It was the day they went mountaineering that things changed. Up until that morning the cute, youngest son of the Highreich family, with an eager face, kept pestering his elder siblings, his parents, the butler, the maids, and occasionally even the dog with the phrase “I wanna see the SUNSET! PLEASE take me!” After a week of the suffering had been endured by all, the lord Highreich got down on one knee, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and said “Maximillian, we have heard your request. In one week’s time we will climb the tallest mountain in a single day’s journey, and I will show you and your siblings the most beautiful sunset.” And true to his word, the date had been set for the ruling family of the Highreich duchy to ascend mt. Kilua, the tallest -as it was the only- mountain within a day’s journey.
At the morning of the ascent Maximillian behaved as usual. He complained about the length of the journey, about how much the carriage hurt his bum, and about things he explicitly didn’t care about, just because he was bored and wanted someone to pay attention to him. During the carriage ride, he sat on his sister’s lap and asked her to name the plants he could see passing by the window. She gave a name for every plant little Maxxie asked about, whether she knew the name or not. During the hike upward, in response to his rapidly declining stamina he ceased asking about the nearby plants and rocks, save for the repeated complaint “why do they have to just sit there and make me do all the work.” He cried while clinging to his mother’s waist as the knights slaughtered the mountain trolls and other monsters that crossed their path, and took a nap in the head butler’s arms during the afternoon part of the trek. He seemed disoriented when he awoke, but no one paid it any heed. Everyone made it to the summit late in the afternoon and rested as the sun made it’s fiery descent towards the horizon. As the western horison became a shining orange blaze the Duke Curtis called out his children in turn.
“Come Bella, Friedrich, Maxxey!” he said. “This is the most beautiful thing I could show you – a portrait painted by the gods themselves, just for us.”
“This is beautiful, Father.” Bella breathed as she stepped forward. “It is -” Friedrich seconded.
The youngest one, Max silently stepped by his brother’s side. If you were to look at the first two children in this moment, in the reflected golden blaze, you could see the twin lights of awe and wonderment shining in their eyes. In young Maximillian however, his eyes only grew darker. With his gaze lowered to the ground, he silently turned and trudged back down the mountain. When the maid Ioana noticed this and chased him in her concern, she saw despite his brow creased and shoulders bent in disappointment, his eyes were fierce with an adamantine determination.
“What’s wrong, lord Maximillian?” She called out. “Come back! Your family’s still up there! Why are you leaving? Didn’t you want to see the sunset?” As if in response to her last question, he seemed to mutter something to himself. She ran forward and listened as intently as she could. She almost made out the words
“– not a real sunset.”
In the end, she took him by the hand and guided him to the camp. For the rest on the trip, little Maximillian spoke not one word. Not only did he not initiate conversation, but he would respond with silence no matter who addressed him, nor what they said. His profound aloofness resonated more deeply within the carriage than his previous complaints, causing an aura of tension and worry in the carriage as the Duke tried to convince himself that his son’s unusual behavior was the result of some sick prank, and not a topic of genuine medical concern. As the carriage was pulling into the castle, the Duke silently resolved to himself that if Max’s behavior did not change, he would soon call a doctor, yet in the moment the carriage stopped, Maximillian flew through the doors and began wandering the halls randomly until Ioana led him to his bedroom. The door shut behind the lone Maximillian, and thus the tragedy of the Highreich family had begun.
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Max wandered around the plush bedroom. It was a beautiful place. The walls were light blue with gold leaf trim. A silken tapestry of the sun rising behind a mountain range hung from one wall, while another held an elegant portrait of the lord and lady of the castle, the latter cradling an infant. Max was looking at none of these. Instead he looked out blankly, as if his mind were in a completely different space.
Not again he thought.
How much have I lost this time?
He fought the fog that lingered in his mind, instead closing his eyes and searching deep within his soul. After some time, blank and fuzzy memories started to come back to him.
Oh, so that’s what happened. he thought.
I’ve been reincarnated
Remembering something else, he silently began to call out names.
Howard? Phoebe!?
He could barely feel a dull response, like people shifting in their sleep.
Meno?
Meno!
Meno!?
Finally he felt a shift, like someone climbing out of bed.
“Master?” Answered a groggy voice.
Suddenly, the strain was too much for the boy, and he collapsed on the floor, as dreams of cars and planes, a struggle, and worlds well beyond this one, flooded into his mind.
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Hi. This is — me, whoever I am. I’m presently sitting up in a bed nearly four times my size, and am very hungry. Around me is an opulent, light-blue room. Where was I? Wasn’t I run over by a car?
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In the corner of my vision is a hovering ball of shadow -a black wisp- with glowing green eyes and a wide cartoonish grin. I should feel terrified, but instead that feels… familiar.
“Meno?” I call out loud.
“Good morning sleeping beauty.” I see the wisp’s mouth move but hear the voice in my head. “Still confused?” “I seem to be.” I reply, clutching my head.
“You’ve been out for a good two days. The lord and lady of the mansion are sure to panic over this.”
“The lord and lady. Uh, I’m uh, the son of a duke, right?”
“Excellent! You’re not as confused as I feared. Did you know that this is the youngest form that you’ve managed to incarnate your memories into? Color me impressed. Normally a mind that young is too small to carry such memories. Yours must have expanded in the process. Either that or you only carry a fraction of your inherited memories.”
“Or perhaps both.” I reply. “Things are still very foggy.”
“I remember something about being a programmer on the run from the law. And before that being a fish-person in a world entirely underwater.”
“Very good. I think. I haven’t exactly kept detailed records of those lifetimes myself. Do you remember what your mission is?”
My mission…
I remember a promise made to myself, and a promise made to a friend who is waiting for me that we would meet again-
“I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!”
I jolt up from the bed with such force that I fall over. God these arms are little. What am I, four? From the corner of my eye I see the door to my room burst open and someone in white and black clothes pick me up and gently put me back on the bed. She’s a beautiful woman, one I could only describe as “motherly”.
“Young master, you’re awake!”
I can only think to nod. Who was she again?
“You gave us quite a scare. Everyone will be thrilled when they hear you’re awake again. It’s been two days! I’ll go tell them.”
Wait. No! Don’t start for the door!
“I’m hungry” is all I manage to say.
She turns back with a look of understanding. “First things first then.”
As she bolts off, I think to myself: Meno. Can you still hear me?
“I got you, fam.”
Do you know who she is?
“No Idea.”
“So… about this mission. All I remember is that I have to get out of this world, alive. You have any thoughts on how we can get out of here?”
The wisp bobbed up and down thoughtfully.
“Well, mein Ego, there was this plan you were working on a while back. If you can get your hands on information magic—the good stuff, then we might be able to do it. The problem is the last two lifetimes we managed to do it, it was patched against the trick we had in mind.”
Patched?
“I’ll tell you later, mein Ego. First, let’s perform a couple tests before she gets back.”
“Indeed. What do you have in mind?”
“Say status”
“Status” I say out loud.
Directly in front of me, a transparent window appears with the following information.
* Name: Maximillian Highreich
* Race: Human
* Age: 4 years old
* Title: [Young Master]
* Level: 1
* HP: 50/50
* MP: 500/500
* Attributes:
* Dexterity: 10
* Vitality: 5
* Intelligence: 50
* Strength: 5
* Agility: 5
* Stamina: 5
* Willpower: 50
* Skills:
* Language, Common: 5
* Blessings:
* Standard Reincarnation Package:
* Inventory
* Language, Common
* Magic Affinity: Darkness
* Magic Affinity: Earth
* Magic Affinity: Fire
* Magic Affinity: Light
* Magic Affinity: Lightning
* Magic Affinity: Water
* Magic Affinity: Wind
“Hm.” The wisp replies, hovering over my shoulder. “These stats are telling. Most likely MP is based on 10 times either intelligence or willpower, and HP is ten times either vitality or stamina, but in most cases is most likely the former. As we level up we’ll need to pay close attention to the correlation of the relative attributes to see what they do.”
“Wait, who’s we? Won’t I be doing all the work? Also, I don’t remember my past lives having such status systems, yet you seem familiar with them. Why?”
The wisp raised the shape of an eyebrow as it spoke. “It is my job to store the memories you lose over the lifetimes –the most important ones, anyway– we’ve seen a few lifetimes with similar status systems.”
Something was incongruent. I only had memories of two past lives, but in those pasts I acted as though I had memories of previous lives. Meno said he stored my memories, and alludes worlds that I have no knowledge of.
“How many… how many times have we lived?”
Meno paused, and the next words were unusually solemn.
“I can count at least seventeen deaths, and I’m sure that I actually missed quite a few.”
I fell to my knees as the depressing wave of time washed over me. Seventeen lives? Have I really been trapped in this system for more than seventeen lifetimes? The fact that I could remember only two of them bespoke the vast amount of my existence that was taken away from me.
“But look-” Meno said as he bobbed up and down in an artificially cheery mood “While it seems the only skill you were blessed with is the common language, that implies that you’ll be able to acquire many more skills with time. And you don’t need to feign some traumatic event for years until you learn the local language… Plus you have a magic affinity. I can help you with that.”
Silently chuckling at the thought of myself wandering around, pretending to be a mental patient while everyone around me spoke gibberish..
“Wait, that’s a pretty good idea. It might work until I’ve learned everybody’s names.”
Though feigning some traumatic event that causes a child to lose speech would be an excellent way to cover up the dramatic personality shift while the child “re-learns” how to communicate, I was silent since i the moment i acquired this body — there was no specific incident others could point to, to say “there, that’s why this boy is so damaged.” Perhaps if I keep it up a little while people will just think I’m sick…
“I’d like to hear more about what you can do for my skills, but only after I’ve checked this first.” I noticed the blessing called “Inventory”
From what I’ve heard, these are a must-have for fantasy worlds. If it’s what I think it is, then I quite wish I had one in my previous lives – it would have made passing through the airport a cinch.
“Inventory”
The moment I say the word, a panel of boxes, six rows of ten, appears before me. With all of my strength, I reach around a chair that is as tall as I am, and try to lift it into the panel. As it makes contact, it gets sucked into the panel and an icon of the chair appears in the first slot and my jaw drops.
“Nice!” Meno bobbed. “This reincarnation’s been kind on you. Let’s get to magic.”
Right. The status also
“What do you want to do with magic?”
“This”
In a moment I am overwhelmed as years of compressed time floods into my brain. Imagine being a wizard and you study to perfect magic. In fifty years of study, you have nights off, meals, pooping, bad days, days where you look over a book and find that 90% of it is the same as what you did already. Now imagine that all of that’s compressed, you remove the meals, nights off, sleep, and every other minute spent outside of practice, then compress the practice time such that each day you reviewed the same material, all becomes collapsed into one day, how much time would be left? Despite all of that compression, what flooded into my brain felt like years.
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Ioana returned to the sight of the young master lying stiff, twitching, on the floor.