When I came to, a young blonde woman was peering down at me.
She was a beautiful girl — no, a beautiful woman.
(Who are you?)
Beside her sat a young man with brown hair, giving me an awkward smile.
He looked strong and willful. His muscles were insane.
Brown hair plus a willful demeanor — that combo should've triggered my gag reflex on sight, but weirdly enough, I felt no aversion.
Probably because his hair was its natural color.
It was a lovely shade of brown.
"…………"
The woman looked at me and said something with a warm smile.
What was she saying?
Everything sounded blurry and muffled. I couldn't understand a word.
Could this… not be Japanese?
"………………"
The man answered her in a relaxed tone.
No, seriously, I had zero idea what they were saying.
"…………"
A third voice came from somewhere off to the side.
I couldn't see them.
"Ah… uhhh…"
I tried to sit up and ask where I was and who they were.
Even though I'd been a shut-in, I wasn't socially incapable — I figured I could at least manage that much.
But what came out of my mouth was a sound that fell somewhere between a groan and a moan.
My body wouldn't move, either.
I could feel my fingertips and arms, but I couldn't lift my upper body at all.
(Are these aftereffects from the accident…?)
A bad feeling crept through my mind.
It had been a serious accident, after all. I must've been unconscious for days and had only just woken up.
Full-body contusions, ruptured organs, spinal cord damage, half-body paralysis — something like that.
There'd probably be lasting effects too.
As for not understanding the language, maybe there were no doctors who could treat me in Japan, something like that.
"…………"
The man looked at me with concern and said something.
"…………"
What was that? Something about aftereffects?
More importantly, who was paying for the hospital bills?
No way my brothers were covering it. I couldn't see them doing that.
If anything, they'd rather I'd just died.
They might spring for a funeral, maybe, but they were the kind of penny-pinching scumbags who'd kick me to the curb and split my inheritance three ways.
They'd probably nickel-and-dime the funeral costs and straight-up ignore me if I was hospitalized.
So then, who was…
Oh right — I'd managed to pull in one person before all that happened.
Maybe he'd saved me as a debt of gratitude…
"………………"
And then the man picked me up.
You've got to be kidding — he lifted me like it was nothing, and I weighed over a hundred kilos…
Then again, I'd probably been bedridden for dozens of days. I might've lost weight.
Given the severity of the accident, there was a high chance my limbs had been amputated.
I'd woken up thinking I was dead, only to find myself a daruma doll.
(What a living hell…)
That was what I was thinking on the very first day I became conscious again.
---
A month passed.
It turned out I had been reborn.
It took me that long to fully process the fact.
I was a baby.
When someone held me up and supported my head, I finally caught sight of my own body and confirmed it.
I had no idea why I still had my memories from my past life, but they caused no trouble, so I didn't sweat it.
Reincarnating with your memories intact.
Everyone daydreams about that at least once.
I just never expected the daydream to come true…
The man and woman I first saw after waking up turned out to be my parents.
They looked to be in their early twenties.
Definitely younger than me in my previous life.
I'd been thirty-four. They were practically kids.
Having a child at that age — I was genuinely envious.
I'd noticed from the start, but this place was clearly not Japan.
The language was different, my parents' facial features weren't Japanese, and their clothing looked almost ethnic.
I couldn't find anything resembling a household appliance (though a maid had been mopping the floor with a rag). The dishes and furniture were all roughly made from wood. Not exactly a first-world country.
For lighting, they used candles and lanterns rather than light bulbs.
Of course, there was a possibility they were simply too poor to afford electricity.
…Was that possibility actually high?
I'd assumed they had some money since there was a maid, but if she was actually a sister of my father or mother, then it made sense — she'd still help around the house.
I'd always wanted a fresh start, but being born into a family too broke to pay for electricity…
On the other hand, getting to nurse on the milk of a gorgeous woman for free was pretty great.
Maybe it was because my body wasn't fully developed, or maybe it was because she was my mother, but I didn't feel even the slightest stir of excitement…
---
Half a year went by.
After listening to my parents' conversations for six months, I was starting to understand the language.
My English grades hadn't been great in my past life, but it really was true that growing up immersed in your native tongue slowed down the acquisition of foreign languages.
Or maybe this body just had a good brain.
Perhaps because I was still young, my memory felt abnormally sharp.
By this point, I could crawl.
Being able to move around was wonderful.
I'd never been so grateful for the ability to move my own body.
"Take your eyes off him for a second and he's off somewhere."
"That's just how it is with boys — he's got energy.
Remember, right after he was born he didn't cry at all? We were worried sick."
"And he still doesn't cry, does he…"
That's what my parents used to say.
I wasn't the kind of baby who'd wail over something as trivial as hunger.
Of course, when it came to the other end, even I couldn't hold it in forever, so I made sure to let it all out without any hesitation.
But even if it was just crawling, being mobile opened up all sorts of new discoveries.
First off: this family was rich.
The house was a two-story wooden structure with five or more rooms. They employed one maid.
I'd initially thought the maid might be an aunt, but her features were clearly different.
The location, however, was out in the countryside.
Through the window I could see a peaceful rural landscape.
Other houses were sparse — maybe two or three visible amid fields of wheat.
Quite remote, indeed.
There were no power lines or streetlights in sight. Maybe there wasn't a power station nearby.
I'd heard that in some foreign countries, electrical wires were buried underground.
But then this house not having electricity made no sense.
(This is way too rural for me. After being battered by waves of civilization, this is a bit much…
Even after reincarnating, I at least want to use a computer.)
That was what I'd been thinking up until one particular afternoon.
With nothing better to do, I decided to gaze out at the idyllic scenery as usual. I climbed up onto my chair and peered out the window — and nearly jumped out of my skin.
My father was out in the yard swinging a sword around.
(Wait, seriously? What the hell is he doing?)
This grown man — my dad — was the type to wave a sword around in the yard?
Was he a chunibyo?
(Oh, crap—)
In my shock, I slipped off the chair.
My clumsy baby hands couldn't grip the chair to steady myself, and my heavy head toppled toward the ground.
"Wha—!"
The moment I hit the floor with a thud, a scream pierced the air.
I looked up to see my mother standing there, laundry dropped at her feet, one hand clamped over her mouth, her face deathly pale as she stared down at me.
"Rudi! Are you okay?!"
She rushed over and scooped me up.
When our eyes met, her expression softened with relief, and she let out a shaky breath.
"…Thank goodness. You're okay."
(You really shouldn't move someone around right after they've hit their head, ma'am.)
I mentally advised her.
Given how panicked she'd been, the fall must have looked pretty bad.
I'd hit the back of my head, too. Could've been brain damage. Not that it'd make much difference.
On the bright side, I'd tried to grab the chair on the way down, so the momentum wasn't much.
And my mother didn't seem overly alarmed, so I probably wasn't bleeding.
Probably just a bump.
She was studying my head with a careful eye, wearing an expression that said one wrong finding would spell disaster.
Then she placed her hand gently on my head.
"Just to be safe…"
"The power of the divine is rich nourishment, granting those who have lost their strength the power to rise again."
[Healing]
I nearly blew a gasket.
Hey, hey — was this world's equivalent of "boo-boo, go away" seriously a full-on magic chant?
Or had my mother, like my sword-swinging father, also fallen victim to chunibyo?
Had a warrior and a priestess tied the knot?
But before I could even finish that thought—
Her hand glowed faintly, and in an instant the pain vanished.
…Huh?
"There. That should do it.
Your mom was actually a somewhat well-known adventurer back in the day, you know."
Swords. Warriors. Adventurers. Healing. Incantation. Priest.
Those words spun through my head in a dizzying loop.
What just happened?
What did she do?
"What's wrong?"
Hearing his wife's earlier scream, my father poked his head in through the window.
He was sweaty from swinging that sword around.
"You should've seen it, dear — Rudi climbed up on a chair and fell right off. He could've been seriously hurt!"
"Come on, come on — boys need to be that energetic.
If he scrapes his knee or takes a tumble, that's how he toughens up.
Besides, if he gets hurt, you can just heal him, right?"
"But what if he gets seriously hurt and I can't heal him… I worry…"
"It'll be fine."
My father said that and wrapped both my mother and me in a hug.
My mother's face flushed red.
"I was worried at first since he never even cried as a baby, but if he's this rambunctious, I guess he's okay…"
He gave my mother a little kiss.
Whoa, whoa — flaunting that in front of me? Geez, you two.
Afterward, they tucked me in the next room and went upstairs to go make me a little brother or sister.
I could tell because the floor creaked and groaned all the way from the second floor. Thanks for the demonstration, normies.
(But seriously… magic?)
From that day on, I listened carefully to every conversation between my parents and the maid.
I noticed a lot of unfamiliar words — especially the names of countries, territories, and regions.
Every proper noun was something I'd never heard before.
Could this place be…
No — I could just go ahead and say it.
This was not Earth. This was another world.
A world of swords and magic.
…Yeah.
Not bad at all.
Despite my age, my heart was racing.
I'd been reincarnated into a world like this — with my memories intact.
If you can't get excited about that, you deserve to rot as a NEET.
All right. Decision made.
I was going to live my life in this world with everything I had.
No more regrets.
Full throttle.