He had an ill-fated birth.
The moment that he was born as the eldest son with the most succession rights to his family’s wealth, he was already marked for a bad end and he was aware of it. So really, he wasn’t surprised when his own younger brother put a gun to his head after having him beaten black and blue and forced him to sign over his position; he had even anticipated his own death.
But what he did not expect was the ruthlessness his brother showed in killing his fiancée and the unborn life within her to ‘tie up lose ends’ as he called it. He also didn’t expect his cruelty in shooting him multiple times in several non-vital places then leaving him to be burnt alive in that house.
People said that the world was a dark and cruel place, but life had proved to him that nothing was wrong with the world and it was instead the darkness in the hearts of men that was the real problem; but he had thought at least, that between family there would be some semblance of mercy. It wasn’t until his last moments that he learnt that crucial lesson…
The hearts of men were dark but the blood that tied people together was even more so.
He died… and then he was reborn.
The place that he was born into was somewhere he definitely did not know. As his family’s successor, even if he didn’t want to, his education consisted of learning several languages, eight of which he became highly proficient in yet out of all the languages that he had learned, not a single one of them corresponded with the language he heard these people speak.
It was a completely foreign place but at the moment he was a baby. He believed that with time and effort plus the odd fact that he was reborn with his previous life’s memories intact, he would quickly be able to adapt and comfortably integrate himself into this new life. However, at the time that he had such thoughts he had yet to find out the existence of ‘that thing’.
It first appeared when he fell asleep. In the dark recesses of his mind, he saw something flicker before a very familiar thing appeared before his line of sight. It was a text box.
[RESET GAME?]
[YES] [NO]
Looking at those words that were like something straight out of his gaming screen, he hit ‘yes’ without putting much thought behind it.
[RESETTING GAME…]
[GAME RESET!]
[CONNECTING TO SERVER…]
[NO CONNECTION FOUND!]
[SEARCHING FOR NEW CONNECTION…]
[NEW CONNECTION FOUND!]
[CONNECTING TO NEW SERVER…]
[SUCCESSFUL CONNECTION!]
[LOADING SKILL SHOP…]
[LOADING NPCs…]
[PREPARING TRAINING GROUNDS….]
It was a familiar stream of texts that he was used to seeing from playing games with his fiancée who was a game otaku.
When he met that girl in high school, it was a time in his life when he had become so used to just following his family’s orders and doing whatever he was told; he was like a robot that couldn’t think for itself and his life had become so routine and rigid that when any changes occurred in his schedule he didn’t even know what to do with himself.
She was like a wild typhoon that swept in and completely turned his life on its head. Before he met her, where would the successor of an elite family like him neglect his homework and play online games until the next morning then have to rush and complete it the next day before class?
She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the square he had let himself be boxed into and she showed him a completely different world, bringing his almost dead soul back to life. After graduation he thought that he would be back to his old routine of doing as he was told but it seemed like he was fated with that girl.
By the time he died, gaming had become such a normal part of his life that in place of where he wouldn’t even glance at a gaming console in a shop window, he had clicked a ‘game reset’ button upon seeing it in a dream.
[SYSTEM ONLINE!]
[START TRAINING?]
[YES] [NO]
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Again, he selected ‘yes’ without much thought and what popped up was yet another set of texts.
[SELECT TRAINING SKILL!]
[CURRENTLY AVAILABLE…]
[LANGUAGE SKILL]
[WALKING SKILL]
[EXIT]
At the time, he wondered exactly what kind of stupid game this was and ridiculed it endlessly in his mind, but in the end he still chose to train in the language skill because ‘learning how to walk’ just didn’t seem to make any sense.
After selecting the ‘language skill’ option, the scenery around him abruptly changed and he found himself sitting behind a desk in a room with wooden walls and floors. Hanging in midair near the roof supports was a transparent bar with black numbers in one corner that currently said ‘0/100’ which he quickly recognized as a progress bar.
At the front of the room were a whiteboard that hung on the wall next to a clock that currently pointed out the time to be exactly twelve o’clock and a desk with teaching materials next to which stood a blonde lady with blue eyes in a long skirted French maid outfit. She didn’t seem to be surprised by his sudden appearance and instead smiled.
“Welcome, my name is Olivia. In the time that we are together I will do my best to assist you and answer all of your inquiries so please don’t hesitate to ask any questions. Let’s begin.”
The moment that she finished speaking, the clock hanging on the wall chimed and began to ticking.
What followed was an introduction to an odd language he had never heard of before called ‘Ancient Text’ but with the Olivia’s easy to understand explanations and his own superior knowledge on languages he was able to make quick progress, earning consecutive notifications of gaining EXP which went towards filling up the progress bar and for every five EXP he managed to gain, he would gain one SP.
He had always been a diligent person and once he immersed himself in something he would quickly lose track of time and everything else around him. Before he knew it, the hands on the clock had made a full rotation, pointing back to twelve o’clock once again and the clock loudly chimed which broke his concentration and he looked up at the progress bar hanging in midair.
Within twelve hours of being exposed to this new language, he had managed to gain 20/100 EXP and the once transparent progress bar had a portion of it filled with a glowing green.
“Well done, you’ve made excellent progress.” Olivia smiled while closing her book. “That’s all for today, see you in the next class.”
Once she said those words, his surroundings slightly flickered and he was once again in that dark place without a speck of light save the message screen in front of him that once again held the same set of texts from before with the acceptance of some changes.
[SELECT TRAINING SKILL!]
[CURRENTLY AVAILABLE…]
[LANGUAGE SKILL (Beginner)] (Timed Out)
[WALKING SKILL]
[EXIT]
The language skill he had just trained was now at the beginner level. Thinking back to the progress bar that was at twenty percent, he figured that if he could get it up to one hundred he might advance from beginner to intermediate level.
In the time he had spent studying, he found that odd ‘Ancient Text’ language to be quite interesting as its characters were a mix of both letters and symbols and he found that the way in which the two were made to come together and make sense was absolutely fascinating and he also thought that the pronunciations of the words sounded very romantic.
He truly wanted to learn it a bit more, but the ‘Timed Out’ status next to the skill let him know that he was no longer able to train it at the moment.
A little bummed out and adamant that he wasn’t going to do something like ‘learning to walk’, he unhesitantly selected the exit option.
Once he selected it, the screen in front of him slightly flickered before disappearing, leaving him in total darkness but soon, in the distance, he could see a spot of light that was gradually getting brighter and brighter until eventually it became bright enough to blind and he cried out in surprise.
“Au! Auaua!”
It was an odd crying voice, and for a moment he was startled, but after looking around the unknown environment and confirming his own immobility, he remembered that he had died and reincarnated as a baby.
He remembered the noise and the panic from the moment of his birth and being passed from hand to hand to be taken care of. He remembered that he had come to a new place and started a new life as a completely new person and suddenly, he wished that he had trained a bit of that walking skill, however he quickly threw that thought to the back of his mind because that was only a dream and no matter how odd or beautiful dreams were, they sadly could not affect reality.
From where he was lying, he couldn’t see much of anything besides the blue canopy of the baby cradle and the gold gilded ceiling above but from the quality of the cloth used in the canopy and the fact that he highly believed the ceiling was made of real gold, he figured that the family he was born into this time was once again a wealthy one. He just prayed and hoped that he wasn’t so unlucky to be born as the eldest son again so he could at least ease his way out of the line of fire.
While he was thinking idly, the door of the room opened and he heard the sound of footsteps against a tiled floor before a woman’s face appeared in his sight.
The woman looked to be around her mid-twenties with light colored skin, dark brown hair that was pulled into a bun and a pair of pretty hazel green eyes that sparkled like gemstones when she smiled.
Her facial features were Caucasian, making it difficult for him to try identifying where in the world he had been reincarnated from just judging her appearance and he thought that if all the people here were to look Caucasian, then he would just have to learn the language and find out as he grew older like any other person.
However, he didn’t expect when the woman opened her mouth to speak that he would actually understand her words.
“You’re already awake, My Prince?”
Finding that he could understand her words even though he had tried to no avail for hours after his birth to understand their babbling was in a single word, shocking! He didn’t know how to react to the sudden development and ended up staring blankly for a long time which must have frightened the woman as she rushed to pick him up, but her actions were gentle.
“Your Highness, are you alright?”
Being picked up had successfully snapped him out of his shock, but it didn’t change the fact that he was confused.
Why was it that he could suddenly understand this foreign language today when he obviously couldn’t before? During that time and now, what happened? What had changed?
“Brown hair and grey eyes, you look exactly like your father. That selfish bastard, saying that he won’t see you even after My Lady suffered so much to bring you into this world. And he dares to call himself a king?! He’s no better than a covetous bandit…”
The woman went off into an angry tirade that was obviously cursing the man who should be his father in this life but,… hold on, did she say that his father was king? Was that meant literally or was it just another way of saying the man was full of himself or some kind of rich tycoon?
Either way, from the way this woman was cursing so passionately, on the verge of tears about something or the other, he was certain that he had been born into some sort of unpleasant rich family drama. But, why was it that he found the way she spoke to be familiar?
Although she was mostly grumbling and spitting words through clenched teeth, when she spoke actual words her diction was very clear and gave him a very familiar feeling that was a little… romantic?
He had only thought for a short while before he recalled where he had heard that kind of pronunciation before; Ancient Text language!
He thought that the conclusion was crazy when he first thought of it, but the woman was still cursing at his apparently no good father so he had a readily available source for comparison. In the end, although he couldn’t understand all the words she used, he found that the language he learned from the game in his dream and the language this woman was speaking were in fact, one and the same.
The thought was absurd and absolutely mind boggling but it was indeed a fact. He had no idea how it was possible, but it was the truth.
He thought about it in all sorts of ways but he just couldn’t figure it out and in the end when the woman saw him with his brows knitted and an extremely upset look on his face, she first checked his diaper and after confirming that it was clean thought that maybe he was hungry and went off to fetch some food.
She returned shortly after with a bottle of milk and although he thought that he wasn’t hungry, in the end, he ended up drinking all of it, surprising both himself and the woman who then began to worry that maybe she had let him drink too much and ran off while yammering something about calling a doctor but he couldn’t be bothered to worry about her because now that his stomach was full, his eyelids began to feel heavy and were quickly drooping shut on their own.
In a short time he fell asleep, and the moment that his mind descended into darkness a familiar screen with texts appeared before him…