But before they could respond, the memory faded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind only the strange, comforting feeling of knowing I had been in that place before. The field in front of me, the slimes, and the companion who felt like a shadow now.

  "Are you okay?" She looked at me, her expression concerned, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something deep inside me was calling to—something, no, someone I had forgotten.

  “I'm ok, my head just hurts a little.” I turned to her, smiling, showing I was ok.

  “Here, give me your head, I'll help,” she insisted, and I leaned my head forward as she placed her hands there and started chanting a spell. All of a sudden, even though my head wasn't hurting, it felt much better.

  “Wow, looks like we have a prodigy in the family.” I playfully elbowed her, teasing her in front of our parents.

  “Oh, shut it, would you?” she grumbled, pulling my ear.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! You win, stop!” I cried out in pain. Our parents started laughing, stopping what we were doing. “Finally, now I can go back to sleep.” I went back to cultivating my mana, still covering my ear from any incoming attacks. After a quiet ride that lasted until sundown, we arrived at a small city, where we rested for the night, continuing our journey at sunrise.

  “Mom, is it okay if I walk next to the carriage?” I asked, eager to practice applying mana to my body.

  Before she could answer, my father chimed in, “Sure, let's get ahead of the carriage and clear out the slimes on the path.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I grinned, pumping my fists in excitement. Without waiting, my father took off at a jog, getting ahead of me and the carriage. Despite my small frame, I kept up, channeling mana into my legs to lighten each step. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

  A group of slimes blocked the road—twenty-two in total. My father stopped, momentarily forgetting I was right beside him. The second the slimes got close, I lunged in, shattering their cores with my hands before they could react. Their bodies collapsed into lifeless puddles, the gelatin squelching under my feet.

  My father, meanwhile, dealt with seven slimes. He swung his fists, smashing through them with ease—until he stepped wrong and tripped over a cluster of them. He landed with a heavy thud, accidentally crushing five of their cores under his weight.

  I stifled a laugh. “Well… that’s one way to do it.”

  Dusting himself off, my father sighed in relief. “Oh, hey, Ash—” Then his eyes widened. “ASH!?”

  I tilted my head. “What? Did you forget you had a son?”

  “No, but—” He glanced at the remains of the slimes I had taken out, his brow twitching. “You killed more than I!”

  I smirked, crossing my arms. “What, you mean an ‘A-rank adventurer’ like you didn’t earn that title by slaying at least eight slimes?”

  His eye twitched. Before I could react, a belt materialized in his hand out of nowhere.

  “Come here, you little—!”