After dying on Earth, I awoke to my new life as Pilus in the tropical town of Mirut, the walled port city on the western edge of the Horuth Kingdom. My mother, Sharma, was a magical researcher, and my father, Horg, was captain of the city guard, protecting the walls from the beasts and potentially bandits that roamed beyond.
The world contained magic and many other mysteries, like my metasystem which told me my level, how much health and magic I had, and the skills and experience points that defined my life, and I set myself to the task of figuring it all out in order to gain strength and learn about my new world. I had abilities no one else seemed to have, which gave me insights and possibilities beyond what was otherwise common.
Using my advantages, I started learning how to use magic circles while extremely young, only four years old. I quickly out-leveled the other children in my town, and even some adults, as I studied, trained, and battled beasts that I encountered while sneaking beyond the city wall.
Out in the jungle, I met a young treehopper who I tamed and named Treepo. Through spending time with him, I developed an interest in taming more beasts and learning about their ranks and potential, as well. I found that beasts could eventually evolve into stronger, more magical versions of themselves, eventually growing a magical crystal core, and continued to study the lifecycle of beasts and magic.
Though most of my friends were beasts, and I spent little time around the adults who treated me as a child, I did meet some good people, adults and children both. I even helped a young girl named Nodel learn to use magic. The butcher, Bosh, even helped me get some nice knives, which saved my butt later on when I got literally eaten by a beast.
Along the way, I discovered my first dungeon, a dark, corrupted cave growing from the ground, pulling beasts inside and killing the land around it. When I finally gained the strength to fully explore it and defeat the twisted beasts inside, I liberated another type of magic crystal, the dungeon core. Every discovery led me to have new questions about the world around me, and I knew that I would never learn everything I wanted to while I stayed in the sleepy port town of Mirut under the gaze of people who only knew me as a child.
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Once I decided I needed to leave Mirut, I eventually acquired an apprenticeship with a merchant, Marshan, and his convoy, which was my ticket out. However, I quickly learned the world can be a harsh, cruel place. Bandits attacked, and I had to kill some to help the convoy survive. I learned quickly how much experience killing humans could give, and while repulsed by it, it answered some questions about how various people I had met had become so strong while I scraped out experience point by point in the wild.
Marshan's merchant convoy eventually brought us to Roko, the trade hub of the Horuth Kingdom. There, I met an orphan named Soa, a southerner whose country had been defeated and absorbed by the Kingdom in the past. Struggling to survive, I took Soa under my wing, trying to help. The orphan's true identity was Atlessoa, which due to my interference ended up causing her to be kidnapped by the large city's dark underbelly, and I mounted a rescue. With the little time I had left in Roko, I trained her so she could survive once I left.
The convoy was supposed to head south, and I was excited to learn more about the people who had lived in and around the desert and had revolutionized magic with magic circles, but a call from the capital forced our convoy and many more north, delivering grain to feed an ongoing war effort. The steel that had been flowing into the Kingdom came from a northern civilization, the Velgein people, who, lacking magic, had been suppressed and in enslaved by the Kingdom, a repeat of what had happened to Soa's ancestors.
In delivering the cargo, I witnessed some of what the Kingdom was capable of, and I could not take it. There had been nothing I could do to right the wrongs of the past, and little I could do by myself, but there was someone I could save right in front of me, and I acted the only way I could. Once I made that decision, I committed to it, and joined the freedom fighters rebelling against the Kingdom in order to right a massive wrong and save a people's way of life.
I had made plenty of mistakes in my life, and had no idea how this decision was going to turn out, but we managed to save a town from the army's control and start liberating the people. If we could keep that up, perhaps the Velgeins could be saved and they could keep their freedom and push the Kingdom's army out of the north.