Chapter 4.1. The Trigger Was An Event

I had turned 6 years old. I had become a senior in kindergarten. Of course, I still went to kindergarten, but speaking with toddlers wasn’t very fun. They were cute, but it was challenging to find common ground with them as an adult.

Still, for the sake of my family, I had to pretend to be an ordinary kindergarten kid, so my teacher wouldn’t contact my parents with concerns about my quiet nature.

I played tag with the other kids, flew kites, and built sandcastles while pretending to be a regular kindergartener. However, recently, I have been feeling a bit down.

The reason was that I had no idea how to awaken my mana. I sighed as I sculpted a sandcastle with my hands. Running marathons in the yard or helping around the house hadn’t triggered my mana either. By the way, I did the marathon in the garden.

How could I awaken my mana? In the novel, everyone seems to awaken their mana from the start, including the protagonist. So, there was no description of how to do it. Even if I tried, it was doubtful that a mob character like me would awaken, but I wanted to try that.

I danced, did somersaults, sang songs, and even chanted “Pikin”, but it was all in vain. My efforts only earned a fond smile from my mother as she added the pictures to my album. I was generally a good child, so my mother was pleased, although I couldn’t fathom why.

Lost in thought while patting the sandcastle, I heard a concerned voice.

“Mii-chan, what’s wrong?”

The voice was polite but belonged to a young girl, which was evident from her tone. I lifted my head to see a girl on the other side of the sandcastle.

“Hmm, something bothering you?”

“Yes, normally, Mii-chan, you always get everyone together to make a sand diorama, or we all start a game of tag with lots of oni prepared, and you play with so much enthusiasm. But recently, you only made sandcastles with me.”

Since I was pretending to be an ordinary kindergartener, I would always act enthusiastic while playing.

“Yeah, I’ve been feeling down lately. I have a problem. but I don’t know how to solve it.”

With a gloomy expression, I honestly answered my friend. Was that so unusual? It was a matter that could change one’s life, so there was no helping it.

“What’s troubling you? Is it because there are not enough snacks, or do you want to play more?”

“Nah, it’s a secret.”

To divert the conversation, I showed her a gentle smile and resumed working on the sandcastle. My friend looked at me with a worried expression, but the kind of problem that came to mind for a kindergarten kid wasn’t this.

She stared at me, so I smiled again to distract her. The friend I was building a sandcastle with was Teijou Yamiyo-chan.

That was an incredibly unusual name. I didn’t have any biases against names, but I was just a mob character who had ended up in a novel world. I suspected that wasn’t a real person’s name, because she has a cool-sounding name.

However, in this novel world, even mob characters seem to get cool names, making it difficult to judge.

Teijou Yamiyo-chan appeared to be a cute and potentially beautiful young girl.

She had glossy black hair that seemed as if it were wet, tied into pigtails, and beautiful eyes that resembled black diamonds. Her facial features, although young, hinted at a future as a graceful beauty. She spoke in a polite, ladylike manner, and from what I had heard before, she was the eldest daughter of the Teijou Marquisate.

She had a combination of attributes that suggested she might be one of the heroines who would serve the protagonist, but that wasn’t the case. A young, polite, black-haired, black-eyed beauty like her didn’t appear in the Night of Magic, or at least I didn’t remember her name, but I remembered the faces of the beautiful girls in the Night of Magic.

I’m not very good at remembering names, especially those of anime or novel characters I don’t need to remember for my work. However, I do remember the faces of cute characters.

If Yamiyo-chan were to transform into a blonde, blue-eyed, drill-haired lady, I might have a character in mind, but I vaguely remembered that the girl didn’t have a Japanese name.

Her name was something or other… something unpronounceable. Yeah, I don’t remember. Either way, it probably wasn’t a character from the novel. Maybe she appeared in a spin-off, but I had grown tired of the main story. I hadn’t even watched the spin-offs. If it had been adapted into an anime, I might have remembered it.

Anyway, I decided not to worry about character overlap because, in this kindergarten, there were quite a few girls who spoke similarly. It seemed like a place for well-off families. Maybe my family was reasonably well-off after all.

They use the title of Marquis in this world because this Japan is known as the Japanese Magic Empire, and it’s ruled by an Emperor, not a God-King (Emperor). Democracy exists only up to the House of Representatives, and the House of Councillors has been renamed the House of Nobles, where prestigious nobles have control.

Yeah, it’s a common novel setting. Nobles and such make for easy material in novels, you know? I get it.

Yamiyo-chan, with a cute tilt of her head, stared at me, realizing that I was trying to divert the conversation. Even children are sensitive to these things.

“It’s okay. More importantly, isn’t it about time for lunch?”

“Yes, Mii-chan’s lunchtime alarm is always precise.”

She pouted a bit, puffing up her cheeks, showing some discontent, but she still went along with the change in conversation. She was a good kid.

“I’ll clean up, and then we can go. Yamiyo-chan, make sure to wash your hands.”

“Understood. Then I’ll go ahead.”