Chapter 1 - Reincarnation

By the time I woke up, I was staring at an unknown ceiling. It seems like everything was a dream. I sighed in relief. I tried to get up but my body felt so heavy. I blinked my eyes. I tried to look at my left or right but my neck somehow unable to turn properly and my whole body felt so weak.

It seems like my body couldn't escape unscathed. Maybe I should call the nurse. or maybe there would be a doctor nearby. There might be a possibility of I was here by myself.

"Gaaa!! Gu?"

I made a strange voice. Uh, did I damage my throat too? Well, that would also possible. After all, surviving that disaster would have been a miracle after all.

Suddenly I heard the door into the room was opened in a hurry. A giant figure of a girl in the maid uniform rushed to my side and stretched her arms around my body. It was a maid who came to me instead of a nurse. Also, besides the uniform and the body size, she also had a hair color that didn't look like to be Japanese.

E?

I was dumbfounded when I found that I was lifted so easily by her. This me, who was around 60 kg weight was lifted so easily. Ah, putting that aside, wasn't she too big of a woman? I mean I was being cradled in her arms without any problem and there was no sensation of my legs were dangling either which means my whole body height was supportable by her arm alone.

I stared at her face in confusion. She looked at me for a while. She smiled and sang a song with the language I've never heard before.

<<???? Has sung a lullaby song. Ren is feeling drowsy>>

I saw a backlog as a thing floated in front of me. Just a moment after that, my eyes felt so heavy and my consciousness became distant.

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6-month-old boy, that was my current identity. At first, I thought it was strange to see the furniture and the maid girl were so big. But after a while, I finally realized that I was reborn as a baby. As I had the mentality of a 24-years-old man, having me to get my nutrition through breastfeeding is a great challenge for my sanity. Luckily my genitalia has yet fully developed and couldn't get reaction yet or it would be very disastrous.

My mother was a woman around her twenties. She had blue eyes, fair skin, and long blonde hair. Simply put, she was a beauty. She had quite some asset with her and compared to everyone else I had seen, she could be categorized as average. I didn't know her name yet since I didn't understand her language. I sighed and tried my best to gain some of the knowledge from her.

The maid who sang me lullaby when I woke up for the first time wasn't the only maid in the house. There were three more maids here and a butler. The first maid was a woman around her 30s with black eyes, grayish hair and hairstyle of a strict head maid. The second one was a girl around middle school age. She had shoulder-length light blue hair and blue eyes. She was a very cheerful girl but there was something was bothering me about her. She had cat ears and tail. The third maid was also a little girl. She was a girl with silver hair and red eyes. Unlike the second one, she rarely appeared during the day and had a gloomy aura around her. The butler was an old man with a common template of a butler in novel or manga. I just hoped that he didn't have the name of the certain butler in a fiction masterpiece about a demon and his master.

But, thanks to their appearance, I understood that this wasn't earth. Simply put, I was reincarnated. It was the most possible conclusion I had. This place probably had magic too but there was no way to find out for now. Also, there was the log I had seen before. I couldn't make it appear by myself even once. It could be just my imagination or an aftereffect of being reincarnated. Perhaps it needs a voice command. Let's try to get any information as much as possible.

"Ren~ *@()*#)*$)(*&#E)$"

My mother called me. She smiled gently and picked me up. She gently peeled the last fabric covering her mounds and pushed my face toward it. I swallowed my saliva and received the mental trial with determination.

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It was almost a year after I was reborn. Time passed so fast when you're a baby. I mean, I had nothing to do besides sleeping and some simple things a baby could do. That was why I had given up and let my body grew naturally while trying to understand things as much as I could.

Thanks to my keen senses and my well-developed mentality, I slowly understood the language of my parents. As a person who had an adult mentality, I couldn't bear to not trying to stand and walk for a long time. I was able to stand up, sit straight and crawl now. But, walking is a bit of a challenge sometimes.

My throat isn't matured yet so I couldn't speak. But, I can do some strength-building exercises for babies in secret. There was nothing intense like push-ups or pull-ups yet of course. What I mean as the exercise was of course rhythmically moving my body which looked like a simplified radio exercise. None of the maids or my mother saw me yet but since it's just a light exercise, perhaps they won't bother me. Of course, I paid attention to the fatigue level of my body so that my growth wouldn't be affected. As a baby, a decent amount of sleep was required for growth after all.

However, that night, I somehow couldn't sleep at all. I was just fallen asleep normally at the beginning but during the night suddenly I became wide awake and couldn't sleep at all.

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<<Congratulation>>

<<Survival Has Been Confirmed>>

<<Time of Survival: 0 ==> 1>>

<<Bonus: <Skill: Appraisal Lv 1>>>

<<Updating skill system>>

<<Installing new program>>

<<Existing skills detected>>

<<Began updating the version>>

<<Language: Norn Lv 0 ==> Lv 1>>

<<Update Complete>>

<<HaVE A nIcE DaY>>

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Words after words popped out one after another. The bluish transparent panel showed the familiar-sounding words in English instead of the native words of this world. It was just like the game-like fantasy setting from the light novels in my previous life.

The long lines of activity logs of the system almost covered my whole vision. Everything written in the log was basically just an announcement. As someone who knew about terms of games in my previous life, I was familiar with this type of announcement log. This was a patch installation. It seems like I had obtained new abilities called [Apraisal] and [Language: Norn]. This part was understandable. However, the glitched words with messed up writing at the end of the log were very disturbing. It gave me a bad feeling of the horror game I played in my previous life. I tried to pry more information regarding this log but it slowly dimmed and vanished. As the log vanished, I was struck by strong drowsiness and fell asleep before I knew it.

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The next day, I was doing my exercise as usual. At first, I was surprised when I woke up this morning. I suddenly could understand the language spoken by the maids.

"Good Morning, Ren-sama. Do you have a good dream?"

I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard a familiar voice called me. She spoke in the language she was familiar with but I somehow could understand it despite the language spoken wasn't Japanese, English, or any language from my previous world. It was kind of weird as it was somehow felt like I had consumed some kind of translation konjac from a certain cat robot from the future. Maybe it was also felt like the game I played suddenly received a language patch and got translated automatically.

The cat-eared maid said as she picked me up.

Niko! Niko!

Her ears moved several times cutely. I wasn't able to see her tail from my current position but I bet her tail was moving around excitedly. I stared at her ear which was moving once in a while. Deep inside my heart, I want to touch them and have some mofu mofu time.

"Ara? As usual, Ren-sama is interested in my ears and tail it seems."

She said.

'Ah, my desire had leaked out that I unconsciously staring at them. Calm down, me!! Suppress your desire!!'

I shouted inside my head.

I suddenly remembered the mysterious experience I had last night. If I wasn't mistaken, I got a [Apraisal] skill. I wonder if I must use a voice command to activate it. If it does, that would be a pain as I couldn't use it at my current state where I couldn't say anything yet.

I remembered a story in a novel about appraisal skills. There were times where it must be activated using a chant or voice command but if I wasn't mistaken, there were cases where it could be activated by focusing the sight at the object of the appraisal.

I stared more intently. It didn't activate right away but after staring for more than 15 seconds, a bluish panel popped out in my vision. It had some transparency that it didn't hinder my sight too much but it still blocked my vision.

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<<Would you set the Appraisal Skill to automatic mode?>>

<<YES>> <<NO>>

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However, it wasn't the appraisal result but the system option about the skill activation. I stretched both my hand to reach the <<YES>> option while pretending to reach the twitching ears. There was no feeling when I touched the panel but it gave a faint glass breaking sound as my finger made a contact with it. The bluish panel faded after the button was pressed.

I smirked inside my head. With this, there won't be any secret that could hide from my eyes. I looked at the Cat-Eared Maid again.

'Now, show me who you are, Maid!!'

I shouted inside my mind. I could feel an unfamiliar feeling crawled out on my body when the [Appraisal] was triggered. As a result, a bluish panel appeared in my sight.

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???? Level ??? Maid Level ???? ???? Level ????

Race: ???

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I blinked my eyes several times. In contrary to my expectation, what I got was just a lineup of question marks. Did my skill got bugged? Or perhaps I need to learn the ancient language or this world's writing system first to read it?

I was drowned in my deep thought. It was then when I recalled something from my previous world. The lines of question marks suddenly became something normal for me to see at my current state. After all, if there was a concept of level in this world.

It was obvious that my appraisal will give me nothing but question marks. After all, we had a large margin in our levels. When I got this conclusion, I dismissed the panel and the worried looks of the cat maid came to my sight.

Not good! I was caught in deep thought and forgot about her! Did I make a strange face just now?

"Gaa!! "

I made a smile and tried to reach her ears. Pretending to be a baby was the best method to escape this predicament. She stared at me for a while. I tried my best to reach her ears.

"How cute"

She said with her smile. It seems like she had dismissed her suspicion. But, that smile is a foul play you know. I mean I was a cat person in my previous life. But, I never hoped for an adult game development with her on the route through.

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[Craddle]

[Craddle]

[Blanket]

[Blanket]

[Pillow]

[Wall]

[Mana Lamp]

[Curtain]

[Door]

I appraised my surroundings and found no interesting thing. There were no details in the appraisal result. It was just simple names of the objects I appraised the objects. I was hoping that I could find out the creator of the items and furniture in my room or their material.

But, somehow it ticks me off. Even without this skill I already know what those things are except the mana lamp. I thought it was a normal lamp powered by electricity. But, this item had shown me that the world I was reincarnated to had magic. It interested me a bit but after realizing I couldn't do anything about it, it frustrated me. In the end, all I could do was spending my time appraising the whole room over and over until my mother arrived.

The door was opened when I was about to appraise it. As a result, it appraised the person who entered my room, my mother.

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???? Level ???? ???? Level ???? ???? Level ???? ???? Level ????

Race: Human

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This was the result of my mother's appraisal. She had more question marks than the cat maid. She had 4 levels instead of 3 levels. I stared at her face as she breastfeeds me while humming some kind of song. I slowly fell asleep after I got the drowsiness status from her song.

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Days passed without hitch.

I'm now 2 years old now. I could move around by myself now. I could leave the cradle with the cat-eared maid or the other maids as the guardian. Though, going outside the mansion is not possible. They said that beyond the wall of the mansion was a world where anyone can die in any second without proper preparation.

On my second birthday, I didn't receive any notification like my first. Maybe it was a milestone type announcement where it will give me a bonus the longer I survived. But, even the system didn't give me any gift, my mother still did.

I was given some blocks with this world's alphabets on it by mother. She might think it was attractive enough for her child and this educational toy might increase the child's curiosity to learn them.

The alphabet system of this world was somehow similar to the previous world's. They had the same sound but their shape was completely different. This part was an interesting one. When I learned this, I wondered one thing. Why I wasn't able to understand them before. It was mysterious. Maybe I'll research it later.

However, there was another thing I was wondering about all this time. Besides the mystery of magic, language, and common sense, the thing that was caught my mind until now was one, the whereabouts of my father.

Since the day of my birth, I had never seen anyone who I could call a father. There were many possibilities in this aspect. First, he had passed away before I was born. Second, I was born as an illegitimate child of a certain noble. Third, my father was unknown. For example, my mother had many boyfriends or something like that or she had been raped in the past. I didn't want this possibility but sometimes the reality was harsher than you thought. Well, there were many other possibilities but thinking about them now won't give me anything.

I stared at the block in my hand. I looked at the pile in front of me and gasped.

FATHER. BANDIT. NOBL

The lineup of words was present there. I glanced at the block in my hand. It had the last letter for the last word to form 'Noble'. I looked back and saw the cat maid was standing there in awe looking at my work.

I arranged it like that. I then arranged some of the other blocks randomly to avoid it noticed by the maid.

"Ren-sama? This is..."

She looked at the arranged blocks and then at my face.

"Don't tell me he could write already?!!!"

She said. I titled my head tried to play it fool when I saw her tail was moving around when she was excited. I put down my block and crawled toward it. She was dumbfounded as she saw me heading for her tail as my usual activities.

"Maybe it's just coincidence."

The maid muttered. She stopped me from grabbing her tail and picked me up. She brought me back to the piles of wooden blocks before she joined me playing with them.

Phew, that was close.