The dim light of the candles were bright to my eyes as I peeked around. My body felt heavy and my mind was foggy as I tried to recall what had happened. Last I remembered was... dying. Thoroughly confused, I tried to move my head, but the simple action tired me and I ended up falling asleep, drifting off peacefully.

When I woke up again, the haze from my mind had lifted and I thought through everything carefully. I had been travelling through the five continents on the journey that every member of my family takes once they reach of age. We bring only the bare necessities and adventure through the lands, killing monsters of all sizes and strengths. I had been nearing the end of this five year period, and was making my way back home.

I may be boasting, but I'm also telling the truth when I say I'm pretty strong. This five year training period is for our family members to hone their skills and gain real life experience. Other than this period, we are a pretty secluded family after all. In fact, one of my brothers had actually stayed inside his tower doing research for over 200 years. Quite a feat if I say so myself. He is, or was, the rolemodel for all shut-ins!

Anyways, where was I? Yes, I had been travelling back to our home city of Treltain. While trekking through the Baruuk mountain range that spans half of the central continent of Mirelle, I had encountered the legendary black dragon. He was a ferocious beast who had lived for several thousands of years, and a monster in which I decided to test my strength against.

A foolish and suicidal choice, I know, but no member of the Raoult family backs down from a challenge. Be it suicidal or no. Well, in the end the result was clear. I had been mercilessly slaughtered by the dragon after 30 minutes of desperate battle. At least I was able to survive for half an hour, which is a lot more than other people can say! Either way, I was absolutely certain I had died at that moment when the black dragon had released his finishing move upon me, decimating myself and the entire mountain while he was at it.

I looked around. The room I was in had a stone roof and walls, lavishly decorated, while I was inside what looked to be a cage, but with an open top... a crib? At that moment I had what one would call a 'Eureka' moment. I had been reborn! I looked down and spied pale tiny hands and feet. Indeed, I was now a newborn baby. It was hard to digest, but I let the idea of it sink in and had soon regained my former calm.

"----~~~, !!---~~ ~~ ~----~~~~." A beautiful voice said. I did not understand a single word of her speech, coming off as gibberish to me. Soon a beautiful lady appeared over me, her long fiery red hair hanging down and her clear emerald colored eyes staring with love at me. I stared back.

Her lip trembled and she looked away, but not before I spied a tear fall from her eye. 'Why is she crying?' I thought, panicking a little. Dealing with crying women is not my forte, unlike my younger brother, who is the worst playboy of the century. The sound of footsteps on marble floor resounded from beyond the closed door and she quickly wiped the tears from her face.

The door opened to reveal a humble servant in a maid outfit and a handsome middle-aged man who was expensively dressed in elegant clothes that befitted and noble. His face was stern, covered in the slightest hint of stubble with his wavy black hair framing it. His eyes were a piercing ice blue. He shot a quick glance at the red haired woman before heading to my cradle and picking me up. He held me high, studying every aspect of me. It was slightly embarrassing considering I was as naked as the day I was born.

Confused, I looked to the woman, who might be, might! be, my mother. She was staring at me with a mixed look of hope and fear, worry etched across her face. I am guessing that this man wanted something from me. What, I had no idea. So going with my intuition, I decided to act like a normal baby. Gurgling and giggling in some baby gibberish, I waved my little hands, reaching out for the face of the man with a cutesy smile on my face.

He stared at me for a second before breaking out into a some good natured laughter and talking to the red haired woman, who had breathed a sigh of relief. I guess I did good huh? Placing me back into my cradle, he covered me up with a velvet blanket. I drifted off to sleep, tired from all the thinking and work I did today.

It has been two months. I confirmed that I had reincarnated as the first son of the Sienne family, a long line of nobles who were second in power to the king. My mother was a mistress, but with me being the first son, her status had risen considerably (which had left the official wife wallowing in her envy and anger). My father seemed like a strict and stern man, but whenever he saw me he would break out into a smile and become a doting father.

I spent the short amount of time I had alone training my body. As a baby, I was restricted in my movement despite my highly developed mental abilities, so I wanted to get that fixed as soon as possible. Me, a warrior of the Raoult clan, to be reduced to this state...! It was embarrassing to say the least. I didn't have much time alone though, since my father had assigned a maid to watch over me throughout the day. If the maid wasn't with me then my mother was. They truly doted and spoiled me silly. Then again, I was their first son after all. Plus who knows, maybe the first wife would let her envy and anger overcome her and kill me. It wasn't an uncommon thing either.

Now I am roughly four months old and have a full head of hair. I can crawl, but I have refrained from doing so in front of my parents, after all it might be a little bit to early for that. I have come to an understanding that many many years have passed since when I died. Thousands of years in fact, to the point where the empire I once lived in had become a legend of ages past.

In that amount of time, kingdoms had fallen and risen, and history had changed itself to suit the needs of the powerful. Legends had been born and died, as well as people. The Raoult clan had apparently been rather famous, as many of the members were geniuses and contributed greatly to the development of culture and technology, but they had died out and there was no recorded member of the family for the last five centuries.

I was actually surprised to find out how famous we were, considering that my family is very reclusive. Staying at home for decades on end was normal, just as normal as challenging a dragon! Well disregarding that, apparently I was also pretty famous. Well... for recklessly going to battle against the dragon king that is. There were also some other legends about how I killed this or that, but the biggest one was how my battle with the black dragon had destroyed half of the Baruuk mountain range. I quite recall only a few mountains disappearing... but I guess stories become exaggerated over time.

I was also beginning to understand the language. Back in my past life there had been eight major languages, but now none of those exist (at least according to what I've learned so far). The language our Sienne family uses, is High Linlarian, the language which all high born nobles and royalty know. Other than this, there were nine other major languages, and several more minor ones. I can learn a lot in four months you know. For now, I was fluent enough in High Linlarian, as well as Kaerlish, which is used by commoners and the servants of our house. Of course, there were still some words here and there that I didn't know, but that would be something that time could solve.

For now, I decided to start reading. The Raoult family wasn't just a family of warriors after all, we were also scholars, researchers, and mages! Rather, anything that one could be, we had experts in. For example, my little sis was a genius alchemist, while my mother had been one of the most powerful high priests on the continent. My father on the other hand had been an expert spellsword of the highest ranking, and my older brother (the shut-in one) had contributed greatly to the world's technological advances. I still partially didn't believe that last part, after all to our family all his inventions had been merely weird devices that we stayed away from. The last time I touched one of his 'toys' it nearly blew me up. That had been a pretty close call. Just thinking about it made me shudder.

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Standing as best as I could on my little feet, I reached for the closest book on the lowest shelf of the bookcase. It had a velvet red cover with gold lettering. I opened it up to the first page, the delicate blue ink spread across the thick cream pages. Of course, I couldn't read a single word. Well, I could read a few, but most just looked like nonsense to me. With the book open on my lap, I sat there to puzzle it out. I hadn't made any progress when my father and mother came in together, and saw me sitting there with the book. They were surprised, after all, they didn't know that I could crawl.

Overcoming their initial shock, my father began to laugh. "So my little boy is a scholar aye?" He said, coming over and scooping me up into his arms. He sat down on a couch with me and mother, gently prying the book away from my small chubby hands. "Let's see, this book is... The Theory of Magicks and It's Various Schools!" He said, reading it aloud clearly. He furrowed his brow; it was a complicated book for magick scholars, and certainly not something for a newborn.

He was about to hand over the book to mother and ask the servant for something easier, but I really wanted to read it. Magick was a great thing after all. So I gurgled and said something in baby gibberish angrily, struggling to get back the book. He looked at me with wide eyes before laughing again. My father loved to laugh. "So my little boy really wants to read it huh? Then I'll leave you to do so with your mother." He said before quickly retreating. I get the feeling that big books on magick theory wasn't his strong point.

My mother rolled her eyes as my father disappeared, her hand over her mouth as she stifled a giggle. She sat down and lifted me onto her lap, opening up the book. She had finished the first chapter when I began to drift off, my energy all used up for the day. Damn my child's body.

It's been half a year since my birth. I can walk with perfect ease and my reading skills were great as well. I devoured the books quickly, going through all of them as fast as lightning. Like someone once said, knowledge is power. I soon finished all the ones in my room and moved onto the ones in my father's study.

On another note, the first wife has recently gotten pregnant, making my father's already good mood even better. If it's a son, then perhaps the woman's hatred for me would disappear. I was left in peace during her time of pregnancy, as everyone was preparing to receive the madame's child.

I also have finally learned the names of the people here. My father is called Tir Sienne, and my mother Shirasa Sienne. My name is Raine, and the name of my personal nanny, a middle aged maid with light brown hair, is Mirianne. The first wife of the house is Lila, and the head butler is a man called Mikael. I call him Mister Sebastian in my heart though. A head butler who isn't called Sebastian is no head butler at all!

My first birthday came and went, with me showing my parents my wonderful walking abilities. They were absolutely delighted, and now I can go wherever without worry of them looking at me weird. I also spoke my first words, calling them 'Mama' and 'Papa' in the cutest voice possible. They lost a lot of composure at that moment and were almost screaming in happiness.

For my birthday, they threw a very big party and many nobles attended. The first birthday of a child is very important, since many babies don't make it to their first year, so of course there would be a giant banquet with many presents. On a side note, other than the first year, only the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth years were celebrated.

I think that my ferocious appetite for books has sprouted rumors, since a good portion of my presents had been very rare books, all bound in velvet and encrusted with jewels. Some other presents I received were... a sword made out of diamond (who would even want to use that I would be afraid to chip it every time I'd swing it at some unlucky schmuck), jewels, rare magick artifacts, and clothes- the usual.

I'm no good with parties though, but I'm glad that I could act like the one year old kid I was. I promptly 'fell asleep' half way through and was sent to my room. The rest of the banquet had lasted until morning though, and I heard that my usual straight-laced father had gotten himself dead drunk in the process. I guess he was really happy that I survived my first year of life. Perhaps he had been afraid that the Madame would have sent assassins after me... I was pretty afraid as well. Even if I was a skilled warrior in my previous life, I'm still only a babe in this one!

I was sitting on a table in the gigantic library. My dad's castle seemed to have the biggest library in the kingdom, even larger than the one in the king's palace. It seems this is because the family of the first wife's, Lila, had been a rich family of scholars. As a result, they hoarded many books, common and rare alike, and had amassed quite a number over the years. The majority of these books had been given to the Sienne family when Lila married in, and joining together with their initially large library, had created the largest library in the kingdom.

I was reading a book on the classification of monsters in the Forest of Ellra (a large forest that dominated the majority of the Eastern continent of Xylon), and had finished roughly half of it when a maid entered and spotted me at my usual location- next to the large glass window that overlooked the knight training grounds.

"Young Master! The Madame has given birth! It's a boy!" She said, panting slightly. She looked at me with a little bit of pity in her eyes, since unless I possessed extremely capable abilities, I would no doubt be kicked from my seat as heir. I didn't mind though. To be honest, I had already thought that becoming the head of the family would be a pain. I mean, in the Raoult family, my grandfather had been the head, and he had always incessantly complained about it to his grandchildren- mainly my siblings and myself.

As a result, there is one thing that all members of the Raoult family understand. Being the leader is a pain in the ass! This thought is practically ingrained into our soul. As such, rather than feeling sadness or some such similar emotion, all I felt was relief!

I trailed behind the maid as she lead me to the room of the first wife, book still in hand. Entering the room after the servant had knocked on the door politely, I saw my father holding a small babe in his hands, while my mother was standing beside him. The midwife had busied herself in cleaning up, and several servants stood by the wall ready to attend to our needs.

My father spotted me and broke out into a wide grin. "Raeine, get over here and take a look at your new little brother!" He said, in an absolutely wonderful mood.

I toddled up to my dad, and he leaned down to show me my new baby bro. "He's ugly." I said, crinkling my tiny nose as I looked down at him. "Was I this ugly?" I asked my dad, putting on an innocent expression. He burst out into laughter, his eyes tearing up a little.

"Your little bro is cute you little rascal." He said, cuffing me by the head lightly.

I puffed out my cheeks, rubbing my delicate head. "Yeah yeah, if you say so." I grumbled, lowering my dark blue eyes. He ruffled my fluffy snow white hair, his eyes sparkling.

"What should we name him?" My father asked, turning to the blonde haired Lila.

"You choose." She said, her voice exhausted. She had gone through childbirth after all.

"Hmm..." He looked down at his newborn son. "Adrian? Oh, or maybe, Kelior?" He muttered to himself.

"How about Raoult?" I said, praying for my brother to grow up nice and strong like a member of my old clan.

"Raoult? Raoult! Yes, I like it!" My father exclaimed, and Lila also looked satisfied. He held his child up high, eyes proud. "May you grow up to be as strong as your namesake." He said to the sleeping baby. I prayed in agreement with my father. If he was more impressive than I am, I would be able to keep my freedom!

Or so I thought.