chapter 4
4: A New Land, New Enemies
When I was able to take a few steps from standing, I was entrusted to a facility called the “nursery.”
There, along with me, several infants, toddlers, and young children were held captive, and there were “childcare workers” who acted as guards and constantly watched over us.
Those childcare workers must be experts in monitoring infants and young children.
Somehow, it feels like their reactions when I cry are more sensitive than those of my mom and dad.
Mom left me at the nursery and went to work (Dad too).
I’m only one year old, but apparently, in this world, the caregivers change around that age.
However, this is also an opportunity.
There are two childcare workers. In contrast, there are a total of twenty infants and toddlers in the same classroom.
It’s a system where each person has to monitor ten others—there must be an opportunity for a gap to appear.
I’ll seize that gap and train in magic.
That’s what I had decided…
“Rex-kun, let’s play!”
It turns out that it’s not just the childcare workers who are monitoring me!
It’s a little girl!
She’s one or two years older than me, walking on two legs, and she’s about twice my size.
Her words are clear, and she has strong legs that won’t stumble even if she runs around, so she constantly bothers me.
Probably because she’s been brainwashed, she’s monitoring me based on the instructions of the childcare workers.
Looking around, it seems that all the one-year-old infants have their own “assigned” person, and I can see three-year-olds accompanying them one-on-one.
Babuu. I groaned in frustration.
I want to somehow shake off this blonde-haired little girl. But she’s faster than me.
I can barely manage to walk on two legs, but after five steps, I’ll stumble.
Moreover, the blonde-haired little girl won’t let go of me, clinging firmly to me at meal times and even when I need to use the toilet. In fact, she takes care of my meals and toilet needs.
This must be the policy of this childcare facility—letting children take care of each other while the caregivers oversee everything and act when necessary. It’s a clever system. Infuriatingly clever.
To vent my despair, I threw away a toy building block.
The little girl in charge of me promptly picked it up and handed it back to me. Thanks, little girl.
I pondered while gnawing on the corner of the worn building block.
“Can’t eat that,” Anna, the older girl (the little girl monitoring me), said.
I haven’t eaten it. I’m just touching it with my lips. The little girl doesn’t seem to understand the difference between ‘eating’ and ‘touching with lips’.
Sigh. I groaned. I can’t even speak a single word, so I can’t explain. The first word I spoke was, of course, ‘mom’.
Unless I somehow outsmart the little girl, I can’t even practice magic properly…
But I can’t even say ‘leave me alone’.
Because I can’t speak more than two words in a row.
Also, I can say ‘alone’, but ‘leave me’ turns into ‘leaveme’. It doesn’t make sense like this.
Oh no… I give up. I rubbed the building block against my emerging front teeth. Anna scolded me and took the building block. I cried. Give me back my building block!
A caregiver came over in response to my crying.
Oh no! But I’m a one-year-old who can turn a pinch into an opportunity. I’ll get replaced as the caregiver and secure some alone time by pushing Anna onto the caregiver.
I loudly complained to the caregiver about Anna’s tyranny.
Waah! Ogyaa! Gyaa! Uwaa!
“What’s wrong?”
It’s frustrating not being able to speak properly.
My passionate demand to replace Anna was all converted into crying.
But it seemed my passion got through, as the caregiver’s gaze turned to Anna.
I also looked in that direction.
The little girl Anna looked like she was about to cry.
She held back for a moment, but couldn’t hold it in and burst into tears.
Huh…? I became serious. Are you crying? You took away my building block and now you want to cry? I’m the one who wants to cry.
What an injustice. My life is still biased against me.
I also cried.
Because, what should I do? A woman who is two years older than me is crying so hard. I feel like crying too.
Anna and I kept crying.
Gradually, we got tired of crying, and for some reason, we hugged each other and fell asleep.
Suyaa.