Just my luck. Born again and already about to die. Every time the doctor would try to pull me out, I would feel the umbilical cord clamp down on my neck and restrict airflow. I would try to cry out but could not.

Would I get leniency if I showed up in the Land of the Reeds again? Would they round down to my last life? I could maybe make the case that since I was a baby, I was innocent and deserved entry into at least purgatory. However, something told me Osiris wouldn't go for it. That snake guy certainly wouldn’t.

“XXXXX XXX XX, XXXXXX XXX XXX!” The doctor spoke in a language I had never heard before. I had no clue what he communicated but I was able to peep out of the hole and see that he was saying it to a terrified looking man. I had to assume that was my new father. He had some green around the gills, probably because he might lose his wife and child on the same day. Then again, you can never make another first impression, and my impression of him was that he was a weak feckless man who could not hold his own in a dangerous situation.

“XXX XX?” My father asked the doctor.

“XXX.” The doctor replied.

We then proceeded to wait. For the next hour. My mother could not stop yelling. Was I being born to a couple of wusses? My body was naturally trying to force its way out and yet every time I was blocked by the choking. A ‘nuchal cord’ as it was called in my world. One of my cohorts tried to make a game about delivering a baby. It was meant to be sold to hospitals and pre meds so they could practice. She dropped it. The game. Not the baby.

After about an hour of the most searing screams I’d ever heard a woman make, there was a knock on the door. My father went and opened it. Someone walked in, again, I did not have much of a view from my peephole. Their steps were steady. Thick. Like they commanded a presence in the room.

“XX XX?” The third man asked.

“XXX, XXXX XX XXXXX. XXXX XXX XXXXXX XXXX.” The doctor went on to explain my condition.

“X.”

My father and the third man had a chat. I used this opportunity to twist my body around and try to look out my mom’s peephole once again. It was hard to ignore that I was the cause of my mother’s screaming but eventually I got just the right look.

The man… The person who I presumed was a specialist that my dad and the doctor brought in, was wearing intricate purple robes. He had a wizened old beard and on the top of his goddamned head was a goddamned wizard’s cap! They brought me the local magic man! Some kind of witch doctor when what I really needed was hard and fast science.

I was dead. This guy would wave some egg over my mother’s stomach and tell the doctor it was okay to pull as hard as he wanted. My whole head would slip off and I’d either be a headless freak or I’d be dealing with Osiris again. I shuddered. Which one was worse?

The magic man walked forward with his staff and examined me and my mother’s vagina. He mumbled something to the doctor. Here it came. His ‘professional’ opinion.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The magic man started whispering under his breath. He dipped his head so the brim of his hat covered his eyes and only his mouth was visible. He stamped his staff on the ground and that’s when two circles of light with strange runes surrounding the edges appeared. Then two gloved spectral hands came out of the ‘portals.’

What. The. Fuck.

I wasn’t just in some backwater world where I would cut myself on accident and die of sepsis. I was in…. An Isekei! How did it work? Were there levels? What kind of magic was there?

The spectral hands reached inside, becoming opaque enough to transfer through my mother’s body and making only his fingertips physical. One clamped down on my umbilical cord, pinching it. The other grabbed the umbilical cord and pulled it, giving just enough area for the Doctor to cut it with a knife.

Just like that, I was saved. The doctor finished the rest of the delivery and the bright light I saw suddenly filled the whole room. I looked at that strange and beautiful man. His spell gave me hope for my place in this new world. I didn’t know if it was because of that hope or because I was a baby but I started weeping. The doctor handed me to my dad. I was able to take a look at him. He was in relatively good shape. Fair skin. He had a lean face. His long hair was an oaky brown color. His blue eyes were kind and filled with tears. He held me deeply and planted a kiss on me. This was my new dad. He handed me to my mother.

My mother rested me against her bosom. I looked up at her. Tan skin. A face covered in sweat and clearly tired from pushing me out. The lighting wasn’t great either. Still, I could tell by her soft smile and the way she held me that in different circumstances she had a beautiful face. Her hair was white and…. her ears. They were pointed like elf ears. I looked at my father again. Round ears. I reached over and touched my ears, my motor skills still needing development. I was a half-elf. I babbled about what this meant and what kind of racial bonus I would get but my mother just reciprocated the babbles to me.

“XXX, XXXX XX XXX!” my father said.

My mother rubbed her finger against my tiny ears.

So this was my life, huh? I was in some fantasy world with two parents and I was half elf. There were worse lives than this. Would these be like other Isekei I’d watched? I thought, Was I born into some kind of wealth, or nobility? Were my parents the best wizard and the best soldier respectively?

They were not. But we’ll get to that.

“XXXX XXX?” The mom asked. I didn’t need to understand the words to understand the meaning, “What should we call him?” She asked.

“XXX XXXX XXXX?” Was my dad probably saying, “Hmmm, I thought we had decided on a name?”

“XX XXX…” My mom was about to do it. Egen Danger Snakebite Razorback. That last name I added just now. I hope it somehow came across when I told Anubis.

“Egen.”

Hmm. I wondered if the other names were coming or I’d get them later. Or had she chosen these parents because their last name was already Snakebite?

“Egen Danger.” My dad said.

My new mom gave him this funny look. Shook her head and laughed. She held me up. Her serene green eyes staring into mine.

“Egen Danger Eres.”

‘Egen Eres’ Had kind of a superhero thing with the alliteration. I liked it. Egen Eres.

I was young then. Even though I was a grown man I was seeing the world through a kid’s eyes again. I didn’t realize what my last name and family would mean for my future.