Originally, when I had started falling, I feared that at any moment I would reach the floor and turn into a red splat, but that was a while ago and I had been falling for about an hour or so.

Instead of the fear or suspense, I was getting bored and wished that something would happen already.

And then something did happen.

In the blink of an eye, everything went dark, and I lost consciousness.

When I awoke I saw two people in front of me, a man and a woman who were conversing softly in a language I didn't understand.

My vision was really blurry but I could just barely make out some of their characteristics.

They both had black hair, with the man having bright purple eyes while the woman had dim yellow eyes.

Some idea of what had transpired had already begun formulating in my head, and when I looked down at my arms, I was able to confirm them.

My arms were exceptionally small and that meant that this was the start of my new life.

Everything was slowly looking clearer so I decided to check my surroundings.

The architecture, I found, was much like what you would see in a feudal Japanese setting, especially after seeing the paper-tiled walls of the room which continued on to the sliding door.

The exterior walls of the building also included windows framed with reddish-brown planks of wood, something that allowed me to get a glance behind the tiled layer of the walls to the thick wood behind it as well as a view the dark sky outside.

Observing the sky, I noticed that there was a moon just like on Earth, but rather than the pale white I was accustomed to, it was closer to a light red color.

Thankfully though, the color it reflected seemed to stay the same, having to adjust to a nighttime where everything glowed red would've been annoying to deal with.

The moon wasn't the only source of light in the room though, something else on a nearby table was illuminating the room, and I assumed it was also the main thing lighting up the room due to its proximity.

It looked a lot like normal lamps, being a wooden stand that elevated a hollow rock-like object, and inside that object was what seemed to be a glowing orb.

While I continued examining the details of the room, a scraping noise could be heard over the talking of my new parents, and a tiny head peeked through the newly opened sliding door.

As soon as they called to the tiny head, it quickly ran inside the room and jumped on the bed where everyone was situated.

Getting a better look at him while he stared at me, I saw that it was a boy around the age of toddlerhood, with black hair like the two parents and dim yellow eyes like the mother.

By the way they were treating him, I guessed that he was probably a sibling of mine.

I watched as the three of them continued talking, occasionally getting poked by the brother when the parents got caught up in conversation, but soon I began to get drowsy.

I hadn't gotten a good sleep for about 60 years technically, so I welcomed the feeling and soon drifted away, thinking I'd figure things out when I woke up.

*****

When I woke up the sun was out, and I was starving for some food.

I had been moved over to a crude crib and to my left I could see both of my parents sleeping on a sizable mattress situated over some kind of pallet.

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A normal baby would've obviously started crying in this situation, but I thought it would be weird for me considering my situation, so after debating it for a while I decided on loud segmented blabber to get their attention.

"NAAAA! MNEIAAAAA! AYAAAAAAA!"

It wasn't very sophisticated, but it was better than having to resort to crying as a grown man, (marginally).

The mother was first to get up and the father soon followed.

Seeing the mother approach me, my mind finally got to thinking about what I had just gotten myself into, and I began feeling increasingly nervous with each step she took towards me.

Thankfully though, she only came to check up on me before going outside of the room.

Not much later she was back, and holding in her hand was a bowl filled with some sort of soup.

She propped me up and started to pour the bowl's contents into my mouth, which without much delay, reached my taste buds.

Over the course of my previous life, I had eaten a lot of terrible things, it spanned from scraps of rotten meat to bugs that were still alive, but nothing was as offensive to my tongue as the substance inside the bowl.

Instinctively I tried to pull my head back however that didn't work.

Either it was because my current body was too weak to budge the mother's hand that was resting behind my head, or because she added some extra force expecting me to try something like that.

Eventually, in my total defeat, the entire bowl had gone down the hatch.

After that unpleasant experience, she left the room again along with the father, and I was left alone for the first time.

My first order of business was recapping everything I had gone through and getting my thoughts in order.

I was a so-called 'ascender talent', and it was somewhat clear what they expected my goal to be, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow that path.

Whether it was my decision or not, I had spent most of my earlier life training or working for Dark Cove, with my only resting point being in the final few years.

Several times throughout that life, I imagined myself in an alternate reality where my parents didn't abandon me, and I had a normal life.

A life where I had a normal upbringing, went to a normal school, grew up to work a normal job, and sometimes a life where I made friends.

All of that was now an open possibility, though all things considered, it would probably not be normal in the same way I once imagined.

There was also the fact that even if I did go for the ascension route, all the way up to becoming a god, I didn't know much about what that entailed.

Did that mean immortality?

If so, I wasn't so sure I wanted that, I had read enough and watched enough media during my time as a record keeper to know that didn't always end up great for the people becoming immortal.

Realistically though, I thought that if I really did manage to grow to that point, then I should probably be able to handle the strain of time as well.

Another possibility I considered was that becoming a god meant attaining infinite power and the ability to control everything, but on second thought that didn't seem very likely.

If the gods really did have all of that, then what was the need for assistants like the afterlife administrator?

Then I got to thinking about how there were multiple of these gods and the problem that would hypothetically pose to my own power.

Would I have the freedom to do whatever I wanted or just like always would there be a system in place with restrictions?

As I thought more and more, the prospect of godhood seemed less and less desirable for the work it required, to the point that I wondered if the people at the highest realm could even be considered gods or if the afterlife administrator was just simplifying things.

Ultimately, I decided to postpone making any final decisions on the topic, but one thing I was sure of regardless of which path I went with, was that I wouldn't let my knowledge go to waste.

After some thinking, I planned on using it to reach a high social standing as some sort of scholar, and from there I could either continue the rest of my life without financial worries or set off on the ascender path.

However, all of that was a ways off in the future, right then I had to figure out my bathroom situation in the least embarrassing way possible.

While I was weighing the pros and cons of a few solutions, the mother entered the room once again and picked me up.

This time she took me out of the room with her and I got a short tour of the rest of the house.

There looked to be another room that was slightly smaller along with a large dining room connected to what I assumed was a kitchen area.

Sitting on the dining table were the father and brother, who were eating a meaty-looking dish I wasn't familiar with.

Near the corner of the room, I saw a large spear along with some other equipment that I assumed belonged to the father.

Based on that, I presumed that he worked as some sort of militia man or guard, but I couldn't be certain of it.

The mother said a few things in the direction of the two in the foreign language before heading for the door.

I knew that I had to figure out this language sooner or later, but all things considered, I wasn't too worried about it.

I had managed to learn an adequate amount of Spanish, Chinese, and Russian from my courses at Dark Cove so I was confident that I would manage with this language too given enough time.

Anyways, after that the mother opened the door and I got to get my first good look at the outside world.