My new life turned out to be… comfortable.
The mansion I had been born into was enormous, surrounded by sprawling gardens and tall iron gates. Servants handled most daily tasks, and the estate itself sat far from the noise of any city.
A quiet place.
An ideal place for study.
My father attempted to spend time with me during the first few days after I woke. He was an intelligent man—an academic, apparently the head of a respected university.
He tried to speak to me about books, philosophy, and education.
I listened.
I answered when necessary.
But emotionally… I felt nothing.
In my previous life, I had never grown close to my parents.
And in the life whose memories now filled my mind—those of Orochimaru—family had never mattered.
Attachment was a weakness.
Relationships were temporary.
Knowledge endured.
So I kept my distance.
One afternoon I walked through the gardens surrounding the mansion. The flowers were neatly arranged in long beds of soil, carefully maintained by the estate workers.
Something moved in the dirt.
A white snake.
Its scales were pale as moonlight, its body thin and graceful as it slithered across the soil.
It raised its head and looked directly at me.
For a moment we simply stared at one another.
Then, instead of striking like a normal snake…
It calmly slithered forward.
Up my leg.
Across my arm.
And curled loosely around my wrist.
I smiled faintly.
"Of course."
Snakes had always been drawn to me.
Even now.
My connection to Ryūchi Cave clearly remained intact.
The snake flicked its tongue before slowly sliding down my arm and disappearing back into the garden.
Interesting.
But something far less pleasant began occurring soon afterward.
The monsters.
They started appearing.
At first it was subtle.
A strange shadow watching from the trees.
A creature lurking beyond the estate walls.
Then one night I saw it clearly.
A twisted creature with burning eyes lurking at the edge of the property.
A monster.
Which meant one thing.
I was definitely a demigod.
A child of Athena.
Apparently my divine scent had begun attracting creatures.
I considered fighting them.
Technically, I could.
My mind contained the knowledge of thousands of techniques.
Ninjutsu.
Genjutsu.
Sealing arts.
Summoning techniques.
But my physical body was only twelve years old.
Fighting monsters constantly in such a young body would be… inefficient.
So I chose the smarter option.
Preparation.
Research.
Knowledge.
I began studying everything I could about this world.
First came mythology.
The Olympians.
Zeus.
Poseidon.
Hades.
The Titans.
Ancient wars between gods and giants.
I knew mythology from my previous life, but I also knew something very important.
Legends were rarely accurate.
Reality was always more complex.
Still, the myths gave me a foundation.
Next came history.
Real history.
Because if this world truly matched the timeline of Percy Jackson & the Olympians, then history and mythology were deeply connected.
Within a few days, I discovered something surprising.
I wasn't born in the same era as Percy Jackson.
Or Grover Underwood.
Or any of the heroes I remembered.
No.
This was decades earlier.
The year was 1927.
Which meant something very important.
The events of the famous demigods wouldn't occur for nearly a century.
Even more interesting…
The world was quietly moving toward one of the most destructive conflicts in human history.
World War II.
My eyes narrowed slightly as I closed one of the history books.
The Olympian gods were deeply tied to Western civilization.
Which meant they would almost certainly be involved in the coming war.
And if gods were involved…
Then the war might be far more dangerous than ordinary humans realized.
I leaned back in my chair, thinking.
A new world.
A different timeline.
And a future filled with monsters, gods, and war.
Slowly, I smiled.
"Interesting."
Very interesting.