Reincarnated as a... Completely Average Person?

Chapter 22 Umi

Kotori who now had a new idea of how her flute skill worked had also realized something.

She was incredibly gated by her mana.

Although her mana stat had nearly doubled after the encounter with the lizard it was still quite low. Although she had no frame of reference to evaluate her mana she was quite sure it couldn't be very high. She had checked the mana stats of the boss and Amelie and although her's was nearly double theirs they rarely used mana in the first place.

It was akin to using a warrior's mana pool in a JRPG and comparing it to a Mage. Of course, her mana stat was higher relative to theirs but in comparison to other mana users, Kotori didn't feel like she was much better.

The village didn't have any Mages though, So Kotori didn't know if she was correct in that assumption.

She tried to increase her mana stat by using her mana pool to its limits and although it did increase by one the mental strain left her tired three days.

It seems the limit of her innate mana pool had been just about reached.

This left her in a conundrum. Kotori was a very healthy child and it seemed that her status hadn't grown much at all in these past two years. Although she had killed monsters with Mari and others she had essentially wasted two years.

She thought she could feel herself getting EXP from last hitting monsters but since it wasn't a stat that was shown by "status" she didn't know how much she had.

For one, Kotori knew that the concept of "levels" didn't even exist in this world. The only thing that she knew gave large increases in stats was when Shu killed the lizard and evolved from a [Minor Earth Spirit] to a normal [Earth Spirit].

[This really is a troublesome system]

Kotori felt like she had to constantly test this world to learn anything about it.

So now Kotori with her free time spent much of her time roaming the forest.

She felt like a wild child, spending much of her free time playing in the forest. Making forts and hanging out with Shu. It was childish but it wasn't like she had anything to do.

Until one day.

Kotori had gone to the spot where she would often practice try and stretch her mana

There was a small pond here which she often used to wipe the sweat from her face after exerting herself.

This time she noticed a curious phenomenon. There was a splashing sound. Kotori stayed on guard. It wouldn't be unusual if animals came here to drink but if it was something dangerous Kotori would have to be ready to fight back.

That was what Kotori thought until she realized that there wasn't anything near the pond. INfast the splashing seemed to come from the pond itself.

[That's odd?] She thought

There wasn't anything that could be causing the water's surface to be splashing and yet something was agitating the surface enough to cause it to splash.

She walked closer to the water's edge to see what could be causing the splashing was and was immediately blasted with a gallon of cold pond water.

"Pftftft" She sputtered in surprise.

The cold water had caught her off guard. She braced herself expecting another attack but all she could hear was a gurgly "Kukukuku" sound like something was laughing.

She looked around to find the source of the sound and all she could hear was the sound coming from the pond

Kotori thought she was going crazy