Chapter 2: Rebirth

  Female?!

  Turns out in this world I’m a girl.

  A few hours after being born, once they had to unwrap me from that damn blanket when I made a mess, I caught a glimpse… of nothing.

  But once again, I’m going to tuck this in the back of my mind and not think about what this may mean for my future. Besides, I’m still just a baby.

  If I had to guess, it’s been about 5 months since I was reincarnated.

  Father seems to be gone for days at a time, presumably working, and that would leave me and mother alone.

  My father must be in his late 20s or early 30s. He has short, light-brown hair that could be mistaken for blond in the right lighting. He’s somewhat tan, but it’s hard to say if it’s due to his long hours working, or genetics.

  He always comes back covered in thick black dirt head to toe. He must be tired, but nevertheless the door would open with a mighty slam and mother would swing around in his beefy arms as they both laugh.

  His attention is also split to myself. Father’s warm smile and strong touch naturally calmed me and filled me with love. I could sense his thoughts while staring into his dark eyes.

  Because of moments like these, from what I can tell, I’m not exactly a 24 year old man inside of a baby’s body. I truly am reborn so everything that comes with being a baby, I need to endure myself.

  I may cry less often than a normal newborn, and I know how to explain what I want better, but at the end of the day I can only do so much against my condition.

  Thankfully, my brain function has been fine on its own, so I’ve been able to pick up pieces about this world with my slightly enhanced intellect.

  As father was often gone, mother was left to care for me.

  She constantly tucks her shiny, straight black hair that waves down to her waist behind her ears while she leans over my crib or her bed to read to me. Her eyes match our wooden home perfectly, even to the shiny finish that decorated the boards.

  Mother is pale, although that isn’t surprising considering the amount of time we spend indoors. The contrast makes her hair appear even darker.

  Sometimes she would leave me to crawl around the floor and I would sneak up in the kitchen, wondering what she was up to.

  Often times, her expression is blank with a sort of calmness that somewhat scares me. More accurately, she has a resting bitch-face. But her eyes and lips always light up at the sight of me.

  Thanks to her daily reading and talking, I’m picking up on the language of this world quickly.

  Once after reading time, I was even able to let out a “mama” to which her eyes widened and quivered and she let out tears with a big smile and hugged me tight. A shuttered “I love you, Vespera!” flowed around her bright teeth.

  I’m starting to love this slow life. We seem to live somewhere in the countryside.

  Staring out the windows, and front door, I can see green hills, farms, a few homes in the distance, and a town where the sun sets.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Where the sun rises is a patch of rocks that likely gets father all dirtied up whenever he comes home.

  As for home: it’s old. There doesn’t even seem to be electricity.

  Mother cooks meals for herself in the fireplace I had heard so often during her pregnancy.

  Our backyard garden provides plenty of food. From what I can tell, I have lived through Spring and Summer, so I haven’t seen food being an issue.

  The fruits and vegetable plants aren’t recognizable.

  Sometimes I would think I saw a tomato or green bean but it’s always a bit different. I guess things just evolve differently here.

  I can’t wait to try them, but for now I’m stuck with breast milk, which isn’t so bad…

  Even if me and mother were often alone, many mornings we are greeted with a local villager helping us to some firewood, or a mother and child on a walk to deliver us some sort of baked sweet.

  It seems this village does their best to take care of new parents, but I’m sure my mother and father’s likability has a large part to play as well.

  The days rolled by just as the previous.

  I followed my mother’s readings and tried to make sense of the language. It uses Latin characters, which does help, but progress is slow.

  The visits from father continued as the world grew colder, and eventually, it was nearly Winter. He doesn’t go out nearly as often anymore.

  His return meant my crib’s moving from the master bedroom, to my own room. I wouldn’t have minded the alone time if it weren’t for the roughhousing the children were always up to over there. The house was filled with mother’s moans every night.

  With father back, I was able to learn even more thanks to their talks with each other.

  Mother would always yell “Cedric, breakfast!” in the mornings while father was probably sound asleep enjoying the comfort of his home after having had to work so hard.

  And father would call for “Tessa” whenever a familiar face showed up at our door.

  It is getting quite cold now, though, and our plants have just about given up. It looks like we have stockpiled much more food than we could eat before it goes bad, but without appliances, how will we freeze it?

  I can tell that this region gets harsh Winters, but it will still take some time for it to become cold enough to keep our food from spoiling.

  That same day after claiming our harvest, Tessa decided to show me. She set me on the ground in the kitchen next to her and put all of the fruits and vegetables in some sort of really large box Cedric had moved in there earlier.

  The box has dividers in every direction, so food is placed in each divider, then father adds a layer of wood on top of everything, and the process would repeat.

  What followed not only answered the question of what we would eat this Winter, but another one that I had ever since I got here.

  If the only change to this world from Earth was a lack of technology, I would last even less years before breaking.

  I could not survive another dull and meaningless existence.

  Tessa’s hand reached over the giant container and a sparkle emerged from the center of her palm. Its energy cut through the air and I could feel the warmth of the cold water radiate from even a few feet away.

  Slowly, it reached the top of crate, filling in the air-pockets of each cube of food. With the crate filled, Tessa lowered her hand to the surface of the water, making sure not to break it, but still make contact.

  After a quick breath, the water began to freeze. The crackle of the crystallization moved even slower than the water had filled it, but eventually, it reached the bottom and the lid sealed it.

  With the crate filled with food and ice, placed randomly in the middle of our kitchen, it needed to be moved.

  Cedric squatted down and got his fingers underneath it.

  No way right? I mean it’s got be heavy, but it’s way too big for one person to carry anyway. The majority of the weight would be far from his center of mass.

  And yet after another quick breath, this time by my father, I saw his body tighten and the crate moved up as he quickly brought it outside.

  This was not strength. There was logic behind this. Just as mother froze the crate, had father implemented this energy into his body.

  Magic. A staple of every isekai.

  This finally seals it. I’m no longer on Earth. I don’t even think I’m in the same dimension.

  For the first time in my two lives, I’m excited for something other than some lame fantasy media I used as an escape.

  I’m living my fantasy.