Mushoku Tensei: Life and Strife.

Let’s jump ahead a little bit. Half a year went by.

I decided that for my mental health, it was better to turn off my brain cells. Apparently I had reincarnated. It took me half a year to accept my reality.

Regardless, being born in medieval Europe was not exactly what I would call a pleasant surprise. Don’t judge. I do respect farmers for their hard work and all, but I don’t want to do hard labor as a serf. I do NOT want to waste my second life by growing rice ever morning. That said, I doubt that my parents are farmers.

Now that I got used to the lights, I realized that everyone in the family had glowing halos around them, aside from that strange twin of mine. I don’t really know the details nor why each has their own distinctive color, but one thing was for sure: if I squinted, I would be able to see their halo colors. To be hallucinating at my age… My new eyes must be really bad.

The golden light came from my mother. The silver light came from my father. Then there was a less jarring reddish light coming from the maid. I had a twin brother older than me by one minute or something. Rudeus. Rudeus Greyrat. A name that I was well acquainted with. Paul, Zenith, Lilia, and Rudeus. By that point I could pretty much tell where I had reincarnated to. Mushoku Tensei... Or was it Mushaku, Moushoku… Whatever, you get the point.

Having already learned English as my secondary language, it wasn’t too hard to understand things, nor was it too hard to speak. So, like the standard baby setting I was given for absolutely no reason at all, obviously the first words coming from me were Mama and Papa.

"Oh, by the Millis. Paul! Come quickly. Laurel is saying his first words.”

It caused quite the stir. Uh… Was it a little too early to babble words at the age of one?

…

One thing I realized is that everyone in this family is as horny as a rabbit. I mean, sure, having kids in your 20s makes me envious, but that SAID~ One, they were at it on the other side of the walls on a nightly basis. Two, my older brother is a 30-year-old creep that wears panties on his head. Can you people PLEASE be fucking normal for once?

I sighed. I knew the lustful settings of this novel seemed to be very particularly higher than your average standards, but still… It’s fun to joke around until the joke's on you, huh? To think about the day where laughing at the stupidity of life would result in my next life living in such an awkward position! Karma really is a bitch, and she doesn’t hold anything back.

Luckily, around this time, I managed to gain some independence. I can crawl now! Being able to escape the crowd was the greatest feeling. To think that I’d be grateful to be able to move. With that, I escape towards less… Crowded areas.

One of my favorite places to be in is in the study room. There was an off chance that one of the five books was placed on the ground. Someone probably dropped it. Lucky for me, I guess. At other times, I went around to stare at the cool armor in the room. Once in a while, I stared at Paul swinging his sword around. He was probably some low-ranking knight, I assumed.

And when bored, I stared at Lilia and Zenith like a cat, watching and stalking the people around. It wasn’t for any particular reason; they were just doing things that I had never seen before. I think I scared Lilia a bit, though. I think she had just pulled up some exorcist ritual at me or something. Unfortunately for her, I didn’t steal a body like a ghost, so ghost banishing wasn’t going to work. Not to mention that she looked as if she were using some superstitious ritual and not an actual magic spell.

Can’t really blame her though. I mean, having to watch over a child that wears panties on his head with a creepy smile and a child that is completely quiet staring at you… That’d be like living in a horror show. Hmm… Should I have smiled more? Actually, scratch that. I thought as I looked at Rudeus—wearing Lilia’s panties and smiling creepily at her underneath the table… Yep. No smile it is, then.

I stayed patiently as I got carried away by Lilia. It was around that time that boredom had begun to settle that I had started to notice things. Lights to be exact. Tiny sparks of light glittering around the air, just barely visible due to their insignificant amount. And after seeing them and Paul swinging his sword as well as how Zenith used healing magic, I assumed it was mana. But if it was mana, then it means that I COULD see mana with the naked eye.

I remembered that they had mentioned that I have purple eyes. Could it have been the magic demon eyes that could see mana? Did some spiritual being hear my prayers and decide to bless me? I got excited at the thought. Having nothing better to do, I let my delusions take form as my magical fanatic side of the brain took over. It’s not like I have anything better to do anyway.

If I collect those mana particles, can I become a mage? And that was the start of mediation. Failed. I noticed the mana, but it wasn't moving the way I wanted. I was trying to breathe them in to collect them like in the Chinese manhwas and stuff, but every time it kept escaping from me when I breathed out. I tried to hold my breath and gather them, but it wasn’t efficient enough, as mana have a tendency to avoid being absorbed. Probably. My current ratio is 1 out of 100 mana.

Hence, I concluded that if I want to refine mana as fast as possible, then I need to gather as much as possible in one place and try to absorb them. But mana kept moving with the flow of the air. In conclusion, I simply need to move with the flow of mana and absorb it in places filled with mana. Simple, yeah?

So I… Uh… I kept crawling around, moving from here to there, biting thin mana sparks with the hope that some of that would remain inside of me. Hey! Hey! Don’t judge! I know it sounds stupid, but what else was I supposed to do? Anything is better than doing nothing, alright? And it works. It works, damn it. Hah, why do I keep feeling my face burning up every time I get caught in the act? This is so stupid.

I’ll learn how to hide myself the next time I do something this dumb.

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