That Time I Started A Life In Another World

Birthday

I wake up. More accurately, I get pulled from my thoughts by Carol slowly stirring awake.

As soon as I make sure that she was actually waking up, I quickly escape from her embrace and run away outside.

Finally escaped!

Jesus Christ. It was torturous for so many reasons, but it was finally over!

The relief I felt couldn't be described.

I mean, I probably said "Pure thoughts" to myself over 200 times during that night. Time flowed really slowly, even though I made sure to turn off Thought Acceleration.

But it was over!

Right, since I couldn't do anything during the night, I should start working myself to the bone right now.

I wanted to do a lot of things, but-

"It's already sunrise."

It was time to teach Chis.

Whether I liked it or not, Carol took away all of the time I was supposed to be working.

It was a truly saddening development.

...Hold up, since when was not working a bad development?

Have I been... spending too much time with Crusch?

Did her overworking tendencies rub off on me?

I shiver.

That was a really dangerous line of thought. I didn't want to become a work maniac like Crusch.

Let's just... go bully Chis for now.

Yeah, that was going to keep the bad thoughts away. All of the bad thoughts. All of them.

.▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒░▒.

After three rounds of reluctant running, Chis went to breakfast.

This time around, I joined in on the meal.

During the run I had already surmised that nothing was out of order, and... I also wanted to pamper myself.

I mean, who could blame me? It was my birthday for (g)od's sake.

I was also scared of becoming a working masochist like Crusch, but let's not think about that, shall we?

So I graciously ate the breakfast. It was kinda nostalgic.

Back then, I had even forgotten how to eat due to how bad my mental state was.

This time around, things weren't quite as bad. Carol had been making food for me non-stop lately, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget how to eat.

She truly is the cornerstone of my mental health.

With a thought like that - and almost crying at the homely taste - I finished my breakfast.

We sat at the table for a bit more, talking about this and that. I had spent the entire previous day on Chis and only Chis after all. We had a lot of things to talk about and catch up on.

Unsurprisingly, Seira was still asleep, so I couldn't catch up with her quite yet, but that was fine. She needed the rest, and badly.

After a while, Chis got bored and started training outside. I didn't hurry after him, letting him train by himself for a bit.

With Chis away, I gave an alarm clock to Shurua. I explained to her how it works, and advised her to make Chis wake up early each day to train.

She was a bit hesitant, which made sense considering it was a completely new product in this world, but her trust in me dwarfed her hesitance by a mile.