A warm sensation, like being submerged in lukewarm water.
Vaguely, I felt a sense of reassurance from the warmth wrapping around me.
That, too, came to an end after a while, as I passed through a narrow opening and emerged outside.
The anxiety of losing the warmth that had enveloped me just moments ago — and beyond that, the exhilaration of stepping out into the open.
That is my oldest memory.
"Your Highness, staying by the window like that, you'll catch a cold."
The voice of a maid reached my ears as I gazed out from the windowsill.
Now that she mentioned it, it was indeed cold.
The landscape outside was blanketed in snow.
I'd been enjoying the view, but I'd gotten so absorbed that I'd apparently been sitting here for quite some time without realizing it.
Lately, whenever I focused on one thing, I tended to lose track of time.
"Come now, let's go back."
The maid picked me up and carried me to bed.
There was already a guest in the bed — one far too large for a single infant.
A baby, still very young, fast asleep in blissful comfort.
I was gently laid down beside that baby.
The crib was a custom-made piece, designed so that two babies — myself and one other — could lie side by side.
At this point, it should be clear enough.
I was a baby.
As for why a baby could think so clearly — it's because I have memories of my past life.
In my past life, I was an utterly unremarkable high school student.
Then, without warning, I found myself as a baby.
Reincarnation — or so it must be.
A dead person being born again as a different human.
Which meant that my past-life self had died.
My last memory from that life was sitting in a classical literature class.
At that moment, I spotted a crack in the air above the classroom — and after that, there was nothing.
Spatial cracks — those don't just happen on Earth.
That's probably what killed me.
And somehow, I was reborn with my past-life memories intact.
If you ask whether I had lingering attachments to my past life — I can't honestly say I didn't.
In fact, I was drowning in them.
I was still in the prime of youth. I wanted to hang out with my friends more, and I'd never managed to escape the streak of having zero girlfriend history despite my age.
On top of that, dying before my parents — let alone my grandparents — struck me as an act of unfilial cruelty beyond belief.
The thought that I could never see my family again made my spirits sink to unfathomable depths.
I also wondered what had happened at school after my death.
That spatial rift — I remembered it right up to the point where it burst.
If that's what killed me, what happened to everyone else?
Kyosuke, Kanata, Hasebe-san from the next desk — did they all die with me?
Thinking about it made me scared.
That morning had been perfectly ordinary, and now I could never see them again.
From the moment of my reincarnation until now, I'd been fighting a crushing wave of anxiety.
Of course I was anxious — I'd woken up as a baby with no explanation whatsoever.
And the country I'd been reborn into wasn't Japan.
No — it wasn't anywhere on Earth.
This wasn't Earth. It was another world.
At first, I didn't even realize that.
I didn't understand the language, and I almost never left the nursery.
So there was a great deal I couldn't grasp.
In the beginning, I assumed I was somewhere in a European country.
But the moment I saw magic, I knew that wasn't the case.
This world had magic.
The first time I witnessed it was when an important figure from the church performed a blessing on me.
Sparkling light enveloped me, and I felt strength welling up through my body.
This was no trick or placebo. It was something else entirely.
I experienced the reality of magic firsthand.
That magic existed — at first, the fact thrilled me.
But then anxiety crept back in.
In a world where magic existed, would I be able to manage?
In my past life, I had truly been an ordinary man.
While in Japan, that hadn't been a problem.
But in this world, I wouldn't be allowed to remain ordinary.
Could I meet those expectations?
The anxiety mounted.
I threw myself into learning the language.
Not understanding the words was more terrifying than I'd ever imagined.
I couldn't understand what anyone was saying to me.
I never thought something so simple could feel so isolating.
It was as though I were the only person in the world, utterly alone.
Anxious about being born into another world.
Anxious because I didn't understand the language.
Anxious about whether I could get by from here on out.
Everything was a source of anxiety — until the presence of my little sister, sleeping peacefully beside me with gentle breathing, became my salvation.
This half-sister of mine carried not a shred of anxiety.
She was as carefree as if the concept of worry simply didn't exist in her world.
Well, of course — she was a baby.
Everything was done for her, entirely dependent on others. A fragile being entrusted to the world entirely.
That's what babies were supposed to be.
The reason I was so consumed by anxiety was precisely because I had my past-life memories.
And then it struck me.
Because I had those memories, I should at least be mentally superior to my sister.
And yet, here she was, looking so content, while I sat beside her moping and fretting.
I was her older brother.
What kind of older brother shows such a pathetic face to his little sister?
An older brother should act like one — shouldn't he show a dignified front?
You could call it pure vanity, and that'd be the end of it.
But from that point on, I stopped wallowing.
The anxiety hadn't vanished entirely.
But I wanted to do at least this much — protect this helpless little sister of mine.
I learned the language and gradually pieced together knowledge of this world from the conversations I overheard.
To become mobile as quickly as possible, I pushed my baby body to move around.
Thanks to that, I learned to crawl much earlier than most.
And so, through vanity toward my sister, I found my motivation.
To become a brother she could be proud of.
That was the starting point of me — Shurein Zagan Analeit, Fourth Prince of the Analeit Kingdom.