The next time he was awake, he had some time to ponder over his new life. He was neither sad, nor happy. This could perhaps be attributed to the fact that his body now was an infant and that his body was more focused on growing than emotions, but he was able to clearly think. At the moment of his death in earth, he was lonely and in debt. As an orphan, he had to work a full-time job just to support himself and had to take out multiple loans in order to go to school. This was not an ideal situation to live in and his hobby of hiking had ended up killing him.

After thinking for a while, he decided that in this life, he wanted to live a meaningful life, where he could live free of the burdens of society, where he could be free from debt. He also decided that if he was given the chance, he would make life better for others as he could.

For him, life continued as it had. He was fed and taken care of. As time passed, his body grew, and he came to be able to perceive colors and sounds clearly. He was also able to make out the people around him better. He learned that his new given name was Elephon.

Even though he could hear fine now, he was unable to understand the meaning behind the words. He attempted to say a few words to one of the women taking care of him, and they just smiled at him. After multiple attempts at doing this, they finally started to understand that he wanted to speak. Over the next few months, they would point out different objects and say their names, and he would attempt to learn. This was an arduous process, but as an adult who had gone through schooling and was almost done with university, he had an easier time learning the language than expected.

As time passed, Elephon finally started to notice his surroundings. The first thing he saw was that there was no electricity or plumbing. The residents of the building he was in would carry around lamps if they had to move in the dark, and the walls of the building had lamp stands built into them.

There were no carpets, instead their beds were constructed out of wood with bedding made of straw. The people who took care of him were referred to as “Sister” and not by name. There were not many children in the building, which he assumed was a church, and there was only one other child around his age.

Other than that, there were a few other children that could be seen walking around and doing chores. Elephon, who had decided that he would call himself El as soon as he could speak, wondered if he would be given a last name. This seemed unlikely as most of the other children were only referred to by their first name. The priestesses were also referred to as Sister, and the five Sisters in the building that he had seen so far called each other Sister as well. It seemed that Sister was their title.

There was not much to do in the Church, El found as he became older. Once he was able to walk and talk, he along with the other occupant of the room, were moved to the same room as the older children. His daily activities changed as a result. Every morning after he woke up, he, along with everyone else would get his chore finished. As one of the youngest children in the church, he was given the easiest chore such as cleaning the room and throwing out loose straw from the bedding. Some of the older children would bring some straw, which would be delivered once every week and kept near the stables, and the younger children would arrange them. Another important point of El’s life became school. Every day after chores, everyone would get together in a big room and pray. While it was unclear who or what they were praying to, the statues littered around the room was evidence that this was a polytheistic society.

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He had asked one of the Sisters about the gods, and she had refused to say anything stating that the Mother would be holding an initiation ceremony once they were five, after which he would finally be able to ask questions. El’s days passed idly but happily for a few years like that. Over time, he was able to glean some information even with the sisters’ adamant silence on the topic of religion.

There were statues of seven gods in the prayer room. Four were male, and three were females. El wondered if he would be getting visited by any of them, as it was quite common in the isekai books he had read in his last life that the gods were usually involved in the rebirth process. He also had not received any kind of system, nor had he received any special skills or cheat abilities. In fact, it seemed that the world he had been born in was just a simple medieval world, with no exciting magics or qi.

The day arrived when El turned five years old. Him, along with Goras, the other orphan child, were summoned by the Mother to partake in the initiation ceremony. As the sisters prepared them, they were given time to take a bath and they had been given new clothes. These clothes were not anything specular. They were drab, gray tunics and long stockings with no character. However, it was exciting, as this was the first pair of clothing that they had worn that was not passed down from the older children.

After they were ready, they were taken to the room. The Mother, seeing them arrive, said “Come to the middle of the room boys, and kneel.”

El and Goras, following her instructions, went to the middle of the room, where there was a blue circle with two smaller blue circle in the middle. Each stood in one of the smaller blue circles. The Mother, without many words, took some colored powder and started to draw some patterns between the two smaller circles and the big circles. The sisters stood on the side watching as the Mother continued to draw.

El seeing the Mother drawing tried to ask “What are these patt-” hearing which the mother, without letting him finish softly yelled “SILENCE”.

Seeing that this pattern clearly had a big impact on their initiation, El stood silent and watched. After finishing the patterns, the other stopped and went to the table at the front of the room right next to the windows and poured some water on her hands. She proceeded to flick some water towards El and Goras after which she started to recite.

“May Qovdur, the ruler of the skies, bless you”

“May Ireus, the wisest of the wise bless you”

“May Uborh, of justice find you always truthful”

“May you be the embodiment of the virtues of Omarus”

“May gretta always find you worthy of success”

“May you be as free as the winds of Ketrix”

“May your thinking be logical like that of Koanke”

After reciting these lines, the Mother sprinkled the water over the two boys and finished the rituals.

This little ritual gave El a lot of new information that he hadn’t known. He knew that there were seven main gods that were believed in this world; however, he was unaware of their names. Today, he had found the names of the four gods and three goddesses of this world. He had half expected to be spirited away during this ceremony, as he was aware from reading web novels that the Gods would sometimes show themselves to the reincarnated individual to bid them to do something, but the gods seemed wholly uninterested in El. There was no sudden teleportation, nor were there any visions.

In fact, he had expected something like a status page to pop up or some kind of system to bind to him, as it seemed to happen to every other isekai’d person, however his initiation proceeded without any such happenstances occurring. After the completion of the ceremony, the Mother bade them to leave, without much flair.

“You may leave now, come here tomorrow after prayer” After which she left the room.