Chapter 1

“You cannot just leave me!” A young raspy voice called out to me. Just my luck that I ran into this kid. A new reincarnate or second born just as I was passing into town while on a job. All I wanted was to ask for directions to and a place for rest after a week of difficult walking.

I have my back to the kid as I raise my voice walking away, “Actually I can.” I cannot turn my head to look at him because I balance it on my torso to give the impression that I’m normal. So, I must turn my entire body to look at him. “Your life, your adventure, and your problems. I happen to have plenty of my own.” The boy was staring at me and muttering nonsense words in a mix of this worlds native tongue and another language similar sounding to French I believe.

I make sure my head’s on straight by stroking my hand across a scarf over where my neck should be. My black armour was slightly altered to hold my head up just a little with a custom neck brace from a doctor’s place hidden by that scarf. Without it, I look like something fell on me like a cartoon and sunk my neck into my body.

He looked around and I can see the confusion all over his face. This boy lived a life here and now his past has caught up to him, he can’t decide if this place is familiar or foreign. “I do not understand.” He says with that French accent breaking his voice, atop possible tears and grief coming through. Remembering the moment of death is never a pleasant memory, I should know.

My head takes a shallow breath, which still baffles me, since my head is no longer attached to any lungs. But as quickly as I made up my mind to walk, my human side figured it’s best to help the poor boy. “Look you lived on Earth and tragically you died.” I wave my hands up and down gesturing as I speak to him then point a thumb to myself. “As did I, over twenty years ago. And we are in another world now.”

I see him trying to make sense of this and failing. “What is this place?” he asked.

I look at him as I sit on a stone wall beside the dirt road and ask, “what do you think this place is called?” I gesture to our surroundings of fields full of beehives.

I see him think about this as he looked to the side to remember. “Honey rock village” he says. “How do I know that? Obviously, I know that. What?” he contradicts himself.

“Because you lived here clearly. Before you became conscious of your past life.” I say to him as he seems to go through his memories. “It happens from time to time. Sometimes a person is fully aware when they are just a baby. Sometimes years and even decades later they seem to wake up.”

He holds his hand to his chest. “Is the boy who had this body dead or in my world?”

I try to shake my head, yet I’m reminded that I have no neck. I settle by simply saying it. “No, you are that boy. Think of it as amnesia. People like you and me are called Second Borns and sooner or later both sets of your memories will line up, so just give it sometime.” The memories won’t overlap, they will go from oldest to recent soon enough.

I try to reassure him, but he then asks the same typical question everyone eventually asks in life, especially in this world. “Why am I here? Is this heaven or some sort of afterlife?”

I stifle a groan; I really should have just kept walking away. It’s like teaching a child what is religion even if you don’t believe in it. “I don’t know but this is not the afterlife, this is…” Janus thinks on the correct meaning, “This is another life. Perhaps you’re here for a reason or perhaps you’re just lucky.”

He shakes his head “lucky?” he says with a hint of sadness in his tone. “What am I supposed to do?”

I scratch my chin looking at him, he seems well off and healthy. He may have had a good start to this life. I ask, “do you have parents here?” He nods hesitantly, I can tell that his mind is telling him that they are not his parents yet remembers them as so. “Well, that’s a good enough start for anyone really.” I tell him.

I look to the sky and notice it’s getting a little dark. Maybe I can use this to get some shelter for once. I ask, “What’s your name boy?”

“Louis” the boy answers but didn’t ask if that was his name on Earth or the name his new parents gifted him here.

I try to instinctively nod my head yet still, no neck. I ask him “Do your parents have a spare room where I could spend the night?”

His eyes looked to his right to remember, then he nods his head making me feel a hint of jealousy at such a simple act. I then ask him to show me so that I can rest and prepare for my mission. I walk with him for a while and notice that he is starting to make a little sense of things, faster than most, scratching his chin while focusing on a question to the answer right in front of his face. Louis observes his surroundings practically saying to himself obviously that is here and around there this is where it should be. Remembering his home.

To help him I ask about his village, to probably straighten his mind a little. I already know what he is going to say about Honey Rock village. It is famous for practicing the only magic in the world that turns honey into gold. It is challenging but a profitable business because they are not allowed to make too much gold as that could potentially ruin the gold economy. So, they exclusively take contracts from nobility and depending on the yield of gold harvested they can do well. The less gold mined in the year the more contracts, but a gold rush means little or nothing.

I then hesitantly ask possibly a touchy subject to a reincarnate. “Where are you from? On earth I mean.”

He looked up to me, not sure if grateful for the question or too hurt to answer. “France sir. What part of France are you from?” He asked assuming I’m from the same place. An understandable question for the conversation but I’m about to confuse him more with my answer. “I am not from France. I am from Britain.”

He looks at me with a sceptical look. “You speak great French for a lobster.”

I smile with a raised eyebrow, a redcoat joke? Funny, well two can play it that way. “And you speak great English for a frog.” We both grin showing our teeth at our jabs to one another.

With realisation sinking in, “How?” his voice mixed with perplexity.

weighing my words carefully, almost chewing my tongue. "Just talk to me," I urged him simply.

He furrowed his brow, still perplexed. To him, his speech was as normal as it had always been. "I don’t understand, what do you mean?" the words slipping out in what he believed to be his native French.

I say nothing, Janus can see thought process in Louis head working. He followed with a string of sentences in fluent French, only to repeat them moments later in the language of our current realm.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The change in his expression was immediate blend of shock and revelation lighting up his eyes. The gears turned visibly with the reality of his words not only had he seamlessly switched languages, but he had also understood them both with equal clarity.

I give a little cheer and pat him on the back, “now you’re getting it.” I do my best to explain, “You see here in this land has its own native languages, and everyone learns it young just like on Earth. And if someone is a reincarnate as a Second born in this world. When they wake up suddenly to their past life, they are multilingual.” I know, bullshit reincarnation magic that won’t make life easy and create an auto translate like most fantasy Isekai. Janus tells him the word “Isekai” and that only puzzles him more since he likely never heard of such a Japanese word in any language.

Louis continues to show a mix of emotions varying from anxiety to wonder. He plays with the language for a moment like tasting new food or a new set of teeth. Wording the new sounds to get a feel for it, which also works the other way around to. From his perspective, both languages are foreign to him, yet he uses them equally.

I then hesitantly ask a question that Second Borns often don’t like being asked. “Louis… how did you die in France if you don’t mind me asking?” We continue to walk as the sky turns a shade of orange.

Louis stopped and looked up to me for a moment, his face became plane and looked out to space. A new range of emotions passed his face then. The obvious realisation, shock and horror of his memories flowing through his head. The same for every Second Born as the final moment comes. It was then his turn to surprise me, “I did not die in France sir. I died in Germany.”

I stopped and blinked as thoughts came through thinking on that. I can hazard a guess what he might be saying but my curiosity has got to ask. “What year is it back on earth?

“1943.” the boy says as if reading it from a newspaper.

Wow I think to myself, I was born in the two-thousands and I died in twenty-twenty. This kid died that long ago yet he was only born in this world little more than a decade after my birth. I then brush those thoughts to one side and focus a show of sympathy for him. It does not take a genius from my day and age to put those clues together on how he may have died. “I’m sorry.” I say and he gives me a look that says why didn’t I give condolences before asking for the year.

We see his house in view now, but we stop and talk for a short time. I don’t tell him when I was born or killed because I don’t want to confuse him anymore than he already is. Instead, I tell him about the war he lived and briefly saw a part of. I tell him the fate of the Axis to his unsurprising amusement. I then gave a little detail on the world order after the war and the long peace. I even tell him about the moon landing in sixty-nine which finally he believes I’m pulling his leg at this point. I then wince on the fact that I got the moon landing dates way ahead at that realisation. He does not seem to take much notice as the sun begins to set in the distance and the sky turns dark. This boy he’s about thirteen or fourteen now so from his perspective it’s 1956? Whatever age he was on earth he naturally would add the years he lived here to that birthday. All second Borns do that, For me I was born two thousand and died twenty-twenty, I then was born here and lived about twenty-one years here. So that makes me roughly forty-one years of age. Being born again means I am young in a new body, so I only have the look of a twenty-one-year-old.

On another note, this world likes to mix up its Second Borns from all over Earth and from different times.

My focus returned to his surroundings and asked Louis about this place. Speaking of his life here speeds the memory recovery. All around us are beehives lined across the fields around the village. The best hives are kept around Louis house he says. His family don’t just make gold, but they put spells in the pollen, the beehives, and the bees themselves. There are a number of spells people can request for use but the main sale of them is for preservation and growth. Such as gardens, nature reserve, noble parks and above all else farmlands.

When we are done talking, we finally walk to his home. Louis’s house is a nice place, it’s a smooth and cool place with white walls and black trim. It’s a modest rustic village home with a hint of English Tudor style. Yet given the business they have you can tell it’s not a cheap place to live in. As we approach the front door of Louis home, we see a man outdoors that I assume to be the father. He is a well-fed man, tall and I notice wizard robes… I blink and focus as I see he has a wizard’s hat to with a bee net attached to it. Now, I understand they use magic but a beekeeper that thinks itself a wizard is silly. It’s often a thing you see with other trades in the world that practice one form of magic or another. It’s like an atheist that thinks himself a scientist.

He turned and looked at Janus and his son with curiosity as he reaches out a hand for greetings. “Good day to you stranger.” he says as we shake hands.

“Good day.” I say in a greeting. “I was at the next town over and I saw a request for help. I point at the distance while thinking what the chances are that l met a new reincarnate at my destination. Is it fate? Does the boy really have a special reason to be here, awoken at the moment of my arrival? I push the thoughts aside; this world often does not work along the lines of fate or destiny. It is often more random than what people tend to believe or in rare occasions like this one, luck. “And as I arrived, I met your son on the way here.” I explain as we turn to his son, Louis.

His son nods his head and speaks on my behalf. I can see the boys eyes look at his father with an odd understanding. To Louis of Earth this man seems like a stranger, however to Louis of today this is the man that raised him from birth and all the memories of that time dance in his head.

Janus loses interest and looks away as Louis says a few words.

As for the father he looks dumbfounded for a second. He actually flinches a little as I notice what had happened. “Boy, you’re speaking French to him. Speak in the language you grew up with here.” I say in my own native English tongue to the French kid who obviously to my knowledge didn’t understand.

An equal reaction of confusion as both of them look at Janus. Louis darts his eyes left and right at the two of us confused. Janus speaking English should of been a subtle hint that he can’t understand. It then comes to the realisation that he does know two languages and he spoke the wrong one.

“Sorry papa I did not know what came over me.” He was shocked to mix up his words. I can still see him separating his memories and experiences. The confusion from his father lingers as he looked back to me but fades a little. Louis corrected himself and asked again. “The man would like to request lodging for the night papa.”

Acting like nothing happened I make the same request. “I thought I’d ask to stay in the spare bedroom rather than go to the tavern. If you do not mind that is?” He nods his head somehow perfectly comfortable with a stranger to stay.

Janus then pulled out a small wallet to pay. But as he holds it ready to open it, Louis’s father shakes his head. “No, no.” raising a hand to stop Janus. “If you can help the village, it would be our pleasure sir.” He then opens his home door and waved me in.

We enter the house, and the father is kind enough to offer a place at his table for dinner too. We meet the mother inside, a modest woman and with the smell of food clearly a talented to cook. Har shiny brown hair was tied back with a bandana, she was dressed like any other fantasy milk maid. She was elegant, simple and a practical woman. Though as she walked up and down the kitchen the hard clunking sound of boots was made on the wood floor, very high quality much like army boots to my ears. She noticed my curiosity and gave a mischievous grin as she partly raised the back of her long skirt to show off one foot. She rocked her right foot on the toes side to side, to my surprise it’s the same kind as mine. High boots and iron over the leather straps for extra protection, the only difference is hers are brown and mine are black. This playful show she gave wasn’t a flirtatious manner to my knowledge but a nod to say that she was a fellow adventurer like me. Likely retired to be this housewife.

We all sit at the table a as Janus focuses his will not to drool at the sight and smell of real food. Beef gravy stake and fresh bread, I wonder how long has it been since he had a real meal? As they eat dinner the family looked at Janus probably thinking he must have a noble upbringing. Janus eats his food with a straight back and head up but that’s because of his condition that stops him from ordinary movements while eating.

After a short talk while finishing up the meal Janus was then shown to the spare room for sleep. After giving thanks for the meal I now sit in the bedroom alone thinking of my mission. This train of thought is suddenly over when my body casually picks up my head with both hands and rests it on the bedside table as simply as setting aside a helmet. I feel as though the body demanded it. Ever since I became a Dullahan I had to overcome a number of experiences and feelings I never imagined. For starters the severed head, accidents and moments of clumsiness has had my nose broken several times. As well as a collection of bruises and cuts.

Positive I’ve had two, three concussions this past year, thankfully my head seems to be more durable than normal, some sort of magic repairs damages. For which I am so grateful for because my heads suffered falls and injuries that could kill anyone else. On the downside whatever magic that keeps my head alive and intact neglects to dull the pain. And the feeling is far worse than you can imagine, and this past year has built a terrible tolerance to pain that honestly scares me.

Now it is the body that scares me much more. I can control it as naturally as normal but… I don’t know how to describe it? It seems to have its own awareness of its surroundings. What I know is that it does not want or demand anything, yet it has a will of its own. This realisation that has me pondering if my soul or a pace of it still resides inside.

Even more complicated is that my head does not feel exhaustion or fatigue, but my body often has moments that demands rest. Same with food or drink, I don’t feel hungry, yet I still eat. Sleep or food my body guides itself for sustenance and my head unconsciously agrees with it as if it was my idea.

The questions a scientists could ask would be I believe simple yet baffling. That scientist would say the brain is what warns you about body limits and pain, it is what makes a day-to-day routine for sleep and food on demand. Yet my body does not have a brain other than my own that is detached but still seems to crave maintenance like a child being carried by its parent. Or it must be how a headless chicken would be like I suppose.

What worries me the most is its awareness again. It seems to work and react to my head’s senses in a cooperative manner but can be independent in movement, a fact that has saved my life once or twice this past year. It seems to be aware of its surroundings and obstacles. Even now I feel as though it is looking at me. Looking at me, its severed head and waiting. While waiting for instructions from my brain, waiting for a purpose to move again. Looking at its heads pale white skin, green eyes, black short back and sides haircut. With its broken nose that honestly adds a little charm or character to me… The head I mean.

I take a deep breath, what would it say if it could speak? Would it be odd if I talked to it? I’m not that crazy yet, am I?

My body for no reason snaps its fingers, suddenly standing up stretching its back and arms, while my head lets out a yawn. Tired yet the job said there is a disturbance on some nights in the village. “Best make a start.” I say as my body picks up my head and I or We exit the room to begin our… No, begin my Hunt I mean to say.