The Childhood Friend Clause

Live long enough, and a truck can always find you. That was simply how a human life went, wasn't it?

At any rate, my brief previous life was over. I hadn't felt a thing in the instant the breath left me, so perhaps it even counted as a good death.

As for the family I'd left behind... I couldn't say. Honestly, they were the sort who would have waved it off with a well, we can always have another and lost no sleep over it. Even so, I wasn't especially put out. If anything, I was brimming with anticipation, convinced that whatever came next was going to turn out rather well.

"I will confirm the conditions one final time."

"Yes."

This place, I supposed, was what you would call the Afterlife Reincarnation Center. I sat across from a figure I could only take for an Afterlife Official, going over the shape of the life to come.

"If I could, I'd like to add a few more conditions..."

"Further changes or additions are impossible. With your Reincarnation Points, this is the limit. Retaining the memories of the life you have just lived consumes a particularly large number of points. In truth, even attaching this many additional conditions while choosing to keep one's memories is difficult ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on an ordinary score."

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had already told me the finer specifications were out of reach. A specific talent on the order of a once-in-a-century genius, well past merely getting by. The son of an extremely wealthy, harmonious, silver-spoon house. A genuinely busty, beautiful girl of a childhood friend who adored me. Details like those were not on offer.

From what I'd heard, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠adjusting things down to that level required either an extraordinary store of good karma from a past life or, failing that, having been unjustly tangled in someone else's evil karma, lived a life of utter misery, and died like a dog. Which of the two was I? The thought did cross my mind, but I reached the conclusion almost at once that turning it over now would only waste time.

"If you wish, it is still possible, even now, to remove the memory-retention condition and raise the others in its place."

"No. Let's just go with this."

Throwing away every memory I had just to upgrade the rest was even less acceptable. A happy life was all the more dramatic when set against a miserable one that came before, wasn't it?

"Understood. Every condition you have designated will be fulfilled, and the remaining elements will be determined at random. In the process, interference with the Reincarnation Points and karma of others may also occur."

"What does that last part mean?"

"It means that just as your voluntary adjustment of the conditions of your next life may affect the lives of others, other people may do the same in the course of their own adjustments."

"Ah."

Fair enough. Was a life in which I alone enjoyed thoroughly advantageous terms really a life at all? It would just be a game of living, played with god mode, no cooldowns, and collision turned off. Then again, thought of that way, a pleasant little life-game like that didn't sound half bad either.

"This concludes the afterlife interview. Lastly, please bear in mind that the karma you accumulate in your new life will affect the life that follows."

"Wait a moment. So what happens if someone piled up an enormous amount of evil karma in their past life?"

"They are left with no elements whatsoever that they may choose, and are compelled to begin a new life under extremely unreasonable conditions."

"Then once you've wrecked things, you'd keep making a mess of it out of pure resentment, wouldn't you? Don't the conditions just get worse with every reincarnation?"

"To prevent precisely that, their memories are forcibly erased."

Memory was what made up a personality in the first place, so it might as well have been a personality reset. At a glance it sounded like a terrifying sentence passed on the wicked, but if you sat with it, it was also a way of giving even the worst villains under heaven a chance to come to their senses and live decently.

And so my second playthrough began. Or rather, a life whose true number I would never know.

Seven years had slipped by since the new life started. By the measure of the old one, this would have been about the age when I entered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠elementary school.

The conditions I had demanded of the Afterlife Official had, for the most part, come true exactly as stated. I had been born the only son of a well-off landlord family in a fantasy world. My parents were devoted to each other, and their affection for their child was intense enough to be almost burdensome. Because of that, from the moment I was born right up to the present, I had spent my time quite contentedly. There was none of the advanced science of modern civilization here, and even so my satisfaction with life was beyond any comparison with before.

"You'll be home before the sun goes down, yes?"

"Don't worry. Even if I break an arm and a leg, I'll crawl back in time."

"Emil! How can you say such a thing? What if something truly awful happens to you?"

I had only meant it as a joke, but Mother startled and seized my shoulders hard.

A child's proper business, after all, was to go tearing joyfully through hill and grass. From around the time I could walk on two feet, I had gone out every day and wandered wherever I pleased, and so, though I was only seven, heading off alone to the low mountain near the house and coming back again was perfectly all right.

"Why browbeat the boy like that? He's easygoing, just as a man ought to be, and I like it. Besides, a child breaks a limb or two while growing up. That's how it is."

"You mustn't encourage him too!"

I was in the middle of that little tug-of-war with Mother when Father, who happened to be out on the second-floor balcony, put in a word of his own. There was the charming complication that Mother's anger gauge climbed even higher, but the aggro had shifted cleanly onto Father, so it was all the same to me.

Or... had he provoked her on purpose? The thought struck me, and I met his eyes. Sure enough, he looked down at me and winked.

Thank you, Father. I'll remember your sacrifice for about three days. I offered the thanks in silence, shook off Mother's hands, and bolted.

Life so far, this second time around, had felt roughly like that. A mother with a tendency to overprotect me, warm and tender all the same, and a former adventurer besides. A father who was an apothecary, selling potions brewed from the medicinal herbs that grew on land he owned.

There was, however, a condition that still had not been confirmed.

For one thing, I had yet to work out what my talent was. Thanks to the memories of my past life, I had found my tongue much earlier than other children, but that was less a talent than a side effect of having those memories carried over. On account of it, Father and Mother seemed convinced I was a prodigy the age had never seen, and had no doubt I would grow into someone extraordinary.

And there was one more thing — the condition that was, in a sense, the most important of all — that had not come true.

A childhood friend who liked me very much.

Forget childhood friends. Since being born into this world, I had barely even seen a child my own age. The house itself was a country home set in one corner of a private estate, and the estate was broad enough to hold a mountain and a lake of its own. If I wanted so much as a whiff of anyone outside the family, I had to ride out to the nearby city. At least Father's trade meant trips into town were fairly frequent.

Failing to discover my talent was understandable. There was still plenty in this world I hadn't tried. But not having made a single friend by now — wasn't that a rather serious problem?

Once I had even thrown my head back and shouted it.

"Haaaaah! O heavens! Why won't you send down the childhood friend you promised me!"

Sincerity moving heaven was a load of nonsense. Nothing happened at all.

And, well... I was still only seven. Even if I made a new friend this very moment, by the time I was grown they would still fall under the heading of childhood friend.

I climbed the mountain path for a good long while with that thought for company, swinging the famed sword Excalibur — a tree branch — that I had acquired on the way up, and boldly parting the brush as I went.

All sorts of beasts were said to live on the mountain, but according to Father, any predator that attacked people had been hunted to the last of its kind back in his ancestors' day. That was why I could roam so freely, and why he didn't have to worry about me dying or coming to harm. Nor was that all. The growth across the mountain was so rich that a few steps in any direction turned up something edible, and thanks to what Father had taught me, I knew nearly every plant in the area that was safe to eat. When a walk like this left my mouth with nothing to do, picking fruit from a likely tree or vine and eating it was one of the pleasures.

Before I knew it I had reached the mountainside, far enough that even a look back showed no sign of the house. Whichever way I turned, it was the same brush and the same trees. I wasn't worried about getting lost, of course. In this world, too, the sun rose and set in the same directions as in the last one, and the lay of the family estate was already fixed in my head.

"Hm-hmm—"

In short, everything in the area fell inside what I had expected. That was why I could wander about humming to myself.

"..."

But that was a grave mistake. The instant I pushed through the thick brush, I came face to face with something that soared far beyond anything I had anticipated.

"You. What are you?"

A child about my age, an old and tattered hood pulled up over their head, was eating the fruit of a tree.