One year has gone by since that discussion I had with Maa.

I'm finally three years old, which isn't a feat in and of itself, but the fact that I had reached three meant to me, as a very small person, that I've reached a new milestone in term of independence.

I now walk on my own.

“Walking on my own”, that is not to be confused with being able to walk on my own, since it was two different concepts. One was acquiring a new way of motility while the others was being able to walk without having Mathilda guarding me. Needless to say which I was referring to, after all, I’ve been proficiently good at walking since last year.

Back in the days when all I could do was toddle around, which I was mostly allowed only and under Maa's close supervision. I could still understand the need of me being baby-sitted, but once I started to be able to walk on my own, I started to long for more liberties.

I appreciate the dedication, but time has come for her to take a rest. When I was younger, younger than I already was, she used to spend most of her time watching me doing things, toddler things which I was in a sense expected to do. Leaving the middle of the night, the only time I wasn't being monitored.

That’s what it used to be, but times have changed, for I, Ronandt, can finally roam through the manor freely.

Not gonna lie, I quickly lost interest. But still, I've come to learn a lot of things I was ignorant of by exploring around, with the free time I had.

I've only recently learned of it, but it seems that the manor goes under the appellation of Manor Rosetta.

It was a 1060-square-meter structure with, on the basement floor, an entrance hall, a large living room, a dining room, a kitchen with a laundry room, and a boiler room.

On the second floor, there was an office, a dining room, two bedrooms including my own, a living room, and finally a library, which the entrance was prohibited by Maa, the door was locked anyways so I don’t get what she meant by prohibiting the access itself was impossible.

There wasn’t much in the third floor but bedrooms.

The manor aside, there were two other structures on the manor property, including a 530-square-meter independent house that I was not permitted to visit because the staff lives and sleeps there and a garage.

A well-kept lawn surrounded the manor domain, which from my room, afar, could be seen enclosing the property with a quite possibly two-meter-high fence.

The Rosetta household included me, the supposedly master of the house.

Mathilda, the Governess, who, until very recently, spent the majority of her time looking after me. Most of the time, she acts as an intermediary between me and the servants of the manor, as I have little to no interaction with them.

Syrus, the butler of the house. I reckon he might be around the same age as Maa's if not just a bit younger, for his hair, which I assume used to be brawn, has started to turn white in several spots. Just like the other servants I never really interacted much with him. Most of our interactions could be summed up as an interrogation of "Does the young Lord need anything?" to which in most cases would respond with a "No." He seems to be fairly a competent butler, at least, that’s how it looks to me, but I think he has some sort of aversion to babies since, from what I can tell, he seems to be actively trying to avoid me as much as possible. That was pretty much all I knew about him. Oops, I almost forgot, I also know from Maa that before I was born, he, just like Maa herself, used to work for my family.

Besides Maa and Syrus, there were, of course, the four housemaids, all of whom were in their twenties. When I was younger, I remember them, at several reprises, attempting to play with me behind Maa’s, as weird as it was back then, I could understand their interest to my regard, after all, I was a very cute baby. But, as of late, I've noticed that they're clearly avoiding me. Why would they? One might wonder to oneself, Well the answer was obvious: Maa. To be honest, at first, I assumed she simply despised the maids for whatever reason because whenever they were close to me while doing their jobs, such as setting the table, Maa would glare at them in a such murderous way that the poor could only but anxiously finish what she was up to and get away from me. But recently, as I was parading around, I saw Maa interacting with them in a, well, not friendly, but gentler manner. It seems that she simply does not want them to be anywhere near me. I've concluded that the problem was not between Maa and the maids, but rather between Maa via me and the Maid.

There were also several guards, four to be exact. Yeah, it’s a little V.I.P that we have here. As for Sirus and the others, I don't know much about them. All I know is that two of them were long-time employees and the other two were hired after I moved here. It's clear that they have it easy because, in almost three years of living in this manor, I've never encountered a situation where they were truly needed. Their job consisted mostly of looking though, that’s pretty much it.

Last but not least, there were the Gardener and the cook. The former was a brawny brawn ponytailed old man, while the latter was the exact, opposite, a beer-bellied bald man. I didn’t know their name, but I knew how excellent they were at their job. Everything served in this manor has always been delicious, and the well-kept lawn and lovely garden were obvious proof, even for an amater in gardening like me, that the two of them were quite proficient in their respective line of work.

I think that should be a- Oh!

There were other people I almost forgot to mention.

Though they weren’t, strictly speaking, part of the household, there were also the merchant and his wife, who did not live in the manor but instead lived in the nearby town and had the weekly task of delivering food and other supplies to the manor. By the way, the merchant's wife was pregnant with a child who should soon be expected.

So… To summarize everything, I'm doing pretty well in this household; despite not having blood-related relatives by my side, I was given enough resources to grow into a bona-fide noble.

To that particular attention, I guess I'll have to work harder to live up to these expectations.

And there's, once again, one more thing I almost forgot. This time it was not about anyone but rather about this place itself.

The most noticeable aspect of this location is not its people or the building, but rather its location. The manor is situated in the middle of nowhere. Around here, there was no such thing as neighbors, there was just us in the middle of a no man’s land.

If I were to look outside southward, I would see a dense forest, not far away; with no end in sight.

I once asked Maa about that forest. She told me that the forest is known as Iharana the Great and that it is the largest forest in the world.

The manor Rosetta was located at the outskirt of two continents, the Human and Monster continents. Yes, Monsters do exist in this world.

This Iharana Greatforest is said to be the world's largest, most mysterious and most dangerous forest known to mankind. The two latter due to two peculiar factors,

First being because nobody had ever been able to fully investigate the forest in its entirety. So far, its total superficies remain unknown, but it is thought to be at least a hundred times the superficies of the human continent.

The second and last reason was that because the forest was within the Monster continent territory, and as the name suggested, was where monsters dwell. The Iharana Great Forest was infamously known for being densely packed with a wide variety of monsters, ranging from the more or less harmless one to the one against which humanity would have a very hard time defending against.

When I first heard that, I wondered why would anyone build a manor so close to the forest, and was it safe for us to live here if that forest was known to be that dangerous, but I was immediately reassured by Maa that there was no reason for us to fear, for humanity had one thing that, for millennials, stood between the Human continent where mankind lived and the Monster continent where dwelled monster. Continent, the Church’s barrier.

Commonly known and referred to as the barrier, it is a force field covering the entirety of the human continent. The barrier is one of the few ways humanity has found to efficiently defend itself against monsters.

Several ùillennia ago, there was only one continent, but through guerrilla warfare, which consists of eliminating monsters in a specific area and erecting a barrier, which from time to time would be expanded. Humanity has found and secured itself a safe place to live in without fearing the danger that is monsters, this place is what is now known as the human continent.

Unfortunately for mankind, the strategy used to diffuse and expand the barrier turned out to be peculiarly incompatible with the Iharana Great Forest, for three reasons it was known as the most mysterious and most dangerous forest known to mankind.

In consequence, humanity had no other choice but to halt their expansion here at the outskirts of the Iharana Greatforest.