01: I Reincarnated into a World of Swords and Magic

 

Hmm…

So this is what they call a canopy bed…

I woke up in a large, soft bed and looked around, noticing the canopy overhead. But I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.

My name was Hanyū Yōko, and I was a third-year high school student.

Without a pronunciation guide, people almost invariably read my given name, Yōko, as ‘Takatora.’

One of its characters came from Mom’s name, Takako—the character for ‘hawk.’ Not exactly girly to begin with, but they went and added the character for ‘tiger’ to that… Is that a name to give a girl?

Still, my three older brothers were called Taishi, Kotetsu, and Hyōya. With the characters for ‘lion,’ ‘tiger,’ and ‘leopard’ in their names, they all sounded pretty strong too.

My name sounded just as strong as theirs, and I was happy with it.

Ever since I was little, people had often told me I talked like a boy. But there wasn’t anyone at home who spoke like a lady, so that couldn’t be helped.

My family ran a swordsmanship dojo that had been passed down since my great-grandfather’s day, and Mom was its current head.

Grandpa was still going strong, but apparently he had handed things over when he could no longer beat her.

He had the impressive name of Ryūhō and looked like a stern swordsman, but he was actually a pretty reasonable old man, and a kind one at that.

Mom was definitely the stricter one!

Dad was a former American serviceman with blond hair and blue eyes.

The fact that Grandpa had allowed his daughter to marry a man like that was proof enough of how open-minded and flexible he was.

Dad’s name was Godfrey.

That sounded pretty strong too.

But enough about names.

The last thing I remembered was rushing in to help a woman who was about to be run over by a car…

And then…

That’s right!

I got caught in it too!

This didn’t look like a hospital, and no matter how I looked at it, this body didn’t seem to be mine.

The strands of hair that kept slipping into view were white… No, silver? White-silver was probably the right name for the color. My hair had been black, just like Mom’s, so this was different.

And these little hands. This little body.

Where am I?

Who am I?

(I’d always wanted to say that at least once.)

My head felt muddled, so I decided to calm down and sort things out.

So I didn’t survive after all?

I sat cross-legged on the soft bed and slowly traced my memories back.

As I did, I realized I had the memories of the girl who used this bed.

That’s right. Ashley.

That’s my name.

And before I woke up…

Or, to be more precise…

Before I was brought to this bed…

Mother had died…

Tears welled up in my eyes of their own accord.

The way I called her Mother…

The beautiful woman with indigo hair who had loved me so dearly…

The sight of her lying in bed, frail and ill…

It all came back to me.

She isn’t Mom.

But she is my mother. There’s no mistaking that.

The shock of knowing that my gentle Mother was gone overwhelmed me.

I’m so sad…

I had never experienced a death in the family.

Apparently, Grandma had died before I was old enough to remember her, so I had no memories of her. I didn’t know how to deal with these feelings, or even whether I could.

This girl’s feelings are my feelings…

After the initial confusion passed, I began to think this might be reincarnation.

Perhaps the shock of Mother’s death had brought back the memories of my previous life.

This didn’t seem like Japan, so I was probably in another country. Dad had been American in my previous life. Maybe that was why I’d reincarnated abroad?

Still, this family seemed rich. The world that came to mind in my memories felt vaguely medieval.

Not that I knew much about the Middle Ages.

Can reincarnation send you back in time?

It was still a mystery.

For now, the most reasonable explanation was that I had died, and only my memories remained within this girl.

Maybe that woman died too… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Shishi-nii, Tora-nii, Hyō-nii—please forgive me for leaving this world before you!

I’m sorry for being such an unfilial daughter! And granddaughter! And sister!

As I sat there puzzling over everything, someone knocked.

「Milady, are you awake?」

A gentle male voice reached my ears.

The person who entered was a middle-aged foreigner with light brown hair, wearing an outfit that looked very, very much like a butler’s uniform. My thoughts were still a muddle, but when you think of butlers, the first name that comes to mind is Sebastian, and the name slipped out.

「Sebastian…」

「Yes.」

He actually answered!

Then I remembered. Of course he had. This man’s name was Sebastian.

I was so pleased that the equation ‘butler = Sebastian’ actually worked that I broke into a huge grin. Sebastian looked both confused and relieved, his eyes growing a little misty.

「You seem to be feeling better… The master has been terribly worried. I am sure seeing you well again will put his mind at ease, Ashley-sama. I shall bring him here at once.」

A little while later, an older man, three young men, and a beautiful woman came bustling in. The men were so big that I was a little taken aback.

「「「「Ashley! Are you all right?!」」」」

Oh. Father and my brothers…

I recognized my father and three older brothers without even trying.

Seeing the beloved family from my memories sent tears flooding from my eyes all over again.

Ashley had cried herself unconscious when Mother died, and now here I was, bawling all over again. Father and my brothers were in a fluster, desperately trying to comfort me.

「Ashley, come here.」

Father gently lifted me into his arms.

I had lived for eighteen years in my previous life, so mentally I was technically an adult, but being held felt wonderful. Father was more than twice as big as I was now, after all. In terms of volume, I figured he was over five times my size.

Being held in his great arms must have reassured me. I was able to look at my family a little more objectively and remember who they were.

Father was the lord of this place, the Grenville territory. Everyone called him Margrave Grenville.

His name was Godfrey.

That’s right. He has the same name as Dad from my previous life! Is that why I reincarnated into this family?

His hair was the same color as mine, and his eyes were emerald green. Mine were amethyst, if I remembered correctly—the same as Mother’s.

My eldest brother, Thomas-oniisama, looked very much like Father. He was a little shorter, but still a very big man. He was quite a bit older than me. He had just married, and I seemed to remember that he was about fifteen years older.

I was five, if I remembered right.

His wife was Tiffany-sama. She had soft, fluffy orange hair and reddish-brown eyes. She was a very kind, beautiful woman who doted on me as though I were her own child.

My second brother, James-oniisama, had the same silver hair and amethyst eyes as me. He was a little slimmer than Thomas-oniisama—more the lean, muscular type, I supposed. He was thirteen years older than me, which made him eighteen.

Still, he’s huge! Father and my two oldest brothers must all be around two meters tall.

My third brother was Harold-oniisama. He had indigo hair and emerald eyes, and his face resembled Mother’s and mine so much that it might have looked a little feminine. Compared with our older brothers, he seemed a little smaller and more delicately built. He was ten years older than me.

There seemed to be a big age gap between me and everyone else. I was the only little kid.

Those names sound awfully familiar, though.

It feels like there ought to be a Gordon, a Percy, or an Annie and Clarabel around here somewhere…

James-oniisama and Harold-oniisama would normally have been away at school in the distant royal capital, but they had rushed home when Mother’s condition worsened.

Everyone was so kind to me. I could tell they loved me.

My family in my previous life had treasured me too, but all my memories of this family were of being cherished just as much.

This time, I’ll do my best to live, so my parents and brothers won’t have to mourn me!

As I made that resolve, Harold-oniisama, the smallest of my brothers, spoke gently.

「Ashley, your poor eyes are so red they look like they’re going to melt. I don’t want you coming down with a fever, so let me heal you.」

「O power of light that dwells within me, come into my hand. Send forth your healing light, wipe away the tears of sorrow, and bring peace to the one who grieves.」

The moment he finished those words, which sounded like lines from a stage play, Harold-oniisama’s hand shone gold, and I felt something soft, like a gentle breeze.

Then the stinging around my eyes from crying too much and the throbbing in my head both cleared away.

W-what? This is magic!

Surprised or not, I couldn’t forget to thank him.

「Thank you, Harold-oniisama!」

When I managed a little smile, everyone smiled back in relief.

Come to think of it, I seemed to have memories of seeing magic many times before.

More and more was coming back to me.

This wasn’t a place on Earth. It was another world, a world where magic existed!

Father and my brothers even went out hunting monsters with big swords.

I had reincarnated into a world of swords and magic.

Once I had calmed down and looked around, I recognized my familiar bedroom. It didn’t have cute wallpaper or anything, but it had a cheerful feel to it.

I remembered being frightened by how pitch-dark it became at night, though… That couldn’t be helped in a world without electricity.

Something resembling a perpetual calendar hung on the wall, displaying today’s date in carved numbers and letters.

It was like the desktop perpetual calendars I had seen in my previous life, where you rearranged numbered cubes, except this was a wall-mounted version with panels for the numbers and days of the week.

Today was the ‘11th’ of ‘Midwinter,’ the ‘Day of Fire.’

Mother had died on the ‘10th,’ the ‘Day of Darkness.’

I had thought the Day of Darkness had taken Mother away…

It had been pitch-dark outside then, too.

So it’s already the next day.

「Father… I’d like to go… see Mother.」

「Of course. Shall we go say good morning?」

Mother lay in bed as though she were sleeping, just as she always had. Someone must have put makeup on her. Her complexion looked better than it had last night, and her lips had a faint reddish tint. She looked as though she might open her eyes and call my name at any moment…

Tears welled up again!

I can’t hold them in, so I’ll just let them flow.

If my eyes start hurting again, I can ask Harold-oniisama to heal them.

Just for now.

Just for now, let me lose myself in my memories of Mother.

By the time I felt as though my tears had nearly run dry…

It was already beginning to grow dark outside.

It was winter, but apparently we still needed to take Mother somewhere cold. They couldn’t get dry ice the way funeral homes in Japan did, so it couldn’t be helped.

Together, we took Mother to a cold room in the basement and laid her in a coffin lined with beautiful cloth.

This was probably a room for laying out the dead.

Many candles stood on something like an altar to keep the room from being pitch-dark, and someone had decorated it with plenty of white flowers too.

Maybe Mother won’t be scared here…

Even at a time like this, I found I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed until someone suggested I eat.

I had a light meal, had Harold-oniisama heal my swollen eyes, and returned to my room.

「Good night, Ashley. If you can’t sleep, you can come to my room whenever you like.」

「All right…」

Harold-oniisama gently tucked me in.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep yet, so I might take him up on that…

I decided to think a little about this world.

A year here had spring, summer, autumn, and winter too, and apparently the months were named after them.

The year began with ‘Early Spring,’ followed by ‘Midspring’ and ‘Late Spring,’ making three months named after spring. Summer, autumn, and winter followed the same pattern.

But the climate here is different from Japan’s, so I can’t tell which month in Japan this would correspond to…

In my previous life, the year had begun in winter, in January. Here, it began in spring… Probably.

I’m still not sure… Ashley’s memories aren’t enough to tell me that much.

The things called ‘Days of’ something probably corresponded to days of the week.

I knew that everyone took the Day of Light off. Ashley always looked forward to the days when Father and her brothers had a day off.

There were probably seven days in a week. The same as Japan.

I thought the seven were Light, Darkness, Fire, Water, Green, Wind, and Earth.

I suppose you could say that’s somewhat similar to Japan…

I didn’t know how many days there were in a month, though.

If Ashley doesn’t know something, I don’t know it yet either!

Tomorrow, I’ll go see Mother again.

I had never experienced a funeral in this world. I didn’t know how many days were left before we would have to part, but I knew it would be soon.

This really is goodbye…