Chapter 2: Reincarnation

A bright light.

That was all that was visible to me. Is this the afterlife? 'Pretty colorful I must say.' I thought sarcastically. I was floating in a liquid that was neither hot nor cold to touch. Despite having my eyes closed, I thought that everything was visible to me at the moment.

I waited and waited...

After five minutes, I was bored because nothing was happening. In my mind, I already knew what was going to happen. Let's call the higher power 'X' like in the anime, since I don't know his real name. Anyway since Being 'X' was talking to Being 'Y' about sending me 'somewhere' I guess I am being reincarnated.

Huh? Although I was being reincarnated, I was very calm about it. Perhaps reading so many novels about 'isekai' and whatnot made me immune to it.

Well waiting here and doing nothing is boring, so I slowly gravitated towards this bright light, I might as well move along with it.

The journey seemed to take an eternity; should I just stop and rest? But why should I after all I did not feel tired at all. I continued walking, and the bright light suddenly expanded, turning everything around me into white light.

My vision was assaulted by various colors, blue, white, and red, huge quantities of red, and various sounds came to my ear. All sounds that were not present in the void filled my ears. The sounds were magnified when I heard them.

'Shut Up'

When I tried to speak, all that came out was a cry.

The muffled voices became clearer and I recognized a "Congratulations Madam, he's a healthy boy."

Wait.

Is that Japanese?

I was born in modern-day Japan, so everyone around me speaks Japanese, right? Or is it the classic troupe where all the otherworlds speak Japanese?

As for how I know Japanese, I don't. Aha. Ha. Ha. It's just that after watching so many animes, I recognized many of the phrases and was able to understand what they meant by accessing the situation.

Sometimes my Genius...It's almost frightening.

Yeah, okay, I know it was a bad joke. 

Well at least I know I am a baby now. Huh? I was not panicking, must be my new body is just born and is unable to feel such emotions.

Perhaps it is, who knows?

Anyway, I tried to open my tiny eyes painfully and slowly, my eyes were again assaulted with different colors. Damn it, It's painful. I was a man living in the 21st century, I only cried when a knife just barely grazed my fingers once...Wait..No...Forget that shameful memory...Erm, I did not cry...Please believe me...

"L-Let me see him" I heard a weak voice from my side, Huh, it seems feminine, and judging from the tone, it must be my mother.

The man in white clothes handed me gently to the woman who must be my mother. I took a few seconds to observe her. Hmmm, first she had black hair, in the form of braids separated into two. She had brown eyes and a face which seemed Asian. So I was born again in Japan. Eto, should I try talking like this now? Nah, it's fine.

"Wh-Why is his hair white?" My mother asked in a quiet tone. Now, now my new mother you must rest, now is not the time to worry about the color of my hair. I have heard that giving birth can be very tedious for a woman. Still, though, white hair, what am I, an anime protagonist?

"Uhm, It seems that he had some genetical issues due to which the hair on his head turned white, but there is no need to worry, according to our tests, there won't be any harm to the baby." The Doctor, spoke fixing his glasses, I could swear that he wore glasses so thick that they could block a bullet.

"If that's so, then that's alright..." My mother said before falling unconscious. She must be tired, I thought before myself also falling unconscious. 

After a few weeks, weeks turned into months, and by the end of the third month, I had become accustomed to my brand-new vision. The first few weeks were torture. However, only now that I was in the shoes of those 'isekai' protagonists that I realize why they wined so much about their early life. Haaa... Oh, the struggle.

I could not move my body, even my fingers. I had no control over my digestive system, pooping and peeing whenever it came, I felt I should kill myself... You know all the poop, it just...came out.

During this time, I got to know my name-Marcius Suzuki, a name so weird, I felt like throwing up. Can't my parents decide on a Normal name, what's this weird Roman-Japanese name? 

It was only after I listened to my mother's conversation that I realized the name had been taken from the last book my father wrote. Yes, the 'last'. It seemed that my father had a car accident and died a month before I was born. Poor fellow, he died before witnessing the birth of his son. Haa... This cruel world...

Upon returning home from the hospital, I looked around my room in my house and found that this world's technological advancement was the same as in my previous life--the only difference is that the present technology in this world is still from the early 1990s despite the fact that the date clearly states 2001. Not much difference but still relevant.

Ah yes, we were talking about my name, and how much we deviated from the topic. Well, the name was derived from the book 'Marcus Aurelius-Rome and Its Journey' a book written by my father, who looking at the name of the book was an archeologist or historian. Well, I'm glad for him. At least someone could fulfill his dreams.

My mother's name was Saki Suzuki. She seemed to be a kind person. Well, she was at least better than my parents of my previous life who only looked at me with increasing expectations that I could fulfill the dreams they couldn't. Oops...Again we were straying off-topic.

Anyway, time passed, and finally!.. finally, I had control over my voice, at least now I won't scream in the middle of the night for no reason. Now, now, I need to confirm something...

You see, I wanted this world to be a slice of life or something similar, you know a world where I am a Mob character and nothing else....yeah...I know it's pathetic but shut up...It's for my own safety you know if this were a sci-fi or horror genre world, it could be disastrous for me. 

I thought about if I had a system or something similar. If not, this is probably the most convenient situation for me. However, a part of me wished the magic was real, so I could fight monsters, save damsels, and build kingdoms. However, it could be apocalyptic in the real world. In novels, the MC always had plot armor but I didn't have anything. So I figured it's prudent to...you know...hope that this world is not a dangerous one.

"Stastus"

I tried to speak but what came out was gibberish that even God would have a hard time comprehending. Well, what did you expect, a month-old baby to start speaking fluent Japanese? 

My vision turned blurry for a split second before gifting me a scene I would never forget in my life. In front of me was a holographic projection starring in blue light. The text is written in old Roman style in white color. I knew what this meant both for me and what this new world was all about.

< status >

Name: Augustus Suzuki

Rank: unranked

Strength: unranked

Agility: unranked

Stamina: unranked

Intelligence: unranked

Mana Capacity: (locked)

Mana Quality: (locked)

Charm: unranked

==> Skills:

[All roads Lead To Rome] [Grade F]

The Host can see a variety of [endings]. Each [ending] will be more detailed as the Host gathers more information. Currently, the Host can only see 4 [endings].

Ah..O.. This is not good news. This screen's appearance means this world is not a normal one. Haa... Wouldn't it be nice if you (by being 'X') gave me a normal life for once? At least, on the bright side, the display of 'mana Capacity' at least makes me guess that there will be magic in this world. Magic comes from manipulating mana, I guess.

Ehhhh.....Wait... I want to think more, I want to assess my skill. It seems that this body had gotten tired for the day. Wait...Is that smell of poop?

Sigh... Damn Baby body.

As the days passed, I was finally able to inspect my skill. I was confident in saying that the ability I had in my previous world carried over to this one. Yeei! 

Anyway, this is what happened when I used my skill for the first time. I was getting bored staring at the ceiling of my room so I had the idea of utilizing my skill. I tried to activate it by thinking of it and even speaking out loud, but it did not seem to work. Despite my desire to give up, I gave it one last try by organizing everything I had seen so far. I thought about what would happen if I changed one of them. Sure enough, it activated.

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'Wow!'

Suddenly, I found myself looking at my reflection. No, I found myself looking at 'me' from a third perspective. Seeing my reflection, I felt and saw everything the 'me' in there did. I first moved the bottle by my side, resulting in the bottle falling from the cradle I was in. Soon the scenario changed and I could see the same things but this time I could see myself holding the bottle tightly close to my hands. I then felt a push from my brain which brought me back to reality.

Nice, so this is the effect of my skill. Must say, it makes work easy if used effectively. It can give something akin to a precognitive vision. I could feel myself tiring.

 Huh? Why was I getting tired? Oo...So..that's it... It seems that my skill requires a 'substance' inside of me. I don't have enough information to dub this 'substance' as energy or mana, so for now I am choosing to call it 'soul power' in short.

Cool name. Hehe, reminds me of my chuunibyou days. Though will it be chuunibyou if mana is real in this world? Who knows.

More than a week passed in the blink of an eye. And...see this...the most memorable moment of my life has come!

I can crawl!

Mu Ha Ha Ha! I feel like I am at the top of the world. It is my proudest moment in my two lives (not really). 

'Till now, I had to make do with the stories mother would tell me while trying to make me fall asleep. I would grumble out noises of complaint when she stopped too early. Also sometimes I would fall asleep, I mean can you blame me? Babies have an attention span of a goldfish or so I have heard.

My only knowledge of the world came from fairytales and lullabies, which closely resembled my previous world.

One day, when mother fell asleep in the afternoon, I slipped past without waking her up and entered the study room. In the room was what can be called an entire bookshelf filled with lots of books. Books in all languages, Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Russian, etc. The number of books was probably because of my father, who was interested in literature and geography.

I wandered my eyes through the lot, searching for the treasure and the source of my knowledge. 

AHA!

Found it. 'Atlas for Beginners'. It was perhaps one of the few English books in this stash. Fortunately, the book was on the lower side of the bookshelf making it safe for me to grab it. I grabbed the book, ready to salvage any information found in the book.

Watch out world, I am about to come! (way too cringe, I ain't gonna say it)

I started flipping through the pages of the book. I kept on reading till I read something that caught my attention.

"The world at the moment is divided into 7 continents. Assuwa, Europa, Columbia, Vespuccia, Libia, Oceania, and the frozen continent of Frostia."

Huh? What's up with these bizarre names? Well, let's read more and find out.

"The continent of Assuwa is the biggest mainland out in the world. It consists of countries like Kyoto, Chosean, Ming Kingdom, Hindustan, and many more."

Hmm? I see...

It seems Assuwa is the name of Asia here. But why is the name like this?

" Libia is the second largest continent after Assuwa and stretches from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. It is the only continent to experience both kinds of climate at the same time. "

Libia seems to be like Africa in this world.

flip

"The continent of Columbia is the third largest, it has countries like the Unified States and the Kanata."

Yep, North America, it must have been named Columbia from Columbus. Huh, wonder what the natives would feel about this.

flip

"Vaspuccia is the fourth largest and is situated just below Columbia. It is named after the famous explorer Vasco De Gama. "

flip

"Europa is above Libia and west of Assuwa and is separated from Assuwa by the Ural mountains situated in Russ' federation."

flip

"Oceania is the only inhabited continent to be below the Equator completely. It is also the only continent which is also a country."

flip

"Frostia is a large inhabited mass of land close to the South Pole. It is jointly managed by the UN. No country has any claim on it."

flip

I see... Both my previous and current worlds are vastly similar, but the names of the countries and continents in this world are vastly different.

I flipped the pages till I saw a world map. Yep, my conjugation is correct. After observing for a while, I noticed some differences.

Here it seems Oceania was a single country that compromised Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and many islands in the Pacific. The countries of Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan had become a part of India, The U.S. consisted of Mexico and many southern small countries like El Salvador too. Russia here was bigger with it containing Belarus within it.

Haa...

Observing the map, I contemplated the differences between this world and my previous one.

"Ah! There are you cute Marcus! What are you doing in the study room?" A voice came from behind me and look and behold it was my mother who was trying to look angry, but I, an adult could easily see that she was just pretending since she had a smile on her face the whole time.

 Hey! Stop Mom, your child was studying to become smarter than Albert Einstein!

"I swear, you are going to be as much of a troublemaker as your father." She spoke with a melancholic smile, she was smiling but I could see small tears forming at the end of her eyes, she was probably reminiscing about his death.

I sighed in my mind and stopped fizzing. My mother picked up the book I was reading. "Hmm? Why were you reading this? Not to mention this is in English, how could you even understand it?" Aa...oo... Uhm, Ehe?

"You probably read it for the pictures."

 OOO! Nice, save Mom!

She picked me up and placed me back in my cradle. I did not resist and just slept. What? You expected some more interesting things to happen?

Huh. What did you expect from a 7-month-old kid, you dimwits?

I have the attention span of a goldfish! (Not something I am proud of)

I slept thinking of this new world, I was born into. Although I did not like how I was forced to this world by Being 'X'. I was thankful to him to send me to a loving family. My mother used to take care of me ever so kindly, that sometimes I thought of her as an angel, which might come true here since magic is real here.

I slept dreaming of performing magical feats, flying in the sky, defeating dragons, saving princesses (I want to do it, don't tell me it's cringe!), having comrades which would help me through life and death, traveling on adventures that would be remembered as Legends later on.

At that time, I was a toddler, dreaming of doing whatever I could in this magical world.

I, truly, had no idea, how this journey would entice me. But in the end, I had only one wish. And that was to live life as I wanted, with no one controlling me to his bindings. To make me do things that I never wanted. I wanted to be free. I wanted freedom, not from someone but Fate. 

I wanted to write my own Fate.

And I will defy anyone, who would stop me.

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