I woke up…
As I slowly sat up, pain shot through my entire body.
「Ugh! That hurts!」
I don’t know why, but it felt like I’d been badly bruised all over.
Looking at my arms, they were covered in dark splotches.
Glancing around, I saw a bunch of cloth tents, with people in armor walking back and forth.
They looked kind of like ancient Roman soldiers from movies or something.
I was lying on the ground beside one of the tents.
Looks like I reincarnated successfully.
Judging from the size of my hands and feet, I’d say I’m about middle school age?
At least I wasn’t reborn as a baby—it seems I started at a decent age.
As soon as I woke up, a middle-aged man came rushing over to me.
「××××××××××!」
I couldn’t understand a word he said, but the way he spoke to me… was he someone I knew?
I decided to try out the skill I’d asked the god for before reincarnating.
「Appraisal!」
I tried to appraise the middle-aged man standing in front of me, but… nothing happened.
I tried again, focusing hard in my mind—Appraise! I want to know who this man is!
「Appraisal!」
Still nothing.
Next, I tried the item box.
「Item box!」
Again, nothing happened.
I picked up a small rock nearby and touched it while speaking the skill command.
「Item box! Store!」
Still no reaction.
I folded my arms and let out a deep sigh.
(That god said he’d give me a skill as an apology… but maybe I didn’t get the one I asked for?)
Thinking that, I began blurting out every skill name I could remember from isekai manga.
But… nothing. Not a single one worked.
Seeing my behavior, the middle-aged man’s expression suddenly shifted.
He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, urgently trying to tell me something.
「××××××! Gaia! Gaia!」
I still couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he kept repeating 「Gaia.」
「Gaia? Is that… my name? Am I Gaia?」
I pointed to myself and said 「Gaia.」 The middle-aged man nodded.
So my name is Gaia, huh.
The moment I acknowledged the name as my own, a blinding headache struck.
「Ahh! Guh… it hurts! My head’s splitting open!」
Tons of information started pouring into my head.
About this world.
About Gaia’s memories.
A message from the god.
Images, sounds, words, and writing flooded into my brain from nowhere.
It felt like I was being forcibly installed with data.
I curled up, enduring the pain with clenched teeth.
「Hey! Gaia! What’s wrong!?」
Suddenly, I could understand what the man was saying.
It seemed like the language of this world had just been installed into my brain.
But the flood of information hadn’t stopped, and the headache was still going strong.
Who… is this guy?
Gaia’s memories floated up to the surface of my consciousness.
Right! He’s Gaia’s father’s younger brother—my uncle, Athos!
「U-Uncle Athos… my head… it hurts…」
「You alright!? You started blurting out strange words—scared the life out of me!」
Uncle Athos sounded genuinely relieved.
No wonder—if your nephew suddenly started yelling 「Appraisal!」 in a foreign language, you’d be worried too.
Still clutching my head, I answered him.
「My head… it just really hurts… I’m just a bit disoriented…」
「That’s not good… But the Emperor is calling for you! We must go! Here, let me help you!」
Uncle Athos forcefully pulled me to my feet and dragged me toward a large tent.
My headache hadn’t gone away yet.
The data was still downloading.
I didn’t have enough info to know who 「the Emperor「 was.
But I could tell it was someone important.
Staggering on unsteady legs, I followed Uncle Athos into the large tent.