Chương 2: The Visitor Test

Ren woke with the blue charm above him and decided the next problem was magic. Mana had a number. 31/31 That was all the Status gave him. No instructions whatsoever. Not even a helpful little tutorial sprite in a robe explaining how to become a legendary crib wizard before breakfast. HP had made sense when fever burned in his skin. Stamina made sense when lifting his head turned his neck into warm string. But Mana just sat in the list like a sealed jar on a high shelf. A sealed jar mocked him!

He stared at the charm until his eyes watered and inhaled through his nose. Halfway through, the nose betrayed him. Air caught on milk-snot, whistled, stopped, and forced its way back out with a wet snort. Elna looked over from the stool by the bed.

"There now?" Ren froze. Her hands were full of folded cloth. Her hair had escaped its braid again, and morning light caught the loose strands near her cheek. She looked tired in the way adults looked when fear had ended but listening had not. Her eyes checked his face, his blanket, the charm, the shutter gap, then returned to him. He let his mouth open. Drool solved many accusations. Elna smiled faintly.

"Working hard?" Yes! The work was stupid, but that did not make it less work. Ren breathed again, trying to find where the weird resource might be hidden, searching inward. Ignore the blanket. Ignore the itch below his left ear. Ignore the fact that his toes had discovered each other and seemed determined to form a committee. Mana. He imagined a pool under his ribs. Nothing answered. He imagined warmth in his hands. His hands remained tiny and damp.

He imagined blue light, because the charm was blue and fantasy worlds enjoyed obvious symbolism. The only result was a dangerous urge to sneeze. He held the breath too long. His chest panicked before his mind did. Air burst out in a squeak. Elna set down the cloth and came to him.

"Too much thinking for such a little face." Tessa's voice came from the doorway.

"That is the thinking face." Ren turned his eyes toward the rabbit. Too fast. Tessa narrowed hers. She stood with her wooden horse tucked under one arm, braid crooked, expression sharp enough to cut thread.

"He was doing it again."

"Breathing?" Elna asked.

"Thinking."

"All babies think."

"No! Not like him, I just know it!" Ren placed his fist in his mouth and stared at the stuffed rabbit with the dedication of a monk contemplating sacred fabric. The rabbit's flattened ear offered no assistance. It had become his alibi through repeated use, which was a lot of responsibility for an object with stitched eyes and no spine. Tessa came closer.

"You do not even like that rabbit," she said. That was unfair. He respected the rabbit's service record. Elna lifted him before the conversation could become a trial. The motion turned the ceiling into wall, wall into sleeve, sleeve into the warm side of her neck. Baby transport ignored strategy. It also ignored consent. His stomach sloshed, his head wobbled, and his entire view became wool, skin, and a curl of Elna's hair.

"Be sweet," Elna murmured. Sweet was one of his safer disguises. The knock came while Ren was trying to breathe mana into existence. Three taps, a pause, then two. Elna's hands stopped over the folded linen, relief visible on her face.

"Already?" she murmured, and stood quickly enough that the stool scraped the floor.

"Tessa, move your horse from the door." Tessa did not ask who it was. She grabbed the wooden horse and retreated toward the hearth with the resentful speed of a child obeying a familiar adult rule. First fact: expected visitor. Second fact: Tessa knew the visitor and did not want to be caught blocking the way. Elna lifted Ren before he had time to arrange his face. His view became her shoulder, the braid against her neck, the room tipping in pieces as she carried him downstairs.

"Be sweet," she whispered near his ear.

"Mara is coming to see how the fever left you." Mara. The name attached itself to Elna's relief, and Tessa's quick retreat. Probably someone called when babies burned hot and parents ran out of things to do with their hands. The door opened. Cold air came first. Rain smell, wet wool, bitter leaves. Then a woman stepped inside and shut the weather behind her with one hip.

She was older than Elna, with silver threaded through black hair braided tight against her skull, and she carried a leather satchel patched at the corners. Her eyes found Ren before her cloak finished dripping on the threshold.

"Fever boy," she said. Elna let out a breath that had been waiting all morning.

"Mara. Thank you for coming." So. Mara. Healer, most likely. Midwife, maybe? Village authority over fevers, herbs, and frightened mothers. The very kind of adult who might notice whether a baby watched too much. Ren let his mouth fall open. Drool gathered at once. It was better to begin harmless. Mara's satchel opened with a soft creak of leather, and Ren had to force his eyes not to dive into it. Bitter leaf-smell rolled out first. Then metal caught the hearthlight, quick and sharp, before Mara's hand covered it.

Tessa saw that too. Her body leaned forward by half an inch, which told Ren the shining thing was forbidden, valuable, or both.

"Do not touch that," Mara said without looking. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Tessa froze.

"I wasn't."

"You were thinking loudly." Ren approved of Mara at once and feared her for the same reason.

"How is he?" Mara asked, untying her gloves. Elna shifted him forward.

"Better, and eating well. Sleeping in pieces."

"Babies sleep in pieces."

"This feels different."

"Most things feel different after you worry yourself hollow." Elna did not argue. Her hand tightened under Ren's blanket. Mara stepped close. She was older than Elna, with silver through black hair braided tight to her head. Rain darkened her shoulders. Lines sat at the corners of her mouth, not from laughter only. Her eyes had the tired directness of someone who had seen too many families wait for an infant to decide whether it intended to stay alive. She lifted one of Ren's eyelids. He endured.

She checked his gums. He endured less gracefully. She pressed two fingers to his neck, then under his arms, then against his belly. The belly responded with a noise that did not help his dignity. Mara paused. Tessa whispered, "He does that when he is hiding things." Elna sighed.

"Tessa."

"I am helping." Mara's mouth twitched.

"By accusing the patient?"

"He is suspicious."

"I have met suspicious babies. They tend to bite." Ren considered the legal implications. Mara leaned closer. Her breath smelled of clove and rain.

"This one watches." Elna stopped, listening. Ren let his eyes drift off Mara's face and cross slightly toward the bridge of his own nose. The room doubled. The maneuver was unpleasant, but effective. Mara became two Maras. This seemed like too many.

"He watches because he has eyes," Elna said.

"Good eyes," Mara replied.

"Bright-eyed." Elna's fingers closed on her apron.

"Too bright?"

"After fever? Better bright than dull." Tessa stood near the hearth, wooden horse against her chest.

"He is always bright when he thinks no one sees." Ren made an experimental "ah" sound and drooled down his bib. The drool strand stretched, shone, and fell. Mara looked at it.

"Grave little lord." Elna laughed despite herself.

"Lord of Drool, maybe." Ren accepted the title for operational purposes. Mara did not laugh for long. Her fingers returned to work, brisk and warm, turning Ren's head toward the light and pressing lightly beneath his jaw. When she paused with two fingers at his throat, Ren forced himself to hold still. His body wanted to squirm. His mind wanted to study her face, her hands, the satchel, Elna's tension, Tessa's suspicion, and every little change in the room.

He made his gaze drift away before it grew too sharp, but Mara noticed anyway.

"Follows movement," she said. Elna's breath caught.

"Is that bad?"

"Bad? No. Better than not following." Tessa folded her arms.

"He follows when people stop looking."

"That means he has taste," Mara said.

"No one enjoys being stared at." Ren approved of this diagnosis. Elna's shoulders eased a fraction, and Ren held on to that reaction. Not every noticed oddity became danger. Mara saw his brightness, his watching, and his timing, but she still placed them inside sickness, recovery, and baby habits. Tessa saw a secret because she had been watching him from the first fever-waking moment. Elna saw a child recovering. Mara saw signs and sorted them into ordinary boxes.

Ren was strange, but strange was also pretty ordinary. He could live with strange. Mara crushed a leaf between finger and thumb, and the bitter green smell climbed straight into his nose. Ren inhaled by mistake and sneezed with his whole body. His legs kicked, his hands opened, and his head lurched against Elna's arm. Tessa laughed. Elna smiled despite herself.

"Strong nose," Mara said. Ren had not planned to specialize in nasal diagnostics, but survival used the tools available. As Mara worked, she explained what Elna should watch. Fever was not only heat. Change was worse. A child who burned but fed was fighting. A child who cooled and would not wake was trouble. Lips, hands, breathing, and whether he followed sound all mattered. Ren listened because the explanation changed the room. Elna had been afraid of heat. Bren had watched breathing. Tessa had watched intent.

Mara watched changes. Changes could be hidden. Changes could be used. Mara touched his wrapped foot.

"He is tired now." Elna looked down at him.

"He was trying to stay awake."

"He is a baby. Babies lose wars against sleep all the time." Ren's adult mind resented the accuracy. Mara packed her satchel, keeping the sharp metal hidden beneath one palm until the flap closed. Tessa watched the satchel leave her reach with open grief.

"Do not look mournful," Mara said.

"You were not getting it."

"I did not ask."

"You asked with your bones." Tessa scowled. After Mara left, Elna stood with Ren held against her chest until the room settled again. Her heartbeat had slowed. The visit had done what medicine often did before it cured anything: it gave fear a shape smaller than the whole world. Ren let his cheek rest against her dress. Mara had looked closely and left without raising an alarm. A relief! It meant he could work.

"You frightened us, little spark," Elna murmured. Ren pressed his cheek into her dress. Sorry, he thought. Saying so was still beyond him. Elna carried him upstairs and set him in the crib. The blue charm waited above the bedpost, swaying slightly in the draft. The rabbit lay beside him with its flattened ear and loyal lack of questions.

"Rest now," Elna said. Ren had no intention of resting. Mara had named what she could observe. Fever, breath, lips, sound, response, change. She had taken what information she could and given it edges. Ren stared at the charm and tried to do the same with mana. Just… observing the changes. Seeing what stays, what moves, what sticks. He searched inward slowly. His heartbeat moved. Milk warmth spread through his belly. Cloth pressed against his skin.

Stamina sat low from being examined, carried, fed, and trapped in a body that considered neck control advanced labor. Nothing else answered. He breathed again, held still, and searched for a difference. Nothing. His hand twitched against the blanket. He tried to feel it from the inside, not as a shape he could see, but as skin, fingers, damp palm, and the pull of cloth under his thumb. No hidden layer answered. He tried to feel the charm from across the crib.

It remained bead, cord, wood, and the tiny click of draft-touched motion. Still nothing. No message appeared. No hint came. No reward marked the effort. Working blind was frustrating! But mana was just there! The System said so. And so Ren kept on trying. Elna checked on him twice. The first time, he let his face go slack before she reached the crib. The second time, he was too tired to fake anything. She wiped his chin, kissed his forehead, and called him her strange little boy. Mom! …

He felt a little embarrassed. Sleep ambushed him before he could complain.

He woke up in the blue-shadowed dark. The house had settled into evening calm. Bren's steps moved below, then stopped. Elna murmured something too soft to catch. Tessa shifted in her bed and mumbled at the wooden horse. The room breathed around Ren in small household sounds. The charm clicked. Ren opened his eyes. He had heard that sound dozens of times. Bead against wood. Cord against post. A tiny thing, easy to dismiss.

This time, still thick with sleep and too tired to attack the problem, he did not reach for it. He only noticed. The click faded. A cool pressure remained at the edge of his awareness. Ren went still, searching. It was not the draft. Draft touched skin. It was not sound. Sound entered ears and vanished. This sat behind hearing, a small difference in the room. The charm had presence. The beam above him did not. The shutter did not. The rabbit, despite faithful service, did not.

His breath caught, but he did not chase the feeling. Careful. He turned the same attention inward. Heartbeat. Hunger. Sleep heaviness. Stamina ache. Beneath them sat a full stillness. It did not move to his call, but flowed nonetheless. It did not obey… but it was present. Mana. [Skill Unlocked: Mana Sense] Wonder opened so sharply his eyes filled. The sealed jar had not opened, but he had found its edge in the dark. The charm felt cool in awareness.

His own mana sat warm and sealed under his skin, fuzzy and flowing slowly. Elna and Bren below were too distant to understand, but the house no longer felt empty in quite the same way. The world had gained another layer of. Of… color? Of something. It wasn't quite that, but close enough! Ren reached inward toward the warm stillness. It did not move. He pushed harder. Nothing happened except a headache. Mana Sense sensed. That was all.

Ren lay beneath the blue charm, tiny hands curled in the blanket, wonder cooling into practical confusion. Okay, he could finally feel this strange power! He waited. The strange power did nothing helpful.... What now?