Elydes

Chapter 1

Sight, smell, touch and sound came back to him all at once. He couldn’t tell up from down, all his senses seemed to mesh together, only adding to the confusion in his head.

Right then a bright light overshadowed everything else. Before he could make out anything a wave of pain hit him in the chest. Breathing was painful.

He tried to ask what was happening but only managed a shrill cry. What was happening? Was he hurt? He remembered he had died. Did he end up in some kind of afterlife?

The pain rapidly receded after a few breaths, allowing him to see through the tears. However, the sight didn’t bring any good news. Huge blurry humanoid figures loomed over him. His thoughts immediately ran wild. He must have ended up in some kind of hell.

Realizing he was crying out loud he tried to regain his composure.

It’s all fine. Everything is going to be all right.

Before he was successful in either stopping his tears or calming his racing heart, one of the giants reached out with its slender arms.

The mysterious figure was undeterred by his yells and picked him up drawing him nearer to its mouth. Mat fought against his unresponsive body to move his arms in front of him to defend himself, but he wasn’t fast enough. His demise seemed inevitable; he was close enough to catch a glimpse of the entity's ivory teeth.

Too terrified to do anything he could only close his eyes and pray for a quick death. Soon he felt a wet feeling on his forehead, the figure was touching him with its mouth. Was it trying to determine if he tasted good enough?

“I taste horrible, leave me alone!” Mat unsuccessfully tried to speak, only producing unintelligible sounds.

After a few tense seconds of suspense, he felt a bit relieved. It seemed to have worked, no further attempts at eating him were made. He could hear three different voices speaking in a strange language, he didn’t know what they were saying. As long as they weren’t trying to eat him, there was a chance.

Maybe we can reach a deal.

Slowly opening his eyes, now free of tears, Mat noticed that the figure holding him was still showing its teeth and they looked suspiciously human.

Feeling something poke his face Mat realized his hands had finally decided to move.

You cowards! Where were you just now?

He didn’t stop to ponder about the futility of arguing with his own limbs, but he did notice they looked different from how he remembered them. His vision was blurry, but he was sure his hands weren’t that small and chubby the last time he looked at them.

Suspicion started to tug at him for attention. Stopping to think clearly for the first time during this ordeal, he replayed all the recent events in his mind, reinterpreting them in a new light. A new possibility began to take shape. All the pieces started to fit together like a puzzle.

Turning to the figure carefully holding him, he confirmed the entity looked human, probably female judging by the long wavy hair, and she was smiling.

Fuck!

She wasn’t a giant, he was the small one, really small, about as big as a baby.

I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but I think I got reincarnated…

* * *

A few hours and an embarrassing feeding session later, Mat was finally left alone to think in his crib. Even if a basket and a blanket would have probably been a more fitting description. He didn’t care, there was more than enough space for him and the blanket was soft and comfy.

The house—from what his poor eyesight could tell—looked like it belonged a few centuries in the past. No signs of anything that could indicate an industrial revolution, all items looked handcrafted.

As for the exact technological level, it was anyone’s guess. It could have ranged from ancient history to the Renaissance. Even though he liked reading about ancient and medieval times, he was no historian.

It’s probably better if I focus on the problems at hand.

Making flimsy conjectures from a few hours of evidence gathered through terrible eyesight didn’t seem a good investment of his time. Speaking of which, nobody mentioned how shit a baby’s vision was; everything was blurry and even colors were an undefined mesh. And let’s not mention how in novels he read every reincarnator was always calm and collected.

It seems I was reincarnated! Now let's begin phase one of my five-step plan for world domination!

Mat parodied the scene in his mind. What a load of bullshit. Getting reincarnated was a mess, you had no idea where you were, your senses sucked and your limbs had the same grace as those of a frog suffering from epilepsy that had been run over by a car.

His terrified reaction was completely normal and he wasn’t saying that to feel better about himself.

He was stuck in a fucking basket in a place surrounded by people he didn’t know, who spoke a language he didn’t understand. To top it all off he was completely and utterly alone. He missed his family and he missed his home.

Usually, when he felt lost and alone he would seek refuge in a book, but here he didn’t have anything. He would give an arm and a leg—on second thought let’s start with a finger—to have his copy of Lord of the Rings with its worn-out cover and tea stain. Or a bowl of ice cream, or ten.

Mat wanted to cry, but he couldn’t even do that since he would alert his new parents and getting comforted by people he had met a couple of hours earlier was the last thing he needed right now.

Calm down. Everything is going to be fine. You got a second chance at life, maybe this time you won’t even have a debilitating defect that will cause your early death. Ignore that you’ll never see anyone you ever knew before this day ever again. As they say ‘out with the old let’s go with the new’ or something like that.

Somehow his perfect reasoning wasn’t able to calm the rising panic in his chest, but this wasn’t the first panic attack he had.

Slowing his breathing, Mat focused on a simple physical sensation at a time: the soft blanket against his skin, the sound of chirping birds outside… He tried to anchor himself to reality and not lose himself in a spiral of negative thoughts.

All this would have been easier if he could recognize his body. Still, he kept at it, a delicious smell of cooked food was coming from another room—food he wouldn’t be able to eat.

Focus stupid brain, that’s not helping.

With a few more hiccups he managed to stop his mind from spiraling and decided to meditate to calm himself further and pass the time. It was no mystical technique, just a simple focusing on slow breathing and trying to banish any stray thought.

It was an exercise he had done a hundred times when panic or anxiety was about to overwhelm him.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exha—

Mat lost himself in his rhythmic breathing, taking comfort in the familiar action.

*Ding*

New skill learned! Meditation (lv1) - Consistent practice allows to reduce overwhelming emotions and enter a calm state of mind.

“…”

A black text on a semi-transparent white window was standing in front of him.

Mat stared at it blankly for a full minute and he would have continued for longer if the window didn’t dismiss itself.

Something that should have felt foreign felt quite familiar. He didn’t know if it was because he spent many years of his life staring at a computer screen or the fact it was written in English. It felt like a little piece of home, a few little words with many implications.

Worried it was all just some hallucination Mat tried to resummon the window, yelling in his mind any keyword he could think of, since speaking was out of the question.

System! Status! Menu! Skills! Stats… Show me something dammit! Why isn’t it working?

It couldn’t be an hallucination, he had looked at it for a full minute or more. What was he doing wrong? He had tried every possibility he had ever read in stories.

Wait!

Maybe that was exactly the problem, he wasn’t on 21st-century Earth anymore. Most of those terms were linked to the post-internet world. What would be the easiest and most intuitive way to see your status or your skills?

Well… that seems almost too obvious, but let’s try.

• Name: Matthew James Reece
• Race: Human
• Profession: None

Body Stats

• Strength: 1
• Dexterity: 1
• Constitution: 2
• Mind: 5
• Spirit: 6
• Perception: 3

Skills (1/7):

• Meditation (lv1)

It was so obvious. If you wanted to see your status you only had to think about it. It required a purposeful focus on the idea of yourself and a desire to know, it didn’t just appear with any stray thought.

After getting reincarnated a game-like interface somehow didn’t feel that weird.

Looking at his stats he wasn’t particularly surprised, his strength and dexterity at 1 were probably normal for a baby, same for constitution and perception. As for mind and spirit, he wasn’t exactly surprised, it was obvious they were related to his mental faculties, exactly how he had yet to determine.

He had the body of a baby, undeveloped brain included. How he could think so clearly was a mystery. Maybe his reincarnation forced his brain to develop faster or his soul had something to do with it—he concluded something akin to a soul had to exist since he reincarnated.

If it’s the second option, then when my brain develops will I become smarter than before?

Mat couldn’t help but wonder with starry eyes. Who had never been guilty of wishing to be born smarter? Sooner or later, everyone had to come to terms with the fact they probably weren’t some unappreciated genius, but only one of many, maybe a bit above average. There were always people more intelligent and talented.

Maybe in this life, he would wait until fifth grade to find someone smarter than him. A baby could hope.

For now, all he had were speculations and wishes. His status didn’t tell him much, it didn’t even explain what each stat meant, some of them were obvious, but not all of them. He was left with more questions than before.

Realizing he was getting sidetracked, he resummoned his status that had once again dismissed itself. Even if it didn’t tell much, it did have some important info: first, his race ‘Human’ was in the same red color as his skill. It had to mean something, but he had no idea what. Second, he could only have seven skills, hopefully, he could increase that or at least switch his skills for new ones.

Finally, and most exciting - the profession. He wasn’t 100% sure, but it sounded a lot like a D&D class. Surely it wasn’t just there to indicate what he did for work or something. It had to be better than that or he would be more disappointed than a kid that got his presents stolen from under the Christmas tree. He was going to become a wizard and fly in the sky and that was a fact.

Mat prayed to any god willing to listen to not break his heart a second time, even if metaphorically.

This new world felt a bit less scary.

Getting to know his new family and exploring a completely foreign world felt more appealing. There were many mysteries to uncover and things to learn. He couldn’t wait to get some answers, he had to learn the new language as soon as possible. He needed answers.

It seems it’s time to start my five-step plan to conquer this world! Muahahahahaha!

Mat imagined his acute cries were deep villainous laughter.

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