So I’m a Fish, So What?

---------------Tomoko’s P.O.V--------------

Hey you, yes you!

See this little 4-year-old lady posing in front of the mirror with a smug grin on her face right now?!

You may be wondering, how on earth can such a cute child exist right ? right?!

Well, I am proud to inform you that this child is the one and only me!

Tomoko Ito Grant, or you can use Tia Grant If you prefer my English name though.

Now you’re probably wondering why my personality has undergone a huge transformation and how I became narcissistic.

Well first, let me narrate what happened in the last 4 years.

 

**Flashback**

It’s warm and dark… Did I wake up before birth?

I read some information about human babies before, a baby gains consciousness between the fifth and sixth months of the mother's pregnancy if I remember correctly.

With how strong my soul is, I’ll take a shot and say that there are 4 months left until I’m born.

This is a nice head start, I'll start checking on my wishes right away.

I start by checking the soul branch knowledge for the basics.

There may be some gods taking a vacation on earth for all I know, the anime didn’t delve into earth’s world settings, and I didn’t live long enough to read the novels.

I mean, I had only read the first volume of the novel… Yep, it was the one I read right before I had the sleep of a lifetime, literally.

The god responsible for Kumoko’s reincarnation was staying in Japan though, she was even a student of the same class.

For insurance, I should start by inspecting my soul and disguising it as a normal human’s soul, Alkreya did notice me due to the peculiarity of my soul after all.

I go over the basics of soul manipulation of which the most important is perceiving the soul itself. Can’t fix something without actually knowing what it actually is, you know.

{Analyzing “Spiritual Cognition” and “Souls for Dummies”. Estimated time till completion: 24 hours}

I’m startled by a cold mechanical voice that sounds in my mind followed by a sharp headache that’s almost immediately dulled, then some knowledge starts appearing in my mind as if it’s being injected into it.

I won’t even comment on how my knowledge is named, good one Alkreya.

Huh, what’s this about? I am pretty sure I didn’t ask for systems nor does this world’s Japan have such a thing.

{File retrieval: Soul Archives Manager}

The knowledge stops coming in, and an explanation of the voice’s identity soon appears in my mind.

Basically, goddess Alkreya gave me “software” to manage the “files” recorded in my “hard drive”, the archives, including memories, knowledge, and action proficiencies.

My soul has become a “RAM”, that is responsible for all my mental processes, the “output” is then injected into my brain, all these parts operating together in a computer-ish mechanism.

If I want my brain to be excluded from this, I need to abandon my body and condense a soul body.

I’m still too weak and unskilled to do such a thing though.

The information can be retrieved from my soul whenever needed, and the stronger my soul is the faster I can retrieve them.

The knowledge flow resumes, and I start feeling drowsy, I let go of my consciousness and fall into a warm sleep.

A day later, I am awoken by the voice. I’ll just call it Manager from now on

{Analysis succeeded: “Spiritual Cognition” ability obtained}

{Analysis succeeded: “Souls For Dummies” has been comprehended}

Analysis succeeded? Does that mean it can fail?

Maybe failure would be due to insufficient prerequisite knowledge or talent.

I might have some things analyzed more than once to succeed.

I started observing my soul right away and… What the actual fuck?

First off, my soul seems anything but human.

 If I had to describe it, I’d say it reminds me of Lovecraftian lore monster stuff, the ever-expanding type.

Although it is still considered small right now, it’s increasing in size by the second.

Taking a closer look, I find out that it is expanding in order to increase information storage available.

Another eye-catching thing is the core of my soul, normally it is the toughest place in a soul, similar to how a nucleus is in human cells, though it is all solid. It is also the most protected place in a soul.

My soul core, however, contains two books and something resembling a portal.

I focus on them and immediately information pours into my brain.

Apparently, they are the embodiment of my three wishes.

Talent and knowledge are represented by books, while analytic ability is represented by a portal that absorbs and analyzes whatever I want from the outside.

They were able to settle in my soul core because I subconsciously allowed them inside, it facilitates using them.

Lastly, my soul is entirely covered with a disgusting gray substance, that’s definitely not supposed to be here.

The information I get specifies them as pollution caused by incompatibility with my old world, my mental issues were caused by them.

I think what needs to be done here is incredibly, purify it all!

{Analyzing “Soul Purification” and proceeding to activate it after success. Estimated time till completion: 4 months}

‘Wait, doesn’t that mean I’ll be asleep until then?’ was my last thought as my consciousness drifted into darkness.

 

4 Months later,

I wake feeling my body being pulled, which causes me to subconsciously panic and struggle to get free

That is until I remember what happened before losing consciousness, then I just calm down and let myself be pulled. Judging by the analysis time taken, today should be the day of my birth.

I quickly check my soul and find out that it’s fully purified and back to the normal golden color in all its glory.

My body is finally pulled out, my eyes struggle to adapt to the sudden light difference.

After a few moments, my vision clears up and I can see, well as much as a baby’s eyes can, some sort of white room.

It should be a hospital ward. I let out a cry announcing my glorious descent into this world.

I am then brought to a water tub and bathed by a woman, a nurse I assume; I hear sounds of human conversation around me.

Oh, they should be speaking in Japanese, my sense of hearing is currently too weak to make out clear sounds.

I quickly analyze the language the nurse is using.

{Analyzing the spoken language “Japanese”. Analysis success}

That was quick?! Maybe being in immediate contact sped up the analysis?

My ears are still adapting so I can’t understand much of what is said.

I get covered in a blanket and then carried over to a man.

Is this my new father??

My vision is too blurry, and the blanket is covering my face, damn baby body!

The man uncovers my face, letting a woman lying on the bed gaze at me, this should be my new mother.

I shift my eyesight between their faces until my vision clears a bit.

I see an astounding beauty of a woman and a gender-neutral man looking at me with loving expressions. Well, I certainly am satisfied with how they look, I’m sure I’ll turn out to be a handsome man!

The nurse was saying something to my parents, then I hear my father’s voice clearly for the first time.

“Tomoko…. Her name will be Tomoko Ito Grant.” As soon as I heard the obviously female name, a chill goes down my spine as the image of goddess Alkreya choking on her laughter automatically came into mind.

You did this right Alkreya?!!

My jaws dropped, and I was about to cry again, but apparently, my mother just thought of it as a sign of me being hungry and swiftly stars feeding me.

I try to calm down and figure out my current situation, and I had to accept reality…

I’ve been reborn as a girl.

 

**Flashback End**

And that’s how my first day was.

Hectic as fuck I tell ya.

As for what caused my personality change, I realized something was wrong with me on the second day of my new life.

Deciding to check it, it turns out the soul purification led to my numbed emotions becoming active again.

However, it also cleared all the emotions associated with my old life memories, those memories have become akin to a movie I watched from a character’s point of view.

The only memories that were luckily spared that fate were memories of my first life parents.

They were already purified beforehand and placed in a protective film.

I’m guessing this is Alkreya’s doing, I owe her 2 extra favors now… One for the {Soul Archives Manager} and one for this.

Afterwards, I analyzed the {Soul Strengthening} ability.

It’s basically just a type of sleep-like meditation which is used in combination with {Spiritual Cognition}, it can replace sleeping as well.

I had thought such an ability would be like Chinese cultivation, but it turns out the only similarity was the meditation part, it was not tempering my soul through pressure like muscle training either

It is, at its essence, a process where I actively use a hybrid of mental-soul powers to pressure my ever-expanding soul.

This effectively compresses it to normal size while increasing its quality.

The sharp decrease in size finally allowed me, at last, to use another ability I analyzed after strengthening.

I used the {Illusory Soul} ability to disguise my soul, leaving behind an illusion of a normal soul.

Compressing my soul and adjusting the illusions took me an entire year’s worth of time.

Luckily, my brain had developed enough to accommodate multiple-tasking, so I’ve been observing my family at the same time.

My Mother was the chairman of a family company inherited after my grandparents passed away.

My father also coincidentally, had the same experience.

Yup… Unfortunately, I don’t have many living relatives.

My mother is an only child while my father only has a younger brother.

Both my paternal and maternal grandparents passed away before my birth due to old age.

Only my uncle was alive, but he is a food gourmet who went traveling around the world to taste different cuisines, throwing the family company away to my father to manage alone.

I mean, I support you, but you’ve gotta get me some of that food uncle, sharing is caring and all!

I started crawling by my sixth month of age, it was earlier than normal.

I’ve been training my baby muscles whenever possible after all, I became a macho baby.

No… I was not, I was actually too small, I even thought I might’ve been born prematurely until I heard my mother speaking with my dad about their family genes once.

It turns out all my maternal family members were born petite and grew up short, although did break the record for the smallest.

Eh… Am I gonna end up being a loli?!

When I reached 11 months of age, I could finally make a clear voice and uttered my first words surprising my parents.

“Ma… Ma… Pa…. Pa” I sweetly stuttered while they were watching TV on a peaceful afternoon.

My parents went silent for a solid 10 seconds, then all hell went loose.

“Again, sweetie again” Father practically threw me in the air and hugged me while mother had a scary glint in her eyes as she went to bring the camera.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get me to call them, to which I tried my best with my stuttering baby voice.

This made them realize that maybe I am a “Gifted” child, they proceeded to merge their companies together freeing up more time to spend with me, trying to teach me “new” things.

By the time I was 1 year old, I could finally walk without any support, we also celebrated an amazing birthday for me by ourselves only.

I also realized that somehow, a small connection to the world was quietly formed in my soul core, resulting in me gaining a sharp intuition.

What caused this turned out to be leaked power from the books affecting the portal, effectively turning it into a tiny channel between my soul and the outside world.

Space and soul power can apparently do that.

The next three years were basically spent at either home or my parents’ company.

I finished “learning” all kindergarten topics and was the genius girl of my age, I made sure to enjoy all the praise I got, and trust me, all those sweet words made me the most narcissistic child you could find out there.

I was also analyzing the ability {Soul barrier} which had an estimated time of over 3 years till completion!

Although it is low-level magic that’ll need me to provide my life force as fuel to work, having it as insurance is a must.

If my family encounters any abrupt accidents, I can shroud their soul in a barrier and carry it inside my soul, preventing their soul from dissipating, then I can resurrect them after I’m strong enough.

It’s not like I’m going to live much to over 20 in this body or world after all.

This is the summary of this cute lady’s first four years of life!

Currently, I am standing in front of the mirror checking out my dress and hairdo.

My uncle finally returned from his last trip and he is visiting to see me.

He has just returned from a 5-year trip so, I must put on my cutest looks to welcome him back.

Totally not expecting him to bring any delicious juicy delicious food at all.

Trust me I’m not. Just look at my puppy eyes.

I wipe drool off my chin and head out to the front door eagerly awaiting his arrival while pretending I didn’t hear my parents snickering behind my back.