Chapter 3

A man and a woman were peering down at me.

The first things I recognized upon regaining consciousness were the faces and voices of that pair.

Voices.

They were saying something.

However, I couldn’t understand the meaning.

The language the man and woman were speaking was clearly not Japanese. It wasn’t English, either.

Based on their appearance, they looked Western. Blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. I’d peg them somewhere between their late twenties and early thirties.

Out of habit from my time as a detective, I found myself briefly analyzing them by their individual characteristics.

But something was strange.

Setting aside the fact that I didn’t understand the words, the sounds themselves were odd.

The way I was hearing things felt off.

Then, like an electric current, the memories of what happened before I lost consciousness flashed back in an instant.

That’s right.

I was stabbed. I’d been in a situation where there was no choice but to die.

Ah, so that means… right now, I’m in a hospital.

Or so I thought, but as far as I could tell from the ceiling visible through the gap between the man and woman’s faces, I didn’t think this was a hospital.

The ceiling was rugged, looking as if the wood had been carved straight from the tree, though it could look stylish depending on how you viewed it. This kind of ceiling was the sort you’d find in a hotel or a Western-style house.

A sudden wave of anxiety washed over me.

Could this lack of understanding be because there’s something wrong with my brain? Maybe because I was stabbed and left in critical condition, blood stopped flowing to my brain, making it hard to process the meaning of what I see and hear.

The thought made my skin crawl.

Not understanding the language, this nonsensical situation, the weirdness of the sounds—it explained everything.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I tried to move my body to find evidence to prove myself wrong, only to fall into despair.

My body wouldn’t move the way I wanted it to.

Ah, is this what they call total paralysis? If so, then I really was stabbed, and my brain took damage after all.

At this rate, I won’t even be able to casually stroll into a bookstore to hunt for mystery novels.

Overwhelmed by that despair, I closed my eyes.

Perhaps due to the shock, I’d been feeling incredibly sleepy for a while now.

To put it bluntly, my assumptions were completely off the mark.

But if I may offer an excuse, expecting anyone to accurately judge a situation like this is asking for the impossible. There was far too little information. If this were a mystery novel, it would be branded as “unfair”.

I realized the truth after… was it a few weeks? Anyway, it was after about several weeks had passed in my perceived time.

Slowly but surely, I began to understand what the man and woman were saying.

“Understand” might be an overstatement; it was more like “I think this is a greeting” or “Ah, they seem to be calling me by my name.”

If I couldn’t understand language due to brain damage, it was hard to imagine something like this happening.

Furthermore, after desperately trying to move and verify my own condition, I discovered that the size of my body was completely different from before.

To put it simply, my physical body was that of an infant.

Once that became clear, I had a faint inkling of what had happened to me.

It was what people call rebirth, or reincarnation.

It seemed I had died during that incident and was reborn in a country other than Japan.

But if that was the case, why did I still have my memories from before my reincarnation?

I wondered about that, but come to think of it, there must be dozens, hundreds, no, thousands of people who claim to have memories of a past life. I have no idea how many of those claims are actually credible.

Perhaps having memories of a past life isn’t actually that special.

Well then, doesn’t this put me at a massive advantage?

If I can start over from childhood with this mental age, I might even be hailed as a child prodigy.

I let my delusions run wild, counting my chickens before they hatched.

First, I needed knowledge. I didn’t have enough. Knowledge regarding my current situation.

For the time being, the most important thing was finding out what kind of country I’d been reincarnated into.

It took about two or three months of perceived time for my expectations to be shattered in a completely different direction.

It happened when the woman—the one who was likely my mother—picked me up.

For the first time, I was able to see the scenery outside the window.

Fields stretched out before me, with wooden huts resembling lodges dotted here and there.

I see. It looks like I’ve been reincarnated in a foreign country, and a fairly rural one at that. Well, I’d suspected as much, considering my parents’ clothing looked simple and handmade.

That was what I was thinking.

However, that feeling only lasted until I looked out the window and saw a six-legged creature that looked like a horse galloping down a path between the fields.

What on earth is that?

At first, I doubted my own eyes. But it definitely looked like a horse, yet it clearly had six legs.

There were several of them running, and the people walking along the road didn’t even spare them a glance.

No, I don’t care how “foreign” a country is; if creatures like that existed, they’d surely be famous. Even I should have heard of them.

Then, an even more unbelievable development unfolded.

Beyond the window, I saw my father.

A pile of what looked like harvested grass was stacked in front of him.

Father muttered something under his breath.

Then, without a shadow of a doubt, flames erupted from his hands—his completely empty hands.

Huh?

If I had been able to speak, that’s the sound I would have made.

He held no matches, no lighter, no ignition device of any kind, yet fire was pouring from his palms.

I didn’t understand what it meant, but…

Right then, I finally realized that I might have been mistaken.

The biggest question wasn’t what country I’d been reincarnated into.

Perhaps the real question was what world I’d been reincarnated into.

It took two years to learn the language to a level where I could hold sufficient everyday conversations.

In my own mind, it didn’t feel like two years had passed, but since they celebrated my second birthday, I suppose it must have been. I couldn’t move as I wished and I felt like I was constantly sleeping, so my sense of time was a bit distorted. It couldn’t be helped.

Regardless, what I needed was knowledge.

To get that, I needed language. I had to learn the words and the script, both spoken and written.

I put every ounce of effort into that single goal.

By the time I was three, I could move around the house somewhat freely and converse normally with my parents.

By then, I had started reading every single one of the dozens of books on the bookshelf at random.

I focused mainly on those intended for children.

Books for children—likely bought for me by my parents—were incredibly helpful for understanding this world, as they explained common sense that an adult would take for granted without skipping over the details.

Then came age seven.

I had finished every book in the house, and even the local village library—though it was quite small—had been conquered. I was truly grateful that books weren’t a rare luxury in this world. If they had been, there’s no way my house or this village would have had them, and my pool of knowledge would have been much shallower.

Apparently, movable type printing technology already existed here, for which I could only be thankful.

Of course, I didn’t stop there; I interrogated my parents, the neighbors, and even the village elder to gather information.

Everyone in the village, including my parents, ended up teasing me by calling me a “bookworm.”

The elder would joke, “Is this brat going to run the country one day?” while laughing.

Now, let me summarize the knowledge I gathered by the time I turned seven.

First, the things close to home.

My name is Van.

I have no surname. In this world, unless you are a noble, you don’t get a family name.

Mirrors are apparently precious items and didn’t exist in this village, so I checked my reflection in a water basin. I saw a rather cute boy with whitish-gold hair and deep green eyes.

My mother’s name is Vitna.

She is supposedly the third daughter of a family that has farmed in this village for generations.

She has refined features and blond hair with blue eyes, just like me. However, because she’s been doing farm work all her life, she feels more “powerful” than “dainty.”

By Japanese standards, I’d pegged her in her late twenties or early thirties, but she was actually only in her very early twenties.

My sincerest apologies.

My father is Stein.

Also blond-haired and blue-eyed. He was originally a traveling merchant, but he supposedly fell in love with my mother at first sight, settled in this village, and they ended up getting married.

Compared to my mother, his appearance is more plain, but he seems kind. On the other hand, he feels a bit unreliable.

In fact, I get the sense that my mother wears the pants in the house.

He was just entering his mid-twenties when I was seven. Quite young. Or rather, people probably marry early in this world compared to my previous common sense.

The name of this world is Pangea. “Pangea” is the name of both the world and the continent.

A vast continent stretches out, surrounded by the sea, and that sea is said to be enclosed by the “End of the World.”

I didn’t quite understand what the “End of the World” mentioned in the books meant, so I asked my parents, but they didn’t really know either. Apparently, there are stories about a “wall” being there.

If I had to summarize Pangea in one sentence: it was a quintessential fantasy world of swords and sorcery.

I hadn’t read many fantasy novels, but I’d at least stepped into cliché fantasy worlds in video games.

There were swords (and spears, axes, and bows, of course), there was magic, there were monsters (I heard there are even dragons; apparently, they are legendarily strong), and there were adventurers. There were even dungeons and temples.

Oh right, there were also the staple fantasy races like elves, dwarves, and ogres.

I say “there were,” because they aren’t around anymore. It’s not that they were wiped out, though.

I felt like the standard for fantasy was “a world where elves and humans are enemies” or “a world where different races are persecuted,” but according to my parents, while that certainly happened, it was a tale of the distant past.

In the ancient past, humans and elves went to war, and dwarves and elves didn’t get along, but that’s all history now. Intermarriage between species progressed, and now there are no pure-blooded elves, dwarves, or ogres—and no pure humans, either. Everyone’s blood is mixed.

Of course, depending on the individual, which bloodline is more strongly reflected creates differences in appearance and ability. My parents and I supposedly reflect human and elven blood quite strongly.

Broadly speaking, Pangea is divided into four nations: North, South, East, and West.

Isu of the East, Shark of the West, Namut of the South, and Pace of the North.

In order of landmass: Pace, Shark, Namut, and Isu.

Every nation worships the same god. A nameless Creator God. Since it’s monotheistic, just calling them “God” is enough. As a side note, idolatry is forbidden.

The village where my parents and I live is called Mott, located in the mountainous region of the western nation, Shark.

Shark is the country with the second-largest territory and an economic foundation built on agriculture and fishing. It is a kingdom ruled by a king, where the nobility and the Church hold a lot of power.

The Church in Shark is apparently different from churches in other countries because it worships not only God but also Saint Fata, who is said to have founded Shark. I’m not particularly interested, though.

However, it’s certain that Saint Fata is a more relatable object of faith for the citizens of Shark than God. I often see my parents praying to Fata whenever something happens. Of course, idolatry of Fata is also forbidden. So, they just call her name and pray.

That covers my immediate surroundings.

I couldn’t find any books in the village that detailed more specific history.

There were no books on physics or chemistry. They probably haven’t developed much.

That said, gravity is about the same as in my previous world, and water turns to steam when heated. The basics are likely the same.

The sun rises and sets the same way, and there are a moon and stars.

A day is twenty-four hours, and a week is seven days. The only slight difference is that a year is three hundred and sixty days.

The thing that interested me most was magic.

There were textbooks about magic, but even after reading them, they only covered what you could do with magic, not the details of how to use it.

To be precise, they wrote things like “first, gather magical power in your fingertips,” but from my perspective, I didn’t even know what magical power was.

That being said, magic wasn’t some exceptionally special skill; rather, it seemed to be a basic technique that everyone in this world could use to some extent.

An old man would use magic to strengthen his physical abilities while swinging a hoe because his back hurt. A farmer skilled in earth magic would plow the fields by making the ground ripple. When I fell and hit my elbow, my mom healed me with magic. I was amazed to see the pain recede before my eyes as she placed her hand on the spot and muttered something.

So, I asked my parents to teach me magic, but they refused for a long time, saying it was “still too dangerous for Van.”

Finally, I began learning magic from my father when I was ten.

It was around the time I had grown accustomed to helping with the farm work.