5-the decline of the world





...... Dear Abel. Your meal is now ready.

 It was an hour later when Lilith woke me up as promised.

 When he awoke, the food was already laid out on the table and the house was filled with a delicious aroma that whetted his appetite.

'You must have slept soundly,'

Yeah. I can't help but notice how often the drowsiness comes on in a child's body.

Can I ask you: "...... How can you put a child's body in the hands of someone you know to be unfree?

Well, it's a risk, but there are many advantages to this.

 Says. There are three peaks in this world.

 That is - the peak of learning ability is the teenage years. The peak of physical strength is in your 20s. The peak of magical power is in your 30s.

 I chose the body of a child before he or she enters the teenage years because I thought that in the world of 200 years in the future, they should have to learn a lot of new things.

 Well, apart from that, I had a personal situation where I wanted to start over in a child's body if I was going to live a new life.

'Oh ....... You've cooked some pretty elaborate food.

 Today's dinner was cream pasta with clams and tomatoes.
 The menu itself is simple, but because of the tasteful tableware and the side dishes, it looks quite fancy.

Go ahead. Please join us.

Thank you, sir.

 Apparently, my body has been craving a sacrificial meal for quite some time while I've been sleeping for 200 years.
 I ate up the food in front of me in the blink of an eye, before I had time to comment on the taste.

''What do you think? How does it taste?''

Yeah. I think it's pretty good. Where did you learn it?

'No. It's not that big of a deal, but I've only learned a little from reading cookbooks.

'I see. ....... Nowadays, there's even a book on cooking: ......

 Two hundred years ago, books were a very expensive commodity.
 This was partly because paper itself was expensive to begin with, but also because each book was hand-written by hand, and this cost a fortune in labor.

 What's worse, even if a book has the same title, its quality deteriorates as the contents are rewritten as the book is copied over and over again.

 In the previous era, 90% of books were about magic, and the only other books were a few history books.

 At least the idea of making a book about cooking was unthinkable in the era I lived in.

It used to be that you could buy a small house with one book: ......

'Yeah. I was spending all the money I earned, too, and I couldn't stand to live in poverty.

 In my case, I was obsessed with the originals, not the poor quality copies, so I honestly didn't have a lot of money to spare.

 Hmmm.


 But this was going to be a lot of fun in the future.

 Human evolution is a remarkable thing, and the level of civilization in this world has evolved more dramatically than I had hoped for.

 Probably in this day and age, it is now possible to read books quite cheaply.

''If you don't mind, after we eat, I can show you the stacks I've prepared upstairs?

'Oh ......! You've even prepared something like that: ......!

'Yes, sir. I knew that Master Abel was a great reader, and I thought the quickest way to learn about the current times would be to read a book.

 Caught up in Lilith's words, I lighten my step and head upstairs where the stacks are.

 If I can read the books I love, I'm sure I'll be able to spend my boring childhood in a meaningful way.

 At the time, I was thinking about this, oblivious to the "decline" that was secretly taking place in this world.