Episode 2 – Suddenly Moving to Earth!
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5 year old (December-SY100)


 

Let’s study hard! I had thought it would be hard to convince myself to study. I mean, doing is harder than saying you know. So at first I thought I would be procrastinating on my goal of someday building my ideal mecha.

But it seems my motivation of learning about engineering of mecha never fades away, in fact just by closing my eyes imagining the cool and beautiful form of my future mecha keeps the fire in my heart going and even making it burn hotter.

Beside I’m used to learning various things in the previous life. In the previous life, when having nothing to do, sometime I find myself randomly reading advanced mathematics book or random research papers I was interested in.

Even more so in this life, somehow I can easily learn various things. I mean, I know that I will have somewhat of an advantage with my previous life memory and experience as a postdoc researcher, but it couldn’t have been this easy with only that.

Somehow in this life, my overall cognitive skills are so good that I couldn’t believe it. It’s like I have an evolved super brain.

I can easily remember things that I choose to remember. Maybe it’s close to the so called photographic memory, though it only applies to things that I explicitly decide to remember. So if I want to memorize something I simply say, “I need to remember this” for example. There are various limitations and subtleties to this ability, but it’s still something that can’t be done easily in practice. And yet, from the moment I born I can easily do it.

My effective reading skill becomes much better. It’s like I can read 2 times faster but understand 5 times more than before (in previous life).

I feel like I can learn something at least 10 times faster than before. Of course the figures are meant to be taken with grain of salt, but still it’s just that good.

I already learnt to read right after I can see, though this world lingua franca is just like the old past Earth, so that’s kinda cheating I guess.

By some arbitrary (self-devised) measure, apparently I already have knowledge of someone who finished a 4 years degree in university. That’s someone in the early 20ish even in this world standard.

By the way, the education system hasn’t much evolved from the old Earth. So maybe that thing about having 4 year university degree knowledge is kinda cheating too, since in the past I was an engineering postdoc. My past life knowledge did helped me quite a bit in learning various things in this new life. Like for example, I learnt much faster about this world mecha engineering with help of my past life engineering knowledge.

Well in the first place, having past live memory from the same world is a cheat too.

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Anyway, it seems not too far off of my guess, I’m regarded as genius kid. So my parents are having talk about how I should move to a better school. A school designed for genius kids, I heard this thing exists.

The information did exist tiny bit when I read about the game setting in personal history section of some of the main characters, in the previous earth.

Well I definitely already have the capability equivalent or even surpassing that of a typical university graduate. So even entering this kind of school seems pointless at this point.

However considering I’m still growing child of 5 year old, my parents are more concerned with my own social life, which apparently stagnating.

Never going out to play with kids of the same age, just staying in a lonely corner reading ebook or playing with mecha parts and components.

By the way, ebook in this world is something like tablet computer in the past life, except it’s more like a sheet of mica paper, designed more for easy reading. If you want flip page, you can just swipe the screen. Really save more energy I say.

Anyway I never play with kids of similar age, and never really having any friends, my parents area worried that I won't grow properly, like growing to be a hikikomori,1(1)In Japan, hikikomori (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引き籠もり, lit. "pulling inward, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal"; colloquially/adaptive translation: shutter) are reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. Copasted from wikipedia. if I were put through normal schooling.

So they decide to put me into special kind of school for genius, Academy for the Gifted, or popularly called genius academy. Apparently each student in this kind of school receives special attention so that the gifted kids there can grow to be a proper human being, or so what it says in wakepedia.2(2) Wakepedia = Obviously the setting's Wikipedia. Well from what I read, it's closer to super fancy school with high degree of personalized education though.

Problem is, while there are quite a few of these academies, all of them are located on Earth. Colonial education usually mirrors closely to standard K-12 schooling on Earth, very similar to the one in past old Earth both in name and in practice.

"How about it, Sena? Do you want to go to Earth? There are many beautiful places you know. Especially beaches over there. Want to go to one together later?"

*nod* "Un. I want to go to beach with Mom."

In the past live I didn't go to beach much, so my memories of them are quite blurry. So going to beach in this live will be sort of side quest for me too.

"How about with Dad? Sena want to go with Dad too right?" said Dad while pointing towards his own smiling face.

"Dad can go with us to the beach."

"H-how about Sena and Dad alone go together..?"

"I want to stay home."

"Guuu...."

"A-anyway Dear, we three can go together to beach." Mom consoling Dad.

"Sigh... oh well, at least it's decided then. Sena, try to make friends over there okay? Even only one is fine, just try it, okay?" Dad with somewhat gentle expression express his wish for me.

It's not like I don't want to make friends. It's just I never have the time to. Besides, counting my past live, my mental age is already over 30, I can't really make friends with typical snotty brats. Maybe after they grow up a little bit.

I say that my mental age is over 30, but somehow I usually find myself act like normal children, especially in front of other people.

Maybe it's because I'm treated like one and I look like one, so my mentality turned like children.

Wait, I am a child, at least physically.

In the first place what is the definition of a child or adult? What are the criteria of being child or adult? Is it mental age? Biological age? Degree of knowledge?

In the past Earth, once I read a fantasy novel that has a sage character who is 1000 years old woman but with little girl body and somewhat childish mentality. Was she a child? An adult?

Maybe it's something like that? My condition is undefined? It is already beyond humanity standard.

Argh?!!

Whatever.

In this world at least, I'm a child now. Besides, being an adult is not fun. I prefer spending my whole life playing around and doing what I want rather than working hard for someone else.

"Sena...?"

Crap. I got lost in useless thought again.

*nod* "Un. I will make friends."

So it's decided that me and Mom first will move to Earth with Dad will follow later if he can get a transfer close to the school or at least somewhere around the area.

 

 


(1) Hikikomori = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

(2) Wakepedia = Obviously the setting's Wikipedia.

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