Chapter 1: Awakening

I slowly opened my eyes to the sound of birds chirping. I raised my right hand to block the light before sitting up, and, confirming my surroundings, I found myself at the bottom of a cliff. At my feet flowed a puddle of red fluid.

"This…is blood," I said.

Standing up, I checked my body when I noticed an irregularity.

"Too small."

My body wasn't the refined one I was so used to, rather, it is clearly a child's. Moreover, the chest area of my shirt is dyed completely red. This metallic stench. . . It's clearly coming from the blood. I tried taking off my shirt but couldn't find a single wound.

Confused, I shook my head a few times before sitting down on a nearby rock. A while later, my foggy memories started to clear up. I'm still a ways away from my normal condition, but it seems my brain is functioning well enough to begin analyzing this situation.

I can at least discern that this body is not my—Sagami Shirabe's—body, but rather the body of some child. Based on the large amount of blood on his body and the robotic female voice that had talked about the reincarnation ritual, not to mention the conversation I had with that white thing, I've come to the following conclusion.

—I, Sagami Shirabe have been reincarnated.

I say reincarnated, but while I've probably died, I don't remember how, or anything more than a few scattered memories of my previous life. Although it seems I'm slowly recalling more as time goes by.

Anyways, with this amount of blood, the previous owner of this body is already long dead, and the fact that I've been reincarnated into this body only serves to further that fact. In that case, I've got no choice but to live my life out as this child. "That being said, it's going to be quite difficult to explain the blood, huh…" I said.

The child's clothes are old, but the material they're made out of is quite decent, and judging from his appearance, he's probably from a middle-class family. In any case, I'm horrified at this appearance; I've got to do something about this blood.

Standing up from the rock, I followed the cliff down a mountain trail before reaching a river.

"Yep, this is the stuff." I said.

I stripped off my shirt and washed it in the water. I thought about doing the same with my pants, but then the only thing around my waist would be a piece of cloth. That's almost no different from being completely naked. I am just a child right now, but I've never been into exhibitionism.

The blood stain has now all but disappeared. There are a few stains here and there, but it wouldn't seem odd now if I were to say that I'm going to play around and find some nuts and berries.

Still, it's not like my problems have all been solved; I still have to figure out the owner of this body's identity.

From his figure and what I can see reflecting off the water, he appears to be a blonde-haired boy of seven or eight years of age.

For now, I need to go to a nearby village and gather info.

Wringing the water out of my shirt, I hang it on a tree branch and decide to wait until it's fully dried. In the meantime, I want to sort out what I know. Firstly, I've been reincarnated into a world called Alteria. That means the bonus from that game should be in effect.

"Is it this?" I asked aloud

In the upper left corner of my vision, the words"Magic Blueprint"were captioned. When I pushed it, a touchscreen keyboard as well as the following appeared.

Magic Blueprint: Create various grimoires out of certain materials.

I don't really understand what that fully entails, but it seems I can create a grimoire using materials. And if I can obtain a grimoire, does that mean I can also obtain magic? Well, I can further that thought later on.

In regard to the other three gifts—.

Gift: Supernatural powers that stack with other skills. Analyze Environment: Grasp everything within a 3 km distance. Infinite Storage Box: Infinite Storage. Time is stopped inside. Warp Point: Once a place has been recorded, you can teleport back regardless of distance.

I thought about testing Analyze Environment, after which a simple map of my surroundings appeared. These red markers are probably living things. I touched the closest marker my hypothesis when a vivid scene not unlike something shown on a video camera appeared.

There, transparent blue squishy fluids were bouncing around.

"Slimes, huh," I said.

Now that I look closer, they were quite expressive.

Still, this is convenient.

Then, I returned to the map earlier. It seems that I can only use the video camera feature within a 3 km radius.

Fortunately, a bit north of the cliff that I woke up under lay a village. I'll see if I can gather info there.

Next is the item box.

Shouting, "Item Box!" made a blank space appear before my eyes. As a test, I grabbed a stone and commanded, "Store." The text『A small stone on the riverbed』was then appended. This feature is also just like a game, and it'll be extremely useful from here on out.

Now then, I'll rest for a bit until my body and clothes dry. I stored all the gravel from the riverbed into the item box and created a bed of sand, after which I promptly plopped myself down.

...

......

.........

I had napped about two hours and my surroundings began to dim. Once night fell, I wanted to prepare to explore the forest as much as possible. It was about time to mix things up.

I stood up, grabbed my dry shirt and put it on.

My plans have gone a bit astray, but let's go to the village and gather info.

It's now Warp Point's time to shine.

When I opened the map with Analyze Environment, a village reflected back at me. As I thought, due to Analyze Environment's power, Warp Point considers me having set foot in every place within a 3 km radius. I could reach the village in just a single step, but in this world, teleportation is probably rare, so being seen might warrant a scream or two from onlookers. If it came to that, I wouldn't be able to gather any more info.

For now, I'll teleport above the cliff and walk the rest of the way to the village. When I touched a point on the map, that point became red, and when I thought about teleporting there, a circle of light rose to my feet. Within the light, a myriad of red geometric patterns flickered in and out and ten seconds later, my field of vision warped, after which I was standing on top of the cliff.

I grinned. "This is convenient."

When I checked the map from Analyze Environment, several red markers were moving about. Looking closer, I saw what looked like villagers holding torches. They were shouting about and seemed to be searching for something.

The clothes they were wearing were remarkably shabbier than mine, which must mean that the owner of this body came from quite the well-off family.

In any case, right now I'm a child of seven or eight years of age. It doesn't look like I can wield a weapon, nor does it look like I'd be killed on the spot. Thus, it might be prudent to seek someone out.

I walked towards the villagers.

"There he is!" A bearded middle-aged man (in my past life I was around that age as well) shouted, raising his torch high.

At once, I was surrounded by the villagers.

Seeing that they weren't pointing their weapons at me, my bet probably paid off.

A girl in her early teens pushed her way through the villagers. As her knee-length blonde hair fluttered in the wind, she came up to embrace me and sighed, "Thank God, Grey."

In the background, a couple of voices broke out crying. In these kinds of situations, there's only one thing a kid can say.

"Sorry."

I carefully let out the word I had long left behind