed both my parents were Japanese. From the way their names sounded, I assumed so. My mother's name was Nozomi and my father's name was Haku. They both called me Haru-chan, but Claire called me 'little miss Haruka'. So I assumed my name was Haruka and my nickname was Haru. As for my surname, I still had to find out.

"Happy birthday sweetie!", mother said. Father hugged me and exclaimed "Best wishes, Haru-chi!" before I could say anything. I smiled and pulled mother into the hug "Thank you, mommy and daddy!" Ahh, such a sweet life! I missed this so much. My parents in my previous life often went to Japan for work or family visits and I couldn't go with them because I went to college.

I looked at Claire, who already said 'happy birthday' when I woke up and smiled widely at her. She smiled sweetly back. What a lovely family I have.

A few months later I finally could feel magic. It happened while I was meditating. It felt like a substance, lighter than water or blood but heavier than air, filled my body. But it didn't feel like it went through my cells, more like there were veins specially made for this.

At first, it felt uncomfortable but then, after a few minutes, it had started to feel like it has always been there. Rushing through my meridians, or how Qi was described. The game didn't say it was meridians, but I just called it that. I waited some time for it to calm down and then I tried to feel the magic inside me. As I felt it circulating slowly through my body, I slightly pushed it with my mind. It was like how it felt to look around you with your eyes except it was something inside your body. It was like the meridians had muscles which were regulated the same as the ones you could move, so not like the muscles of the intestines.

As I started to sweat and get tired, it seemed I couldn't hold this on for too long. I was just gonna try to do this in bits and maybe by practising I would be able to do this longer. While falling asleep, I seemed to hear the door getting opened but I couldn't get awake enough to look.

Image: Haruka (age three)