From the day, the robot came into this house my food only became better.
The robot or 'Axel' as I had named him, had the body shape very similar to human and it was quite similar to texla robot, except it had two visible cameras for eyes and otherwise no facial features. The color of its body was white with few black lines for aesthetic look and had logo of the company name on his left chest RD-X, Axel had done a pretty good job in cleaning the house and preparing meals from my perspective.
Although Ambra would constantly order Axel to prepare all kinds of dishes and treated Axel like her servant, but on the side-line it also prepared my food.
Not that I could eat any solid food yet, since my teeth had not grown yet. So all I could consume was liquid food.
I half expected, I would start drinking some formula milk but what I did not expect was a yellow liquid sloshing in the feeding bottle.
'Uh... that's safe right?'
The first time I took a taste, it tasted similar to corn soup.
'A bit weird and salty, but it's good,' I thought as I continued drinking it from the feeding bottle.
Whenever Ambra would leave the apartment, I would sleep or observe the empty room with me in the hallroom and Axel cleaning the place, and in the background was a children's show teaching rhythms.
A bit too early? I guessed. But maybe constantly hearing words was supposed to help babies get familiarized with the language.
Although I had to act like a baby. I didn't know how early a baby would familiarize and mimic the words. But I had another reason being that, since Axel was a robot and anyone could view its memory chip or Axel might transmit the user's data to the actual company, and someone checking the data might observe an abnormally smart kid. I don't know about those prodigious kids in other stories, but I didn't wanna paint a target on my back or the future me.
'I mean its better to act like kid now so even if others are somehow able to get their hands on Axel's memory card they won't find anything strange about my past. Better safe than sorry.'
On the other hand, living as a kid was unbelievably boring, having consciousness of an adult stuck in a baby's body was horrible. I couldn't do anything by myself, couldn't move or couldn't change that god forbidden children's show. 'That channel iS DRIVING. ME. CRAZY!'
Sometimes I would just repeat the future plots of the novel in my head, so I wouldn't forget and misremember something. I had all the time to constantly repeat them, after all.
***
The door opened as Ambra came home drunk, Axel approached her and carried her quickly to the couch and then picked me up and placed me in the basket.
It immediately went back to treating drunk Ambra. As she spoke some gibberish while being helped by Axel and was laid on the couch with the help of Axel. I decided that it was time for my nap as sleep was more preferable than her senseless ramblings and Axel would wake me up for dinner.
Days like this passed on as I slowly practiced making sounds and moved around, even though it was really hard to control my underdeveloped muscles. It almost felt like doing the last few reps of an exercise but just not being able to find the strength to complete them.
Due to my tendency to crawl on the floor, Axel had clothed me in warmer clothes which also included my hands and feet.
As 8 months passed by, I was now able to speak single syllables like ma-ma or da-da which was big achievement to me. Ambra did not care one bit when I called out to her 'ma-ma' for the first time, as all she did was look at me in her drunken state with a bit of irritation and shifted her attention back to the TV. Atleast I knew, she couldn't care less about me, which was a good thing. She wouldn't keep an eye on me, if I ever acted weird for a kid.
Even Axel did not have that big of a reaction although that was expected as it was a robot only following a predetermined set of instructions.
'Yeah, I guess she really couldn't care less about me. Although there is one issue I am facing and that my teeth are starting to come out and god damn, it hurts like hell.'
'None of the other reincarnation stories I read ever mentioned the pain of teething as a baby. Where is the realism? Where?'
Sometimes, I would even taste iron in my mouth as these baby teeth slowly push their way through my gums.
I had another achievement of that being able to walk, even though I needed the support of the couch or the walls. I had finally cracked the method to walking, which was the crowning achievement of the past month.
I crawled to the kitchen as Axel observed me, I came pretty close to the metal box that was the heater as I was stopped by Axel.
"Do not touch this. This is bad.", its voice that was indistinguishable from humans, if not for the slight monotone in its speech.
I stared at the turned off heater and looked back at Axel asking,
"Baa?"
"Yes, Bad. It becomes very hot, so do not touch this." ,it pointed towards the heater.
I looked back at the heater and then once again at Axel and lifted my arms up towards it, asking to be carried.
Axel complied and carried me back to my crib, I had to make noise and shimmy my body in its arm to get out. Observing my behavior, it carried me in front of the TV and turned it on, using a physical remote to change the channels to a children's show on the TV, as I let my mind wander somewhere else.
No matter how much I waited for this dream to end, for it all to be just some coma to wake up from, I couldn't deny it any longer.
I had been sent into my own novel, and no prayer would change it. All I could do now was plan for my unfortunate future.
'I can survive as a normal individual with no mana, but the best positions I could ever reach is that of an engineer in military. Of course that is only if, I have the resources to get a proper schooling, atleast they are the most safest position to get food during lockdown and be safe from bombings according to the things that will happen in future.'
'I mean the technology of this world is far better than my own world, so me being from a pretty advanced civilization doesn't mean shit in this world. Man, what I would do to get transmigrated into a medieval fantasy world.'
'And that is only if this world follows the storyline I had written, if the future starts to derail onto another path then I am fucked. Which I am very certain it would. Because why would a real world follow the plot from my novel, when there are real cause and effect.'
'He did say 'survive', but why survive? Maybe the aliens are so strong that they could take over... No, not possible unless they somehow kite The ORB to our side of the world, I don't see any possibility of them winning. They are not so strong that they can curb-stomp the technological gap so easily.'
The other issue was that even if I did chose to get infected, becoming a prana user was no easy task, just the survival rate of the disease is 20%. That was even if I did survive, it wouldn't particularly mean anything since I would be forced to conscript into army to fight off the invaders as an awakened human.
'Fucked if I do, fucked if I don't. I am literally stuck between a rock and hard place.'
'Okay, but the one thing I did know is that I was born in 2105, which was great.'
Why was this piece of information important? Well the protagonist of this story was also been born in this year. Which meant that I had 15 years before the shit hits the fan. Although that ass said he would give me a higher chance to survive the disease, finding that contagion illegally is nigh impossible as they are kept under very high security by the government of this world.
'There was only one legal way to get infected by that contagion, and that was through applying for recruitment.'
'Male and female of age ranging from 14 to 25 are allowed to get infected by the virus. Of course, at their own risk. They just had to sign a legal document acknowledging that they had chosen to get infected and would accept the risks that came with it.'
As I watched the children's show on the TV, I grabbed the remote and changed it back to a movie. As Axel was in the kitchen preparing dinner.
'Man, I made this world too hard to survive in, but a plus point is that this world is pretty much a futuristic version of my old world. Yeah, maybe it is a bit different with magic and all, but I bet there are sequels to movies that I have not watched. Of course not all movies would have survived up till this point but the most famous ones should still be there.'
'I mean the movie I am currently watching is Avatar 4, although this sequel is more focused on the humans being good and the aliens being bad. Damn the military propaganda, but other than that there are still sequels to famous shows and movies that would have taken years in my world.'
This was the only good point of this world.
As I was completely entranced by the movie.
'You know what? I am going to complete all the shows that I did not have the time or freedom to watch.'
Being a baby was not without its perks, it seemed.
---
AN: The old ch was posted on 2/1/2025