Reincarnation
Poke! Poke!
"Hurry up and start already! What are you doing?!"
Having decided to stay still for the moment, Fortuna took her frustration out on Jun, who was simply sitting there doing nothing. Her reaction wasn't all that different from a teenage boy caught mid-act.
Jun had been just about to focus when the interruption hit, and he nearly snapped at her — but the dampness he felt against his head made him let it go. He knew exactly why she was acting this way.
In truth, he already knew the reason she occasionally slipped away. He knew why she would suddenly start trembling while kneading him. He knew the true nature of that moisture he sometimes felt. Whenever she felt something, he felt her emotions right along with her. There was no way he could have missed it.
He knew — and yet Jun never once brought it up. He didn't want to change the nature of their relationship. He was still young, and he had no desire to do anything of that sort with a girl the size of a small doll.
"Alright, alright. I got it."
So once again, as always, Jun played it cool and pretended he knew nothing at all.
Still, it was a genuine relief that only their emotions were shared. If their thoughts had been linked as well, Fortuna would have died of sheer mortification ages ago.
"Hoo..."
Jun let out a long breath, clearing away his stray thoughts and residual excitement. Then he closed his eyes and focused his mind.
His senses sharpened. Things he had been unconsciously tuning out began to register one by one — the fragrant scent of grass, the chirping of birds, the breath of the wind. And beneath it all, the abundant mana and the boundless expanse of space itself.
Jun pushed the former back out of his awareness and poured every scrap of his concentration into the latter. His body grew strangely heavy. Breathing became a little uncomfortable. Before he knew it, he had become a single electric eel — the mana he felt was the water of a lake, and the space he felt was the lake itself, his own domain.
With half-lidded eyes, Jun looked down at his hands. Unlike his friend in that other lake, his own hands held nothing. That didn't sit well with him. So he murmured softly:
Pocket Plane
A low hum — and in the blink of an eye, something black appeared as if it had always been there. At a glance it looked like a sphere, but a closer look revealed it to be a three-dimensional vortex. Like a black hole, it was condensed space — a dimension unto itself. Still young and small, yet with limitless room to grow.
Jun cradled it carefully and activated the Magic Core nestled at the center of his chest. The core thrummed, drawing in the surrounding mana, then expelled it outward through internal circulation as mana dyed in Jun's own color — magical power.
He guided the expelled magical power and poured it into the Pocket Plane — also known as his subspace. The subspace spun faster, gradually swallowing the surrounding space. Jun kept feeding it until his Magic Core finally hit overheat, and only then did he stop the infusion.
"Ugh..."
A stabbing pain pulsed through his Magic Core, and Jun's face twisted into a grimace.
"Endure it, Jun. Growth always comes with pain."
"Yeah. Suffer now, and the future will be easier."
At Fortuna's words of comfort, Jun pictured a happy future and forced his expression to relax. According to her, if you overworked your core like this during childhood — when a human's life force and regenerative power were at their peak — you ended up with a core whose conversion rate, output, and durability put everyone else's to shame. Given the enormous cost of spatial magic, this kind of training wasn't optional. It was essential. And if he had to do it anyway, better to do it with a smile. Though of course, hard and painful was still hard and painful.
"For, comfort me a little more."
"...Haaah. Fine, fine. You did well. Our little Juni — just a bit more hardship, okay? For the sake of our happy life together. Got it?"
When Jun started acting spoiled, Fortuna sighed as if she couldn't win — yet she gently stroked his head and soothed him all the same. It was a world apart from how she'd been right after his reincarnation. Back then, she wouldn't even show him her back, let alone her face. But as time passed and they came to know each other, they had grown into this affectionate bond.
He didn't know how she saw him, but at the very least, he thought of her as family. Did she think of him the same way? He hoped so. No — she definitely did. She wouldn't do this otherwise.
Poke, poke. Soft and squishy.
There was no way she'd give him this kind of lewd little kneading if she didn't. Jun smirked and savored Fortuna's tender yet thoroughly indecent comfort. He was just about to drift off when—
"Jun!"
A voice called for him from far away.
"That voice..."
"It's Beanpole."
Jun gave a wry smile at the nickname Fortuna spat out, but he didn't bother correcting her. He knew it was her own brand of affection — even if the person in question wasn't particularly fond of it.
"You gonna wait for him to get here?"
"Nah. He's coming to pick me up anyway, so what's the point?"
Jun gathered the herb bundle and gear he'd tossed aside, stood up, and brushed the dirt from his pants. He offered a quick greeting to the electric eel still half-asleep with its eyes half-open, then set off toward the voice calling his name.
"Harry. Over here."
"Ah, Jun! F-Father said— hah! Hah!"
"He needs help and wants me to come, right? Got it — just catch your breath, buddy."
As he spoke, Jun handed over the water bottle he'd brought along with some bread. Beanpole Harry nodded and gulped the water down in big swallows.
"Jun! A merchant caravan just arrived in the village! I saw it on the way here — there was this huuuge bear pelt! I overheard that the hunters from the next village took it down as a group!"
"And get this — there were all kinds of sweets I've never seen before! Father gave me some pocket money, so let's buy some together!"
Once he'd caught his breath, Harry's eyes sparkled as he spilled everything he'd been dying to say. Jun smiled and played along with his chatter. Before long, their conversation carried them down out of the mountains and into Primuni Village — the hometown where they'd both been born and raised.
After greeting the guards at the village entrance, Jun pretended to dig through his pocket and instead slipped his hand into his subspace. From the money he'd earned through various odd jobs, he pulled out a small portion and pressed it into Harry's hand.
"Jun, what's this?"
"Even if Father gave you pocket money, you know how he is — he probably only handed over enough for a single piece of candy. Go on ahead and buy something good with this."
"But still..."
"Beanpole, don't feel bad — just take it when it's offered. In exchange, you have to find the tastiest sweets there. Got it?"
"...Okay!"
Convinced by Jun and Fortuna, Harry finally nodded. Once Jun confirmed that Harry was cradling the money carefully against his chest and dashing off toward the village square, he set off again — this time toward the church where the priest resided.
Arriving a short while later, Jun entered through the back door rather than the front. The front entrance was typically used by the faithful who worshipped Bright, the God of Light; orphans living at the church and the clergy themselves mostly used the rear. For reference, the village church doubled as an orphanage. The village itself had been founded for a special purpose, and the church was no different — support for orphans wasn't half bad. In some respects, it was even better than an ordinary household.
When Jun first learned that, Fortuna had hounded him about it for quite a while. She insisted that being placed in a church like this was entirely thanks to her luck, and she never missed a chance to crow about it. Considering she was the one who'd guided the priest to him right after his current life's parents abandoned him, he couldn't exactly deny it.
Knock, knock.
"Father, I'm here."
Arriving at the priest's office, Jun gave the door a light rap to announce himself. A hurried voice from inside told him to come in at once.
"Hey there, Boss."
"Looks like you're in quite a bind, Boss."
"Who are you calling Boss?!"
At Fortuna and Jun's banter, the Boss — no, Father Leonard — who had been fretting over a stack of documents, set the papers down and scowled hard. His already rough-hewn face grew even more terrifying. Who on earth would look at that face and think "priest"? The angular jaw, the scar cutting across his features, the massive muscular frame — he looked far more like the kind of man mountain bandits would kneel to and call "Boss."
"Haaah... I don't have the energy for jokes, so just check these for me, would you?"
At Leonard's urging, Jun sat in the chair across from him and roughly scanned the documents spread across the table. They were the village ledgers.
"Did the village chief embezzle from the public funds again, without a shred of fear?"
Fortuna asked, wearing an expression of pure disbelief. Leonard gave a bitter smile and nodded.
"I can't say for certain, but it seems that way. He withdrew public funds to purchase necessary supplies from the caravan, and the amount just... didn't sit right with me."
"Then it's embezzlement for sure. Your eye for this stuff is never wrong, Boss."
"Who knows. We'll have to check properly to be sure."
Leonard said as much and turned his gaze to Jun, who was carefully laying the ledgers out one by one in front of himself.
Alright. Let's get started.
After setting down the last document, Jun picked up a pen. He took a light breath, then activated the Psychic Core seated in his head. His thought-acceleration ability, which had been running at baseline, kicked into a higher gear. And he didn't stop there — he used a technique he'd developed while training his psychic powers. A skill.
Activation
Jun's eyes — which had been bright and sparkling in that childlike way — settled into a calm, composed stillness. With his cognitive ability pushed to the extreme, time for Jun alone began to flow at a blistering speed. Within that stretched moment, he diligently swept his gaze across the ledgers. Everything he saw remained in his mind as vividly as a photograph, and every calculation resolved instantly — as if he were running a calculator.
Before he could even blink, Jun had picked out every last one of the village chief's schemes from dozens of pages of ledgers.
"He sure went about it cleverly. How does someone this cunning end up getting driven out of Lemumni?"
"What else would it be? Just bad luck."
Hearing Leonard's answer, Fortuna looked at Jun and loftily tilted her chin — as if to say that if he didn't want the same fate, he'd better stay on her good side. Jun gave her a cold, flat look, then turned back to Leonard.
"This is the third time he's embezzled, right? At this point, he won't be able to dodge a serious punishment. So what exactly is so special about Lemumni that he'd risk something like this?"
"...It's that kind of place. Lemumni is."
Leonard smiled bitterly. Looking at that reaction, it seemed the rumors were true — that in the past, he had been a renowned ranker in Lemumni.