I Built a Divine Zoo in Another World

Time passed quickly in the Dmond mansion.

Four months had flown by since Lukas turned five months old, a blur of sunny days, starry nights, quiet discoveries, and accelerated growth.

The calendar of that world, which Lukas still did not fully understand, marked the passing of the seasons differently from Earth. But he could feel the changes in the air, the milder warmth, the longer nights, and the scent of wet soil after frequent rains.

Now, at nine months old, the Dmonds’ little prodigy was no longer a baby confined to a crib.

He walked everywhere.

He no longer crawled. That phase had lasted only a few weeks, much to the astonishment of Aurora and Clavor, who remembered Asmon crawling for months before taking his first clumsy steps.

Lukas simply... stood up one day and walked. Without hesitation. Without falling. As if he had known how to do it for years.

He ran through the mansion’s stone corridors, his bare feet striking the cold floor in a steady rhythm. He climbed small steps, the ones leading to the inner garden, the ones ascending to the second floor, with an ease that left the servants speechless.

He explored every corner, every room, every hidden nook of the estate with a determination that bordered on obsession.

”That boy never stays still,” Helga, the cook, remarked one morning after finding Lukas inspecting the herb jars in the pantry.

”He’s like a little-legged hurricane.”

”Hurricane,” Lukas repeated, testing the word.

”What is a hurricane?”

Helga laughed, shaking her head.

”A great storm, little baron. One that knocks down trees and houses.”

”I want to see one.”

”You don’t. They’re dangerous.”

Lukas filed the information away mentally.

’Storms are different from Earth’s. Or perhaps the same, just with another name.’

...

His mother, Aurora, still tried to impose limits.

”You can walk around the house as much as you want,” she repeated almost every day, kneeling down to meet his gaze.

It was a ritual Lukas knew well by now. Aurora would kneel, her long skirts spreading across the wooden floor, her violet eyes fixed on his with a mixture of love and concern.

”You can explore every room, play in the inner garden, and help the servants if they let you.”

She raised her index finger, the gesture that meant ”attention, important part.”

”But you are forbidden from going outside alone. Do you understand, my love?”

Lukas looked at her with his innocent violet eyes, so much like hers, so bright, so deep, and answered in his childish and impossibly adorable voice, with perfect intonation.

”Yes, Mommy.”

Aurora melted every single time. It did not matter how many times he gave the same answer; the effect was always identical.

Her expression softened, her lips curled into a foolish smile, and she pulled him into a tight hug, kissing his forehead repeatedly.

”My well-behaved little baby,” she murmured, ruffling Lukas’s white hair with her fingers.

Lukas smiled from within his mother’s embrace.

He followed the rules.

Most of the time.

There had been a few escapes. Nothing serious, only small expeditions beyond the permitted boundaries, always when Aurora was distracted and the servants were too busy to notice.

Once, he made it all the way to the front gate, standing before the wrought-iron bars and staring at the dirt road that wound downhill toward unknown places.

’The town,’ he thought.

’Where is it? How far away? How long would it take to get there?’

He did not know.

But he was determined to find out.

Another time, he explored the back of the mansion, where the empty stables stood. The Dmond family did not own many horses at that time. They had sold several years earlier when finances became tight, but the stables still carried the scent of dry hay and animals long gone.

Lukas ran his hand across the wooden partitions, imagining what the horses of this world looked like.

’Different from Earth’s?’ he wondered.

’Smaller? Larger? Horned?’

He did not know.

But he wanted to know.

He always wanted to know.

Even so, he was never caught. Lukas was careful, a quality he had brought from his previous life and refined during long months of silent observation.

When he returned inside the mansion, no one suspected a thing.

...

He had also left the mansion a few times, always accompanied by Clavor or Asmon.

They were short outings and, for Lukas, deeply frustrating.

Clavor had taken him to the wheat fields about fifteen minutes on foot from the mansion, showing him the lands owned by the Dmond family and cultivated by peasants from the nearby villages.

”All of this belongs to us,” Clavor explained, making a broad gesture that encompassed hectares of golden farmland.

”The peasants plant, harvest, and give us a portion as tribute. In return, we protect them.”

Lukas looked at the fields, at the workers bent over the soil, and at the immense open sky above them.

’So large,’ he thought.

’So vast. And I’ve barely seen a fraction of it.’

Asmon had taken him to a nearby grove, claiming he had seen ”interesting things” there when he was younger.

But the ”interesting things” turned out to be ordinary squirrels, though the squirrels of this world had silver stripes along their backs and longer, fluffier tails, which was already something.

”Look, Lukas!” Asmon pointed at one of the animals as it climbed a tree with a swift motion.

”A Silver Squirrel. They’re hard to spot. You got lucky.”

Lukas watched the squirrel for a long moment, his eyes fixed on every detail. The way sunlight reflected from the silver stripes. The way its tail curled around its body when it sat on a branch. The small sound it made, a sharp chirping noise, was unlike that of Earth squirrels.

”Pretty,” he finally said.

”Yeah, yeah...” Asmon scratched the back of his head.

”But it’s not very exciting, right? I was hoping we’d see a wolf or something.”

”Wolves live here? This close to home?”

”They do. But they’re dangerous. Father told me not to go near them.”

Lukas stored the information away.

’Wolves. Different from Earth’s wolves? Probably. I need to see one.’

But the most he saw during those supervised outings were colorful birds flying too high to be observed in detail, brilliant butterflies moving too fast to follow, and strange insects in the garden. They disappeared before he could properly study them.

No larger animals. No magical beasts.

Nothing that truly fed his insatiable curiosity.

’Not yet,’ he thought, gazing toward the horizon beyond the mansion walls, toward the distant mountains outlined against the sky like stone fangs.

’But soon.’