Another three months passed.
This morning. Probably. I still can't tell time properly: no clock, no windows, no sun. I live by the feeding schedule.
And then it happened.
After feeding, the nanny brought a box into the room.
A box.
For a normal person—nothing special.
For me—the event of the year.
I froze and stared at it with absolute focus. Unfortunately, I couldn't walk over and inspect it. Too far. Too risky. Too small am I.
But I noticed the important part.
It was the color of cardboard.
Cardboard.
Is that… cardboard?
If it really is cardboard, then I have two options:
either this is my native world,
or it's fantasy with a highly advanced packaging industry.
I decided not to jump to conclusions. Hasty conclusions are a direct route to stupidity. And I'm already in a body that drools on a schedule.
Since something new had finally happened, I decided to do a quick self-audit. What had I actually achieved over these three months?
In the first month of those three, I learned to stand up. Granted, only while holding onto the crib rails. It looked more like a desperate attempt at survival than confident motor development.
I trained strictly during "safe hours"—the first three hours after feeding. Or after the third meal, if I still had the energy. I didn't want the nanny to see me standing. For obvious reasons. Babies who stand too early tend to become a topic of discussion. And I do not want to become a topic of… anything.
Over the last two months, I learned to walk without support.
Yes. Walk.
Quietly. Carefully. Only when I was sure the door wouldn't open.
Either muscle adaptation in this world is faster, or this body has a ridiculously good baseline potential. Or maybe my past experience helps. I mean, I've technically learned to walk once already.
Besides physical development, I'd finished nearly all the multitasking exercises from my old life: mental figures, parallel processes, visualization, simultaneous counting and abstract modeling.
My brain was running shockingly fast.
The learning speed really was higher.
The only question was whether that was a feature of this world… or a side effect of rebirth.
If it's the second one, then at least something in this situation is working in my favor.
The door suddenly opened.
I flinched—not much, but enough for everything inside me to clamp down unpleasantly. Over these months I'd gotten used to the schedule. Any deviation was either progress… or trouble.
It was the nanny.
Same cold face as always. No warmth, no irritation. Just a function wearing human skin.
She approached me.
Without a bottle.
I noticed immediately.
Weird.
She picked me up. That was the moment I truly tensed. It was the first time she'd ever done that. Usually her interaction with me was limited to the formula: "entered—fed—left."
She sat me down on the rug.
Sat me down.
Not laid me down.
My heart sped up.
"145.5409," she said calmly.
And then something happened.
The box opened by itself.
No touch.
No mechanism.
The lid tilted back smoothly, and blocks rose into the air. They hovered for a moment, then drifted neatly onto the table.
I went still.
Several extremely emotional phrases flashed through my head—phrases I would prefer not to say out loud. Even if I could.
Is this… magic?
My heart started hammering, no longer from fear, but from excitement.
Is this a fantasy world?
Will I really be able to use magic?
Could I even… get back home?
The thoughts cut off.
Another block rose slowly from the box. Metallic, with clean blue lines along its edges. It didn't look like a toy. It looked like a device. Technological. Precise. Too perfect for simple "magic for the sake of magic."
The nanny smiled slightly.
It was a very small smile. Almost invisible.
"Now this will be your toy."
Toy?
She said a few more numbers. I didn't even try to remember them—yet.
And then, suddenly, an even metallic voice filled the room:
"Select difficulty."
I froze.
The voice belonged neither to a person nor to a creature. It was… synthetic.
"One. With auto-adjustment," the nanny said calmly.
"Would you like to run the tutorial?" the voice asked.
"Yes," she replied.
Somehow, four blocks lying on the floor lined themselves up.
And formed:
1 + 1 =
After the equals sign, a green field glowed.
I stared at it with the expression of absolute existential horror.
What. Is. This.
Am I being taught mathematics at six months?!
Is that even legal?!
They haven't taught me to talk. I'm officially still "goo-goo," and I'm already supposed to solve problems?
And then two more blocks appeared beside the green field. One had the number 1. The other—2.
The metallic voice said calmly:
"Place the correct block on the green area."
Without hesitation, the nanny took the block with 2 and set it onto the field.
"Correct. Training complete," the voice replied.
Training.
Complete.
That was the tutorial…
The nanny turned to me and, in that same flat tone, said:
"You need to reach at least Level Three within a year and a half. Otherwise, your precious body will be rendered down for potions, and you will die. All children of your bloodline understand speech at six months. By a year and a half you'll be able to talk."
She turned and left.
The door closed.
Silence.
And inside my head—chaos.
Rendered down for potions?
What does that mean—literally rendered down?
Am I an ingredient? A component? Raw material?!
And what bloodline?
Is that why I understand the language?
Is it magic? Genetics? A system bonus? Or did they shove me into some kind of experiment again?
I sat on the rug and stared at "1 + 1" like it was a sentence.
It took some time before I could calm down.