Seraphim is a Bystander

The Hero’s Seeds
 

 
About half a month passed, and the fetus continued to grow steadily without any issues. I spent the days reading picture books aloud like always.
 

 
As for the parents, there seemed to be a lot of chaos at first, but strangely, everything calmed down within about a week.
 

 
While reading to the child, I did a bit of probing and found out the parents are apparently part of some large organization due to their work. Looks like people connected to it were buzzing around busily.
 

 
Well, as long as this kid's doing fine, I don't really care.
“...And so, they saved the world. The end. Happily ever after.”

I closed the book I had been holding open for the fetus to see and placed it on a nearby desk. Then I gently lifted the child with both hands and laid them in the cradle, heading over to return the book to the shelf.
 
 

The book we just finished was about a real hero who lived in a fantasy world filled with swords and magic—one my subordinate oversaw, if I remember right.
 
 

This child is also one of the “hero seeds” the world’s corrective force prepared. I wonder if, someday, they too will be spoken «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» of like the hero in this book...
“If their heroic tale ever gets published, I’ll need to double-check it to make sure they don’t write anything weird.”
After all, my angel's halo doesn't miss anything, no matter how short the tale or how obscure—be it oral folklore from some remote region, it will be detected…!
 

 
Snorting with determination, I grabbed another picture book and headed back toward the fetus, only to—
“...Huh?”

The fetus I had just laid in the cradle… was gone.
“!!”
Even I froze up for a second. Come on, focus!

 
 
I quickly summoned the halo above my head and began gathering external information. Focusing solely on the wavelength of that fetus’s spirit, I rapidly expanded my field of perception.

 
 
Where are they…? I hadn’t been using the halo, true, but for someone to slip past my awareness in my own space during that one brief moment I looked away—unthinkable!

 
 
“...Gyaa… aah… aaah…!!”

Ugh, am I picking up interference? Focus harder!
 
 

“Waaah… aaaaaaah…!!”
So noisy! Where the heck is this sound coming from? It’s resonating directly in my head… It almost sounds like…
 

 
“WAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”
…a newborn’s cry echoing directly in my mind?

 
 
What the…? This sensation doesn’t come from halo perception, or from any of my usual five senses. Could it be—

 
 
I reversed my earlier expansion, shrinking my perception smaller and smaller—past zero, into the negatives. Smaller… smaller… until I could sense a space deeper than even my own, closer than my actual physical form.

 
 
“Ah… I see now…”

I felt it again—that familiar wavelength of the fetus I’d gotten to know so well these past two months. My tension vanished, and I practically collapsed into the nearby rocking chair.
 
 

Thinking about it calmly, this was the most obvious conclusion. I was reincarnated as a sub-personality inside this child in order to supplement their energy reserves and help them save the world. Most likely, the Creator God compressed my existence—space and all—into this child’s vessel, embedding me as an internal source of power.
 
 

Now that the child has been born as a proper human, and their spirit has settled into their body, it’s only natural that their own consciousness is closer to the surface than mine.
 
 

I had forgotten that I was inside their physical body, so I’d been scanning outward for information the whole time. I shifted my awareness away from just the spirit wavelength and broadened it again to check the external situation.
 
 

“WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
That wrinkly little face I knew so well was now letting out a healthy wail, mouth wide open.