章 1: Chapter 1. Reincarnation
[MC's POV]
To my knowledge, a child should not have proper eyesight for quite a while after being born.
However, what I was experiencing made me doubt logic and what I knew.
In front of my vision, rather clearly, was the face of a beautiful blonde woman around 20 years old. Her face was wet with sweat and her hair disheveled, and she looked down at me with a gentle smile.
Beside her stood a man of a similarly young age with light brown hair, giving me a stiff smile. He was a handsome and muscular young man; his physique was amazing.
At one point, the man stuck out his tongue and started making silly and goofy expressions toward me, at which I slightly twitched out of awkwardness.
"####-##### ######."
"###### ######."
The people around me talked to each other, but to me it only sounded like unintelligible gibberish.
I tried to move, but it was fruitless. I felt various sensations coming from my body, but I could not properly control my movements.
'Where am I?'
I tried to speak, but only some strange sounds escaped my strangely-responsive mouth.
Soon enough, the woman lifted me up with her hands and brought me closer as she looked down at me with an endearing smile.
The two people around me continued talking.
'Is this a joke? I really don't feel like I'm dreaming,' my heart thought.
To not feel like a fool, I consciously tried to do a reality check by willing myself to fly up, to see if I was not dreaming.
However, as I continued at it for a few seconds, it failed.
'In that case, could it mean…'
That I reincarnated?!
At that moment the man took me over from the woman's hands and then shot me up into the air while saying 'weee!'.
'!!!'
Hey, man, what the hell are you doing?!
So irresponsible!
I'm an infant that was just born!
Is this Sparta?
…
[Zenith & Paul POV.]
Paul picked his just born son, then with a smile proceeded to throw him up into the air and down while cheerfully saying 'wee!'.
"Don't do that! Be careful! He's just a baby!" Zenith chided him harshly at this.
Paul grinned. "Haha. He'll be fine. He's my son."
Zenith formed a wry smile and did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Their son has just been born. He was not even a toddler. How could her husband be so thoughtless?
However, she was overwhelmed with happiness too much to complain. Paul was just like that, sometimes quite silly.
She simply smiled and dropped the topic when she saw that the baby didn't cry and her husband also stopped his reckless behavior.
After taking another good look at the baby in Zenith's hands, Paul flirtatiously smiled at her and said, "It looks like he took after you. He has both your hair and your beautiful blue eyes."
Zenith formed a gentle smile.
Raising up the boy in his own hands, Paul continued enthusiastically, "How do we name him then? What about Rudeus?"
Zenith wryly smiled and said, "Since the moment I saw him, I thought of the name Seraphim. After all, he has such pretty light blond hair and bright blue eyes. What do you think, dear?"
"Seraphim? Hmmm…" Paul hesitated. After a good while, he finally nodded his head. "Well, alright!"
Paul wanted to name his son Rudeus, for short Rudy, after an old friend of his.
Rudd… His good friend from the slums who had given him a place to stay after he first left the Notos family.
In addition, in the Beast God language Rudy also means ginger. He heard it from Ghislaine before, because his light-brown hair could also be called ginger.*
Paul thought that he was quite smart with his naming sense, but as Zenith said, 'Seraphim' was more fitting given the boy's appearance.
He felt that he can use the name 'Rudeus' in the future, since Paul certainly would not stop with just one kid!
…
[MC's POV]
A while later.
Short and chubby baby arms, the inability to control my body and hands, and to speak properly…
I was a little cold as well, and my body seemed fragile.
Also: two strangely giant adults looking down at me with loving smiles while talking in a completely foreign language as I laid down on a seemingly spacious bed.
It did not take long for me to come to the conclusion that I had reincarnated.
A normal person might not have come to this conclusion so easily, but fortunately or unfortunately my weeb level was high enough that it was instead the first thing I thought of.
After all, I thought of this because I wanted it to be correct.
And that's because… If I really did reincarnate to another world that might have different rules and physics, something like a fantasy world with magic, then I might be able to strive toward the impossible and fantastical dream of striving to attain Immortality and God-like powers!
I was not interested in these things because I had some kind of god complex or wanted to live forever, but simply because after the various experiences and realizations that I came to throughout my life, I became exceedingly bored and disappointed with my life on Earth. I felt that living while pursuing these grand and majestic targets in a world filled with dangers would be the most interesting, fun and meaningful way to live a life.
Only something like this could make my life interesting and full of meaning again.
Of course, the fact that in a fantasy world there are usually also fantastical beauties, adventures and the strong are revered was an appreciated bonus.
Totally not the main reason though!
Putting jokes aside, my heart naturally also longed to experience passionate romances and love with interesting and wonderful women in a fantastical world with dangers all around, even if I would not outwardly admit it.
At this moment, I thought of acting more like a newborn baby.
"Gha… Gha… Gha…" Given that I was a child, I started wiggling my limbs around and let out some sounds.
That's what a newborn baby should do, right?
I have already kind of dropped the thought that I was reborn in Sparta and that babies that don't look healthy will be thrown off a cliff like Simba, but it still remained at the back of my mind. I still didn't want to be seen as a strange or mentally-handicapped child.
In turn, it seemed that what I did made me be noticed because the beautiful blonde woman picked me up again with a soft smile and then brought me closer to her chest.
I was preoccupied with thinking of the consequences of my situation to properly register the situation around me, but I had to secretly admit that my mother's twin peaks were quite spectacular.
The moment the woman brought me closer, my hands followed a strange instinct and started grasping anything in sight.
And what was the closest in sight was the woman's chest.
Ugh.
Involuntarily, my hands grasped the cloth that held up the blonde woman's breasts and started gripping and caressing that area.
I felt so weird.
It wasn't like me. It isn't like I can't keep my hands to myself.
And it isn't like I even wanted to do this.
This has already happened when I was picked up earlier. I guess it is just a newborn baby's reflex to grasp things.
Yeah, I swear I'm not a pervert!
At least, not to this extent.
At this moment, the woman seemed not to mind anything and softly said something.
After that, she revealed one of her breasts and gently brought my face closer to it.
Ugh.
I instantly felt a little awkward.
'Right. I'm supposed to suck now?'
Being treated as a child by a beautiful and sexy woman, made to drink her baby milk…
It was an extremely embarrassing situation.
However, I knew at the back of my mind that if I wanted to follow through with my ambitions, I needed to grow up with a strong body.
Thinking of it, when I was still growing up during my previous life, I often skipped entire nights of sleep by gaming, sleeping very little and eating whatever.
It was only later in life that I switched to having a healthy diet and proper sleeping schedule, but the damage was already done. I didn't grow up as tall and strong as I could have otherwise.
In this life, I didn't want to have a below average height and a weak body again. I had to eat as much as possible, and give my growing body all the nutrients it needed.
Reincarnated Protagonists that refuse to drink milk until they finally get a bottle? Weaklings!
Forcefully ignoring my feelings of shame, I slightly gulped and then latched onto the nipple of my mother with my mouth.
Before I knew it, my mouth started sucking the protrusion on my assumed mother's bosom as if by instinct.
At first, nothing happened as I sucked in vain.
But soon after trying hard for a short while, I finally felt a thick liquid enter my mouth.
I didn't expect much and simply focused on acquiring nutrients.
However, it wasn't bad. Should I say it was a bit salty?
Either way, perhaps to my baby tastebuds, it was quite good.
After seeing that the milk was not strange-tasting as I expected, but surprisingly good, I began sucking at it with double vigor while enduring this humiliation.
It was all to grow up strong.
I had such plans, to eat as much as possible.
But before even a minute passed, I suddenly felt full already.
Just the idea of eating any more than that made me nauseous. It seemed that a newborn baby's stomach and needs are smaller than I thought.
I felt that it was time to stop, so I stopped sucking and pulled back my head.
After that I simply started moving my hands around while being held closely by the woman.
I didn't even need to force myself to fake doing random baby actions, as I only needed to follow this body's instinct.
As the woman noticed that I was finished, she hid her breast, then brought me closer and started hugging me with love while slowly swinging and caressing me.
What I felt at that moment was once again embarrassment.
I was neither used to this kind of familial love nor to being treated as a baby.
Whether from embarrassment or something else as well, my heart felt warm.
But regardless of anything, it was impossible for me to resist and I also had my role to play as a baby.
As such, I simply stayed in my mother's arms as I let my hands wander aimlessly and squeeze her fingers.
In the meantime my mind wandered as well.
Paul and Zenith.
I thought of these two names.
The two I just saw were not drawn 2D anime characters, but real people. Although the features somewhat matched, immediately assuming that these two were characters from an anime show that I watched before would be jumping the gun.
I could not understand any of the words that the people around me were saying. It all sounded like gibberish and blended together into an unrecognizable whole. However, among the many foreign words that made no sense to me, I noted the man saying the word 'Zenithu' a few times when addressing the blond women.
Then, after witnessing a bespectacled maid wrap a soft towel around me as she placed me in a wooden cradle, I felt quite convinced.
Did I reincarnate in the world of Mushoku Tensei?!
…
After I came to the realization that I was very likely in a real world of swords and magic, I did not want to waste any more time.
Magic.
Could I use it?
It is often in fantasy that without learning magic, you can't use it, even if you have the talent for it.
But there are also those fantasy worlds in which all you need to do is use your mind and the reality would be bent to your will.
Otherwise, it is sometimes at least possible to exercise simple magic control and interact with the world's special energy, even if nothing special happens in the outside world. Since it's likely that I'm in the body of Rudeus and have inherited the Laplace Factor, that much might not be impossible.
I quickly thought of trying out a simple meditation exercise.
As I calmed down my mind and focused all of my attention on my breath to enter a tranquil state, I concentrated and focused my entire being on absorbing outside 'energy' into my body.
In Mushoku Tensei that 'energy' should probably be 'Mana', but I tried to keep my mind open to not limit myself.
I had no idea if any of this would work, but I wanted to try anything. This was simply the first thing I thought of.
After all, while being stranded in my cradle I could do nothing else but this - use my mind.
As I began mindfully meditating, a minute passed.
Then several, but I still didn't experience anything unexpected.
Soon enough, my parents and the maid left me.
I guess they thought I fell asleep.
I continued my meditation practice. I continued guiding my 'breath' through my body while supplementing it by imagining the absorbed world's energy strengthening me.
Unaware if it should be 'energy' that came with my breath, or energy that I would absorb from the atmosphere through my skin, I exercised my imagination and tried anything.
However, time passed and there was no result.
To be honest, I was quite tired from the moment I came to this world.
Soon enough, I was unable to ignore the rising exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm me and eventually my consciousness drifted off to sleep.
章 2: Chapter 2. Manipulating pure mana, growing Mana Pool
After waking up, I quickly realized my situation as I noted my strange and unresponsive new body, and felt a warm and rather unpleasant sensation around my butt crack.
Right, I reincarnated!
And now something sticky and wet was glued to my butt…
'Oh poop...'
Having realized that, I felt both uncomfortable and a little disgusted.
What now? Should I cry out loud, so someone comes and cleans it up?
However, the surroundings were completely dark. At a glance, it was the middle of the night.
If I started crying loudly, I would definitely wake up my parents and make them feel annoyed.
But of course, crying was something that a normal baby would.
It was only natural.
After thinking about it for a while, I soon ignored the matter for the time being as I instead excitedly focused on my special meditation practice once again.
When I woke up I had an idea that I wanted to try.
I remember it clearly.
Starting to practice with magic while you're still very young is the key to building up extraordinarily large mana capacity in Mushoku Tensei.
Coincidentally, I started re-reading the Mushoku Tensei web novel, so the early volumes were still rather fresh in my mind.
To my knowledge, it seemed that to grow my mana pool all that I needed to do was to simply exhaust my mana as often as possible during youth.
Every time my mana recovers back to full, my mana capacity would increase.
Anyone can grow their mana pool, as long as they start practicing from a young age.
In contrast, there was never an instance in the original show where someone meditated in order to restore their Mana or Battle Aura, or meditated to improve these.
If I'm the same as a normal person, then meditating in the manner I did earlier would have no special effects.
What Rudeus did to increase his Mana reserves was simply daily using up his Mana on spells.
That was it.
No special magic training method or magical theory should be needed to grow a persons' mana pool, just the act of regularly exhausting your Mana.
However, even though I knew this, I still had no idea how to even get started with using up my mana or performing magic.
After all, I didn't even have even the most basic knowledge on magic and didn't know any spells or incantations.
As such, in the end my only option was trying to use my imagination again…
First, I simply tried to feel out my body and 'send out' my mana into the outside world.
Instead of absorbing energy into my body like earlier, I would try expelling it outwards.
I closed my eyes, concentrated my mind, tried to get attuned with my entire body and then focused on expelling my 'mana' out into the atmosphere.
Minute by minute passed as I kept practicing and experimenting with focus.
First I tried my meditation exercise while focusing on my breath again, focusing on exhalation, before I tried to rely on pure imagination, and then finally imagined 'energy' flowing through imaginary pathways running through my body like wires.
Eventually, as I focused on my heart being the vocal point, I felt something!
There was a change!
I had a faint feeling of something warm traveling along my veins, flowing from my toes, the top of my head and my entire body all the way to my right hand, akin to blood coursing through my blood vessels.
'Energy' gathered in my right hand, at the tip of my index finger.
And then my body started letting out something through my fingertip.
It wasn't really quite the same, but it was similar to letting out my breath through a new mysterious organ.
'Yes! I did it!'
I felt incredibly excited when I felt this mysterious and magical sensation.
'Keep at it. Maintain it.'
I kept up my concentration and continued sending out my special 'energy' through my fingertip.
However, after just a dozen seconds passed like this, I felt increasingly tired.
A moment later, I was so exhausted I fell asleep before I knew it.
***
A month passed by.
Following my discovery that I'm able to expel special 'energy' by focusing on it, I continued doing it and exhausting my reserves whenever I was awake.
The fact that the 'energy' I manipulated felt warm and flowed along my veins threw me off at first, but then I recalled that Rudeus made a similar comparison.
As such, my assumption is that this 'energy' is simply 'mana'.
The pathways inside my body should be something like 'magic circuits', which coincidentally overlap with my blood vessels.
Meanwhile what I was doing was in essence 'pure mana manipulation'.
Fortunately, it was possible for me to manipulate pure mana and send it outwards, even though I had no knowledge of magic theory and didn't know any spells.
It reminded me of the time when Rudeus practically self-learned Disrupt Magic, which seemed to work at a similar principle - pure mana manipulation.
To my knowledge of this world, the fact that I was incredibly young and prone to learning new things should also play a factor in helping with my affinity for magic.
During the first time I did the exercise, I completely ran out of 'mana' after only a dozen seconds.
Afterwards the time I needed to expel all of my mana and the mana's volume slowly increased significantly and exponentially with every time I did it.
Fortunately, the volume of mana that I was able to consciously expel per second was also gradually improving during my practice, so my method remained viable.
If at first my flow of mana was just like a tiny and feeble stream slowly dropping from a faucet, then after a month of practice it was similar to water gushing out from a water hose.
This kind of progress made me feel extremely satisfied and excited.
Both my mana reserves and my ability to control mana should be rapidly improving.
And most importantly, I began this kind of training just a few hours after I came out of the womb!
If I recall the novel correctly, Rudeus only began practicing magic and working on his mana reserves when he was 2 years old.
Beginning 2 years earlier would certainly give me an advantage.
Not only this, but a newborn baby's constitution should be even more prone to changes and improvements than that of a 2 year old child.
My secret hope was that by starting my practice so early, I would be able to break through my possible limitations and enhance my potential even further like no one ever had before.
As a reincarnator, I obviously wished that I was born with an overpowered talent as well, like it usually is in fiction.
There was a high possibility that the body that I inherited had a powerful Laplace Factor, hence it was chosen as the vessel for my soul in the first place.
This is what happened to Rudeus after all.
But of course, as someone who read Reverend Insanity and Re:Zero, I knew to not blindly believe in the notion that I'm destined for greatness either.
It's possible that I was able to grasp the pure mana manipulation method so quickly only thanks to the fact that I'm a newly-born child with a flexible mind and body.
And the younger you are, the easier learning magic is to learn in this world.
I had no memories of my death or how I came to this world, so that didn't help either.
But because my grade of talent was unknown, it only made me determined to keep training even harder and with more focus to make the most out of what I was given.
The first time I exhausted my mana, I fainted, but afterwards I didn't go as far.
Then while I was out of mana and awake, I would always spend my time mindfully meditating to train my mind.
After all, even without any special effects meditation might still have a strong positive effect on my developing brain.
It was proven to even have benefits on adults, so what to say about a baby that was just born?
And especially so in a world of swords and magic!
As a baby I could do nothing else but to use my mind anyway.
Several times I attempted using my mana to do something substantial in the outside world like forming a gust of wind, creating a blob of water or pushing away a toy with telekinesis.
Unfortunately, all my attempts were unsuccessful.
I was able to manipulate pure mana and expel it when I put my mind to it, but I couldn't make it affect reality.
I tried to make my mana flow through my body in a circuit like chakra or something similar, but it was not possible either - I could only expel it outwards.
Being very careful about it, I also faintly attempted to compress mana inside my heart, but it didn't seem to do anything. In fact, trying to apply mana to any part of my body didn't seem to do anything as if mana itself had effect onhumans.
However, since I was still able to exhaust my MP just through this method, I didn't waste much of my time on trying things that bore no results and that I didn't need yet.
My daily routine usually looked something like this - wake up, cry out to be cleaned up and be fed baby milk, expel my mana and then mindfully meditate until I naturally fall asleep.
Then I would wake up and repeat the cycle.
Again and again.
As I expelled my 'mana' outwards, it didn't cause any phenomenon in the outside world. There were no shining lights or anything.
Pure mana seemed to be colorless, formless and invisible.
Because of this I still remained undiscovered.
During this time I also discovered that I can release mana through both of my hands instead of just one.
Doing this increased my efficiency by almost half.
Unfortunately, it was not a double increase, but it was still an improvement as I utilized both of my arms instead of just one.
I didn't need any training to do that, so I think it's a natural ability of any magician.
I imagined a magician holding a staff with both hands for that.
However, it should not mean that I can cast two different spells at the time. It's only about channeling mana through both arms.
As I continued experimenting, I also discovered that I'm able to release mana through my feet, mouth, other body parts, and even from my entire body simultaneously.
However, using any other body part apart from my hands was significantly less efficient.
Even if I try to send mana out through all the pores in my body, it is not as good as focusing on pouring it out through my hands.
This led me to believe that the 'magic circuits' in a human body were probably designed in this way - for the magic to be mainly released through one's hands. It's like a one-directional highway leading to a destination, the destination being a person's hands.
The rest of the body, like feet, could be used to channel mana through them as well, but it is not the best method, like driving against the traffic.
Putting aside my training, during the last month I became slightly more familiar with the world around me.
The couple that I saw when I first opened my eyes were obviously my parents, both in their early twenties and both with great looks.
My mother's name was 'Zenith' for sure.
We had a single maid in the house, wearing maid's clothing. Her name was confirmed to be Lilia, as it's what Zenith called her.
My father's name was not confirmed yet, but who else could it be but everyone's favorite - Paul?
The place I lived in itself was a room of a wooden medieval-style building.
There were no signs of modern technology anywhere.
Lilia cleaned with a cloth, whereas the utensils, bowls and furniture were clearly made from wood. The light was not produced by light bulbs, but came from candles and lamps.
My parents' clothes looked like those of a medieval village or from a fantasy world.
At the same time, I realized that people did not call me 'Rudi' as I expected. It didn't seem that my name was Rudues.
Instead, my parents were addressing me as 'Seraph'.
In addition to this, I once looked into a mirror and saw my appearance - short spare blonde hair, like a baby would have, and blue eyes were my characteristic features. Looks-wise I took more after Zenith than Paul.
Initially I assumed that I had taken Rudeus's place, so I was very surprised by this.
I seemed to be the first child and only child. In this world, 'Seraph' was born instead of Rudeus.
It seemed that this world was a little different.
Hopefully, the changes only extended to myself.
And hopefully, I was talented in magic just like Rudeus was.
And ideally also the sword, unlike Rudeus.
But while I dreamed of training to wield a sword and slash dragons in half, my current challenge was being able to control my bladder and bowel movements, which was frankly impossible.
While some people might find it comforting that they can just lay in bed, shit themselves and someone would even clean up after them, for me it was a torture.
Being a baby sucks.
However, thanks to starting as a baby I had a chance to train and greatly improve my condition, unlike those people in fiction who 'reincarnate' as teenagers or adults, so I did not complain.
The thing that allowed me to bravely persevere was my desire to grow stronger.
As well as the wish to one day meet the wonderful and interesting heroines that I only knew from the story before, I'll be honest.
***
***
***
…
(Note: An explanation on what Laplace factor is, stemming from my research of various original sources. At least, this is my interpretation and also logic I use in this story for things to make sense.)
(A person with the so-called Laplace factor is practically someone born with some of the genes of the big evil overlord called Demon God Laplace who was known as an incredibly powerful magic user. In the case of Rudeus in the original novel, his Laplace Factor manifests in the form of his great talent for magic and unmatched mana capacity potential. His 'Laplace factor' is also said by the author to be the reason why Rudeus cannot use Battle Aura, because Laplace was also unable to use it.)
(Because the 'Laplace Factor' practically functions as genes, there are different kinds of 'factors' and they have different intensity. Depending on which ones a person manifests, it could grant: great mana capacity (what Rudeus has, and what Sylphy also has in a weaker version), powerful physical body (what Rudeus's son gets), green hair (what Sylphy and her son has), no talent for Battle Aura (what Rudeus has, it seems) and Laplace's Demon Eyes (probably). These are randomly manifested.)
(There is no such thing as mana capacity talent Laplace factor trading Battle Aura for more mana (sound silly, doesn't it) or the mana capacity Laplace factor being confirmed to make someone unable to use Battle Aura, but it is possible to simply inherit a Laplace Factor that's detrimental and makes you unable to use Battle Aura - aka Laplace's gene for being unable to use Battle Aura (95% of the population can't use Battle Aura very effectively anyway btw). A talent for magic and no Battle Aura is simply a genetic hand that Rudeus was dealt in the original, as we can view it, probably so he wouldn't become too OP as a main character and struggle as a pure magician.)
(The Protagonist in my fanfiction inherited the magic talent/mana pool Laplace Factor as the only factor, so he is not stopped from being able to progress as a swordsman as well (by relation, it also allows him to use silent Healing magic which Rudeus could not do). | I believe it's better to be transparent here, even if it is a spoiler. Seraph did not receive any wishes or cheats. What he has over Rudeus is not receiving a nerf to his Battle Aura.)
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