Where Am I? Who Is This?
Where am I? Who is this person?
When Choi Sunwoo drew his final breath and opened his eyes once more, an entirely new world greeted him. Born anew as a helpless infant, the only sound he could produce was a wail. He found himself cradled in the arms of a beautiful woman. Her clothing bore no resemblance to the modern garments of his previous life. Medieval? Early modern? Lacking any historical knowledge, his confusion only deepened.
“You are the eldest son of our Bilhark family.”
The man who introduced himself as Ransel Bilhark spoke with pride. Bilhark family? At the utterly unfamiliar name, the infant let out another cry. Just where was this place, and who was he? It would take a considerable amount of time for those questions to find answers.
By the time he turned two and had learned to walk rather well on his own, he met a girl one day. The name of the child—who, like him, could only babble—reached him through the adults around them.
Ariel Robeheim.
The moment he heard those seven simple syllables, something violent flashed through Edgar’s mind.
Ariel Robeheim?
It was a name he had heard in passing during his days as Choi Sunwoo. He remembered her as a character from a romance-fantasy novel. A supporting character, fated to meet an early death—an unfortunate soul. Though not the protagonist, she had been popular enough that even he had caught wind of her through hearsay.
Unfortunately, his tastes had never aligned with romance-fantasy novels, so it was merely a story he had never properly read. So why had he been dragged into this world?
It must be cursed.
Otherwise, something like this could never have happened. The possession routes in the web novels he used to read usually followed a pattern: you rage-comment on a story that had gone completely off the rails, and you get sucked into that world. Most of them never strayed far from that formula. So why had he ended up outside the mold?
There had been countless works he’d consumed before closing his eyes in his previous life—so many that listing them would take an all-nighter and still fall short. To sift through all of them and somehow land inside a novel whose contents he had never even touched… In a way, it was an impressively terrible stroke of luck.
Of all the worlds to end up in…
He had lived closer to the fruits of civilization than anyone. There was no chance he would rejoice at a world without smartphones, televisions, or computers. If it had at least been one of the novels he regularly followed, he might have treated it like an exciting trip. But to be thrown into a world he had zero interest in was simply adding insult to injury.
I’m grateful for the chance to start over after a meaningless life, but this is a bit much.
As Edgar, still trapped in the body of a two-year-old, wallowed in lamentation, Ariel suddenly reached out from her mother’s arms. She stretched with all her tiny might, but how long could a two-year-old’s arm possibly be? Still, the fact that her hand was clearly aimed at him made Edgar tilt his head.
What is this?
Was it some sense of kinship between fellow babies? He had no memory of being a two-year-old in his first life, and since this was his second go-around, he couldn’t possibly understand the perspective or thoughts of an actual infant. Naturally, he had no idea what Ariel’s gesture meant.
“Paa—!”
Is she asking me to grab her hand?
Still nestled in her mother’s embrace, Ariel waved her little fist with the fervor of a long-lost family reunion. It was so adorable he almost wanted to nibble her cheeks.
Here.
Even if his mind was that of an adult, his body was still only two years old. Despite stretching out with what he considered generous effort, he couldn’t quite reach her hand. He kicked his legs, desperate to crawl over, but his mother, Katria, pulled him back into her arms and ruined the attempt.
“Daa—!”
Edgar protested as vigorously as he could. Yet whether because of his immature vocal cords or some other reason, what he believed to be coherent speech emerged as the same mysterious babbling that came from Ariel.
“Now, now, that won’t do. It’s rude to the young lady.”
Ah.
He had assumed she pulled him back out of worry that he might escape her arms, but it seemed she was preventing contact because of the girl’s status. Only then did Edgar realize just how extraordinary the tiny girl before him—who couldn’t even speak properly yet—truly was.
They said she’s from a grand ducal house. It really is something else.
Unless the difference in status was extreme, parents wouldn’t rush to stop babies from playing together. Our family is a baronial house. The gap really is enormous.
He didn’t know the precise hierarchy of noble ranks, but he had heard that even the difference between a count and a baron was substantial. And the other party was the daughter of a grand ducal family—the highest station in the empire save for the sovereign himself. It looked like he would need to watch his behavior carefully from now on.
What if I accidentally hit her while we’re playing…? Ugh, I don’t even want to imagine it.
The moment he left so much as a scratch on her, his parents and three generations of his family might be wiped out. Perhaps even their extended relatives—nine generations—would vanish from the world in the blink of an eye.
The dizzying thought made Edgar shiver. He burrowed deeper into Katria’s embrace.
“Katria, don’t be like that. Let the children play. Wouldn’t it be nice if we mothers sat down, drank tea, and talked comfortably?”
Helene, the mistress of House Robeheim, who had been watching Edgar and her own daughter in turn, made the suggestion readily. Katria, anxious about the possibility of an accident, hesitated before carefully replying.
“But…”
“We can simply have the maids watch over them for a while. Children grow best when they spend time with other children, after all.”
“If that is what you wish… I understand.”
The Bilhark family were vassals sworn to House Robeheim—the classic lord-and-vassal relationship. Knowing that further protest would be an even greater breach of etiquette, Katria bowed her head and reluctantly set her son down on the carpet.
Mother, why are you throwing your only son into such a dangerous place?
As Katria set him down with eyes full of conflicting emotions and then departed, Edgar could only watch her retreating back like an abandoned puppy. The soft texture of the carpet beneath him felt like sitting on the edge of a guillotine.
And then Ariel was placed on the floor opposite him. The moment their eyes met, she cried “Paa—!” again and scrambled toward him on all fours with surprising determination.
She really is cute, though.
Even if she wasn’t the heroine, she certainly looked the part of a girl from a romance-fantasy novel. At only two years old, her features already stood out strikingly. To Edgar, they seemed even clearer and more defined than his own future face ever would.
Right. Let’s look on the bright side.
Since things had come to this, he might as well play with the grand duke’s daughter and earn some favor. Who knew? If Helene found his behavior endearing and mentioned it to her husband later, House Bilhark might receive some small benefit. After all, if you want to catch the enemy general, you must first shoot his horse.
“Daa!”
“Paa?”
What exactly interested babies? There were countless theories, but in Edgar’s opinion there was one clear, classic answer.
Shiny things are unbeatable.
Of course, as the daughter of a grand ducal house, she might have grown up surrounded by gold and jewels, but even then it would have been for less than a year. Besides, unfamiliar objects always drew more interest than things seen every day.
Edgar fumbled with the small pendant hanging around his neck and took it off. His father, Ransel, had given it to him shortly after his birth. He had heard it was imbued with special magic, but he knew nothing more than that. For now, it was simply a toy to soothe the precious princess.
“Daa, daa!”
“Paa!”
When he shook the pendant in the air as if to say come and get it, Ariel snatched it without hesitation. It seemed his idea had been correct. Edgar smiled with satisfaction and watched as she turned the pendant over in her hands.
The way she earnestly kneaded it with her tiny fingers looked exactly like a child playing with clay.
— Munch.
“Ppu, ppa…!”
“Daaah!?”
But the peaceful moment didn’t last. Ariel, who had been fiddling with the pendant’s cord, suddenly shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Edgar let out a panicked cry—whether it counted as babbling or not—and desperately grabbed the pendant with both hands.
“Daaaa!”
What followed was a fierce scolding. Though to a third party it probably looked more like a tantrum than a lecture, the shock to Ariel, who received it at point-blank range, seemed considerable. Her face froze as if time had stopped. Then her plump cheeks began to quiver.
Oh no.
Edgar instinctively sensed that he had made a terrible mistake. A hazy vision of what would happen three seconds later played before his eyes, and a single drop of cold sweat slid down his back.
Three seconds later—
“Paaaa—!”
Just as he had feared, Ariel began to wail at the top of her lungs as though the world itself were ending. At the heartbreaking cry, the maids standing nearby and the two mothers who had stepped away came rushing back.
This is the end.
Feeling that his second life—barely a year old—had already reached its conclusion, Edgar let go of the pendant. Unless the magic inside it could rewind time by a full minute, survival seemed impossible. As Helene’s face drew closer, his own grew deathly pale.