Reincarnated as a mana core

Argul woke up in a world of pain. She had no idea what was going on, but her head felt as if her skull was splintering into little pieces. The only thing that stopped her from leaving her body as it was, was her mental fortitude and the feeling of being vulnerable that the pain gave her. Argul hadn’t felt that in a while and it was a good reminder.

She curled up in pain and whimpered. Argul felt someone touching her and had the fleeting impression of Mia calling her, but the pain right now was her world. She stopped thinking for a few minutes, though for her it felt more like days.

The pain started to lessen and Argul could hear Mia calling for her in panic. The poor girl was crying and hugging Argul.

Argul had yet to open her eyes and not feeling like doing so, she straightened her back and hugged Mia back. She cradled the girl's head in her left hand, her voice barely more than a whisper. “It’s okay. Shhh”

Mia hugged Argul back and buried her head in Argul’s chest. 

Argul felt a bit bad. She had become the girl's emotional pillar in the last few days, so seeing her like that must have been awful. Argul was not the best at comforting someone in her own opinion, but she tried nonetheless. “I’m sorry for worrying you. Nothing is going to happen to me.” 

They laid there like that for some time with their tails curled around one another, until Mia mumbled into Argul’s chest. “Please don’t do something like that again Auntie!”

Argul scratched her head awkwardly. “I don’t even know what happened.”

Had Mia just called her auntie? And why does that make her feelings flutter a bit?

She opened her eyes and was surprised by a familiar sight she had not expected. Argul closed and opened her eyes again, just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

She was seeing everything 4 dimensional and honestly had not expected her avatar to be able to do that. Argul looked around for a moment, marveling at how different and how diverse colors were in her new perception. She was pretty sure she had already found two she had never seen before and couldn’t truly describe.

A thought struck her. What if the pain had something to do with the avatar growing to represent Argul more?

That would mean she might look completely different now, besides her having more depth. Argul looked at Mia, not sure how to ask. “Uhm, Mia? Do I look different than yesterday somehow?”

Mia looked up at Argul, her eyes a bit swollen and blinked. She seemed to immediately forget her sorrow and curiously reached up to Argul’s forehead with her hand. Then she tapped it with her index finger.

Argul was pretty sure that it felt like it normally would, but her forehead was not supposed to make ‘klink’ noises if you tapped it.

Mia’s gaze focused on Argul’s eyes and concerningly her finger moved in that direction too. 

Argul eyed the finger. “What exactly do you want to do next?” 

Mia stopped and looked away embarrassed. “Nothing?”

Argul squinted at her. What a suspicious girl. She moved her hands slowly in the direction of Mia’s belly while moving her fingers. Her tone was really playful. “Nothing hmm?”

She smirked. “It seems a bit of torture is needed!”

She grabbed Mia before she could escape and began to tickle her. Mia had no chance and began laughing and apologizing to Argul whenever she had the air to spare.

Argul stopped after a few minutes and looked at Mia with a raised eyebrow. “So, what changed?”

Mia, still out of breath, puffed up her cheeks haughtily. “You are mean!”

Argul smiled at her and inched a bit closer. “Ahh, the beautiful sound of a laughing child. How I want to hear it again!”

Mia fled to the corner of the tent and raised her hands. “Please not again! I will tell you, I promise!”

Argul stopped moving closer to Mia, who breathed a sigh of relief and then looked at Argul again. “There is a silver crystal on your forehead”

She painted a rhombus in the air. “It looks like this.”

Argul nodded and changed to her teaching tone. “The form is called rhombus or diamond, though diamonds normally don’t have that form, so I don’t really know why it's called that way.”

Mia rolled her eyes and Argul had to admit that she had a tendency of sharing her knowledge with Mia. Sometimes that knowledge might be a bit too advanced, but Argul wasn’t a children expert.

Mia crawled near Argul again and looked in her face. “Your eyes are completely silver and look the same as the crystal on your forehead.”

That was definitely going to attract attention. Argul sighed. She didn’t mind her eyes looking like that, it might even look cool, but she would have to answer a lot of annoying questions.

Mia sat back again with a worried expression. “Can you still see?”

Argul nodded. “Yes I can, I can even see more.” Mia’s worry was understandable.

Mia looked at Argul a bit confused. “More?”

Hmm, how to explain the concept of dimensions to a child?

Argul thought about it for a moment, tapping her finger on her chin before she answered. “If you draw a point on a sheet of paper then you drew a 1 dimensional picture.” 

Mia was about to interrupt, but Argul raised a hand to stop her. “I’m trying to explain a concept to you so you understand.”

She then drew a circle in the air. “A circle on the other hand would be a 2 dimensional figure and a sphere 3 dimensional.”

Argul gestured around a bit helplessly. “And well I see things 4 dimensional. It’s hard to explain, because the things I see you can’t see. The way I see a sphere would be so endlessly big for you, that you couldn’t perceive it.”

She slumbed a bit down in defeat. How would you explain this to someone? “The 4th dimension is used for time in math and physics, though in reality it isn’t quite like that.” 

Argul had long since lost Mia, who could not comprehend what she was trying to tell. Argul sighed. “Nothing will change for you, except that I might do even weirder things than before.”

Mia smiled at Argul and then jumped at her to hug her again. Argul let herself be thrown on her back and hugged Mia back, smiling to herself.

They cuddled a bit until Argul could smell breakfast. “Time to get up!”

Mia mumbled a protest, but nonetheless got up with Argul, who cleansed them both. They then changed into day clothes, or at least Mia did. Argul had obviously forgotten to change into her own pajamas before her experiment.

Yes she wore pajamas normally. They were comfortable and people who thought it was something for kids were delusional.

After Mia had changed they brushed each other's hair. It had become somewhat of a morning routine for them to do that.

Argul left their tent and looked around. They had walked around the hill near the village at some point during their journey and were now past it. You could see more hills scattered around the landscape. There weren’t a lot of trees, so you could see relatively far.

She spotted Arthur at their group area, cooking something above the embers of a dead fire. Alyra was lying a bit away from the spot, likely making sure not to catch fire or something.

They had built their tents on the edge of the group of refugees. Besides Alyra and Mia they were more comfortable with less people. Trevor had slept in the main camp anyway and he wasn’t really part of their group.

Argul cleaned both Alyra and Arthur and got two grateful nods in return. Because of her they were by far the most clean of all the people here.

Arthur's eyes widened as he saw Argul and the changes to her. Argul ignored him, but got surprised when she saw the face of Alyra, who smirked upon seeing her expression.

Alyra’s eyes were similar to those of Argul just in white and on her forehead a red diamond was embedded into the pattern in her fur. Of course the little fox would change with Argul, she was literally her daughter. Though the sight made Argul wonder if Alyra took pride in looking similar to her.

Arthur cleared his throat. “So, do you two mind explaining the changes?”

Argul looked at him and shook her head. “If you want to continue traveling with us after this is over, then maybe we will tell you and Mia who we really are.”

She smiled at Mia and then looked at Argul again. “It is clear that you two are aware that something is up and we would very much appreciate it if you could keep that a secret.”

Arthur nodded and turned to what he was preparing again. “I can keep a secret or two, it comes with the job.”

Alyra rolled her eyes and Argul sighed. “For now it should be enough for you to know that Alyra and I see the world differently than you, to be precise we now perceive 4 dimensional.”

Arthur choked on his own saliva at that and coughed a fit. Alyra looked at him mockingly. “You okay little man?”

Arthur coughed again and glared at Alyra. “Yes I am. Thank you for your concern, overly large fox.”

Argul smiled. What a nice friendship!

Mia and Argul sat down next to Arthur and watched him cook. For Argul warming the food of yesterday was cooking, don’t judge her!

Once Arthur was done they had a nice potato soup with bread for breakfast. Thanks to Argul they cleaned their stuff in record time and started packing up their tents.

Argul made sure that Mia helped, but always promised to play with her afterwards. Her parents had always threatened her with silly things when she had been a kid and Argul did not believe it was a good way of parenting. 

You just had to turn the threat into a promise and it would be a lot different for the kid. At least she believed it to be more likely for children to develop an optimistic mindset that way.

She played a bit of hide and seek with Mia until all the others were ready to depart. Then she helped Mia to put on her backpack. She was just carrying her own pajamas and a pillow, but Argul thought it might give her a sense of helping them. It also looked really cute, but that was definitely not the main reason…

Argul slung her sniper on her back, yes her sniper. She would have to convince Arthur somehow to give it to her as a gift. Then she took the sports bag and perked up when she heard the sound of car engines.

Alyra also perked up, but the two were the only ones who had heard something as they were a lot stronger than the rest.

Argul sighed to herself. Hearing car’s could only mean one thing, an annoying situation.