It’s happening again, he is failing again. He did things differently, he did everything he could to prepare for this moment, but here he is. He is in his teens. He can be seen bleeding from his head. His hair is almost as red as his blood that drips down to his lips. He can taste the iron on his tongue. He can hear the screams of pain and panic from his party members all around him. He tries to stand on shaky legs, but the spell cast on him prevents him. His face pulls down to the cold, rocky ground harshly. He looks for her through the dust and fog as best he can. They are in the middle of clearing in a dark forest. Everyone is in a similar state as him, out of reach from each other. But he doesn’t care. There is only one person he cares about. He finds her, she is still alive, but he can’t be relieved.
Behind her, looming ominously above her is death itself. The spirit’s eyes are void of any light. Its lipless mouth as though grinning, as if taunting him. Its cloak is as dark as the night sky yet translucent. Its skeletal fingers wrapped around the scythe as enormous as the spirit itself. That cursed scythe will surely kill her. He knows all too well. His dark brown eyes scowl in a mixture of emotions. Feelings of regret, vexation, and sadness. All the emotion he thought he wouldn’t feel this time. Is he going to fail to save her, again…
Did he do things wrong? Could he have done things better? Let’s start from the beginning…
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A life is born. A baby boy is born. He will know he was born due to the fact he has memories of his previous life but for now, he is in a state of confusion. After all, his vision is significantly impaired. Whatever he could see was nothing but haze and blurred at best. He could hear many voices and smell of must and smoke clearly enough, but his sense of touch was off the scale.
His sense of touch was the most noticeable to him. He can feel cloth being wrapped around his body, but for the body of a newborn would be best described as the sensation of a layer of skin having been peeled off or rubbed raw. The cheap and rough material of the cloth was a sensation of scratchiness on his entire newborn body. All he could do was cry in pain with his undeveloped vocal cords and try to get away from whatever was causing him pain with his undeveloped muscles. But to no avail.
Someone continues to swaddle his small body while voicing their complaints. Even with his knowledge of his previous life, he couldn’t understand the language, but he knew that the voice was of a woman. The woman starts to bring him close and cradles him in her arms. Though still uncomfortable, the scent was comforting, almost enough to make him forget the pain. He is able to relax.
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For the next few months, he cries... A lot. He cries when he’s hungry, because he can’t get food on his own. He cries when lying on his back for too long that it starts to feel sore and ache, but can’t change position because he doesn’t have the strength to. He cries because he defecates or urinates and he knows it’s unsanitary, but he can’t do anything with his undeveloped body. He cries night or day, rain or shine because his undeveloped eyes can’t tell the difference in time. And every time he had to cry to get the attention he needed like any baby, though he is a baby now, he would scream, inwardly he would be thinking things along the line of, “This is *beep!* embarrassing as *beep!*!!!!”, and when he finally relaxes he thinks, “I’m bored....”
When he isn’t crying, he can’t see, he can’t do anything except be bored. Whenever his needs are met and is put down to rest, he works on his motor skills. First, he forms his chubby little hands into fists and holds them tightly for 5 seconds, and then lets go and relax for 5 seconds. Then opens his hand stretching out his fingers wide for 5 seconds. After that, he scratches his whole body by bringing his infant arms as high as they can and legs as low as they can for 5 seconds. Then relax for 5 seconds and scratch his body outwards as wide as it can go, trying to make a star shape with his small body. At least he thought he was.
His birth mother of this world saw it all. She was there next to him the whole time, watching over him. What she saw was an infant lifting his arm and leg up in the air halfway stretched, scrunching his face shaking with his entire body shaking, like he was constipated. Later, he relaxes for a moment but then does the same sort of motions and scrunches his face again. The mother thought to herself in a distressed manner, ”Something’s wrong with my child.” The child had hell to pay for a couple of days, for being overly proactive.
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This child doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he has come to a realization he has been named Kei because his mother kept saying “Kei this, Kei that.”
Kei’s eye is not yet fully developed enough, but he has discerned he is living in a small wooden home with a stone fireplace. The smell of old wood and smoke. When crawling on the floor he can feel the dirt and sand in between the wooden floorboards. The wooden floor is not neatly aligned to cover all the dirt floor underneath.
He has a mother and a father who always seem to be dressed in tattered clothes. The father is not very active in Kei’s life, he always seems to be out working. As for the mother, she is always at home, attending to the infant Kei’s needs. She is a young mother because of this she can be childish at times but quite protective. She understands she’s not very knowledgeable about being a perfect mother, but she finds Kei's lack of crying rather worrying, sometimes even disturbing.
She would carry Kei outside from time to time, to entertain Kei, but also for herself. As soon as she steps out of her home there is a small yard bordered by a stone wall that comes up to slightly above her waist. Outside the stone hedges is a dirt road with either side covered by farmland, fields of gold and a forested area partially encompassing it. Even with his murky vision, the view can be blinding on days with good weather. He tries to cover his eyes with his small hands. Noticing his movement, the mother starts to stride forward.
Her objective is to reach the tree by the far side of the road. There was someone waiting there already. It was a mother from another house carrying her own child as well. Kei’s mother stops to talk to her. They were close friends.
The other child was clearly much more childlike than Kei. The other child was crying and struggling, but Kei was calm and observant. The neighboring mother voices her jealousy seeing such a docile child. Kei was feeling rather smug inside seeing the other child throwing a tantrum. Moments later he felt ashamed of his own pettiness. He is a full-grown man on the inside after all. He puts his attention elsewhere.
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Still unable to see very far, Kei understands his surroundings just a little better now; he lives in the middle of nowhere. So he focuses on sounds. Hearing the 2 mothers talking and trying to understand them. When he gets tired of doing that he tries to see as far as he can. There are a few blurry silhouettes moving around in the field. It was farmers at work. When he gets bored of that he listens to his surroundings again. He can hear a couple of children running and playing approaching them.
It was 2 young boys around the age of 5 years old. The boys rush past the 2 mothers. Both mothers voice their complaints about something but both boys run away, one of the boys saying “sorry” in an insincere tone. Which even Kei could discern, even though it’s in a language he didn’t know or understand. But Kei was focused on something else. He was wondering “Why the hell is that little kid playing with a lit torch in broad daylight?”
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Soon winter comes and all Kei does is complain about how bored he is again, but this time he is too cold to bother to move around and continue doing his exercising routine. Other than crying whenever he thought his life was in danger. He finally decides to think about his position. Why is he here?
Kei thinks this is definitely an “Isekai.” Meaning going to another world by being summoned or being reincarnated. Or maybe he suspects he has been reincarnated backward, back into the past. Things are too real to be a fantasy world. Though he himself is proof of fantasy… But why was he reborn as a poor farmer’s child? Why not someone, or even something, more interesting? A wolf? An android? Even an undying zombie?
Other than that what was bothering him the most was the fact he didn’t remember dying or stepping into some sort of magic circle or even meeting a so-called God. He thinks he lived a decently full life, though was single. He lived up to his 30s? 40s? He didn’t overwork to the point of dying of exhaustion. Is it the mind of the infant making his memory hazy? But he still remembers his past language, mathematics, basic physics, and basic general knowledge quite clearly.
He continues to recollect his past in order and remembers something that was engraved into his mind in his past life. He remembers his past father, he was no one special but Kei profoundly respected him.
Kei was named Gemma Kouki in his past life. When Kouki was old enough to start middle school, his father took him aside to his dimly lit room with only his computer as a light. Kouki’s father's face turned to him with his glasses reflecting the screen and said, “To live a life with the least amount of regret, master 3 subjects within these 3 categories. 1, intellectual, for example, Language, Math, History, or something similar that works your mind. 2, physical activity, for example, joining a sport like tennis or basketball. Something that works your body and try to stick to it as long as you can. 3, something artistic, something creative. Something that exercises your creativity. Painting, drawing, sculpting, and the likes. Something that can help you express yourself. So, even writing can be counted in this subject as well. So, from what I just told you, learning a language covers 2 of these subjects. But I’ll leave that for you to decide. General knowledge is, of course, important but I don’t expect you to be perfect in everything. We are human, humans are imperfect beings. Imperfect can never be perfect. We cannot become gods. You should be a master of yourself. You should put the effort in what you can but do your best at what you like.”
He would say this or something similarly often to Kouki, and often end with “Mind, body and soul.” This was no easy task in his past life, but Kei decides to follow his teachings again in this life.
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Spring has come, after going through hell called winter. Kei’s family and the neighboring family are having a picnic. Kei came to the conclusion, which is correct, that this picnic is actually a festival for the farmer.
Now around 8 months old, Kei was sat on the grassy ground by his mother under a tree next to the same infant he had met before. Their parents were close by watching and talking to each other. Kei is just observing his surroundings and the other baby. The other baby’s name seemed to be Ji. He is starting to understand a little of what they are saying and come to a realization. The names of the villagers are pretty much made up of the English alphabet. Kei’s mother's name is Jei and his father is Tee. Kei wondered, “What happens if there are more than 26 villagers?” Oddly enough, the village did consist of 26 people, excluding the lord of the land and his family.
The lord of the land and his family joined the picnic offering meat in the small festival. Kei watched the adults enjoy the feast with his eyes bloodshot with envy. His teeth still haven’t grown in after all. He decides to observe the baby next to him a little more closely to keep his mind off of it.
Ji tried to stand with those short chubby legs using the tree as support. Kei was impressed for a moment because he tried to stand before too, but it was no easy task for an 8-month-old’s legs. Though he didn’t use anything for support. He was too used to his adult life and body. The best he could do was get into a shaky half push-up position. Back to observing Ji, the baby fell on their head. Thankfully Ji fell forward onto a soft patch of grass, but from the surprise, the baby started to cry.
One of the lord’s youngest notices and starts weaving through the crowd toward the sound of the crying. When the young lady arrives she sees Kei comforting Ji. Kei rolls the baby over, puts them lying on their back, and places the infant’s head on his own lap. Kei tries to wipe off the grass on the baby’s forehead and pat their head trying to comfort Ji. The 2 mothers were in awe and inwardly cooing, including the young female lord, but the lord started to giggle, shocking Kei and the mothers.
The youngest child of the lord is a girl around the age of 6. She wore an overwhelmingly deep red apron dress over a grassy green shirt with golden plant patterning along the hems, almost representing the newly budding sapling in springtime. Her hair was pulled half up into a slightly messy bun held together with a golden accessory, the rest was left lying in soft waves of crimson brown. Her face is round, cheeks flushed, with big round eyes full of innocence, which is fitting for a young child; cute. Everything about her stood out from the rest of the crowd. The contrast of her vivid red colored dress alongside the crowd’s pale-colored clothes. Her styled hair while the villagers wore simple to tightly braided hairstyles. But her eyes are certainly a rare gem in the rough, dark emerald.
“What are their names?” The young mistress in their language.
Ji's mother, after collecting herself, says “Dear mistress, the one that just fell is Ji,” and she starts to pick up her child and shows her the flush faced child to the young girl.
“This one is my Kei, madam” Kei’s mother picks him up and places them closer to the young miss as well.
The little miss pulls out a short stick, a wand, wields it at Ji’s forehead, and says, “Relieve this child’s pain”. The tip of the wand starts to glow and Ji starts to glow soon after. Ji finally stops crying, even starting to giggle with joy.
Kei was able to observe this all happen up close. But with a panicked face, he thought, ”MAGIC!? THAT WAS MAGIC JUST NOW!? RIGHT?! FOR REAL!?”
After putting her wand away by attaching it back to her belt holster. She puts her fingers in both the child’s palms. Ji naturally grasps her finger tight while giggling. Without knowing Kei also clenches his little hand around her finger as well. She then introduced herself, “My name is Halinia Kolodor. Nice to meet you.” while slightly shaking her hand.
After hearing her name Kei thought, “Halinia? Haven’t I heard that before?”