Rebirth (2)
I stroked my chin with a tiny hand as I thought.
...Doesn't seem like points regenerate naturally.
Of course, only a few days had passed since I'd woken up, so the sample size was far too small to draw any hasty conclusions.
But points weren't just a number on a status window—they were a very real form of energy. When I focused my mind inward, I could sense their ebb and flow, and yet, as far as my perception could reach, I felt no change in my points with the passage of time.
Maybe the change is just too subtle for me to detect. But even so, that small an amount would be completely meaningless.
When I examined how many points each of my talents required to restore, every single one demanded a minimum of around 500 points. If my points regenerated at a rate of one per month, 500 months would come to... 41 years?
And that was the optimistic reading. Sitting around waiting for points to trickle back was simply a fool's errand.
There had to be another way. The most likely option, of course, was killing living things.
A classic trope if there ever was one.
But then what's with these starting points? Doesn't feel like a reincarnator perk or anything like that.
Question after question followed one another without end.
"Nothing I can do about it right now, I guess."
Still, with about 1,000 points on hand, I could save at least two talents if I needed to. Grinding away at unanswerable questions would only give me a headache, so I closed the status window and resumed my walk.
The room wasn't especially large, but the nanny had cleared away all the unnecessary cribs for my sake, leaving plenty of space for a small baby to pace around in.
"Whew..."
The simple act of walking in a straight line warmed my body, and soon sweat began to trickle. After walking for a while, even the baby's body was on the verge of muscle soreness. But with the mindset of a patient in rehabilitation, I whipped my trembling little legs onward, one step at a time.
The Enhanced Human talent was truly remarkable—it always delivered results beyond anything my efforts alone could achieve.
From a state where I could barely crawl, unable to even hold my own body up, it had taken just half a day to sit upright on my own. Two more days was enough to walk, albeit shakily.
All I'd contributed was the effort of moving my body, constantly and deliberately.
Maybe by tomorrow I'll even be running.
With results guaranteed, there was no reason not to endure a little pain. And so I kept circling the room in steady laps, wiping away the sweat as it threatened to drip into my eyes—until the nanny, who always brought my meals at the same hour, came to tend to me.
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Clang!
The spoon came down hard on the tray, and the harsh ring of metal jabbed at my ears. The tray itself had the sort of utilitarian design you'd expect from army mess gear—half of it still filled with a sickly green liquid.
"Ugh. Tastes awful..."
Once I'd grown a bit, the nanny had started giving me something other than baby formula. I'd been thrilled at first to escape that disgusting gruel, but it had been a grave miscalculation.
What she'd fetched from the mid-sized tank in the corner of the room was a sluggish, pale-green liquid. Half of it was closer to solid than fluid, and it tasted bad enough to make the baby formula seem delicious by comparison.
...At least fix the texture, if nothing else.
It felt like cold, congealed porridge run sloppily through a blender—truly, truly the worst. Then again, it probably did contain all the necessary nutrients.
The Enhanced Human talent could even unconsciously sense what nutrients my body was demanding.
"..."
When I stopped mid-spoonful, the nanny stared straight at me, pressing me in silence.
"Okay, okay! I'll eat it, I'll eat it. This is frustrating, you know—I can't even talk yet, so I'm just stuck muttering to myself. I'm going to lose my mind at this rate."
Not once since I'd come to my senses had the nanny ever made a sound. Whenever she needed to communicate, she simply nodded or shook her head, which drove me absolutely crazy.
I think her vocal cords are ruined.
Then again, how could they possibly be intact? It wasn't any single part of her that was damaged—the nanny's body bore unmistakable traces of long, long abandonment, even to me, a complete layman where machines were concerned.
Her face, which still clung to a few scraps of artificial skin, was in comparatively decent shape. Below it, however, something like bare bone showed through, making for a grotesque sight if there ever was one.
When I fished some cloth out of an unused crib and draped it over her like a makeshift set of clothes, she looked at least a little better.
And so, in circumstances like these, being a picky eater was the height of foolishness. I gulped down the revolting green lump masquerading as food, forcing it past the back of my throat.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Time slipped by quickly.
With no clocks, no distinction between night and day, it was hard to gauge the passing of the years. Counting the number of meals the nanny brought, I estimated roughly a year had gone by.
The memories of my past life were weathering away fast. By now, not a single thing about my old name, my family, remained certain to me.
Only one thought—the very last one I'd had before dying—still burned like a fire deep in my heart, carved there and impossible to erase: a life spent running on a hamster wheel was not a life. I wanted to live something meaningful.
"98... 99... 100!"
THUD!
I cut off my gloomy thoughts and slammed down the lump of scrap metal serving as my dumbbell. It had to weigh at least 20 kilos. A few odds and ends from the sloppily tied bundle bounced loose from the impact.
"This weight's too easy now. Wish I could make something heavier..."
Having to do a hundred reps with each hand just to break a sweat. For building strength, a heavier dumbbell would've been nice, but with no real equipment to work with, fashioning professional exercise gear in this place was impossible. Gathering up unused items and binding them with cord was the best I could manage.
Thankfully, most of the objects were metal, so matching the weight was fairly straightforward.
"Hup!"
I tidied up my makeshift equipment and stretched my body out long. My skin—pale from being deprived of sunlight, more or less by force—annoyed me to no end.
But my growth rate was one thing I was extremely pleased with.
In my past life's terms, I'd be around 160 centimeters? How tall am I planning to get?
I smiled contentedly, loosening the coiled muscles in my long, slender limbs—so different from before.
The Enhanced Human body had granted me a storm of growth in a single year. Absurd numbers no ordinary human infant could ever hope to reach. And it wasn't the soft, squishy body of a young child, either—it was packed and hardened with muscle, which made the strangeness even more pronounced.
Even back when I was a soldier, my body was never this good.
Maybe there was some gene that grew muscle from nothing but food. Despite doing nothing but half-hearted pseudo-workouts, my muscles had thickened steadily and surely.
"Ah, thank you."
While I was cooling down, the nanny came over with her usual green juice and handed it to me. Eating the exact same thing three meals a day, all year round, was enough to make me want to bite someone.
By now, though, I'd settled into thinking of it as just another supplement. I squeezed both eyes shut and swallowed down the viscous liquid.
Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.
"Ha! Still a taste I'll never get used to."
When I drained the cup in one go, the nanny gave my head a gentle pat as if to say well done.
As time passed, the bond between the nanny and me had grown closer, and this kind of casual contact had become constant. I'd grown tall enough to reach just past her chin now, so I had to duck my head a bit to be petted—but compared to the warmth of another's hand praising me, that was a price too small to matter.
Even if that other was a robot, not a human at all.
Chu.
The nanny, still stroking my head, pressed her lips to my forehead one last time.
The texture of that cold, rough artificial skin, long unpampered and unmaintained. Her lips pulled away almost as if embarrassed.
But even that much was enough for me to feel her affection.
I understood perfectly the feelings of that movie character who'd named his volleyball Wilson and talked to it.
"Heading to sleep?"
She nodded.
Having finished all the day's tasks, the nanny answered my question and began to move—very, very slowly.
Once a day, without fail, she went to a certain spot to rest. Probably charging some kind of power supply. The fact that faint light filtered in from somewhere meant that wherever this place was, power was definitely still flowing.
"Goodnight."
The nanny gave a small smile at my words, then closed her eyes.
By now, even the skin on her face had largely peeled away, leaving her looking stranger and more grotesque than ever. But to me, she was simply a familiar face—like a mother's—so it didn't bother me at all anymore.
"Damn it. She really is like a mom now, isn't she."
I let loose a string of complaints aimed at no one in particular and crouched down on the floor.
"Can't remember my past-life parents' faces anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. And if she's going to take care of me like this, shouldn't she at least get the honorary mom title?"
Call it rationalizing if you like, but the nanny wasn't like an ordinary android at all. She'd shown me something very close to genuine humanity.
The funniest time was when she dropped me by accident while lifting me up.
The sight of her flailing, stiff joints in total panic—priceless. She couldn't calm down until I'd bounced up and down in place to show her I was fine.
I smiled faintly at the memory.
Artificial intelligence? In a mere android that serves as a nanny?
So what? Who cared.
All that mattered was that she was like a mother to me.
"Which is why... it's time for an adventure."
One year living in a space of roughly forty square meters. There was still a decent store of food, and air was circulating in from somewhere, so suffocation wasn't a concern, but...
The nanny has reached her limit.
The vitality she poured into caring for me—as though fulfilling some final duty—was draining away at a frightening pace. Just today, she'd even stumbled simply walking toward me. The severity of the situation went without saying.
On top of that, her charging "sleep" grew longer and longer each day. I worried she might one day simply never wake up.
My target was the thick door behind the sleeping nanny. The only variable that could shake the stagnant present.
It had a handle, which meant it was surely an ordinary door that swung open side to side. The sight of it had been so unusual that I'd tried to open it whenever I got the chance, only to be blocked time and again by the nanny's desperate opposition.
Overpowering her wouldn't have been difficult, but I hadn't wanted to do that, so I'd waited for the moment she fell asleep.
I pulled out a length of pipe, its end honed sharp during my attempts to break through. For emergencies, I also filled something like a canteen with green juice.
...I'll think about the talents a little longer.
Since I had no idea what might be waiting outside that door, thorough preparation was technically the smarter play. But a single reliable talent might serve me better than a handful of trivial ones, so I intended to hoard my points until a situation truly demanded them.
Becoming a points miser, am I?
My body was stronger now than I could ever have imagined in my past life, so I could handle most situations as they came.
I stepped over the sleeping nanny, gripped the door's handle, and pulled.
It was stiff, but thankfully not broken—a firm tug and the door began to give way.
Creeeak...
The creaking made me glance back, half-afraid the nanny would wake. All quiet.
A sudden chill ran up my spine, and for a moment I felt like an elementary school kid sneaking onto the computer behind his mom's back.
"Alright... let's do this."
I drew in a small breath. Carrying a trace of unease, and a hope for what lay ahead—
I slid the door open.