A bright light shone in my eyes. My eyes adjusted to the light. There was a cord coming out of me. It stretched back and right up a woman’s…

“Holy fuck,” was the first thing I thought. “I guess I should have predicted that I’d be reincarnated from birth.”

A different woman cut the cord with a knife and tied a soft woolen thread around the cord. She dressed me in swaddling clothes with incredible gentleness. A glow emerged from her hands, and a smile crossed her face.

"That glow? That was magic, wasn't it?" I thought.

"It was," Dʰéǵʰom replied.

Excitement flowed through me.

"This world has magic! I can't wait to learn it! Will I be able to shoot fireballs, summon spirits, shoot lightning bolts from my fingers, fly?"

"Calm down. You'll learn what you can do eventually. Right now, just focus on your current life."

“You have a healthy baby boy,” the woman said.

She placed me in my mother’s arms. My mom gazed down at me with a soft smile on her face. Her grip was gentle but firm. I felt safe in her arms, knowing that she'd never drop me.

My father, a tall man with a thick mustache and clothing that looked like something an aristocrat would wear in late 1300s or early 1400s England, beamed with pride. I really fucking hoped that I wasn’t in this world’s version of England.

I looked between my mother and father. They both had dark brown, almost black, hair. Their faces were heart-shaped, and my parents had brown eyes. They looked so similar that I worried that they were related. Their clothing meant they were most likely nobles, and the nobility generally had a level of inbreeding.

“My dear Gustav,” my mother smiled as she stroked my cheek. “You’re so cute.”

Yes! A Scandinavian name! I’m less likely to be in fantasy England!

My father noted, “He looks hungry.”

“Then we’ll have to feed him,” my mother said.

Sweat poured down from my brow. This was bad, very bad. They didn’t have baby formula in the Middle Ages, so that meant I’d be breastfed! I died in my 20s, and I still have all my memories of my past life! Being breastfed by my mother is just too awkward! I turned my face away from her, too embarrassed to look at her face.

To my relief, she handed me to another woman. This girl was tall. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of light green, and her blonde hair practically shined in the sunlight beaming into the room.

“He’s awfully sweaty,” the new girl stated.

She placed her hand on my forehead. “But he doesn’t feel very hot.”

The midwife put her hands on me again. They glowed.

She said, “He’s perfectly healthy. Maybe he just needs some milk?”

“He might,” the new woman nodded.

I REALLY hoped that this woman wasn’t related to me either.

Over the next few days, I learned a few things. First, the new woman was my wet nurse. She’d stay with the family even after I was done breastfeeding. This girl would help raise me, and she'd become a servant of mine in the future. Her name was Joanna Smed. I tried to purge the memories of being breastfed from my mind to keep things from getting awkward in the future.

I heard my patron god chuckling in the back of my head when I failed.

“You’re going to remember this,” he said. “Because it’ll be funny.”

“Remind me to beat you over the head with a stick later,” I thought.

“Sure thing, dude.”

I honestly liked having this sort of relationship with Dʰéǵʰom. It was much more personable than some god coming down from the sky and giving some grand speech before fucking off.

My suspicions that my family were nobles were confirmed too. Father was Count Luthor VI von Blitzburg, and mother was Countess Matilda von Blitzburg. I disliked being a noble, but it was the perfect chance to do some real good. Most nobles didn't care about commoners, so I'd be the one helping out the peasants. The lands my family ruled were part of the Kingdom of Greenrivers. This realm was like the Holy Roman Empire and Scandinavia. However, it was also distinct from them.

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The names are a good example of that. Most names were German or Scandinavian. But a lot of them were also English.

Joanna was from a noble family too. Though, the House of Smed was a knightly family. They were lower ranking than mine.

My family's seat of Blitzburg was a minor city on the Southern border of Greenrivers. Our castle was its citadel, built on a tall hill in the town’s center.

While I dislike the nobility as any good man of my homeland does, I also recognized this was an opportunity to help the commoners. Someone in a position of power but from my perspective could do a lot of good.

And then it turned out that I was fucking inbred. My parents were first cousins. I wanted to bash my head against a wall when I found out. Thankfully, I’d later learn that my parents’ incest was as far as my family’s inbreeding went. I just hoped to hell that I didn't have hemophilia or anything like that.

Another thing I wondered about was the language barrier. I shouldn’t have understood a thing anyone said, but I did so from birth. Then I remembered that Dʰéǵʰom sent me here. He probably gave me the ability to understand them. Still, I needed to keep people from getting suspicious of me. So, I pretended I couldn't understand anyone until I was old enough.

Then I ran into another issue. I had all the memories of my past life, but I still had a child’s body. More than my physical abilities were affected. My mental abilities were too.

This became a problem first when I was four. My father put me on his lap and sat on a chair.

“My son,” he said. “It’s time for me to tell you the history of our family. Normally, I’d wait until you’re older, but you’re very precocious.”

This was it, a thrilling history lesson of adventure! I got so excited, but then…

Father stated, “It all started 500 years ago. This was before the world awakened to magic. Our ancestor, Luthor I, was a minor courtier put in charge of managing farms. You see, he had a great knowledge of farming from his days…”

My father kept going on and on about agriculture and how great Luthor I was at it. I had a high tolerance for boredom in my first life. I did office work, after all. But unfortunately, I was in the body of a child with a kid's brain chemistry.

I was struggling to keep my eyes open long before my father got to the part where Luthor I was given a fief after conquering some guys somewhere by doing something. Why the hell did he have to go with the boring stuff first? Couldn't he have started off with the fighting? I was mentally checked out by the time he got to it!

On a different note, my parents gave me a lot of toys to play with. I had a toy knight, a toy wizard, several wooden swords, and a bunch of other things. My child's brain liked playing with them despite my adult memories telling me that I should only like playing with toys if dice were involved.

“Fuck those memories! I’m a little kid, dammit! I’m gonna have so much fun playing with these toys! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” I thought.

“You are definitely not normal,” my patron god commented.

Around the same time, Joanna started teaching me my prayers.

She said, “There are many gods out here, too many for someone to pray to all of them. So, we only pray to the gods that apply to our lives. However, everyone in Greenrivers prays to a certain god. He is the patron deity of our kingdom, and you must pray to him before dinner and before bed every night.”

I nodded.

“Say these words before a meal,” Joanna put her hands together. “O’ great Dʰéǵʰom…”

“Dʰéǵʰom, eh?” I thought. “I think I can see why you reincarnated me here of all places.”

“Oh, come on! Why wouldn’t I put you in a place where I have influence?” his voice entered my mind.

“I’m not complaining,” I replied.

“You’re not?”

“No. This is perfect. If you’re the patron god of this place, I can just hang out as a count and not worry about the other gods sending their followers to kill me. You’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Thank you,” Dʰéǵʰom said. “You’re only slightly stupider than you look.”

Things went on with me doing normal child activities for a while longer. Despite starting earlier than usual, my lessons lacked detail. My father thought I was precocious, but he knew I was still very young. I learned a few details, but it was just a broad overview.

When I turned 6, Joanna dressed me in the finest clothes my family had for me. They were velvet robes with an ermine cloak draped behind them. The cloak was clasped together by a golden chain with a silver amulet in the center. There was an excited look on Joanna's face.

“It’s finally time!” she said. “I’m so excited for you!”

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“You’re six, so you’re taking your first trip to the Holy See, the temple of all the gods.”

I said, “What?”

I thought, “What?”

“Listen to your wet nurse, Gustav,” Dʰéǵʰom advised me.

“When young nobles reach six, they’re taken to the Holy See where the Grand Oracle judges their magical affinity and connection to the gods. Pretty much every six-year-old noble in the continent will be there. It’s the most important event for any young noble," Joanna explained.

My mother walked into the room, “I remember when I went to the Holy See. It was 94 years ago.”

“I’m seriously going to a place where a bunch of gods have influence, and…” I thought before my mind turned to another sudden revelation. “My mom’s 100 years old?”

“Yup,” Dʰéǵʰom replied.

“She looks like she’s in her 20s!”

“Yup.”

I asked, “How does that even work?”

Dʰéǵʰom explained, “Spellcasters stop aging sometime in their 20s. The kingdoms heavily restrict when they can have children and how many kids they can have to avoid overpopulation. It’s why you don’t have any siblings. Also, spellcasting is genetic, and the nobility are all spellcasters. So, you’ll be one too.”

“Then that means…”

“Yes. If you play your cards right, you’ll live forever,” the god said. “And I’ll be able to keep using you to make sure the other gods don’t wipe out humanity without having to reincarnate you over and over again.”

“Well, then, I…” Then a different thought came to me. “Hang on! Why are you okay with me going to the Holy See? One of the other gods might try to send his followers to assassinate me there!”

“Don’t worry about that,” Dʰéǵʰom assured me. “Soon enough, there will be very few people willing to assassinate you, even if another god tells them to.”

He refused to elaborate. Damn gods with their mystery fetishes.