Headnotes:
Toru becomes Tolu; Tolu balsam is an existing plant, the balsam of Peru. I finally decided on Blue Mary and most likely won’t change the sister’s name from now on. The reference is blue-eyed mary flower, Omphalodes verna. Immortel becomes Immortelle. Sounds a bit feminine but makes more sense somehow. It’s from Italian starflower plant. Enjoy! Unedited“I’m still drenched in cold sweat whenever I think about that incident. Tolu, next time, you have to be careful,” said my mother, Jasmine. “It was a rare clumsiness coming from you, really,” said my older brother, Sambac, while laughing.
“Mou! Oniisama, that’s not a laughing matter, you know, please show more concern!” comes the warning from my older sister, Blue Mary.
Up to this point, the family is no different than a usual happy family. I wonder how this Blue Mary girl could turn into a noble villainness. However, there’s still 8 years before the time limit.
It’s a race until Blue Mary enters the magic school. It’ll be good if I can skip grade and attend the school with her, but right now, I have no idea if it’s feasible. Because of that, I have to work hard to anticipate any outcome within these 8 years.
While I was recalling my previous lifetime’s memory, I enjoyed my meal with a good command of table manner.
I called out to the flustered Blue Mary, who said, “It’s lesson time!” and returned to her room, inviting her to play with me after she finished studying, then going back to my room as well.
After returning to my bedroom, I rub my full stomach, exhaling a deep breath, “Phew~.”
At that time, Immortelle, who kept staying at my room, asked, “How about a cup of herb tea after meal?”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it while studying,” I replied, causing him to smile.
“(re…. He seems happy,)” I thought, while deliberately holding back from actually saying that. I intend to investigate things about “myself” that I couldn’t do yesterday. I didn’t actually think that there was something worth noting my 5-year old self, but still, it’ll be worth my time since there’s so many things that I haven’t understood about this world yet.
I order Immortelle to withdraw, then when I’m finally alone, I open all of my drawers, trying to see if there’s any clue about it or not.
However, when I pull them out, there are only writing supply and bundles of scribbles which speak nothing about clues.
Still, there’s a drawer I can’t open. This is the only key-locked drawer, and I won’t be able to open that drawer without finding that key first. I can’t find that key either.
“(Where on earth are you–!?)” Unable to find it anywhere, I have to postpone it for the time being.
The next is bookshelf.
I kind of expected a hidden door mechanism there, but it’s just a simple bookshelf without that kind of convenience.
Still, I take a book and try to sneak a peek by flipping it through. I’m terribly shocked to find myself being unable to understand the content at all.
“(Eeh… Isn’t there a cheat for being able to read the writing…?)” While feeling dejected, I find a cute picture book.
“(First, let’s start with this…)” I slump my shoulders down and head over to the desk. With that book in hand, I take my seat.
“(In the first page, there’s something similar to a syllable table… Let’s remember it for the time being.)” While staring at it, I hear a knock along with Immortelle’s voice.
“Come in,” I call out, then he comes in.
The moment Immortelle left the room, he cheerfully asked, “Tolu-sama, you’re studying, right? In that case, may I serve something to drink?” while looking delighted.
“(I wonder why he’d look so delighted…) Yes, please.”
Under the merry sidelong glance from Immortelle while he’s brewing the tea, I tackle the syllable table.
Then, Immortelle who has been brewing black tea advises, “To memorize that, it’s great to memorize a song to match it,” and he teaches me the song, enables me to memorize it in no time.
“Immortelle, thank you! I could remember it so quickly because it’s a song!” I said my thanks, reaping a response from Immortelle.
“No, no, I haven’t done anything much. Tolu-sama is the wonderful one for having such good memory,” he said, praising me.
While thinking, “(Please don’t flatter me…)“, I decide to go on ahead. Because I’ve understood the syllables, I can at least read a picture book.
“(If there’s nothing similar to Japanese katakana and kanji, the rest is to expand my vocabulary!)” I’m really eager in continue reading book after book.
Until Immortel called to me, “Tolu-sama, it’s already afternoon,” I had been reading in silence.
How great is it if I can continue reading after lunch? But I still decide to take a breather outside. Since there was an incident last time, obviously Immortelle is tailing me now.
“…Immortelle, where did I have the accident?” I pretend to have a relapse and ask him.
Immortelle isn’t very enthusiastic about it; he reluctantly leads me to the spot where I had the accident.
That place is slightly separated from the estate, a small pond in a corner of the center garden. The water seems to be transported in, because there’s no living critters inside.
I peer into it, trying to look for some kind of clue.
Immortelle shouts, “It’s dangerous, please be careful!” but I don’t have the intention to stop.
“Then to prevent me from falling, hold my waist,” I said, which somehow mad him blush.
Raw:
Notes:
If you haven’t realized it by now, the words “(in this format)” means it’s what Tolu is thinking, while “(having A) and then B” means he’s thinking A before saying B in one breath. I’m just following the original format. Jasminum sambac is the latin name for Arabian jasmine flower. It’s split into two names, for the mother and brother. In Japanese, Tolu (トルー) and Blue (ブルー) from Blue Mary only have one different syllable, further cementing the fact that they are siblings. So Immortelle is a love interest! So to say, at least he’s interested. How does it even work? He has a perfect polite speech pattern in that language, but he still needs to expand his vocabulary? Written vocabulary, then? Why does JP WNs have a lot of conjunction words? /sighs/ Buying me a cup of coffee will be veeeery appreciated! ^w^If you’re an author, author-wanna be, or knows someone who loves to write BL and isekai trope, please inform them about my page~ There’ll be free artworks for your novel!