My eyelids felt impossibly heavy. There was a dull ache everywhere, a sensation like my entire body had been forcefully pressed and squeezed through a rigid, unyielding hole. Before the crushing dark lifted, there was a final, overwhelming pressure, then a painful rush of bright light and cold air.
I opened my eyes, confused. I was certain I had just been asleep on my couch at home. Now, my entire field of vision was dominated by a face: a beautiful woman with long, vibrant red hair, slightly sweat-dampened. Her eyes, the same shade of crimson as her hair, were locked on mine with an intense, loving focus. Her smile was weak, edged with exhaustion, a clear sign she had just fought a serious battle.
Instinct took over the moment I tried to look away. I saw her left arm cradling another baby—my size, my hair color—and an alarming thought flashed through my bewildered mind: Don't hold a baby with one hand! You'll drop them! I tried to stretch my arms, to point, to warn her, but the only sound that escaped was a pathetic, gurgling "Ba... ah!"
My attempt to move and speak only made me realize the impossible. My hands were tiny, wrinkled, and completely uncoordinated. I was wrapped tight in a cloth, held against the woman's opposite arm. The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow: I was a baby.
The shock, the sheer existential terror of the moment, overwhelmed my mental confusion. A loud, primal scream—my scream— erupted from my lungs. The red-haired woman, shifted the other crying baby, slightly and immediately pressed me toward the soft warmth of her breast. She must have assumed I was simply hungry.
My brain was yelling, Stop! This is insane! But my body had an agenda all its own. My mouth found the warmth, the scent, the life-giving flow, and my sophisticated adult mind was instantly silenced by the overwhelming, demanding instinct of the infant body. I sucked, I drank, and I fell into the profound, tranquil sleep that only a completely satisfied newborn knows.
The room fell silent, a peaceful lull broken only by the gentle sound of the door creaking open and closing as people came and went.
I woke up later, staring at a ceiling made of unfamiliarly rough wooden beams. It was night again, quiet and dark. Where am I? Who am I, really? My mind cycled through my old life, my old name, my apartment. Then, with a blush of residual confusion, I remembered the earlier scene of sucking at the breast of the beautiful red-haired woman.
I looked around. The room was rustic, built of wood and rough-cut stone—a far cry from the drywall and electronics I was used to. It didn't take long for my adult consciousness to piece together the grim truth. I was reincarnated.
I turned my head and immediately bumped something soft and slightly firmer than a blanket. It was the other baby likely my twin sibling. We were sharing a ridiculously small crib, clearly meant for only one. Baby was stirring, her tiny face scrunched up, and she was seconds away from detonating a full-volume cry. When she kicked out and hit me sharply in the side—the same side that still ached from the trauma of birth—she started wailing.
Red-Haired women woke instantly, a quiet, efficient alarm. She gently lifted my twin, comforting her and walking a small circle. Woman glanced back at the crib, and my survival instincts, honed by years of playing a boring, predictable human in my past life, took over.
I couldn't just lie there. Red-Haired women would assume I was calm, perhaps strange. If I wanted to survive without being experimented on by someone, I had to be normal. I had to be an infant.
Ignoring the throbbing pain from baby's kick, I joined the chorus, letting loose a series of fake, frantic cries. The performance was excellent. Red-Haired women looked at me, sighed softly, and placed my twin on the large bed beside the crib. She picked me up, pressed me against her warm chest, and began to feed me. A moment later, sitting on the bed, she gently picked up my twinand brought her to the other breast. For a time, both twins were side-by-side, eating and eventually sleeping, safely sandwiched between their mother.
The next three months were a blur of instinctual existence. My new life revolved entirely around eating, sleeping, and acting exactly like my twin sister, Aisha.
Through the fragmented noise of the adults, I slowly pieced together my world. My name was Kaelen. My twin was Aisha. My red-haired mother was Lilia. There was a slightly younger sister with shiny yellow hair, Norn, whose mother, Zenith, also had that bright hair and a complicated, often distant gaze. My father was the boisterous, brown-haired Paul. And then there was my older brother, the six-year-old prodigy, Rudeus.
The name Rudeus. It shattered my calm.
Mushoku Tensei. Jobless Reincarnation.
I had been dragged into a world of incredible, terrifying power, a place ruled by the Demon God, the Dragon God, and a man named Hitogami. My priority shifted from merely surviving as a baby to surviving as an unaware baby in a death world. I redoubled my efforts, focusing even more intensely on maintaining my facade of infantile ignorance.
The most dangerous person in the house, the one who could see through my act, was Rudeus.
Rudeus, who would often gaze at me with an odd, speculative intensity, as if searching for a shared secret.
I started to cry whenever he got too close. Loudly. Instantly. It wasn't hard to do; his sharp, adult-like eyes and unnerving silence genuinely frightened me, triggering a real panic that I simply amplified. My strategy was effective: avoid the other reincarnator.
The other adults quickly provided the perfect cover for my actions.
"He's scared of that look on your face, Rudy," Zenith would chuckle, shooing Rudeus away.
"He's sensitive," Lilia would say, stroking my red hair. "You need to be gentler, Master Rudeus."
Rudeus's intense gaze only grew more thoughtful, but he backed away, keeping his distance. My act of crying kept him at bay, solidifying his suspicion that I was scared of his "face and behavior," but thankfully keeping the true nature of my consciousness a secret.
Three months stretched into six, then nine, and finally a full year. My body was getting stronger, my awareness sharper, but my act remained flawless.
Then, the world began to move. The conversations around the dinner table turned to contracts, fees, and travel preparations. The family dynamic was about to undergo its first great upheaval. The time for Rudeus's departure for the city of Roa to become the tutor of the noble Eris Boreas Greyrat was fast approaching.
My greatest threat was leaving, but my life had been fundamentally altered. The era of relative safety in Buena Village was about to end, and I knew what came next: the Teleportation Incident.