The Runaway Serf, the Mercenary, and the Mage
Regression. Possession. Reincarnation.
The methods differ, the causes differ, yet the three share one common truth: each, in its own way, grants a second life—a fresh chance.
But Garam had never once wished for any of them.
There was no grand reason. He simply disliked the idea of some supernatural force meddling in his life, twisting it this way and that.
If he had to name something he might want, it would be the ability to use magic or a superpower of some kind.
Even that, though, he refused if it came from the very supernatural interference he already resented. As he kept saying, the mere notion of something—willing or not—interfering in his existence simply did not sit well with him.
Then, of all the rotten luck, just when the pandemic finally eased and he planned a trip to the neighboring country, the plane crashed. And of course Garam was on board.
He blacked out… and woke up reincarnated. Who could have guessed he would be reborn into a fantasy world that looked roughly medieval?
Worse still, Garam—now Karem—did not even receive the golden spoon that usually came free with every reincarnation package.
He had been born a dirt-poor serf in Moston Village, a backwater hamlet in the Seophon Kingdom.
And the string of misfortunes continued: no magic, no aura, no status window, nothing of the sort.
Karem was not particularly disappointed. The latter two were one thing, but magic usually required a master unless you were a once-in-a-generation genius—standard cliché—so an opportunity might still come later.
Something far more serious awaited him, however.
Being born a serf he could swallow, if he had to. But the parents of this life—no, the man and woman who had sired him—made comparison with his previous parents feel like a sin even to imagine.
In Karem’s judgment, those two were not human beings at all.
The father was a drug-addled, gambling-addicted domestic abuser—a triple threat of pure nightmare. The mother was the village’s premier gold-digger and thief, throwing herself at every man regardless of age. The sole silver lining was that neither drank; yet even that could not console him when faced with such a deranged combination.
They had not even bothered to name their own child!
The name Karem was one he had coined himself, twisting his previous name, Garam.
And beyond the miserable serf lot he had already resigned himself to, there remained one thing he absolutely could not tolerate.
“How the hell is anyone supposed to live on this shit?”
Twelve-plus hours of labor a day, and the only meal tossed at him was a single bowl of grain porridge with a few scraps of vegetable mixed in. That crossed every line imaginable.
So Karem spent days twisting himself into knots, preparing meticulously, watching for the perfect moment. When a monster pack finally raided the village, he seized the chaos and fled Moston Village, the only home he had known in this life.
Whether luck favored him or not was hard to say, but three days later he stumbled upon mercenaries.
More precisely, people who had been mercenaries.
Hidden in the underbrush at the edge of the forest, Karem watched the busy movements of the only two survivors he could see amid the human corpses and wreckage of wagons.
“Hah, goddamn it. I step away for a quick scout and come back to this? What kind of rotten luck is this?”
“We should still check for any other survivors, just in case.”
“What—survivors, Mage? After looking at this mess?”
The older man who grumbled the entire time wore an expensive-looking brigandine—leather armor reinforced with iron plates—and carried several daggers and a longsword at his waist. Anyone could tell he was a high-priced mercenary.
The other voice belonged to someone in a cloak: light, delicate, unmistakably feminine. The cloak hid her features, yet beneath the shabby fabric peeked high-quality leather trousers and a vest that could only be silk, along with a long cascade of golden hair. Combined with that slender voice, she seemed an underage girl of noble birth or something close to it.
For a second Karem thought their eyes met, but it must have been his imagination; the girl simply prodded the sprawled corpses with a wooden stick.
Honestly, Karem had no plan. No thoughts either. The food he had prepared back in the village was almost gone. So far he had managed to travel unharmed, but the world was nowhere near safe enough for a ten-year-old runaway serf to wander freely.
Dead one way or dead another—same difference.
Karem raised both hands high, sprang up from the brush, and walked toward the pair surveying the massacre site.
The moment he rose, the older mercenary drew his sword; the girl thrust out a hand and stopped him.
“Jesus, nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Enough. He’s clearly just a kid.”
“Mage, that kind of carelessness will get you killed. Women, children, and old men—those are the ones you watch most carefully. Don’t you know that?”
“I know. I know it better than anyone. Still, he looks like nothing more than a child.”
“Hey! If you’re not going to kill me on the spot, let’s talk first!”
Karem halted at a safe distance and shouted. The two, who had been about to argue further, turned their eyes on him.
The mercenary sheathed his blade under the girl’s gaze, though he still rested a hand on the hilt, ready.
“Fine, brat. Say something. First—why did you approach us?”
“Well… I’ll be honest. Before that, can I lower my arms?”
“Arms down is fine. Just don’t come any closer.”
Karem immediately dropped his arms, which had already begun to tingle. Having asked permission, he felt no hesitation.
The mercenary never fully dropped his guard, yet as Karem explained his situation the wariness gradually eased. No ordinary serf child of that age would display such initiative. What serf anywhere decided the treatment and food were so bad he would simply walk out of a safe village?
It should have been suspicious, but the mercenary was different. Karem’s story differed only in motive from the day he himself—once a serf—had fled his own village.
“—So about ten days later the food ran out and I figured it was all or nothing. Looked like you could use an extra pair of hands for cleanup, even a kid’s.”
After hearing the whole escape tale and the reason for approaching, the mercenary closed his mouth, then nodded with solemn gravity.
“All right, kid. Name and age—?”
“Yes, I truly understand that feeling.”
“Huh?”
“—are what? Hey, mercenary!”
“Parents worse than goblins, a village headman who only knew how to discriminate, a greedy priest on top of it… You’re young, but you can already think about your future properly. Admirable. It’s like looking at my own past.”
“Hey! Where’d all that caution go just now?!”
The girl kicked Gordon’s calf and yelled.
A moment ago he had been wary of the boy; now the fence was completely down. Even a woman’s heart, changeable as reeds in the wind, did not shift this fast.
Though the kick came from a girl’s strength, the brigandine-clad mercenary only laughed heartily and abandoned every last shred of caution. A faint goodwill now colored the way he looked at Karem.
“But Mage—”
“Some excuse, is it?”
“You already knew everything he said was true, didn’t you?”
Of course the girl had known Karem spoke the truth. And the mercenary had known she knew. He could have phrased it differently, and yes, he had been on guard at first.
Anyway, the kick to the calf had vented her irritation. She cleared her throat.
“Hmph. So you want to help with the work?”
“Yes. Even a ten-year-old’s pebble-sized hands look like they could be useful right now.”
Karem glanced around as he spoke, the tone of someone certain they needed his help. Both the mercenary and the girl nodded.
It was, after all, an obvious truth.
From where Karem stood, dozens of corpses littered the ground around the pair. Four wagons had been destroyed in every creative way possible; the horses that once pulled them were gone, leaving only blood-soaked hair and entrails soaking in crimson puddles.
Anyone seeing the scene for the first time would have retched long before coming close.
“Hmm. Very well then, kid—Karem, was it?”
“Yes. Shall we start by moving the bodies?”
“No. The old man here will handle that.”
“Hey, Mage—‘old man’? Look at this fine specimen of Gordon. The real old one is—”
Old man? Could that commanding little girl actually be older than the middle-aged Gordon?
Her next reaction turned Karem’s suspicion into certainty.
“Silence!”
Bang! She kicked Gordon’s calf again.
“You start by tearing the wagon wreckage apart and piling it in one place. Luckily the attackers smashed everything thoroughly, so it should be easy.”
“Oh—by the way, what attacked them? Goblins?”
“Griffins.”
“What?”
The answer came from the other side. Gordon’s earlier laughter vanished; now he wore the weary face of a man who had taken every storm life could throw and let out a long sigh.
“A whole griffin family was behind the attack.”
“Enough. Let’s deal with the corpses before they turn undead.”
“I’ll fill you in on the details later. Dozens of bodies… hah.”
Gordon’s sigh was only natural.
Ordinary cargo, no matter how heavy, was at least straightforward and clean to move. Human bodies, even stiff with death, never shifted like cargo. And when those dozens of bodies had been ripped open, blood and flesh and entrails scattered everywhere—well, a sigh was the least you could expect.
“Haa… Let’s start clearing the bodies over there.”
“Understood, Mage. But isn’t there some useful magic for a situation like this?”
At Gordon’s grumbling, Karem looked up from the wagon fragments he had been about to gather.
He would be lying if he said he felt no anticipation. He knew this was a fantasy world, yet he had never once witnessed real magic. Was he finally about to see it?
“Of course such magic exists. Telekinesis, puppetry, things like that.”
“Oh, then why aren’t you using it? Go on, cast something.”
Snap!
As if the answer were too obvious to bother speaking, the girl flicked her fingers lightly.