Ten years had passed since the mid-autumn when Jacob was born.
The farm had prospered under Arthur's steady hand. The local economy in Ruvka had seen an upturn, but Arthur was a cautious man. Instead of hiring more hands, he had trimmed the payroll. He wanted to maximize their savings, and he finally had the manpower within his own bloodline to do it.
Caleb was twelve now. He was growing tall and broad, already looking like he would surpass his father in height. He worked the fields alongside Arthur, handling chores that would tire a grown man, though Arthur was careful not to break the boy's back before he had fully grown.
Jacob was ten. He was smaller and quicker than his older brother. He had been helping since he was seven, starting with fetching water and carrying tools. Now, he was trusted with independent chores, though he was never allowed beyond yelling distance of the remaining hired hands.
Near the farmhouse porch, five-year-old Lila sat with May. As was the custom in Ruvka, daughters stayed close to their mothers, learning the domestic arts that kept the household running. Arthur rarely saw his daughter during the working hours, but he knew she was safe.
Jacob, however, was currently unsupervised and enjoying every second of it.
He skipped toward the chicken coop, humming a tune that had no name. The late autumn air was crisp, signaling that his eleventh birthday and the winter frosts were approaching quickly.
The chickens saw him coming. They knew the small, energetic human meant snacks. They gathered at the fence, clucking with anticipation. Jacob grinned at them. He liked the chickens. Their jerky head movements and wide, stupid eyes always made him laugh.
He spotted a treat near the compost pile. It was the rind of an orange watermelon, a sweet variety that grew well in the wet soil of Sinclair.
"Here you go, birdies," he mumbled, winding up to toss it.
He threw the rind. It sailed through the air.
Before it hit the ground, Jacob's world shattered.
It didn't start as a headache. It felt like an axe splitting his skull from the inside out.
His vision blurred into a kaleidoscope of gray and white. He fell to his knees, clutching his head, his small fingers digging into his scalp hard enough to draw blood.
"GHAAAAAAA!"
The scream tore out of his throat. It was too loud, too deep, and too filled with agony for a ten-year-old boy. The chickens scattered in a panic, squawking and flapping against the wire mesh.
Jacob vomited violently into the dirt. The pain was blinding. It was not just physical pain. It was the sensation of a dam breaking. A massive, pressurized ocean of information was trying to force its way through a aperture that was too small.
Data. Logistics. Soybeans. The white void. The Old Man.
"FUCK!" Jacob screamed, his voice cracking. "Why does this hurt so bad!"
The curse word hung in the air, alien and foul, coming from a child's mouth.
Usually, reincarnation was a gentle process. The memories were wiped, or they trickled in as dreams. But Jacob had not been wiped. His soul had been carrying a seed. For ten years, the name Oblitus Virtutis had been echoing in his subconscious, feeding his soul, making it dense and heavy.
Now, that heavy soul was crushing the biological limitations of his ten-year-old brain. It was a forced merger. The personality of the twenty-seven-year-old gamer was overwriting the child.
Jacob convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head. The pain threshold was crossed, and the darkness took him.
"I could use some help over here!"
Ellis, one of the remaining farmhands, was the first to reach the boy. He had heard the unearthly scream and dropped his shovel. When he arrived, Jacob was already unconscious, his small body seizing in the dirt.
"Help!" Ellis waved frantically toward the barn.
A second hand, a younger man named Tom, came running. He skidded to a halt, his face pale.
"Gods above," Tom breathed. "Is he breathing?"
"He's stopped shaking," Ellis said, his voice trembling. He scooped Jacob up. The boy was limp, a dead weight in his arms. "Support his head. We need to get him to the mistress."
"Man, that scared me," Tom stammered as he held Jacob's head steady. "I've never heard a kid scream like that. Is he dying?"
"Don't talk like that," Ellis snapped. "Just move."
They ran toward the farmhouse. The door flew open before they even reached the steps. May stood there, her face draining of color as she saw her son.
"What happened to my baby!" she screamed. She didn't wait for an answer. She grabbed Jacob from Ellis's arms, her strength fueled by panic. She felt his skin. It was cold and clammy, like he had been pulled from a frozen lake.
"Ellis! What happened?"
"He was just by the coop, Ma'am," Ellis said quickly. "He screamed. A horrible sound. Then he started shaking."
May turned and marched into the house. "Thank you, boys. Go get Arthur. Tell him to come now."
"Yes, Ma'am," they said in unison, turning to sprint toward the northern fields.
May carried Jacob into the bathroom. She stripped off his soiled tunic and wiped the vomit from his face with a warm cloth. He was so cold. In Ruvka, a cold sweat usually meant the Slosh Cough, a type of pneumonia that filled the lungs with fluid and drowned children in their sleep.
She carried him to his bed and tucked him under three layers of wool blankets. She needed to warm his blood.
She moved to the small shelf above the washbasin and grabbed a bundle of dried herbs. It was a mix of cinnamon and peppermint, meant to open the airways and heat the body. She lit the bundle with a candle, letting the spicy, pungent smoke fill the small room.
It would hide the smell of sickness.
May knelt beside the bed. She was not a mage. She was not a priestess. But the women of Sinclair had their own ways.
She placed a hand on Jacob's icy forehead and closed her eyes.
"Almighty forces of healing," she whispered, her voice wavering. "Heed the prayer of a humble servant. Please help my baby boy through this sickness. By my own will, I ask for your strength in this time of uncertainty."
It was a simple prayer, passed down from mother to daughter for generations.
A faint, golden glow ignited around her hand. It washed over Jacob's body, concentrating around his head like a halo. The light pulsed once, twice, and then faded.
May let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She stood up, her knees popping, feeling suddenly exhausted. Using even that tiny amount of mana took a toll on the untrained.
She looked down. Jacob's color was returning. His breathing had smoothed out, and the pained knot in his brow had relaxed into a peaceful sleep.
May kissed his forehead. It was warm.
"Rest now, Jacob," she whispered. She dusted off her apron and quietly slipped out of the room to wait for Arthur.