When you die, what do you think happens? Perhaps you get in a long line waiting to be judged, otherwise known as purgatory. Maybe you get into Heaven and spend eternity in bliss, or you're sent to Hell to be tortured for all eternity.
Perhaps you are sent to Valhalla or Hel if Norse mythology got it right, or you are judged on the scales with your heart and a feather in the Egyptian mythological afterlife. So many possibilities, and so many ways you can spend the rest of eternity, and yet there is one most often spooked about in light novels, manga, or even fanfics.
Reincarnation, what should be the erasure of a soul's memories so that they may live a new life, perhaps even as a new lifeform entirely. Honestly speaking, after that truck struck me (classic), I didn't know what to expect.
You spend a long time floating in complete darkness, with a small ball of light that is my soul being your only source of otherness, something beyond this place. Even if you lack physical sensation, just having a source of light was a comfort.
I spent so long drifting through the cosmos that I nearly forgot all about my old life, and instead chose that time to weave my own tales. At least I tried, but after a while, I began to forget even that.
It just kept on drifting further and further away from my mind, memories becoming more blurry as the decades passed by. I always wondered if this was perhaps some cosmic mistake or if this was all the afterlife was, an endless repetition of gaining memories and then forgetting them.
Although I guess that was life in general, you learn, you forget, and you repeat it all again. An interesting predicament, this place allowed one to delve deep into one's thoughts and understand oneself. However, it lacked the physical parts of life, whilst keeping my own ability to keep my memories.
I think a thousand years passed before anything new entered my peripheral vision, and after all that time, I barely remembered anything. In fact, some of the few bits I could remember were the various pieces of media I've seen in life.
Some bits and pieces of a few book series I remembered, but it was mostly digital media like YouTube videos or anime I found particularly interesting. Especially this one anime where King Arthur was depicted instead as Artoria Pendragon, along with her son. Well, that and this slime reincarnation story as well, the idea of a whole world listening to one's request and granting it.
Well, it was interesting to think about. Still, there was one figure I did want to learn more about, especially when considering his own connection to Primate Murder, aka Cath Palug, otherwise known as Fou, and how he essentially stopped the birth of a Beast.
Alongside the fact that a being who was half-human, half-succubus was helping humanity and created a King perfect for the time period. A master manipulator who harmed and helped humans just to experience their emotions. A being not bound by Gaia or Alaya, although I didn't remember why those names were important, I knew they were powerful entities who governed the world.
Merlin, the Mage of Flowers, and...other titles that he gained due to his actions, which involved the marriage of Arthur/Artoria and Guinevere. An overall interesting story, but I digress as the first new thing I have ever seen in a long time entered my vision, a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak literal void.
[Is that what you wish for?]
That was what I saw after thinking about the Arthurian legend more specifcally Merlin. A small box of yellow text, shining like the sun in the void of space, a ray of quite literally hope in an otherwise dreadful place.
[Do you wish to reincarnate?]
A simple message, nothing complicated, nor any way to respond, like a button or something. No, instead it was more like...will? No, something similiar to talking and thinking, only neither and both at the same time. Even then, it wasn't really a choice, as whatever entity sent these messages probably already knew my answers, well before I said yes to it.
[Good Choice, Good Luck in this new life.]
Then, in a flash of golden yellow light, I felt my soul being engulfed by some strange source of energy. My...mind...soul...whatever consisted of my mind and body now blacked out as it did so.
-----
Year: 435 AD (Twenty years before Arthur's birth)
Location: Old Wooden Cottage
Five years, it's been about five years since I've reincarnated in Medieval England, and in all honesty...not as bad as it could've been in all honesty. I mean, sure, I missed basic toiletries and toilet paper, alongside clean showers. Beyond all that, it honestly wasn't all that bad, well, that was until that day.
The worst part, however, was the fact that well...I was alone; my mother died about 3 years ago. I didn't know how she died; all I knew was that over time, she got increasingly sick and frail, leading to her eventual death.
My father, however, wasn't in the picture, and when I got old enough to talk, I asked her about him. She ignored me, or on one particular bad she just locked me out of her room and cried. Calling me a half-demon or a bastard child, leaving me alone to well...read.
The fact that my mother even had books at all was surprising, as people during this time period couldn't traditionally read, not unless they were of noble birth. In all honesty, though, I didn't care, as well, she was my mother in this new life, with my old memories being a thing of the distant past...kind of.
I had my nowledge but the faces of my own family grew faint over time in that void, and now...Now I had a new life. Or at least I did, as when my mother passed, I found several journals detailing her life, and well, who my true father was.
I was about three, and it had been about five days since my mother passed, and I buried her body. I mourned for those three days, crying my eyes out, lamenting the loss of my mother, but I also think in a way I was mourning my own lost life. That's when I found her journal tucked away underneath her bed.
It proved my mother could read and write, alongside her own name and her former title. My mother was Seren, daughter of Marquies Eadburg, who governed a fortress town that bordered the various Celtic kingdoms.
Honestly, it was interesting to learn who my grandfather was. I was more interested in the fact that my father went by the name...Vassago. The way my mother described him, though...he sounded like a human with a weird name, but the things she showed her and how I was convinced, it was horrifying.
She described him as an unnatural, tall, and skinny man, one who wore robes of black and dark red. Adorned with small animal heads for some odd reason, this would only briefly terrify my mother before the trauma began.
She looked into his red eyes that split into six distinct parts, each one with its own small pupil that looked in a different direction. When she tried to scream, her mouth was covered by weird-looking dark green vines.
He then leaned closer and began making a small circle using the animal heads attached to his clothing, painting a complex sigil around her. Then there was the stink, whenever he placed another skull down, it felt like he was placing a rotting animals carcus upon her.
The metaphysical weight was pulling down on her as she struggled to break loose and try to run away. Only for more vines to form and hold her down, all the while he chanted something strange underneath his breath as a black fog began to spill out.
"Let this child of man and devil form the foundation of the enemy's defeat."
That was one of the only things she heard the devil say, as the black smoke began pouring itself into her. She felt as though thousands upon thousands of bugs were crawling inside her, forcing themselves into her womb.
All the while, he stood far away emotionless, with a cruel smile on his face as he chopped his hand off, letting his flesh and blood be fuel for whatever spell he was concocting.
Whatever he did to her led to my birth, and the description of it was vile, vile as a thousand roaches in a small jar. She described my small, frail body covered from head to toe in silver hair, my eyes as a striking light blue, which, while they didn't resemble my apparent father, did have that same 'sight' to them my mother felt when she first saw him that night.
When my grandfather and mother saw me for the first time, she said Eadburg wished to throw me into the river and let nature take me. Seren, though, had other ideas and ran away with me, dodging patrolling guards and god-fearing Christians, eventually taking me out here.
She found this old cabin, and well did everything she could to care for me, evne taking up hunting. The only thing she and I were confused about, however, was the furniture, where all the books and the two beds came from.
At first, she thought it was an old hunting cabin abandoned by a particularly odd noble, but the books were in good condition alongside the beds. Whoever built this place and abandoned it probably knew we woudl eventually come out here, somehow predicting the future.
At least that's the conclusion I came to, but even then, I had no proof to back up that claim, and eventually, as we reached the last page, I felt my mother's shaking hands. Her fear as death inched closer and closer. Her mind began to deteriorate as time went on, alongside her body, feeling herself rot from the inside.
Then, on the very last page, I discovered my true name and a note left behind by my mother. Before, she simply called me Deor, possibly after the fact that I was born all hairy and resembled a weird bear cub.
On the last page, though, was the note 'Be thou no made a monstre, my Myrddin Wyllt' and in all honesty I cried. My tears stained the pages, and I promised myself, but most of all my mother, that I wouldn't, that I would always keep my humanity.
That was also when I discovered that I wasn't simply reincarnated in Medieval England or Britain, wherever I was.
No, I was reborn as Merlin, the Mage of Flowers in Arthurian Legend.