Richard, now back in the fragile body of a baby, tried to organize his thoughts as his tiny hands twitched beside him.
"So, thirty years from now... unknown monsters will start appearing all over the world?" he muttered internally, his expression serious despite his chubby face.
Then his stomach growled. Loudly.
A second later, he began crying uncontrollably.
"This body is still out of my control," he thought helplessly between cries. "I can think and reason like before, but there are still things I can't manage... like automatically crying when I'm hungry."
Moments later, his mother lifted him gently and began to nurse him. As he sucked the warm milk, a strange mix of peace and sadness filled his heart.
From his past life, he remembered that his mother had died when he was still a child, taken by an illness she had tried to hide from him. He had forgotten her face long ago, but now, seeing her clearly again, he finally remembered.
"I remember now... we were so poor she couldn't afford treatment. She smiled until the end, pretending she was fine." His thoughts darkened. "I want to help her this time, but fuck, I don't know any way for quick and early success."
He strained to recall anything that could help them earn fast money. Stocks, inventions, early investments nothing solid came to mind. Most of what he remembered would only succeed years later.
"Ugh... this is not how I wanted my second chance to go," he sighed mentally. "But nevertheless, I'll find a way, Mother... after I learn to walk."
With that vow in mind, Richard rolled over onto his stomach and began his clumsy attempt to crawl.
A week later, his relatives came to visit. The house was filled with chatter and laughter as his mother proudly watched her son crawl across the floor.
"Woah, Richard's already crawling? What did you feed him, Mary?" asked his aunt Gabriella, astonished.
As Richard crawled toward them with unusual determination, she chuckled. "I swear, that boy's going to be walking next week."
Richard glanced at her and thought, "I know this family. They had some setbacks but became millionaires a few years later."
He noticed a baby stroller beside Gabriella. Inside was a sleeping infant.
"Oh look, he's going to my Rosemary! What a sweet cousin," Gabriella said, lowering the stroller so Richard could reach her.
He patted the stroller softly, his baby face unreadable.
"This family breaks apart later," he recalled grimly. "Gabriella's husband goes bankrupt and leaves her, saying he didn't want to burden her. Years later, when he becomes rich again, he tries to win her back. I don't know what to for both of them."
Gabriella smiled warmly. "Come on, Rose, say hi to your cousin." She lifted Rosemary and gently placed her beside Richard.
As the two then started playing around hours pass by and Rosemary yawned once... then promptly fell asleep on top of him.
Gabriella gasped. "Oh my, sorry about that, Mary! My Rose just fell asleep on Richard!"
Mary laughed. "Don't worry, Richard seems fine with it."
He was not.
Richard sighed internally, pinned under a sleeping baby.
Still, as he looked at Rosemary, a faint realization struck him.
"This girl... she grows up to be one of the top rankers in Europe during the apocalypse.If I remember right, she even becomes one of the few leaders who holds back the continental collapse."
His eyes, barely open under her weight, gleamed faintly.
"Yes, that's right. If I can make connections early, I can gather strong allies before the apocalypse begins. And if I remember correctly... the top ranker in Europe was..."
He tries to remember but a unstoppable feeling of sleepnes force him to close his eyes and sleep