Time moved quietly after that.
Not in the dramatic way stories like to describe, with sudden revelations or grand turning points, but in weeks stacking over weeks, seasons folding into one another until, one day, I realized I could no longer pretend I was the same child who had first picked up a wooden sword.
I was seven now, nearing eight.
My arms were longer, my balance steadier. The training sword that once felt heavy now rested naturally in my grip. Magic responded to me with less resistance, less volatility. It still demanded focus, but it no longer felt like trying to grasp smoke with bare hands.
The others had grown too.
Valkyrie had sharpened into herselfher blunt honesty tempered by experience, her strikes clean and decisive. Krystoff stood taller, broader, his distance fading into a quiet confidence that only showed when it mattered. John remained… Johnappearing, disappearing, always knowing more than he said.
On the magic side, Jucelis had become frighteningly efficient. He didn't just cast spells; he constructed them. Joen's calculations had reached a point where even instructors paused to ask him to explain himself. Nibbo still complained, still pointed out flaws with brutal precisionbut more often than not, he was right. Supremo… Supremo was Supremo, though even he had learned when to stop joking and start listening.
And me?
I had started listening to things I wasn't meant to hear.
It began by accident.
Walking the estate grounds one afternoon, I passed by the servant quarters and heard hushed voicescomplaints cut short when they noticed me, nervous bows and forced smiles following immediately after.
But once I noticed, I couldn't unnotice it.
People coughing. More than normal. Lingering fatigue even after healing. Older workers leaning heavily on walls, their movements slow despite having been treated by healers days before.
At first, I assumed I was overthinking it.
Then I started asking questions.
Quiet ones.
Healers were excellent at what they didbut their work focused on repair, not recovery. Wounds closed. Fevers dropped. Mana soothed pain and forced the body back into function.
But that didn't mean the body was whole.
In my previous life, we understood something simple: healing didn't end when symptoms disappeared. The body needed rest. Nutrition. Clean conditions. Time.
Here, magic had become a crutch.
They healed, then sent people straight back to work.
I brought it up cautiously during a household meeting, careful not to sound accusatory.
"Why do they keep getting sick again?" I asked, pretending curiosity rather than concern.
The answer was immediate.
"Because they're weak," someone said. "Their bodies weren't strong to begin with."
That answer bothered me more than it should have.
Weakness wasn't always a lack of strength. Sometimes it was exhaustion pretending to be recovery.
Magic wasn't omnipotent.
It could fix, but it couldn't restore what had never been allowed to recover.
So I proposed changes.
Nothing radical. Adjusted work rotations. Mandatory rest periods after healing. Better ventilation in shared housing. Warmer bedding during colder months. Heavier meals for those recovering from illness.
Some resisted at first.
Then the coughing lessened.
That was when people started looking at me differently.
Not as a child.
As someone whose words carried weight.
At the same time, rumors trickled in from beyond Ayer.
At first, they were distant. Easy to dismiss.
Crop pests are behaving strangely. Entire fields were ruined overnight. Small towns reporting disturbanceslivestock found dead without wounds, wells fouled for no apparent reason. Merchants complained of routes becoming unsafe, caravans delayed by "incidents" no one could properly explain.
None of it was catastrophic.
Yet.
But taken together, it painted an unsettling picture.
Like tremors before a quake.
I brought these concerns to the others, and what followed became a patternlate evenings, spread maps, heated discussions that sometimes went nowhere and sometimes changed everything.
I spoke about ideas I half-remembered from another world. Concepts without names here. Systems that relied less on constant magical intervention and more on prevention, structure, and resilience.
And every time, I hesitated.
Because I didn't know everything.
I knew pieces. Fragments of a future that might not even apply here.
That was where the others came in.
Joen ran numbers, quietly scribbling calculations that tested feasibility. Jucelis proposed adaptationsways magic could support systems instead of replacing them. Nibbo tore everything apart, searching for loopholes, risks, and blind spots no one else noticed.
Supremo listened more than he spoke.
Valkyrie asked questions no one wanted to answer.
Krystoff kept things groundedwhat would actually work for real people, not ideals.
Every viewpoint mattered.
And somehow, together, we found balance.
The estate's economic management changed subtly but effectively. Funds redirected. Reserves created. Waste reduced. Nothing flashyjust steady improvement.
People noticed.
Word spread.
Respect followed.
But even then, I kept things close to my chest.
I couldn't speak of future knowledge from an advanced society out of the blue; people find it strange. This goes way beyond them thinking that I am a genius. Couldn't warn them of disasters I didn't fully understand. This world wasn't mine to overwriteit was mine to live in.
And then came the news.
It arrived on a gray morning, carried by a rider whose horse was lathered with sweat and fear.
A sickness.
Not isolated. Not rumors.
Real.
The outer towns of Ayer had been affectedfever, weakness, persistent coughing that healers could not fully erase. People survived… but didn't recover.
Something that had once happened in my previous world.
Only worse.
As I listened, a familiar weight settled in my chest.
I had to do something about it.
This was the beginning of something larger.
And for the first time since coming into this world, I felt it clearly
Time was no longer waiting.