Two years passed.
On my fourth birthday, I received my status plate from the city’s priest.
During my previous life in Japan, I’d often read web novels where reincarnated protagonists would get their status plates from guilds. In this world, however, it appeared that everyone was issued a plate at the church upon turning four years old.
The numbers displayed on the plate were visible only to the individual. Still, it was naturally expected that children would report their stats to their parents. And so, I lied.
Of course I did.
If anyone were to find out about this… well, even I had to admit, they’d probably be more than a little freaked out.
No—were this to become public knowledge, it would be an absolute disaster.
Because my status looked like this:
Race: Human
Class: Villager
Age: 4 years old
Level: 1
HP: 3 / 3
MP: 6,852 / 6,852
Attack: 1
Defense: 1
Magic: 1,250
Evasion: 1
Enhancement Skills
【??????: Level 4】
Defense Skills
【Iron Stomach: Level 2】
【Mental Resistance: Level 2】
【Indomitable Will: Level 10 (MAX)】
General Skills
【Crop Cultivation: Level 15 (Limit Break: Gift from the Goddess)】
Magic Skills
【Mana Control: Level 10 (MAX)】
【Life Magic: Level 10 (MAX)】
【Basic Offensive Magic: Level 1 (Growth Limit Reached)】
【Basic Healing Magic: Level 1 (Growth Limit Reached)】
Yeah. It seemed I had grown far beyond even my expectations.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’m off,” I called out as I stepped out of the house.
My home was deep in the countryside. A mountain sloped sharply behind it, and rice fields surrounded us in all other directions. Even our closest neighbors—Cordelia’s family—lived nearly five hundred meters away.
Now that I was four years old, I could walk around on my own to a reasonable extent. Our family was poor—naturally, since we were nothing but humble villagers.
At the moment, I was supposedly off playing by myself, gathering wild plants on the mountainside. In fact, around here, I was known as a “genius of the mountains.” It wasn’t just that I could find edible wild vegetables with ease; I also had an uncanny knack for bringing back valuable medicinal herbs that sold for a high price. Thanks to that, my parents had adopted a rather permissive stance toward me, allowing me to wander the mountains from dawn until dusk without much worry.
Of course, in reality, I was not genuinely devoting my time to collecting wild flora or herbs. The greens, herbs, and occasional rabbit carcass I sometimes brought home were all things I had bought in town. My foraging was merely a pretense. What I was actually doing was leaving the village to earn money.
How could a four-year-old possibly make money? And for what purpose? With my MP and skills, earning cash was quite easy. As for why I needed it, the answer couldn’t be simpler.
To get stronger, obviously.
It was precisely then, as I traversed the narrow dirt path bisecting the rice fields toward the mountains, that I encountered her—the future Hero, Cordelia.
Her red hair shimmered like silk, and she wore a simple white dress. Her blue eyes sparkled, and her skin was so pale it almost seemed to glow. She was, without exaggeration, a beauty so extraordinary that she could only be described as angelic—a living being who seemed to defy the very rules of the world.
It wasn’t hard to imagine that Cordelia would grow into a stunning beauty someday. I knew for a fact she would.
Puffing her cheeks in frustration, she turned toward me and declared, “I’m going to the mountain with you, Ryuto! I’m going to pick wild veggies too!”
Sorry, Cordelia. I’m not heading for the mountain—I’m going to town.
“I’m not taking you with me,” I said flatly.
“Ugh… guh…” she whimpered. Cordelia’s face immediately crumpled, her eyes brimming with tears. “Ryuto… you never play with me anymore. Why? I’m lonely…”
If she wanted an answer, it was simple: It’s your fault.
Even though she hadn’t yet received her Divine Prophecy, she was already on her way to becoming a Hero. Her stats were blowing up, soaring into realms ordinary people could never hope to reach.
That was exactly why I had to widen the gap now, before it was too late.
I placed my hand gently on top of Cordelia’s head.
“I’ll play with you next time. I’m sorry,” I said.
Tears streamed down her cheeks in large, heavy drops.
“Idiot… Ryuto’s… Ryuto’s a big idiot!” she cried, then spun around and took off running, her voice breaking with sobs. “I’m never speaking to you again!”
Watching her tiny figure totter away down the path, I couldn’t help but think, Man, what a pain…
Partway down the road, Cordelia stumbled and fell with a dull thud.
“Uwaaah! U… Ugh… Uuuh! Aah… you idiot! Ryuto, you big idiot!” she wailed.
Seriously, what a pain…
Only after she tripped into her own front door, still sobbing, did I finally start walking again.
“All right…” I muttered.
Upon entering the mountain’s foothills, I unleashed the power of my skills. With the speed of a raging wind, I dashed into the forest’s depths.
I weaved through the forest, clearing this hundred-meter sprint in around fourteen seconds. It was a ridiculously high speed for a child my age.
The skill I was using was Physical Enhancement: Level 4.
The principle behind this ability was quite straightforward: using magic power to reinforce muscle fibers, thereby enabling the body to exert strength far exceeding its inherent limitations.
At my age, while not entirely unprecedented, its use was exceedingly rare. This skill was deemed indispensable for any individual aspiring to close-quarters combat roles. For example, noble children who trained in martial disciplines from the moment they could walk might manage to learn it when so young. Maybe.
Incidentally, Cordelia would receive her Divine Blessing at six years old and, if I remembered correctly, wouldn’t pick up this skill until she was seven. Not that it mattered.
More importantly, this was a skill I’d fought tooth and nail to master during my last life’s tutorial phase, grinding it all the way to Level 4 through sheer stubborn effort.
Thanks to it, I could unleash incredible bursts of strength in an instant. But naturally, it came with a cost. Since the muscles were being reinforced with magic, it naturally consumed MP. And among close-combat classes, MP pools were almost universally small.
This skill was usually implemented in short, explosive bursts—during battle, for example, or just long enough to lift something heavy.
Me? Even compared to grown adults, my MP was absurd—practically cheat-level. If I wanted, I could maintain Physical Enhancement all day long without a problem. In fact, even when I wasn’t consciously activating it, I was constantly running a low-level version in the background, suppressing it just enough to avoid attracting attention.
These days, draining my MP had become such a chore that I had to find little ways like this to steadily burn through it. Honestly, in a lot of ways… I had probably gone a bit overboard.
Leaving the mountain behind, I pushed into the flatlands and entered a wider stretch of forest. I ran, weaving through the trees for another thirty minutes.
Eventually, I reached a roadside post town.
At the edge of the road, tucked away where nobody would bother me, I spread out my usual mat and set up the price list, just like always.
It hadn’t even been a few minutes before a traveler approached, slipping off his shoes and sitting down on the mat.
“You’re awfully young. A novice from the church, maybe? Well, whatever. Two copper coins, right?” he said.