Four years had passed since I had been reincarnated. That said, I hadn’t fully regained my consciousness until I was about two and a half. Whether it was because my brain hadn’t developed enough yet, or for some other reason, I wasn’t really “aware” during my infant days. It felt more like I was drifting in a long sleep.
It hadn’t been until about a year ago that I truly woke up—that I had realized I had been reincarnated. Imagine my shock when I suddenly remembered my previous life. I’d had a splitting headache and a wave of crushing anxiety, and had ended up bawling my eyes out for half a day. But once I had recalled the circumstances of my reincarnation, I’d managed to calm down—somehow.
Getting breastfed would’ve been so embarrassing, even if it were by my real mother. So in that sense, I guess it was actually convenient that I’d spent that phase of life as a clueless baby.
I’d learned a lot in the year after I came to. First off, my name was Thor, and I was a pretty boy with black hair and black eyes. Considering that I didn’t have a family name, it was clear my parents were commoners. Actually, calling them commoners might have been generous. They were dirt-poor mercenaries.
In this world, being a mercenary wasn’t just about exploring dungeons, doing security work, or collecting materials. Nope—these guys were more like shady, jack-of-all-trades types who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty with looting or smuggling. In fact, they regularly got involved in wars and criminal activities like human trafficking. In a fantasy novel, they might have been close to an adventurer, but here, mercenary was the more fitting term.
Normally, when a child was born, the parents would take them to a temple or a mage to get their magical aptitude tested, but my parents had skipped that part because they didn’t want to dish out the money for it. Honestly, that was probably for the better since it would’ve caused all sorts of trouble if people had found out I could use magic.
My parents were so dirt-poor, they’d hesitate to make even the tiniest donation. Heck, we didn’t even have a house; we lived in a grimy old tent where the floor was just the bare ground—damp and dirty. The tent was sturdy, being made from magic beast hide. It was the kind of tent that was meant to be used for adventures. Still, even low-class mercenaries usually managed to crash at cheap inns.
Compared to them, we were practically at rock bottom. So my parents lived out of this tent—about the size of an average Japanese bedroom—spending their days diving into dungeons and chasing after the dream of striking it rich overnight.
I didn’t know all that much about dungeons myself, but from what I knew, they were these mysterious places created by gods, where treasures and magical beasts would spawn. Not that my parents cared about the lore or anything. For them, it was all about whether they could rake in the dough.
And this was the most important part: My parents were absolute scumbags. It was almost admirable how thoroughly terrible they were.
I’d had dreams about my reincarnated life. I’d wanted to worry about whether or not I should tell my kind, loving parents the truth about being reincarnated. I’d wanted to get all flustered when a maid spoke to me in baby talk. I’d wanted a cute childhood friend to start falling for me so I could pretend to be cool and say something like, “I’m not into little girls.” I’d wanted to work in the fields with the friendly villagers. I had even dreamed of someone gently smiling and saying, “I’m your mother,” and I’d just smile awkwardly in return.
But what did I actually get?
“Tch,” I’d once heard my mother say. “Taking care of that brat’s a pain in the ass.”
“Just leave him,” replied my father. “He’ll live.”
Those were the kinds of awful things I’d hear them say. I really don’t want to speak ill of the parents I ended up with in this life, but no matter how you spin it, they’re scumbags.
What’s more, they’d been planning to sell me off to a slave trader. I’d only found out about that little bombshell a month prior.
“Here. Food.” It was my mother talking to my father.
“Fine... God, wheat porridge again?”
“We’re broke. What do you expect?”
“Dammit. If only the twerp were old enough to sell.”
“It’ll take another year.”
“How about we just lie about his age and sell him?”
“Slave traders can find out someone’s age with magic tools. That won’t work.”
I’d overheard the entire conversation. “Twerp,” of course, referred to me. And they wanted to sell me to a slave trader? Maybe I was in deep trouble here. Honestly, considering the kind of people my parents were, I wouldn’t have put anything past them. It was a mystery they were even taking care of me in the first place.
A few days later, my parents were bickering once again.
“Three days in the dungeon and all we got is one lousy silver coin?!” my father exclaimed.
“You’re the one who screwed up and used a potion!”
“Like I had a choice!”
“We need to feed the kid, so it looks like we’ll be having porridge for a while again.”
“Agh! Why do we have to go through all this for the stupid twerp?!”
“What else are we supposed to do? He’s gonna die if we don’t feed him. Besides, I didn’t even want the kid. It was your idea to have him so we could sell him.”
“How was I supposed to know that you can’t sell them till they’re five?!”
So to sum up this absolutely awful conversation, human children had to be at least five years old before they could be sold, because no one wanted a kid that was too young. Plus, kids that age died easily.
I also learned that kids went for about five small gold coins, or fifty thousand golds. That was about a month’s worth of living expenses for a commoner. Although, I based that estimate on what I’d overheard from my dirt-poor parents—who practically wore their poverty on their sleeves—so a family living a more normal life might’ve spent more.
Even so, it was cheap. Way too cheap for the price of a human life, but in a world where life doesn’t have much value, I guess that was just how it was. My parents said they’d reluctantly take care of me till they could sell me, since that was the only option. It was a horribly bleak situation.
By the way, one small copper coin is worth about one Japanese yen, and ten of those make one large copper coin. The currency here goes from small to large: small copper, large copper, small silver, large silver, small gold, large gold, and the most valuable of them all, the orichalcum.
When I thought about it honestly, the way my parents treated me was so beyond careless that it made me question whether they really intended to keep me alive till they sold me. They didn’t beat me, thankfully, but the meals were some disgusting slop that was a look-alike for oatmeal—with complete disregard for nutrition, of course. I probably weighed a lot less than other kids my age.
On top of that, I’d be left alone for days at a time. There were stretches when my parents would disappear into a dungeon for up to four days straight, during which I’d just be tied to one of the tent poles with a rope and left on my own. For food, they’d just dump a mound of that oatmeal look-alike into a bowl and plop it down like dog food—the same went for water.
Any other baby would’ve died for sure, most likely from starvation or dehydration, but choking on that sorry excuse for oatmeal or getting attacked by thugs or bandits seemed pretty likely too.
It’s a miracle I survived till I got my memories back.
Maybe they truly didn’t care whether I lived or died. Sure, if I’d been able to read, was born to beastfolk, or had some talent for magic or some rare aptitudes, they could’ve sold me for more—but it was clear they never had that kind of hope for me.
To start with, my parents were illiterate, so the idea of them teaching me anything was out of the question. And magic? Like they’d ever believe their own kid could have a decent attribute. Basically, the way they saw things, if they could raise me by half-assing it, great. And if I dropped dead, no big loss.
So this is what was meant by having “bad birth fortune.” I was convinced to say the least.
Anyway, my goal at the moment is just to survive—and escape from my parents before I hit five years old.
When I thought about it, it actually worked in my favor that my parents were away most of the time. I could test out the magical chef abilities that the god gave me without worrying about anyone seeing me. I’d developed a daily routine of practicing my magic. Wielding magical powers was—obviously—something I had never done in my previous life. Sure, I’d been granted knowledge and abilities, but you can’t get the hang of things until you actually try them.
“All right, let’s get started,” I said to myself.
I’m going to escape and survive, no matter what. But first, I need to improve my magic—it’s the only weapon I have with this tiny body.