It was all for nothing.
Whatever hell, heaven, or purgatory people thought came after death, this wasn't it. There was only slick, pressing discomfort.
Muffled sounds reached his ears as he was pushed forward through complete darkness. Something pressed on his entire body, ejecting him in stops and starts until finally, he saw light.
Blurry shapes shifted from every angle, too vague to anchor to anything real. A massive pair of probably-hands scooped him up and hoisted him into the air, so quickly that he couldn’t help but scream in alarm. Yet, instead of the deep notes he was used to, his cry was shrill and babish.
He cut himself off then, eyes wide. Flailing his limbs, he tried to make out anything useful in his surroundings, something to quiet the dawning suspicion in his mind.
No…
The giant holding him took the time to wipe him down and swaddle him in a blanket, totally uncaring of the dread he felt. To make things worse, he didn’t even get another ten seconds to breathe before being handed off to a second set of arms, this one bringing him closer to the chest.
A large dark curtain fell beside him, and by looking up he could see it was attached to another indistinct silhouette. Going by the position on the body, he guessed it was a face. His hands were cruelly fastened to his body, rendering him unable to reach out and touch it to confirm. But he couldn’t deny that the gentle rocking of his body was a solid clue.
He couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. He refused to acknowledge the pleasant humming, the other two faces now hovering close by to observe him in detail. The voices were hushed, like they were careful not to provoke another wail. None of it mattered. This wasn’t happening.
His denials were crushed, in the end, by the text that suddenly popped up in his vision.
Achievement unlocked!
Traversing the Realms: successfully reincarnate in another world with your memories intact.
→ +1 Skill Seed added.
For a moment, the apparent reincarnate just stared. Not out of confusion—simply disbelief at his circumstances. He must have been hallucinating while bleeding out back on Earth. That was the logical explanation, and he liked to think of himself as a logical person. But deep down, he knew the notification centered in his view was telling the indisputable truth.
He was truly in a different world. With a system, at that. It was the kind of tale he used to read about rather than actually live. And despite the unlikely nature of the situation, ice cold certainty settled in his tiny infant gut. It was real. The question was, what was he supposed to do from here?
Testing his one way to meaningfully interact with his environment beyond screeching or wiggling his arms seemed like a good choice in this scenario. Once the initial panic had faded, he tried to draw on what he could recall of these types of situations from the relevant media he had consumed in the past.
How does this work again? Menu? Status?
Name: Brennan Kerrick
Race: Human (Lv. 0)
Class: N/A
Attributes:
STR - 1
AGI - 1
CON - 1
PER - 1
INT - 2
WIS - 1
SPI - 2
Skills: None
Wait, Brennan? That’s not my name! What…
Except it was, somehow. He fired off mental commands to turn it back to what it used to be, but it was no use. No changes occurred. ‘Brennan,’ as the floating screen insisted on calling him, was lost.
If there was a solution, he wouldn’t find it today. His new mother said something to the other occupants in the room, and then they were given space. The continuous, rhythmic motion lulled Brennan to sleep. He hadn’t even realized how tired he was. His eyes slid closed, and darkness returned.
*******
When he woke up again, he was alone. Going by the feel, he had been placed on a mattress, and it embarrassed him to admit that his first instinct was to scream for help. It was understandable, wasn’t it? He couldn’t even walk. Though his parents might have been in the room, he couldn’t see or hear anyone else with his inferior baby senses.
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In the quiet room, the reality of his rebirth started to sink in. Given time to process, he was actually coming to terms with the fact that he had been reborn. A second chance at life. Something he would’ve never imagined would be reserved for him, but here he was, lying under the covers while contemplating the nature of his new existence.
Strength, agility, constitution. Perception, intellect, wisdom. Spirit. Those were the attributes assigned to him. Intuitively, he knew he could increase all those values with time, effort, and experience. Untold potential at his fingertips, waiting for him to realize it.
Did everyone get a second chance like this? Such a concept seemed more plausible to him than being unique, at least. Special qualities weren’t something he had in abundance. No particular reason why he of all people would be given a chance to start over.
Regardless of the true answer, the present took priority. Considering that he had to decide whether this was going to be a life worth living, his first order of business was to ascertain what this world had to offer. Or on a smaller scale, what it had to offer where he currently was.
Turning his neck was an arduous task in this state, enough that he nearly gave up on trying to see what was next to him. After he eventually managed with a combination of jerks and awkward leg kicking, he saw long rectangles, low enough in resolution for that to be the extent of what he could tell at a glance. He looked closer, straining his eyes to the limit.
They looked like bars of some kind? Stone? No, that was doubtful. It was difficult to tell, because he couldn’t see color properly yet. More likely, they were made of wood. Placed around him to make sure he didn’t fall out. Did that mean they had placed him in a crib?
Either way, he wasn’t able to see farther than that. He didn’t know if he was still in the same room, but he assumed so. It was all he could do, what with the lack of magical revelations he had after waking up. Brennan simply kept taking in his prison as if it held the secrets of the universe.
Skill unlocked!
[Analyze (Common) - Lv. 1]
Would you like to equip this skill?
Is that even a question? Yes, make me better.
Skill equipped.
He waited for a few moments, trying to feel if something had changed. Nothing felt different, which emboldened him to continue doing what he was before. It felt… more structured? Nothing flashy, though it had admittedly been just a few seconds.
How do I look at my skills again?
Skills:
[Analyze (Common) - Lv. 1]
Skills Seeds: 1
Oh.
So he had ten slots available to him to start with. Or this was the best he was ever going to get. He didn’t know if there were options for his apparent class, but when he checked it he failed to get anything meaningful out of it.
Should he start trying to unlock other skills? Well, the first order of business would have been leveling up his initial skill, although he wasn’t having a good time on that front. Progress was slow, if it was there to begin with. For all he knew, a common leveling method existed that worked to grind up any skill and he had no way of finding out what it was. What was he going to do, ask his parents? Oh right, he couldn’t talk.
The system didn’t seem particularly receptive to his attempts to get it to explain how to level his skills other than stating the obvious. That being using the skill in question repeatedly.
Okay, no shortcuts. That’s fine, I’ve got nothing but time.
That said, the process of getting better at anything worthwhile turned out to be slow and arduous. To be expected, really. Further attempts at trying to play detective with his room yielded no tangible results, and he grumbled about bad game design only to be reminded that his tongue and vocal cords were underdeveloped.
The sound did have the unintended side effect of alerting the giants to his wakefulness. No more than fifteen seconds later, an enormous shadow hovered over him. It moved to grab him, so he didn’t have any other recourse than begging for mercy. Unfortunately, his pleas were ignored.
To call it a silver lining would have been an overstatement, but at least he was able to see new shapes to use his skill on. Again, no rewards that he could see, but compounding effort was a thing. He wouldn’t fall into the trap of switching his focus whenever he didn’t see instant gratification. Rather than complaining, he capitalized on the opportunity for all it was worth. Any new figure flitting across his sight, he catalogued.
As a side note, he noticed that the person carrying him wasn’t as big as the others had been. Younger than the adults, presumably. A sibling? Maybe, albeit one whose gender he wasn’t able to discern. Whatever the case, they were taking him somewhere.
His destination became clear once he was deposited in the arms of his mother. The recognition was instinctual, now that he thought about it. Not even a second of doubt to know what his relation to this individual was. Just awareness that this was the one who birthed him.
Clothing rustled as he felt his head being lifted, slowly pressing his lips against something soft. Huh, how was he supposed to eat without teeth?
Apparently, he wasn’t. As the sweet creamy liquid filled his mouth, he immediately began to drink from it. Involuntarily, almost. He couldn’t help it, it just tasted amazing and he was hungry. To the point where it took him close to a minute to realize what was happening.
Ah. She’s breastfeeding me. Fantastic.
Sadly, this was only the start of a long list of indignities he would be suffering on account of being an infant dependent on other people to survive. Changing diapers was going to be nightmarish, he could already tell.
After he was sated and back in his crib, contrast was reduced in everything he saw, the boundary between black and white less defined. The room was darker. Probably a result of the sun setting outside.
Skill leveled up!
[Analyze (Common) - Lv. 1] → Lv. 2
And somehow, Brennan found that he didn’t miss his old life very much at all.