Chapter 1

Sight, smell, touch and sound came back to him all at once. He couldn’t tell up from down, all his senses were meshed together, adding to the confusion in his head.

A bright light overshadowed everything else, and before he could make anything out, a wave of pain hit him in the chest. Breathing was painful.

He tried to ask what was happening but only managed a shrill cry. Where was he? Was he hurt? He remembered dying. Did he end up in some kind of afterlife?

The pain rapidly receded after a few breaths, allowing him to see through the tears. Sight didn’t bring good news. Huge blurry humanoid figures loomed over him, and his thoughts ran wild. He must have ended up in some kind of hell.

Realizing he was crying out loud he tried to regain his composure.

It’s all fine. Everything is going to be all right.

Before he was successful in either stopping his tears or calming his racing heart, one of the giants reached out with slender arms.

The mysterious figure was undeterred by his yells and picked him up, drawing him nearer to its mouth. Mat fought against his unresponsive body to move his arms and defend himself, but he wasn’t fast enough. He caught a glimpse of the entity’s ivory teeth, sealing his inevitable demise.

Too terrified to do anything, he closed his eyes and prayed for a quick death. There was a wet sensation on his forehead. Was the figure trying to determine if he tasted good enough?

“I taste horrible, leave me alone!” Mat unsuccessfully tried to speak, only producing unintelligible sounds.

After a few tense seconds of suspense, it seemed to have worked, no further attempts at eating him were made. Three different voices spoke in a strange language he never heard before. As long as they weren’t trying to eat him, there was a chance.

Maybe we can reach a deal.

Slowly opening his eyes, now free of tears, Mat noticed that the figure holding him was still showing its teeth, and they looked suspiciously human.

Something poked his face. Mat stared at his hands that finally decided to move.

You cowards! Where were you just now?

He didn’t stop to ponder about the futility of arguing with his own limbs, but he did notice they appeared different from how he remembered them. Though his vision was blurry, he was sure his hands weren’t that small and chubby.

Suspicion started to tug at him. Stopping to think clearly for the first time, he replayed the recent events in his mind, reinterpreting them in a new light. A new possibility began to take shape. All the pieces fit together like a puzzle.

Returning his attention to the figure carefully holding him, he confirmed the entity looked human, probably female judging by the long wavy hair, and she was… smiling.

Fuck!

She wasn’t a giant, he was the small one, really small, about as big as a baby.

I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but I think I got reincarnated.

* * *

A few hours and an embarrassing feeding session later, Mat was left alone to think in his crib. Even if a basket and a blanket would be a more fitting description. He didn’t care, there was more than enough space for him, and the blanket was soft and comfy.

The house—from what his poor eyesight could tell—belonged a few centuries in the past. No signs of anything that could indicate an industrial revolution, all items looked handcrafted.

As for the exact technological level, that was anyone’s guess. It could have ranged from ancient history to the Renaissance. Even though he liked reading about ancient and medieval times, he was no historian.

It’s probably better if I focus on the problems at hand.

Making flimsy conjectures from a few hours of evidence gathered through terrible eyesight didn’t seem particularly worthwhile. Speaking of which, nobody mentioned how shit a baby’s vision was. Everything was blurry, and even colors were an undefined mesh. Not to mention, in all the novels he had read, reincarnators were always calm and collected.

It seems I was reincarnated! Now let’s begin phase one of my five-step plan for world domination!

What a load of bullshit. Getting reincarnated was a mess. You had no idea where you were, your senses sucked, and your limbs had the same grace as a frog suffering from epilepsy that had been run over by a car.

His terrified reaction was completely normal, and he wasn’t saying that to feel better about himself.

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He was stuck in a basket, surrounded by people he didn’t know, who spoke a language he didn’t understand. To top it all off he was completely and utterly alone. He missed his family. His home.

Usually, when he felt lost and alone, he would seek refuge in a book, except here he didn’t have anything. He would give an arm and a leg—on second thought, let’s start with a finger—to have his copy of Lord of the Rings with its worn-out cover and tea stain. Or a bowl of ice cream, or ten.

Mat wanted to cry, but he couldn’t even do that since it would alert his new parents. Getting comforted by people he met a couple hours earlier was the last thing he needed.

Calm down. Everything is going to be fine. You got a second chance at life, maybe this time you won’t even have a debilitating defect that will cause your early death. Ignore that you’ll never see anyone you ever knew before this day ever again. As they say ‘out with the old let’s go with the new’ or something like that.

Somehow, his perfect reasoning wasn’t able to calm the rising panic in his chest. To his advantage, this wasn’t his first panic attack.

Slowing his breathing, Mat focused on a simple physical sensation at a time: the soft blanket against his skin, the sound of chirping birds outside. He tried to anchor himself to reality and not lose himself in a spiral of negative thoughts.

All this would have been easier if he could recognize his body. Still, he kept at it. A delicious scent of cooked food was coming from another room—food he wouldn’t be able to eat.

Focus, stupid brain, that’s not helping.

With a few more hiccups he managed to stop his mind from spiraling and chose to meditate to further calm himself and pass the time. It was no mystical technique, just a simple focusing on slow breathing and trying to banish any stray thoughts.

It was an exercise he had done a hundred times when panic or anxiety was about to overwhelm him.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exha—

Mat lost himself in his rhythmic breathing, taking comfort in the familiar action.

*Ding*

New skill learned! Meditation (lv1) - Consistent practice allows to reduce overwhelming emotions and enter a calm state of mind.

A black text on a semi-transparent white window was standing in front of him.

Mat stared at it blankly for a full minute. He would have continued for longer if the window didn’t dismiss itself.

Something that should have felt foreign, gave him a comforting sensation. He didn’t know if it was because he spent many years of his life staring at a computer screen or the fact it was written in English. It was a little piece of home, a few small words with many implications.

Worried it was all just some hallucination, Mat tried to resummon the window, yelling in his mind any keyword he could think of, since speaking was out of the question.

System! Status! Menu! Skills! Stats… Show me something, dammit! Why isn’t it working?

It couldn’t be a hallucination, not for how long he had stared at it. What was he doing wrong? He tried every possibility he had ever read in stories.

Wait!

Maybe that was exactly the problem. He wasn’t on 21st-century Earth anymore. Most of those terms were linked to the post-internet world. What would be the easiest and most intuitive way to see your status or your skills?

Well… that seems almost too obvious, but let’s try.

* Name: Matthew James Reece

* Race: Human

* Profession: None

Body Stats

* Strength: 1

* Dexterity: 1

* Constitution: 2

* Mind: 5

* Spirit: 6

* Perception: 3

Skills (1/7):

* Meditation (lv1)

It was so obvious. If you wanted to see your status, you only had to think about it. That required a purposeful focus on the idea of yourself and a desire to know, it didn’t appear with any stray thought.

After getting reincarnated, a game-like interface didn’t feel that weird.

Mat wasn’t particularly surprised by his stats. His Strength and Dexterity were probably normal for a baby, same for Constitution and Perception. As for Mind and Spirit, they weren’t unexpected either. Obviously they were related to his mental faculties, exactly how, he had yet to determine.

He was residing in the body of a baby, undeveloped brain included. How he could think so clearly was a mystery. Maybe his reincarnation forced his brain to develop faster, or his soul had something to do with it—something akin to a soul must exist since he reincarnated.

If it’s the second option, then when my brain develops, will I become smarter than before?

Mat couldn’t help but wonder with starry eyes. Who had never been guilty of wishing to be born smarter? Sooner or later, everyone came to terms with the fact they probably weren’t some unappreciated genius and simply only one of many, maybe a bit above average. There were always people more intelligent and talented.

Perhaps in this life he would wait until fifth grade to find someone smarter than him. A baby could hope.

All he had were speculations and wishes. His status didn’t tell him much, it didn’t even explain what each stat meant. Some were obvious, but not all of them, which left him with more questions than before.

Realizing he was getting sidetracked, he resummoned his status that chose to dismiss itself. Even if it didn’t tell much, it did have some important info. His race ‘Human’ was in the same red color as his skill. That had to mean something, even if he had no idea what. More importantly, he could only have seven skills. Hopefully, he could increase that or at least switch his skills for new ones.

Finally, and most exciting: the profession. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but it sounded a lot like a D&D class. Surely it wasn’t just there to indicate what he did for work or something. It had to be better than that or he would be more disappointed than a kid who got his presents stolen from under the Christmas tree. He was going to become a wizard and fly in the sky, and that was a fact.

Mat prayed to any god willing to listen to not break his heart a second time, metaphorically speaking.

Getting to know his new family and exploring a completely foreign world was starting to gain more appeal. A tinge of fear was still there, but with mysteries to uncover and things to learn, it was relegated to the back of his mind. He couldn’t wait to get some answers. And to do that, he would have to learn the new language as soon as possible. He needed answers.

It seems it’s time to start my five-step plan to conquer this world! Muahahahahaha!

Mat imagined his acute cries were deep villainous laughter.