My Peaceful Life?

I was three. It seemed I was born in an aristocratic family. My life seemed to proceed with no hurdles for the past three years. Of course, not having any hurdles doesn't really equate to 'peaceful'. How could one live in peace with an annoying person's voice always speaking in your head?

It was her. According to her claims, she was supposed to be the goddess of justice. As for why such a great entity is stuck inside my head, the answer I got was "It's confidential, or rather, I'll let you know on a later date." so I gradually gave up. Due to those 'confidential' reasons, she needed help from me. It seemed she might get into trouble with her higher officials if she were to give me more information.

She needed me to ascend to the status of a god. There were two ways in which a normal individual can become a god. The individual had to possess considerable power and had to die a death noble enough to move the great god (the person she claimed to be her "boss"). This method was extremely risky and had a pretty low success rate.

As for the second way, the individual had to defeat the three guardian angels. It was a feat nobody had achieved before. Defeating the guardian angels was one thing, but summoning even one of them was hard enough to require multiple great sorcerers.

The 'goddess' claimed that this would be the only way I could ascend. The reason I was chosen was due to something she called 'soul quality'. Each time a person dies and is reborn, the quality of their soul doubles. Me, who had lived nearly a hundred lives, had a quality of soul incomparable to most others. The reason being that a soul isn't allowed to be reborn more than twelve times. Mine was an exception that had something to do with her confidential information.

Most of my previous lives were miserable. I didn't live to become an adult in any of them. Neither was I some kind of prodigy. I was weak. Was there any reason to specifically stop me from reaching adulthood? Or to make me weak? I needed the answer to these questions. The 'goddess' promised to answer me on a later date. I had no reason to help this 'goddess' in my head, but I had a feeling that her 'confidential' information was something I needed to know. I agreed to help her with the sole purpose of acquiring information.

I was blessed with a nice family, which the goddess claimed to be her doing. She even gave me certain unique characteristics before I was reincarnated. First, 'Full Health'. It was supposed to protect me from any kind of disease or poisoning. Second, 'Maximum Memory'. I was able to perfectly remember any incident that I witnessed at any point in the past. My memory of my past lives was supposed to be because of a loophole in this certain characteristic. Next came 'Strong Build'. I was physically stronger than the average person of my age.

The fourth characteristic was 'Apostle of Justice'. The goddess could communicate to humans who were recognized as her apostles. That wasn't the only feature of being an apostle. Her apostles were said to be much stronger than even great warriors. Apostles were gifted with tremendous mana and two skills. The first one was 'Judging Eye', the power to judge a person's personality accurately (as expected as the goddess of justice.)

As for the other skill, they referred to it as 'Magic Creation'. The ability to create magic that did not exist in this world. You could create any magic as long as you could form a basic theory for the magic.

'Magic Creation' was not regarded as something useful since creating a theory for magic was hard enough. Even the goddess told me not to bother about it.

My daily life was just... Well... Playing around. I had nothing to do. All I was taught at home was etiquette. There were busy days when I had to play with children of other nobles. There were snobby ones that would act antisocially with me. There were friendly ones that loved playing with me. As for the friends I made, I could count them with one hand (I really hate those antisocial kids).

I was to stay at the home of another noble since my parents said they had some important stuff to do. Of course, it was only an excuse. Among the friends I made, there was a really clingy one that always followed me wherever I went, Tia Redhart. Yes, I was staying at the Redhart mansion. There were twenty counts in the country, with each clan having their speciality. I could call it quite the big country in fact. The Redhart clan is a family of mages. Our clan, the Truesilver clan, is a family of knights. Ahh, how I hate the chivalry. My parents had unofficially arranged my engagement with Tia Redhart for when I turn five (yet again, I hate aristocracy and those political marriages).

Once I made sure Tia had well slept, I managed to sneak out of the Redhart mansion through an open window. 'Strong Build' was useful this time. I managed to climb down from the window without many injuries. I was pretty sure the average three-year-old would have suffered from more than just small injuries.

I wanted to gain strength. While it wasn't possible to exponentially grow with some levels and stats, I could still make use of my high mana. I would still have some left after burning down an entire country (apostles are scary). I was planning on getting proficient with using magic.

I wasn't taught any offensive spells at home. The reason was simple: A sane parent wouldn't want their kid accidentally harming people with magic. I wasn't taught to read either. Children were only taught to read and write when they turned four. I couldn't rely on learning spells from books because of this reason. I still had a plan.

'You're planning on going out alone with no means to guard you? Just so you know, having a stronger build doesn't mean you're any match for a monster!' Her voice had a visible surprise.

"I never said I had no means of guarding myself." It was a proud proclamation of a toddler.

'You don't mean... You're going to fight barehanded?'

I have heard about useless stupid goddesses in one of my past lives. Now one of them is speaking to me in my head.

"There is no way a toddler like me can wrestle a monster!"

The goddess once told me that despite being in my head, she couldn't read my mind. Was gods being omnipotent a lie?

I had memorized a map of my town with the help of a certain goddess that translated the map for me. I was headed towards a forest by the east. The forest was said to be inhabited by harmless monsters like slimes and rabbits. Slimes were weak enough to be killed by a kid with a few stones. Rejoice, slimes and rabbits, for you get to be great sacrifices for my experiment!

I snuck into the forest without any guards noticing. Having a toddler's body has its own perks. I was able to see pretty well in the dark due to the effects of Judging Eye (buy a Judging Eye today! It comes with a free night vision effect!).

Once I made sure I was pretty far away from the guards, I began casting.

"Magic Creation!"

'Wait seriously? You were able to formulate a theory a spell? You won't get away in one piece if magic creation fails! Did I make a mistake choosing you of all people?'

Did I ask you to choose me? What I did was an act of sheer will and absolute confidence. I have lived nearly a hundred lives and have witnessed thousands of different spells in those lives. It was only natural that I would learn a handful of them. I tried recreating one of the most basic spells I knew. Magic creation took a large amount of time. A spell with a ten-second cast time would take an hour to make. The spell I made just now took around fifteen minutes.

"Lance!"

A magic circle appeared in the air. This spell was a placed spell with a short launch time and high accuracy. It was mostly used by hunters to trap wild animals. It didn't cost much mana and was pretty much a sure-hit spell. It only had two cons. It had a very small range and a moderately high cast time. It would take a few seconds to cast 'Lance' which leaves the caster vulnerable. So this spell was rarely used in combat. As for me who plans on a massacre of slimes and rabbits, this was the perfect spell.

'Isn't the principle of this spell similar to arrow magic that already exists in this world? You could've just learned arrow magic from someone.'

"Arrow is not a placed spell, right? I've seen some adults use it. It has a lesser cast time compared to my lances, but the damage is nowhere near significant. I never had enough mana to make good use of a lance in my previous life. But that wouldn't be the case now."

'What do you mean?'

"Placed spells have their own pros. I do not need to cast placed spells. As for direct spells, they make good use in real combat. But that isn't my style of fighting. I died enough times trying to dive into battle."

I pointed to a tree and spoke. "Annihilation!". Placed spells needed a password to activate them when required. I set the password to "Annihilation". Why? Because it sounded cool.

The moment I commanded it, the magic circle I made earlier shattered and released a lance that traveled at a speed a toddler's eyes could never keep up with.

As for the tree I pointed to, there was a clean giant hole in the middle. Not just one tree. A couple of trees behind it suffered from a similar effect. Did I perhaps get too excited?

'Umm... What was that just now? Are you sure you're just three years old?'

"Don't ask me. You were with me since before I was born."

'I know that! But what was that spell? That was too destructive!'

"It didn't even cost much mana. If I were to express it in numbers, probably 20 to 30 MP."

'No way a such a destructive spell would cost such low mana! You... I took the right choice after all!'

"Petty goddess."

'Did you say something?'

"Huh, nothing at all~ Anyways we gotta find the monsters right? It's pretty rare for me to get a chance to sneak out of my house like this."

'• • •'

"Goddess?"

'Oh sorry. You were saying?'

"Is something wrong?"

'It's nothing. I've been having this uneasy feeling ever since we entered this forest...'