Vandal was quick to start thinking of Dalshia, his third mother, as his “one and true mother.” That was easy to do because it marked his first experience in three lifetimes of motherly love. It would have been harder to reject her than it was to accept her.
With that in mind, he started out trying to act like a normal baby. But it quickly proved an impossible task. He had the brain of a teenager, so he was completely unable to act like a baby. To top it off, for some reason he was unable to cry or laugh. He couldn’t move his expression at all. It was like his muscles were paralyzed, but his mouth and eyelids still worked normally. It was just that nothing moved naturally. The only way to change his expression was to intently focus on it. Maybe this was another effect of the curse.
I can talk with my mom about my face once I can actually talk, Vandal thought. There are some problems, but I’ve learned a lot as well.
Dalshia didn’t expect Vandal to be able to understand what she was saying, of course, so she didn’t go into detail about their circumstances. But after living together for a month, Vandal had picked up most of what he needed to know.
Firstly, he learned that Dalshia’s husband was from a race that her own father was terribly afraid of. That meant Vandal, being half that race himself, was subject to discrimination and dislike. That explained why Dalshia was living in seclusion out here in the forest, dwelling in a cave dug out by elemental magic, and why Vandal hadn’t seen a single person other than his mother.
I’ve also learned that I’m in the Milg Shield Kingdom, a nation belonging to the Amidd Empire and located in the northwest of the Vangaia Continent, and that once I’ve grown a little more she plans to return to the dark elf village. I haven’t been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but this is more encouraging than my last life.
There was hope so long as he could make it back to the dark elf village, and so he decided to work toward that as his initial goal.
With that in mind, Vandal started his magical training before he could even crawl. He had achieved full control of death magic in his previous life. With these powers, he might even be able to help his mother. That was the plan, but Vandal found himself completely unable to use magic.
Because I’m still a baby? Or is this the curse too? That was a puzzle, but giving up just because it didn’t seem to be working was not an option. Death magic was the only weapon Vandal had in his possession, having again been passed over for cheat abilities and affinities for other types of magic.
“It would help if I could see your status, Vandal,” Dalshia commented, almost to herself, one day another six weeks after Vandal was born.
Status? Unable to activate death magic, Vandal started to work on holding his own neck up straight, but that one word from his mother surprised him. He wasn’t expecting to hear a game term like that here—but then, to his surprise, he saw his own status displayed inside his head.
Name: Vandal
Race: Dhampir (Dark Elf)
Age: 0 years old
Alias: None
Job: None
Level: 0
Job History: None
—Status
Vitality: 12
Magical Power: 100,000,000
Strength: 10
Agility: 1
Stamina: 25
Intellect: 20
—Passive Skills
[Brute Strength: Level 1]
[Rapid Healing: Level 1]
—Active Skills
[None]
—Curses
[Unable to carry over experience from previous lives]
[Unable to enter existing jobs]
[Unable to personally acquire experience]
Wow, I’ve got some serious magical power, thought Vandal. Looks like my dad is a vampire. And three curses? I guess that god really wants me to off myself.
The content of his stats provided lots of surprises. His race was indicated as “dhampir.” If his knowledge from Earth held true here in Ramda, that meant he was half-vampire. That definitely explained why his mother was hiding him away. He had no idea what the religious situation was like in Ramda, but he doubted half-vampire children were generally welcome additions to the family. In fact, they might be hunted like monsters. That definitely sounded like it might pose a risk to his continued existence—and like he probably had a lot of dhampir-related discrimination coming his way. This life was sounding tougher than he expected already.
Next, there was his magical power. Considering its location in the list, and the fact that no other separate MP item was displayed, he had to presume this was the MP for Ramda—and it was big, sitting at a cool 100 million. He didn’t know what the average was for any of these stats, but it sounded like a massive outlier to him. This had to be the magical power that Rodocolte had talked about, filling the “empty space” left by the lack of the cheat-code fate and fortune he had been supposed to receive. In Origin he had lacked any kind of status screen, meaning he only had the assessment from his captors to go on, something like “thousands of times higher than the most powerful wizard.” Now he could see the number for himself, it was more like tens of thousands.
But I’m still just a helpless baby. Having all the MP in the world didn’t matter if he couldn’t use magic. That was another reason why he needed to hurry up and relearn his death attribute magic.
“Strength” and “agility” look self-explanatory, as does “stamina.” “Intellect” is probably more than just being smart. It probably affects learning magic, the effects of magic, using multiple spells at once, chanting time, stuff like that. It might affect mental strength too.
Based on these considerations, he could accept his agility being lower than the other stats. He was only 6 weeks old. His head still wobbled around like a broken doll. Crawling wasn’t the issue—he couldn’t even turn himself over. He was a baby. There was nothing agile about a baby.
Flipping that thought over, however, and putting his magical power aside for a moment, his other stats seemed pretty good for a level 0 baby. That had to be a benefit of being a dhampir.
Next, his skills. Vandal’s gaming knowledge told him that passive skills were skills that were always in effect, even if he didn’t think about them. Active skills had to be used to have any effect.
I’ve got Brute Strength and Rapid Healing. Sounds like more dhampir-based stuff—race specific skills, in game terms. But I don’t see any death attribute magic skills.
You wouldn’t expect a baby to have many skills, either, but Vandal had lived more than 37 years between Earth and Origin. It would have made sense for him to have some other skills—in particular relating to death attribute magic, as he had started down that path himself in his previous life.
The absence of such skills could maybe be explained by the three curses in the next section. This “unable to carry over experience from previous lives” curse, that has to be the one. It means I can’t bring over my experience from my previous life in the form of skills. The other two look rough as well. I’m going to have trouble taking jobs or levelling up like this.
These were curses handpicked by Rodocolte to make him want to kill himself. They had to be the worst of the worst, Vandal was annoyingly assured.
But now I’ve been reborn, I’m not going to just lie down and die again! I need to become strong enough to survive—and that starts with getting my death attribute magic back…ah…nope, too tired….
Vandal had been holding out quite well, but he was still a baby and couldn’t fend off the sleepies forever.