Chapter 1. Reincarnation

[MC's POV]

To my knowledge, a child should not have proper eyesight for quite a while after being born.

However, what I was experiencing made me doubt logic and what I knew.

In front of my vision, rather clearly, was the face of a beautiful blonde woman around 20 years old. Her face was wet with sweat and her hair disheveled, and she looked down at me with a gentle smile.

Beside her stood a man of a similarly young age with light brown hair, giving me a stiff smile. He was a handsome and muscular young man; his physique was amazing.

At one point, the man stuck out his tongue and started making silly and goofy expressions toward me, at which I slightly twitched out of awkwardness.

"####-##### ######."

"###### ######."

The people around me talked to each other, but to me it only sounded like unintelligible gibberish.

I tried to move, but it was fruitless. I felt various sensations coming from my body, but I could not properly control my movements.

'Where am I?'

I tried to speak, but only some strange sounds escaped my strangely-responsive mouth.

Soon enough, the woman lifted me up with her hands and brought me closer as she looked down at me with an endearing smile.

The two people around me continued talking.

'Is this a joke? I really don't feel like I'm dreaming,' my heart thought.

To not feel like a fool, I consciously tried to do a reality check by willing myself to fly up, to see if I was not dreaming.

However, as I continued at it for a few seconds, it failed.

'In that case, could it mean…'

That I reincarnated?!

At that moment the man took me over from the woman's hands and then shot me up into the air while saying 'weee!'.

'!!!'

Hey, man, what the hell are you doing?!

So irresponsible!

I'm an infant that was just born!

Is this Sparta?

…

[Zenith & Paul POV.]

Paul picked his just born son, then with a smile proceeded to throw him up into the air and down while cheerfully saying 'wee!'.

"Don't do that! Be careful! He's just a baby!" Zenith chided him harshly at this.

Paul grinned. "Haha. He'll be fine. He's my son."

Zenith formed a wry smile and did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Their son has just been born. He was not even a toddler. How could her husband be so thoughtless?

However, she was overwhelmed with happiness too much to complain. Paul was just like that, sometimes quite silly.

She simply smiled and dropped the topic when she saw that the baby didn't cry and her husband also stopped his reckless behavior.

After taking another good look at the baby in Zenith's hands, Paul flirtatiously smiled at her and said, "It looks like he took after you. He has both your hair and your beautiful blue eyes."

Zenith formed a gentle smile.

Raising up the boy in his own hands, Paul continued enthusiastically, "How do we name him then? What about Rudeus?"

Zenith wryly smiled and said, "Since the moment I saw him, I thought of the name Seraphim. After all, he has such pretty light blond hair and bright blue eyes. What do you think, dear?"

"Seraphim? Hmmm…" Paul hesitated. After a good while, he finally nodded his head. "Well, alright!"

Paul wanted to name his son Rudeus, for short Rudy, after an old friend of his.

Rudd… His good friend from the slums who had given him a place to stay after he first left the Notos family.

In addition, in the Beast God language Rudy also means ginger. He heard it from Ghislaine before, because his light-brown hair could also be called ginger.*

Paul thought that he was quite smart with his naming sense, but as Zenith said, 'Seraphim' was more fitting given the boy's appearance.

He felt that he can use the name 'Rudeus' in the future, since Paul certainly would not stop with just one kid!

…

[MC's POV]

A while later.

Short and chubby baby arms, the inability to control my body and hands, and to speak properly…

I was a little cold as well, and my body seemed fragile.

Also: two strangely giant adults looking down at me with loving smiles while talking in a completely foreign language as I laid down on a seemingly spacious bed.

It did not take long for me to come to the conclusion that I had reincarnated.

A normal person might not have come to this conclusion so easily, but fortunately or unfortunately my weeb level was high enough that it was instead the first thing I thought of.

After all, I thought of this because I wanted it to be correct.

And that's because… If I really did reincarnate to another world that might have different rules and physics, something like a fantasy world with magic, then I might be able to strive toward the impossible and fantastical dream of striving to attain Immortality and God-like powers!

I was not interested in these things because I had some kind of god complex or wanted to live forever, but simply because after the various experiences and realizations that I came to throughout my life, I became exceedingly bored and disappointed with my life on Earth. I felt that living while pursuing these grand and majestic targets in a world filled with dangers would be the most interesting, fun and meaningful way to live a life.

Only something like this could make my life interesting and full of meaning again.

Of course, the fact that in a fantasy world there are usually also fantastical beauties, adventures and the strong are revered was an appreciated bonus.

Totally not the main reason though!

Putting jokes aside, my heart naturally also longed to experience passionate romances and love with interesting and wonderful women in a fantastical world with dangers all around, even if I would not outwardly admit it.

At this moment, I thought of acting more like a newborn baby.

"Gha… Gha… Gha…" Given that I was a child, I started wiggling my limbs around and let out some sounds.

That's what a newborn baby should do, right?

I have already kind of dropped the thought that I was reborn in Sparta and that babies that don't look healthy will be thrown off a cliff like Simba, but it still remained at the back of my mind. I still didn't want to be seen as a strange or mentally-handicapped child.

In turn, it seemed that what I did made me be noticed because the beautiful blonde woman picked me up again with a soft smile and then brought me closer to her chest.

I was preoccupied with thinking of the consequences of my situation to properly register the situation around me, but I had to secretly admit that my mother's twin peaks were quite spectacular.

The moment the woman brought me closer, my hands followed a strange instinct and started grasping anything in sight.

And what was the closest in sight was the woman's chest.

Ugh.

Involuntarily, my hands grasped the cloth that held up the blonde woman's breasts and started gripping and caressing that area.

I felt so weird.

It wasn't like me. It isn't like I can't keep my hands to myself.

And it isn't like I even wanted to do this.

This has already happened when I was picked up earlier. I guess it is just a newborn baby's reflex to grasp things.

Yeah, I swear I'm not a pervert!

At least, not to this extent.

At this moment, the woman seemed not to mind anything and softly said something.

After that, she revealed one of her breasts and gently brought my face closer to it.

Ugh.

I instantly felt a little awkward.

'Right. I'm supposed to suck now?'

Being treated as a child by a beautiful and sexy woman, made to drink her baby milk…

It was an extremely embarrassing situation.

However, I knew at the back of my mind that if I wanted to follow through with my ambitions, I needed to grow up with a strong body.

Thinking of it, when I was still growing up during my previous life, I often skipped entire nights of sleep by gaming, sleeping very little and eating whatever.

It was only later in life that I switched to having a healthy diet and proper sleeping schedule, but the damage was already done. I didn't grow up as tall and strong as I could have otherwise.

In this life, I didn't want to have a below average height and a weak body again. I had to eat as much as possible, and give my growing body all the nutrients it needed.

Reincarnated Protagonists that refuse to drink milk until they finally get a bottle? Weaklings!

Forcefully ignoring my feelings of shame, I slightly gulped and then latched onto the nipple of my mother with my mouth.

Before I knew it, my mouth started sucking the protrusion on my assumed mother's bosom as if by instinct.

At first, nothing happened as I sucked in vain.

But soon after trying hard for a short while, I finally felt a thick liquid enter my mouth.

I didn't expect much and simply focused on acquiring nutrients.

However, it wasn't bad. Should I say it was a bit salty?

Either way, perhaps to my baby tastebuds, it was quite good.

After seeing that the milk was not strange-tasting as I expected, but surprisingly good, I began sucking at it with double vigor while enduring this humiliation.

It was all to grow up strong.

I had such plans, to eat as much as possible.

But before even a minute passed, I suddenly felt full already.

Just the idea of eating any more than that made me nauseous. It seemed that a newborn baby's stomach and needs are smaller than I thought.

I felt that it was time to stop, so I stopped sucking and pulled back my head.

After that I simply started moving my hands around while being held closely by the woman.

I didn't even need to force myself to fake doing random baby actions, as I only needed to follow this body's instinct.

As the woman noticed that I was finished, she hid her breast, then brought me closer and started hugging me with love while slowly swinging and caressing me.

What I felt at that moment was once again embarrassment.

I was neither used to this kind of familial love nor to being treated as a baby.

Whether from embarrassment or something else as well, my heart felt warm.

But regardless of anything, it was impossible for me to resist and I also had my role to play as a baby.

As such, I simply stayed in my mother's arms as I let my hands wander aimlessly and squeeze her fingers.

In the meantime my mind wandered as well.

Paul and Zenith.

I thought of these two names.

The two I just saw were not drawn 2D anime characters, but real people. Although the features somewhat matched, immediately assuming that these two were characters from an anime show that I watched before would be jumping the gun.

I could not understand any of the words that the people around me were saying. It all sounded like gibberish and blended together into an unrecognizable whole. However, among the many foreign words that made no sense to me, I noted the man saying the word 'Zenithu' a few times when addressing the blond women.

Then, after witnessing a bespectacled maid wrap a soft towel around me as she placed me in a wooden cradle, I felt quite convinced.

Did I reincarnate in the world of Mushoku Tensei?!

…

After I came to the realization that I was very likely in a real world of swords and magic, I did not want to waste any more time.

Magic.

Could I use it?

It is often in fantasy that without learning magic, you can't use it, even if you have the talent for it.

But there are also those fantasy worlds in which all you need to do is use your mind and the reality would be bent to your will.

Otherwise, it is sometimes at least possible to exercise simple magic control and interact with the world's special energy, even if nothing special happens in the outside world. Since it's likely that I'm in the body of Rudeus and have inherited the Laplace Factor, that much might not be impossible.

I quickly thought of trying out a simple meditation exercise.

As I calmed down my mind and focused all of my attention on my breath to enter a tranquil state, I concentrated and focused my entire being on absorbing outside 'energy' into my body.

In Mushoku Tensei that 'energy' should probably be 'Mana', but I tried to keep my mind open to not limit myself.

I had no idea if any of this would work, but I wanted to try anything. This was simply the first thing I thought of.

After all, while being stranded in my cradle I could do nothing else but this - use my mind.

As I began mindfully meditating, a minute passed.

Then several, but I still didn't experience anything unexpected.

Soon enough, my parents and the maid left me.

I guess they thought I fell asleep.

I continued my meditation practice. I continued guiding my 'breath' through my body while supplementing it by imagining the absorbed world's energy strengthening me.

Unaware if it should be 'energy' that came with my breath, or energy that I would absorb from the atmosphere through my skin, I exercised my imagination and tried anything.

However, time passed and there was no result.

To be honest, I was quite tired from the moment I came to this world.

Soon enough, I was unable to ignore the rising exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm me and eventually my consciousness drifted off to sleep.