How long have I been submerged in this darkness? A day? A Month? Longer?

I could not answer, neither was I given these answers. After losing consciousness, I did not wake back up, yet I still remembers everything clearly.

Just as I begin to worry about my precarious situation, light seeps into my surroundings. When the light hits my body, an excruciating pain assaults my head.

[MC]”Arrrrrrrghhhhh… hurts”

True pain rivalling the pain of getting my side torn off by Bryak. Of course, my instant thought is that I’m finally dying for good. This is the end.

But like every other event, my estimations are far off. The pain slowly recedes and in its place is a set of new hazy memories.

I open my eyes slowly, amazed at the fact that I have a body once more. Though after my initial high, I face the reality that my body is no more. Instead I’m stuck in a very restrictive body.

Needless to say, my body is not tied up, its just the lack of muscle and control due to its immature age. That’s right, I’m in the body of a child.

[MC]”Ok, ok. Don’t panic, me. Don’t panic, I’m sure everything will be explained once I calm myself”

Unfortunately, despite my constant self-reassurance my mind was swirling with confusion.

After another 5 minutes of repeating the charade of panicking and calming down, I search through my memories in hope of finding answers. Luckily, I managed to gain a few answers to my questions:

Who am I? Ken Oswald, or so my guardian calls me.

Where am I? A house I’ve been raised in since I was 2

Following this, I found out my current body is 6 years old and the person who’s caring for me is 20 years old. Despite this, I could not find any answers as to why my memory and soul is in this child’s body but what I do know is that the original Ken Oswald is no more.

As I’m looking around for hints, the wooden door to my room is gently opened. Peering their head through the door is a mature beauty. No other phrase can describe her, even those words do not do her justice. Brown hair with her fringe swept to the right, whilst the rest of the hair flows down her back followed by deep mahogany eyes. Her body has curves in all of the right places with a bust of at least C-Cups.

If this was earth, there was no doubt that this lady would be at the centre of the modelling world. Yet despite her unrefuted beauty, a gentle homely aura surrounded her, truly a dangerous combination.

Her name is Lana.

[Lana]” Ken~, I’m back. Did you miss me?”

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[Ken]” E-erh I mean… Yes, of course I did Lana!”

My words got caught in my throat, I mean the 24-year-old me never really got into relationships. It was a life choice, totally no other reason. Like I was saying, it was a life choice to not speak to any girls other than those that approach me. Yep!

[Lana]” Good, good Ken! I missed you too, I’m sorry I couldn’t spend time with you today, the manager kept me back for overtime since his wife is having her second child soon, so he plans to close shop”

[Ken]” What shop Lana? You’ve never told me about work.”

[Lana]” Ah… I forgot. Yes, since you’re growing up now, I decided to work full time at the weapon shop. They’re quite fond of you so they let me work full-time”

I see, so that middle-age couple that look like they can wrestle with bears for fun are the owners of the shop Lana works at. It seems that when Lana worked part-time, I would visit and help around the store.

But man, this is hard. I need to act appropriate for my age or else something dangerous could happen. I suppose I should remain normal and start showing my true self at around 10 years old.

[Lana]” Anyways, did you finish the chores and your studying?”

[Ken]” Eh?”

[Lana]” Don’t Eh me! I told you to do the chores whilst I’m gone and to study magicka! You have quite some talent so its better if you at least study!”

[Ken]” Oh… Oh I mean, YEAH! I did the chores! I definitely did them, see it’s so clean!”

Lana stared at me and then observed the room. Her gaze was like a predator waiting for an opening. I mean, why is a normal person so intimidating? I’m trembling here!

[Lana]” Then you can get back to studying in a minute, I’ll help you. Afterwards I’ll give you 5 Denarius as promised”

Denarius? I suppose that’s the money. From what I recall, there are 5 types of coinage common people will ever use, first copper coins are 1 Denarius, bronze is 50 Denarius, silver is 1000 Denarius, rose silver is 50,000 Denarius and finally gold is 1,000,0000. Though us common folk will rarely see a rose silver coin let alone gold.

Evening comes and I close my book. Magicka is interesting. It turns out that Lana is adept in water magic. As for me, well I don’t know. According to Lana, magic affinities bloom at the age of 15, an adult. Due to this, its better for me to practice Non-attribute Magicka first and work on my control.

Since I’m 6 years old now, I’m at the point where I should start training to build up muscles. Especially since this world is a living nightmare. That is no exaggeration, this world is cruel to those who are weak, from my hazy memories it seems that my parents were considerably weak. Therefore, I have resolved myself to become strong or else I’ll lose everything like them.

3 weeks have passed since I first reawakened, my body is fitter than ever. Every day I’ve woken up at 5 am, grabbed a bow Lana got me on my 6th birthday and trained in the forest outside the town. If the villagers knew this they would faint, according to the books I’ve read at home, the forest here is called Deaths Feeding Grounds. That’s not a very pleasant name considering its less than 1 kilometre away from town.

The reason for such a drastic name is that the beasts who hunt on these lands are classified as rank A monsters. Only 2 ranks below the highest known class.

Now how come I am hunting here daily? Well that’s simple. I got lost one day when chasing a rank C monster and found myself in the middle of Deaths Feeding Grounds. It was there that I found some fruit resembling bananas. After 5 hours of endless searching, I made it out of the forest with a bounty of fruit and showed it to Lana.

As expected, she slapped me and hugged me whilst telling me to not worry her. Honestly seeing a mature beautiful cry tears of relief over your safety made my heartbeat so fast.

Anyways, since then I’ve been taking the same route daily and have yet to encounter anything above a C rank monster. In fact, it’s almost as if they’re the only monsters in the forest. Maybe the A ranks all migrated?

Like that, life carried on for a few years. Nothing truly out of the ordinary happened as I steadily accumulated strength and prepared to leave the nest.