Chapter 1
Life’s not fair, is it? You see, I, well I wanted the pedophile to be dead. And you, dear reader, shall be cursed with the knowledge that this series exists until the day you die.
Anyways, a quick recap for those who skip prologues: our “hero” was kicked out of his parent’s house after skipping their funeral to beat it to cartoon kids getting molested. And after that, he gets hit by a truck driven by a sleeping driver. Oh yeah, he pushed some junior high kids out of the way, too. But not before describing how attractive he still thinks his childhood friend is. Despite not even seeing her in decades. That's about all for anything of importance.
Let’s get this chapter over with.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was dazzling light. It grew to encompass my entire field of vision, and I squinted in discomfort. Once my vision adjusted, I became aware of the blonde young lady gazing at me. She was one gorgeous girl—wait, no. She was definitely a woman. Who is she? I thought.
Not even a minute old and he's already hitting on his Mom.
Brown-haired and stubborn-looking? I ought to have reacted negatively the instant I saw this big oaf—but to my surprise, there was no feeling of ill will. His hair must have been dyed that color. Itwas a very fetching shade of brown.
I'm placing my bets on “his father likely reminds him of those darn dirty delinquents”.
The woman looked at me with a warm smile and spoke. Her words were oddly indistinct and difficult to make out, however. Was she even speaking Japanese? The man said something in reply, his face losing some of its tension. I likewise had no idea what he said. A third unintelligible voice joined the conversation, but I couldn’t see who was speaking. I tried getting up to figure out where I was and to ask these people who they were.
I'll give credit where it is due; at least the characters aren't conveniently speaking Japanese and he isn't able to pick up on what they're saying right away. It makes the world-building feel more believable.
And let me tell you, I may have been a shut-in, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how to talk to people
I don't know about that one.
The brown-haired man said something else, then suddenly leaned down and picked me up. This was absurd! I weighed over a hundred kilos. How could he lift me that easily? Maybe I’d lost some weight after being stuck in a coma for a few weeks? That was a pretty nasty accident I’d been in, after all. There was a good chance I hadn’t come out of it with all of my limbs.
That's a pretty funny thought to me, not gonna lie.
For the rest of the day, I dwelled on a single thought:
My life is going to be a living hell.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
If only that were the case.
Let’s jump ahead a month. Apparently, I’d been reborn. The reality of my situation had finally set in: I was a baby.I was finally able to confirm that after being picked up and having my head cradled so I could see my own body. But why did I
still have all of my memories of my prior life? Not that I was complaining, exactly, but who would imagine someone being reborn with all their memories— to say nothing of that wild delusion actually being true?
It might be redundant of me to say it at this point, but him retaining his memories is a lot worse in this context.
The two people I first saw when I came to must have been my parents. If I had to guess, I’d say they were in their early twenties. Clearly younger than I’d been in my past life, at any rate. My thirty-four-year-old self would have written them off as kids. I was jealous that they’d gotten to make a baby at that age. Early on, I’d realized that I wasn’t in Japan; the language was different, and my parents didn’t sport Japanese facial features. They also wore what appeared to be some form of old-timey clothing. I didn’t see anything that resembled home appliances; a woman in a maid outfit came by and cleaned with a rag.
I know it’s a cliche these days, but at least he goes over his first impressions of this new world and how it differentiates from Japan. It makes the “Isekai” label relevant (somewhat). I'm curious if the light novels will at least be consistent in this regard (we’ll find out sooner than later)
I had wished that I could go back and do everything over again, but being born to a family that was too poor to pay for utilities wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.
Suck it up you ungrateful brat. You could have been born to slave parents and already being prepped to spend an entire lifetime picking cotton for cat people.
Another half a year went by. After six months of listening to my parents conversing, I’d begun to pick up some of the language. My English grades had never been great, but I guess it’s true what they say about how sticking solely to your native tongue makes it harder to advance in your studies.
Not like you exactly have a choice but to learn while you have no obligations.
This is starting to get boring, so I’ll offer a quick summary so you guys don't get bored as well. He quickly learns that the maid isn't an aunt, just a maid. He also learns that they live out somewhere in the countryside, and are far from being broke hillbillies.
He also hates this country living, as evidenced here.
This place was way too pastoral. It grated on me, since I was used to the comforts of modern civilization. Here I was, having been reborn, practically dying to get my hands on a computer.
All I can say is, suffer more you degenerate.
Anyways, Rudeus learns to crawl and peeks out the window to see his new father training with a sword.
What in the world was he doing? He was old enough to know better than that. Was this the kind of person my dad was? Some sort of fantasy dweeb?
Who gave you the right to judge your father for swinging a sword out in the open? At least he doesn't jerk it to cartoon children as a hobby and has a real one.
Uh-oh. In my daze of astonishment, I started slipping from the chair. My underdeveloped hands grabbed the chair, but couldn’t support my weight—not with how top-heavy my head made me—and I fell. I hit the floor with a thud and immediately heard a cry of alarm. I saw my mother drop the load of laundry she was carrying, her face going pale as she brought her hand to her mouth.
It’s the litte things that give me sparks of joy upon seeing him get hurt. I hope it gets a lot worse when he's older.
So his mother does this:
She peered carefully at my head. The look on her face suggested that, injury or no, she was taking this pretty seriously. Finally, she rested her hand atop my head. “Just to be on the safe side…” she began. “Let this divine power be as satisfying nourishment, giving one who has lost their strength the strength to rise again—Healing!” What the heck? Was that this country’s version of kissing the boo-boo to make it all better?
The idea of a dorky parent doing this is pretty funny to me.
But as I thought that, my mother’s hand shone with a dim light, and the pain in my head was instantly gone.
Bwuh?
“There we go,” she said. “All better! You know, Mommy used to
be a pretty famous adventurer.” Her voice rang with pride
Oh look, an instance of “showing” and not “telling”.
So his father pokes his head through the window to ask whats going on, and his mother chides him for not paying attention. Despite the fact that his father was outside touching grass and wouldn't have been able to do much anyway. I’ll assume that people in this world have never heard of “baby proofing”.
And then this happens.
After that, my parents took me into the other room to put me to bed, then headed upstairs to make me a baby brother or sister. I could tell because I could hear the creaking and moaning coming from the second floor. I guess there was life outside the internet.
I like how the presence of magic is only secondary to his parents fucking.
In the wake of all that, I paid extra-close attention to the
conversations my parents had with one another and the help. In so doing, I noticed them using a lot of words I wasn’t familiar with. Most of these were the names of countries and regions and territories—all clearly proper nouns that I’d never heard before.
Cool, I guess.
I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but by this point, that could only mean one thing: I wasn’t on Earth anymore; I was in a different world. A world of swords and sorcery.
And it occurred to me: if I lived in this world, I could do all thosethings, too. After all, this was a place of high fantasy, one that didn’t obey the same rules of common sense as my past life. I could live as a typical person, doing the typical things for this world. Where I stumbled, I would get back up, dust myself off, and forged onward. My former self had died full of regret, died feeling frustrated at
his powerlessness and how he’d never accomplished anything. But now I knew all of my missteps. With all the knowledge and experience from my past life, I could finally do it.
I'm curious to know if this concept has played a role in any Japanese suicides in the last decade or so. Or weeb suicides in general.
That's it for the first chapter. I fell asleep early last night, while I was halfway done with this chapter.
