The Birth of a Munchkin
One thing was crystal clear—he hadn't gone back to the past. And if this was around the same time as his death, that didn't seem right either. If it wasn't the past and it wasn't the present, then there was only one answer.
"........Reincarnated into the future?"
Judging by the unfamiliar scenery outside, it hadn't been just ten or twenty years. At the very least, it felt like he'd been reborn more than fifty years after his death.
Calion stared blankly at the view beyond the window when someone suddenly opened the door and walked in, startling him into turning around.
"Dayman Calido....... No, wait. They said it wasn't Calidos anymore, right?"
It was a hospital nurse. But to Calion, who had only just reincarnated, the woman in front of him was a complete stranger.
"Hey. You there, kid."
The nurse frowned as she watched Calion limping toward her, waving his hand. Just moments ago, people from the Calidos family had stormed into the billing department and demanded that Dayman Calidos's treatment fees be cut off immediately, ordering her to kick the patient out as soon as possible. Since the hospital itself belonged to the Calidos family, the staff couldn't help but know their dirty laundry. And the most infamous piece of that laundry was the man right in front of her—Dayman Calidos, the family's notorious delinquent.
"If you haven't paid any additional fees, you'll have to leave by tomorrow, Dayman......... sir."
Normally she would have addressed him respectfully as "Young Master Dayman," but the nurse deliberately used the plain "sir" with a faint, gleeful smile. After all the chaos this bastard had caused—getting into accidents and raising hell in the hospital—she saw no reason to show courtesy to someone the family had already disowned.
She glanced at Dayman. If he started causing a scene over the lack of honorifics, she was ready to call the staff and throw him out today. Nobody in the hospital liked this piece of shit anyway.
But Dayman didn't cause a scene.
"Kid. What year is it in the solar calendar? From the writing outside the window, this is the Magic Empire, right?"
The sudden shift into an archaic, old-man speech pattern was not part of the nurse's scenario. She stared at him blankly, wondering if the delinquent had finally lost his mind.
".......It's 2323. And yes, this is the Magic Empire."
"2323? W-wait a second!! Really?"
The last date he'd confirmed before the final campaign against the Demon King had been 2250. It was a date he could never forget, burned into his mind.
"Seventy-three years.......... Seventy-three years have passed!!!"
The nurse's expression grew even more disgusted as she watched the man mutter in shock and collapse onto the floor. This lunatic had gotten into a motorcycle accident and now his brain was clearly broken. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew dealing with this human trash any longer would bring nothing good.
In a cold, businesslike tone, she delivered her ultimatum.
"If the treatment fees aren't paid, you'll be forcibly discharged tomorrow. Just so you're aware."
"H-hey, kid!! Wait a second, kid!!!! Aigoo!!"
With his limbs broken, Calion couldn't move properly and ended up flailing on the floor. The nurse ignored him completely and left the room.
Calion struggled back onto the bed.
"So this body's name is Dayman, huh. Seventy-three years have passed. Humanity......... seems to have flourished."
The Demon King was probably still hiding somewhere, gathering strength, but with how much stronger the world had become, even if he returned, things wouldn't go as easily as before.
"Damn it all. There's so much I need to figure out, but this body's a mess......."
With a sigh, Calion examined his own body. He could tell his limbs were broken from some kind of heavy impact. As the saying went, even a thousand-mile journey began with a single step. First, he needed to accurately assess his physical condition.
Calion focused his mind and began to extend his consciousness throughout the surrounding area. The hero's party and the mainstream magic community had called him a heretic, a mad mage, but even they couldn't deny one fact: Calion was a genius among geniuses. A soul blessed with divine intellect—that was the title given to him by the handful of mages in the Magic Tower who had defended him.
His transcendent computational ability, situational judgment, intuition, and memory had fortunately remained intact even after reincarnation.
Calion's mind instantly seized control of the mana throughout the entire hospital room. That lofty consciousness soon turned inward, examining the body he now possessed—Dayman's body—to diagnose exactly how and to what extent it was damaged.
".......This, this is.......... Hold on!!!!!!"
But what his observation revealed far exceeded his imagination, and Calion's eyes widened.
"What the hell......... What the hell is this body!!!!!"
A mad grin—the same one that had earned him the title of Mad Mage—spread across his lips.
"What kind of......... naturally blessed body is this!!!!"
His entire skeletal structure was solid and perfectly aligned. His blood vessels and magic circuits were more intricate and majestic than anything he'd ever seen. It was a body blessed with innate martial talent—the kind that would make the eastern warriors of the Night Crow Order weep with envy.
But the shock didn't end there.
"Mana........... The amount of mana he was born with!!!!!!"
The mana activity within his cells was at a transcendent level. He'd met countless powerhouses while hunting the Demon King, but he'd never seen anyone born with this much mana. Compared to his own body—which had possessed divine intellect but pitifully weak bloodlines, magic circuits, and mana—this was truly a body blessed by the gods.
After staring at his body for a long time, Calion opened his eyes and gaped blankly.
".........Why the hell wasn't someone with a body like this already a Grand Mage? No, he wouldn't even need to become a Grand Mage. A body like this could have mastered martial arts and founded its own school."
He couldn't understand it. Why was someone with this kind of body being treated like an idiot, getting yelled at, and looked down on instead of being revered?
Shaking his head in confusion, Calion's eyes landed on a full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room. His reflection as he lay on the bed came into view, and the moment he saw it, he understood.
"Ah........"
Tanned skin. Earrings dangling from both ears. A flashy gold necklace and bleached blonde hair that looked like it had been dipped in molten gold. Put it all together and the image was the very picture of a textbook delinquent.
"........He wasn't very bright, was he, this guy."
Even from the tacky accessories and clothes, it was obvious how flashy and pretentious his life had been. The intelligence level of someone like this was easy to guess without even looking. To waste a body blessed by the gods on such a pathetic existence—it was a waste beyond words, especially to Calion, who had possessed divine intellect but been held back by his own body's limitations.
"You moron!! I'll make proper use of your body from now on!!!"
Calion shouted angrily. He had to leave tomorrow anyway. Before that, he needed to heal his body.
"A wand or staff would be convenient, but........ doesn't look like I have one. Damn it."
If he could use magic, healing his body would be simple, but without one, there was no choice.
"I'll have to use the eastern method."
The eastern Jin Dragon Empire and the western Magic Empire had been bitter enemies for ages, but the unprecedented threat of the Demon King had forced them into an alliance. Thanks to that era, Calion—an easterner by origin—had many opportunities to study and learn eastern martial arts up close. By absorbing those techniques, he had created his own unique martial art. A simplified internal energy cultivation method designed for mages. He called it Mana Art.
Compared to traditional eastern martial arts, it was quite crude and simplified, but it would be more than enough to heal his broken limbs.
"Huuup!"
Calion closed his eyes and drew in a breath. The vast mana within his body began to move according to his will. Slowly, he guided it toward his lower dantian. With almost no impurities in his blood vessels, even a simple circulation caused the mana to condense easily and flow into the dantian.
"Truly a body blessed by the gods."
What about his own body? It hadn't been blessed—it had been cursed. He'd had few magic circuits essential for manifesting magic, his innate mana had been pathetic, and his blood vessels had been clogged with impurities, making it difficult to properly utilize martial arts. To Calion, this body was a true monster.
A mad grin slowly spread across his lips. It was fascinating. Exciting. With his intellect and this body......... what kind of monster would be born?
In less than ten minutes, all the mana in his body had obediently flowed through his refined meridians and gathered in his lower dantian. Seeing the massive, dragon-like energy coiled there, Calion's smile deepened even further.
"Now this......... to the middle dantian."
He circulated the mana along his meridians. A path connecting the dantian and the heart was opened. Calion began carefully forming circles in his heart. And once again, he was shocked.
"One, two, three, four........ W-wait. How many is this going to go up to?"
Circles formed in his heart far too easily. In an instant, they surpassed nine, then eleven, twelve......... and finally reached thirteen. The theoretical maximum number a human heart could possess.
"Thirteen circles?"
How many had he managed? Right. After nearly forty years of grueling training, he'd barely reached eight circles.
The immense mana in his lower dantian. The thirteen spinning mana circles engraved in his heart. But it still wasn't over.
He connected his heart and head once more. With his innate intellect, the mana linking to his brain quickly layered itself. Nine classes formed in an instant. Using that foundation, Calion began circulating mana through the meridians in his limbs as well. With a cracking sound, his broken limbs realigned themselves.
This body was truly monstrous. Once the Mana Art was complete, he performed a full circulation through all his meridians. Something surged up from his throat.
"Blergh!!"
When he spat it out, a fingernail-sized lump of impurities lay on the floor. That was the total amount of impurities from his entire body's meridians.
Calion casually tore off the casts on his limbs and stood up, examining his body. An amount of mana that would make eastern warriors weep with envy—at least fifty years' worth of cultivation. Magic circuits so blessed that simply circulating mana through his heart instantly created thirteen rings. And his own intellect.
"Heh heh heh. This fucking......"
The Demon King didn't scare him anymore. He'd spent his whole life cursing the gods, but this time, he felt like he should thank them. He'd cast a gamble of an ancient spell, and perhaps because they'd pitied his lifelong struggle, they'd granted him this monstrous body.
"Just wait, Demon King bastard. This body will tear you apart........"
His muttering was cut off by a strange ringing sound. An unfamiliar melody blared from somewhere. It was coming from his pocket. Calion rummaged through it and easily pulled out a strange rectangular artifact that was glowing.
"........W-what the hell is this thing?"
He was far too much of an old-timer to understand the concept of a smartphone.