The workings of this reincarnation with retained memories baffled me. The sheer quantity of memories and knowledge I held in my head should not fit inside a tiny undeveloped baby brain. At first, my senses and thinking had been extremely muddled up, but now that I had grown a little, things were much better.

That shouldn’t be the case.

I was, what, a year old at most? I didn’t even know. From my old knowledge, I knew that brains kept developing until the twenties. As far as I understood, a 1-year-old brain shouldn’t be able to house the mind of a 34-year-old man. The needed neural connections just weren’t there.

Still… it did. Thinking about things and building logical reasoning still felt way harder than it should be, but it was still possible. It felt, at most, as if I was a relatively drunk man arriving home after a night out. Slow-witted but still cognisant enough to take a bath, fix something to eat, and make a bed to sleep.

Questioning how that was possible made me thoughtful of how my past certainties had been shattered. I had been an atheist and now I had been proven reincarnation was real. What else that I thought of as mere fantasy could be real? Were the things that science and biology taught me still valid here? Could the incongruencies I spotted be explained by things like magic? Was my “soul” or some other similar abstract concept holding my memories? I didn’t know.

And not knowing bothered me.

Still, there was not much I could do. In the end, such worries were just a few more additions to the extensive list of unknowns brought by this new world. For now, the only course of action I could take was to wait and observe.

Thankfully, those observations were bearing fruit.

Already I had a much more concrete understanding of the language spoken by my parents. It was completely different from any language I had ever heard in my old life. Still, it had been strangely easy to piece together some meaning out of hearing numerous exchanges between my parents. I suspected that in the same way my young brain could hinder me it could also help me in other ways. Accelerated learning was one of the hallmarks of children's development, after all.

Now that I was older, the mother also took me outside occasionally. Usually, that consisted of trips to our neighbors.

Every time I left the house, I still couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer beauty and tranquility given off by the scenery around the farm. There was movement and people were working their asses off, but for me who was accustomed to the big cities it was still an idyllic life. There were multiple fields with all kinds of different crops and colors at every corner. Being carried by the mother as she went around greeting people was an extremely relaxing experience.

By now, I knew her name to be Anne. The father was Ruther and the family name was Creeks. That made me… Kilo Creeks. Yikes.

At first, I thought “kilo” could have been the word for “baby” or “son”, but as my knowledge of the language grew and I got introduced to other people, I realized that was actually my name.

A strange name, for a strange land. Nevertheless, in my mind, I would keep being Jack.

In a way, hearing Anne introducing her child to the other farm dwellers as “Kilo” everywhere just made me feel guilty about my circumstances.

It was a close-knit community, and all those people were welcoming me in their midst as a new member. Young people, old people, it didn’t matter, everyone was happy to have a new face. Eventually, I even got to meet other children my age whose parents probably hoped would be my childhood friends as I grew up.

I hadn’t chosen to be reborn as her son, but I still bore the responsibility of whether I would tell her the truth or not. Each person I met… each bond I made only enlarged the lie that was my existence.

By now, I was pretty sure I could hold a conversation, despite my lacking vocabulary. I had been practicing my pronunciation when my parents were asleep and my vocal cords already worked just fine. I just hadn’t decided what the best course of action was.

I didn’t have a choice in my first few months, but now I have.

Pretend to be a normal child, letting those adults take care of me and having a life of leisure?

Or tell them the truth? Tell them that I am a grown man possessing the body of their firstborn.

Neither of the options sat well with me.

Pretending to be a child was something that disgusted me on a deep level. It was really easy to pull off, considering my body had all the instincts and inabilities a body of my age should have. Faking amazement and glee at simple things, making a mess when trying to eat some simple food, wanting to cry at the smallest of frustrations… it all came to me naturally. It was what the body wanted.

It was acting as an adult that took effort. Forcing my hand’s lacking motor coordination into firmness to hold a wooden spoon. Mentally adjusting my body weight to allow smooth movement instead of the crawling and stumbling of a young child. Warding off sleepiness when all my body wanted was to fall into slumber as soon as it stopped for a few moments.

But just because it was easy didn’t mean it was right. This mother of mine really loved her child. A child that I wasn’t.

The alternative, however, was not much better.

Just imagine the conversation: ‘Hello Anne. Although I have been born from your womb, I am not what you would typically call your “son”. Indeed, what I am is somewhat of an incognita. I am a baby but I have the memories of a grown man. A 34-year-old man. That is older than you, is it not? Hah!’

The effects of such a conversation… would not be good. I suspected the mother would wallow in grief, while Ruther, the father, would burst into rage. Both, no doubt, in pain.

Following that remained the question of my future. Would they cast me out? Take me to some forgotten wilderness and abandon me? Think me a demonic entity and burn me in a pyre?

I have no idea. The only surety is that the consequences would do no good for anyone.

Thinking about that, I keep my maturity hidden, at least for now.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

divider [https://i.ibb.co/RCgQMXF/Picture1.png]And so, time flew by.

Years passed.

I am 5 years old now. My language skills have improved to the point I can understand anyone and speak normally. A few years back I started communicating with my parents and from there, a whole new world of opportunities opened for me.

“Good morning mom.” I say as I leave my bedroom and enter the space we use as a kitchen.

“Good morning son!” the woman known as Anne replies.

I sit at the small wooden table in the corner of the room and pick some hard bread lying on a plate. Soon, Anne comes holding an iron pot and offers me a spoonful of some stew of what I suspect is rabbit. I accept and use it to wet the bread before eating it. It was a rarity to eat meat, as it is very expensive here, so Ruther must have come across a bargain of some kind.

The food is something that took me a long time to get used to. People here use as little seasoning as possible, to save, and the general quality of products tends to be really low. We eat mostly grains and vegetables, but even then, not with as much abundance as you would expect, considering we live on a gigantic farm. As far as I understand, the biggest part of the crops goes to the city or are used to pay taxes. No matter the world, some things never change.

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

As I eat, I see Anne finishing to sweep the floor with a broom and then settling down to work on a spinning wheel. I hadn’t known when I was a baby but she worked as a spinster and weaver before having me. Now that I was getting older, she was getting back to it, creating linen threads from harvested flax as soon as she finished her household chores.

As for me, as soon as I finish the food, I get down from the bench and ask her:

“Can I play with Carl mom?” I behave as the obedient child, as always.

“Yes, dear. Just be sure to be back at noon for lunch, okay? Tell Carl he can come too if he likes!” She answers me with her usual doting smile.

“Yes mom!” is my answer as I turn around and go outside.

As soon as I am outside my posture changes and I let out a heavy breath.

It is getting harder and harder to act my age. The toys I have inside the house are stuffed creatures made of wood, fabric, and straw. I have some sticks, rocks, a small wheel, and other random stuff that could maybe entertain a small child.

The adult in me, however, has already reached his limit at pretending to be mesmerized by such things. The last few years have been a different kind of hell, with how boring things started to feel.

If I had at least access to books or something, it could have been more endurable. But no. There was not even a whiff of literacy in that house and I suspect Ruther doesn’t even know how to read. I sure as hell still don’t.

My saving grace has been the last four months. During one of the walks I usually go with Anne, we met Rebecca, a neighbor who is also the wife of one of the farmhands. She has a son called Carl who is just a few years older than me and asked Anne if she didn’t think that it would be a good idea to take her son to our house to play with me sometime.

Anne loved the idea. A few days later, I was introduced to the red-haired child. Despite being older than me, he was still incredibly childish and slow-witted, having 8 years of age. Nevertheless, he was still bigger than me and I soon learned to avoid confrontation when playing with him. If he wanted a toy or made up some rule for a game, I just had to give in. Being an adult, it was pretty easy to just go with the flow and get on the good side of the boy. As I suspected, it turned out to be an excellent choice to do so. A few weeks after meeting him, I started to get invited to play with him and other children around the farm.

Despite being younger than the other children, by using the name of the older boy, I managed to progressively free myself from being confined inside our small cottage. Nowadays, I just had to say I was going to play with Carl and I could leave the house.

Today was one such day.

I still had to be careful and not draw attention to myself. The last thing I wanted was to let Anne know that I was lying to her and that I was wandering the farm by myself.

The area around my family house was already pretty well known by me, as Anne walked around with me a lot, but I was still curious about how big this farm was. I had never been taken outside it. Since I had gotten in this world, everywhere I looked or walked, all I could see was just different crops: wheat, flax, cabbages, carrots, apples… there were a lot of different plantations in this place and some of them I didn’t even know the name of.

Different from how I knew villages worked in my previous world, people working on the farm here lived in small groups of dwellings between the fields, spread all over the place. There is no division between urban and rural.

I knew there was a market center in which the farmhands could gather and exchange products and buy utilities, but I had already decided to avoid it lest people ask themselves why I was there without my mother.

So today, I took the opposite side from the way I knew the market was. Maybe today would be the day I would finally find the geographic limits of this farm!

It was still pretty early in the morning, around 7 probably, so I still had a lot of time before I would have to come back for lunch with the rest of the family. The sun was hot and the rough fabric of my clothes soon was sticky with sweat, but I kept going.

I expected to be walking for a long time, but instead, before even an hour had passed, I was surprised by someone calling my name.

“Hey, Kilo! You are here!” I hear and immediately recognize the voice.

“… Hey Carl!” I yell as I look over to the direction the voice came. It takes a while but I locate the boy running in my direction from some empty field on my right side.

I hadn’t planned to meet the boy. He had told me he was going to play with some other kids today. He had invited me and I refused, saying that I would be helping Anne with chores. I didn’t expect that I would bump straight at him right at the start of my investigation.

“You decided to come!” Carl says to me, probably thinking I had come to meet him but forgetting he hadn’t told me where they would be playing.

“… Yes. Mom said she didn’t need my help today.” I lie.

“Great! Thadeus and Ashley keep arguing and fighting instead of playing! Come!” He says as he gestures for me to go under the wooden fence and enter the field.

“Aahhh… Won’t the adults be mad that we are playing in one of the fields?” I try, hoping that he somehow gives up on playing. I really wanted to go on my own way today.

“No! Dad showed me the field yesterday and said it is in falling!” He answers with a cheeky grin.

Falling? He probably meant fallowing, which is the period of time they give for the field to rest before starting over the crop rotation.

“…Okay.” Empty of excuses, I go with him. Keeping a good relationship with the kid was more important than wandering for a single day.

As I walk towards the other children, I recognize them. They are both even older than Carl, being around 10 years old. That is pretty old for children here, since people consider kids as adults when they reach 13 years old. Pretty brutal if you ask me, but I have already come to realize that this world does not share the same sensibilities that I am used to.

“Hey…” I greet them with my small and acute voice.

“Hello Kilo! How are you?” The girl, Ashley, gives me a nice smile and comes over to hug me and squeeze my cheeks. She has already expressed how cute she thinks I am on several occasions.

“Hey.” Thadeus, however, just gives a nod.

From previous encounters, I know those two kids are undergoing that phase when a young boy and girl start to feel interested in each other but still don’t know how to express it. The result is that they constantly bicker with each other, bordering on fighting but never quite getting there.

No wonder Carl feels uncomfortable being between them.

“Holy Mother Ashley, you are so clingy! Leave the boy alone!” Comes the first jab from Thadeus.

“You are just jealous because you have such a plain face and he is so cute!” She shoots back.

Oh my.

“Hey! What are you guys playing?” I cut Thadeus's answer before this argument degenerates further.

“We are playing chicken-chicken!” Carl answers me swiftly.

Chicken-chicken is the same as the game Tag, from my previous world. It is just about kids running after each other.

“I see. Who is the chicken?” I ask.

“You!” He says as he pushes me and they all run away from me.

Yeah. Should’ve seen that coming from miles away.

Despite my age and small frame, I actually put up quite a fight during our games. I think maybe because of my adult mentality and the fact I have played a lot of soccer in my previous life I can run quite fast here. My endurance is not one of the best but is enough to be actually able to play with the older kids.

We run around the field and I immediately understand why they wanted to play here. The difficult terrain, full of roots, overturned soil, and weeds growing makes it dangerous to run too fast. Multiple times one of us falls down and it enables the ‘chicken’ to touch him and pass the title.

We play for a long while and I am not ashamed to admit that I actually enjoy myself. Despite all the dramas regarding my existence here, moments like this allow me to just stop thinking and be the kid I am supposed to be. It is liberating.

It is only when Carl receives the ‘chicken’ from Ashley once more and he decides to target me that I run a little too fast, a little too far.

I suddenly feel my feet hitting something fleshy and my body flies over. My body spins and hits the ground with a thud.

My back hurts like hell, but I manage to protect my head so it is okay.

“Kilo!” The other children call for me in worry.

I take a deep breath and prepare to get up to tell them it is okay. Until I look to my side and realize why they are yelling at me.

A huge rat is looking at me. It is the size of a small dog and has glowing red eyes.

What… The… Fu…

It screeches and jumps at me.

It aims at my neck, but luckily, I block it with my hand by reflex. It bites down hard on the side of my hand and starts scratching my forearm with its claws as he chews on my flesh.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” I scream from the depths of my lungs.

The pain is terrible and I can feel a chunk of my right hand being swallowed by the creature.

In desperation, the only thing that comes to my mind is swinging my arm around.

It doesn’t let go and it just serves to tear my flesh further and splatter my blood around.

I am crying, spitting, and yelling incoherent curses when I finally manage to dislodge it.

The rat flies from my hand and rolls on the soil as it reorients itself to face me. I get up and face it, just in time to see a surprise kick coming from behind it. Carl had come to my rescue.

The kick from the bigger boy impacts the rat and throws the creature at my feet in an explosion of dirt.

This time I don’t hesitate. I stomp its head with all the strength my juvenile leg has.

It isn’t enough to kill it, but then I do it again. And again, and again.

It is only when I feel something cracking that I finally stop.

The tears are still falling from my face when yet another surprise comes to me.

[Field Rat] Level 2 killed.

112 experience points received.

Level up!

5 attribute points received! Open your [Status Window] to distribute it.

…

…What?