Chapter 61
There was a time when Monica had forgotten human language.
After her father died and her uncle took her in, Monica lived in fear of him every day.
Her uncle hated Monica's father—no, it would be fair to say he loathed him.
Every time her uncle spoke ill of her father, Monica desperately argued back: Her father had done nothing wrong.
And every time Monica opened her mouth, her uncle brought his fist down on her.
Shut up. Be quiet. Don't say another word.
With every barrage of abuse, his fists came down. At the worst of times, he kicked her in the stomach and beat her with a chair. Being deprived of meals was an everyday occurrence.
When Monica went outside, the townspeople pointed fingers at her. All they whispered about was her father's disgrace.
Day after day, her mind and body were gradually ground down and worn away.
Before long, Monica began escaping into the world of numbers whenever things became painful.
Whenever her uncle beat her or shoved her into the barn in the dead of winter, Monica would endlessly repeat in her head the equations from books she had read in her father's study. Doing so allowed her to forget both the pain in her body and the cold of winter.
After she had begun escaping into the world of numbers, some time passed before her perception began to warp.
First, she could no longer recognize human faces.
She understood the numbers representing the size of the eyes, the distance between them, the angle of their outer corners, and the length, width, and height of the nose, as well as the angle of the chin... but she could no longer recognize them as a human face. To Monica, human faces looked like nothing more than masses of numbers.
Next, she could no longer recognize human expressions.
When her uncle grew angry, everything was converted into numbers: his eyebrows moved this much, his mouth opened this much, the angle of his mouth changed by so many degrees, and his eyebrows moved so many times in three seconds.
Yet Monica could not recognize the "anger" conveyed by her uncle's face. The only thing she could understand was the number representing how much each part of his face had moved.
If her uncle kicked the table, her mind began calculating: The table moved this much, so the force with which he kicked it was...
Monica could not understand why her uncle had kicked the table.
The only thing Monica could understand was the force of her uncle's kick, converted into a number.
Finally, she could no longer understand human speech.
She understood that her uncle was saying something, but her mind could not process the meaning of his words. Unable to tell what he had said, Monica counted the sounds, combined them in equations, and let the results spill from her mouth.
Calling her creepy, her uncle kicked her away.
Without being able to understand what she had been told, Monica calculated how many seconds it would take for her nosebleed to clot.
By the time a year had passed since her uncle took her in, Monica was broken to the point that she could recognize nothing but numbers.
She immersed herself in the beautiful world of equations that could never hurt her, turning her eyes away from reality.
Her body could do only the bare minimum needed to stay alive, and her already thin frame grew as thin as a stick.
One woman reached out a hand to Monica.
She was a bespectacled woman in her mid-thirties with short, neatly trimmed reddish-brown hair. Her name was Hilda Everett.
She had once been Monica's father's assistant.
"Ever since Dr. Rain died... I've been looking for you."
After her uncle threw her out of the house, Hilda draped her own stole over the freezing Monica and spoke in a gentle voice.
But Monica could not understand those words. She understood only numbers.
As Monica muttered, plugging the number of characters in the words she had heard directly into equations, Hilda smiled gently and stroked her cheek.
The equations Dr. Rain taught you... You can use them perfectly at your age.
...
You shouldn't be in a place like this. Come with me, Monica.
......Monica?
How long had it been since anyone had called her by her name? Her uncle called her nothing but good-for-nothing or slowpoke.
It had also been a long time since she had heard her father's name. Everyone treated it like a taboo, as though no one was allowed to utter it.
Hearing her own name and her father's name brought Monica's consciousness, drifting through the world of numbers, back to the surface.
...My... name... The name... my father gave me... Monica Rain.
Hilda pulled the bruised Monica into her arms, her face looking as though she might cry.
If Dr. Rain could see you like this, he would be sad.
...Father... Father... Father...
Even when Monica said the word Father, this woman did not punch or kick her.
She simply mourned her father's death and held Monica close, as though cherishing her. How happy that must have made Monica.
...Father... wasn't bad... Father was... Father...
Yes, Dr. Rain was a great man.
Father... burned up... all of him, all of him... Ah, uah...
As Monica's body began to shake, Hilda's arms around her tightened.
That alone told Monica that this woman was grieving her father's death.
...Eh, uah, h-hic, u, ueh...... F-Father......
In Hilda's arms, Monica cried aloud for the first time in a long while.
Like a small child, sobbing her heart out.
From the next day onward, Monica became the adopted daughter of Hilda Everett, a staff member at the Magic Research Institute. Later, when her talent for magic was discovered, she went on to attend Minerva, an institution for training mages.
This took place about five years ago, when Monica was still twelve.