Chapter 4: Luminous Greyrat (3)

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[Rudeus’s POV]

It seemed my name was Rudeus.

I did not learn that fact until a year after I was born.

And I was a human being reincarnated into this world with memories of my previous life intact.

I did not know why I, having died, had been reincarnated in this world.

But I still vividly remembered the circumstances of my death.

In my previous life, I was a thirty-four-year-old unemployed man without even a proper address.

I was a fat, ugly nice guy who enthusiastically regretted his life.

Until I was thrown out of my home that day, I had at least had a place to live... I was simply a veteran NEET who shut himself away in his room.

Then, one day, while I was living off my parents rather than supporting them, they suddenly passed away.

Having spent my life shut inside my room, I attended neither their funeral nor the family meeting.

The result was that I was splendidly and dramatically kicked out of the house.

There was no one to take my side after I had spent my days acting as though no one else existed, having mastered the art of screaming while pounding on the walls and floor.

On the day of the funeral, while I was masturbating in the bridge position, my siblings suddenly stormed into my room in mourning clothes and thrust a letter of disownment at me.

When I ignored them, my younger brother smashed my computer—the thing more precious to me than my own life—with a wooden bat.

I went half-mad and tried to rampage, only to be beaten black and blue by my older brother, who held a karate black belt.

I tried to get by with a pathetic bout of crying, but they threw me out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back.

Clutching my throbbing side, I wandered the streets beneath the pouring rain.

I could still hear the abuse and curses my siblings had hurled at me when I left the house behind.

It was abuse I could not bear. My spirit was completely broken.

What the hell had I even done?

All I had done was ignore my parents’ funeral and masturbate to an uncensored lolita-themed video.

—I wanted to beat the living daylights out of the person I had been when I thought that way.

But it was already too late for regrets.

I had already been driven from the home where no one was on my side.

What was I supposed to do now? I would probably have to find a part-time or full-time job, find somewhere to live, and buy food.

But how was I supposed to do that?

I did not know how to look for work.

No, I did not know much, but I at least knew I was supposed to go somewhere called Hello Work.

But I had not shut myself away for over ten years for nothing.

I did not even know where Hello Work was, and besides, I had heard that even if I went there, they would only refer me to jobs—they would not help me get hired.

I would have to take a résumé to the place I was referred to and go through an interview.

There was no way I could get an interview wearing a filthy sweater stained with sweat, blood, and all manner of grime.

They might pity me, but they would never hire me.

How was I even supposed to write a résumé in the first place?

Where did one buy résumés?

A stationery shop? A convenience store?

But I had no money.

Suppose I somehow got lucky enough to borrow money from a financial institution or beg for it on the street, bought new clothes, a résumé, and writing supplies.

I had heard you could not fill out a résumé without an address.

That was where the road ahead of me ended.

I realized that my life was completely cornered, that I could not overcome the wall called reality.

The rain that came with the end of summer brought an icy chill.

As I walked through the rain, I could not stop lamenting.

[If only I could start over.]

Tears ran down my face at the words that slipped out without thought.

It was not as if I had wanted a trashy life like this from the moment I was born.

I had been born the fourth of five children into a reasonably well-off family.

Two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother. I was the fourth.

In elementary school, people praised me for being clever for my age.

I was not especially good at studying, but I was good at games and sports, quick on the uptake, and the center of my class.

In middle school, I joined the computer club, saved up my allowance, and built my own PC using magazines for reference. My family, who did not know the first thing about computers, praised me to the skies.

My life began falling apart in high school... no, in my third year of middle school.

Thinking about it now, that may have been the trigger.

I thought studying was unnecessary for the future.

I thought it was useless.

As a result, I ended up enrolling in a complete shithole of a high school, rumored to be the worst in the prefecture.

Even there, I strutted around arrogantly.

I thought I was fundamentally different from the other idiots because I could do anything if I just put my mind to it.

That was how I lived.

One day, while I was standing in line to buy lunch at the school store, someone suddenly cut in front of me.

Pretending to be righteous, I scolded him.

It was an outrageous thing I did because I was overflowing with pointless pride and eighth-grader syndrome at the time.

But... to make matters worse, he was an upperclassman and one of the two biggest delinquents in the school.

In the end, he beat me until my face swelled up, then hung me naked from the school gate.

They took plenty of pictures, and those spread through the entire school with absurd ease, half for fun.

My rank fell to the very bottom in an instant, and people mocked me with the nickname “Circumcision.”

After not attending school for a month, I became a school-refuser and a shut-in.

My father and brothers saw me like that and kept saying irresponsible things like, “Have courage,” and “Hang in there.”

I ignored every word of it.

I was not in the wrong.

Who could go to school after something like that?

So no matter what anyone said, I stubbornly locked myself in my room.

I thought every kid my age had seen those pictures of me and was laughing at me.

Even without leaving the house, I could pass as much time as I wanted with a computer and the internet.

Influenced by things I found online, I took an interest in all sorts of things and tried all sorts of things.

I built plastic models, painted figures, and tried running a blog.

My mother, who supported me, would give me as much money as I wanted whenever I asked.

But I grew tired of every one of them within a year.

Seeing people more talented than myself and comparing them to my own pathetic self made me lose all motivation.

From the outside, it must have looked as though I was merely playing around, but as someone trapped alone in a dark shell with time to spare, there was nothing else I could do.

Looking back now, I knew full well that was just a coward’s excuse.

I would at least have been better off serializing some half-baked webcomic while claiming I would become a manga artist, or submitting novels while claiming I would become a light-novel author.

There were plenty of people in situations similar to mine who did just that.

I laughed at them.

I sneered at their creations and criticized them like some critic, saying, “This is worse than trash.”

Even though I had done nothing myself...

As I looked back on my life, nothing but regret became sharp spears, stabbing again and again into my chest.

My life was trash.

I did not want to live carrying a life like this.

I wanted to go back.

It was as I walked along thinking such things that it happened.

[—That’s why you—.]

[You’re one to talk!]

I spotted three high school students in the middle of an argument.

Two boys and one girl.

A boy in a school uniform with its collar turned up and a girl in a sailor uniform—a rare sight these days.

Apparently they were caught in some kind of love triangle, as the tall boy and girl argued heatedly.

The other boy stood between them, trying to calm them down, but neither paid him any heed.

‘Those guys are seriously living the good life. Go explode. ...Hm?’

Had my wish come true?

At that moment, a truck came barreling toward the three of them at tremendous speed.

[D-Dan... danger.]

I tried to warn them, but my vocal cords, which I had not properly used in over ten years, shrank up further from my aching ribs and the cold rain. My voice was swallowed by the sound of the downpour.

I thought I had to help them. At the same time, I wondered why I should do such a thing.

But I had an instinctive certainty that if I did not help, I would surely regret it five minutes later.

I knew I would regret seeing the three of them utterly mangled after being hit by that truck racing toward them at terrifying speed.

I would think, “I should have helped them.”

So I thought I had to help.

I wanted the small satisfaction of a piece of trash like me dying while saving someone.

Not wanting to regret things to the very end, I ran as though tumbling forward.

Then I seized the boy trying to stop the fight and threw him with all my strength out of the truck’s path.

Two remained.

The moment I thought that, the truck was right in front of me.

I had only intended to pull them to safety by their arms, but when you pull someone, the reaction force sends you forward.

It was only natural.

A law of physics unrelated to the fact that I weighed over a hundred kilograms.

My legs, weakened from sprinting at full speed, easily carried me forward.

At the instant I struck the truck, something seemed to flash behind me.

Was that the life flashing before my eyes that people talked about?

It happened too quickly for me to tell.

It was too fast.

Perhaps because mine had been such a shallow life.

I was hit by a truck more than fifty times my weight and slammed into a concrete wall.

And so... crushed like a tomato between the truck and the concrete, I died.

Everything was over now.

I thought I had ended my life telling myself to rest easy, but then—

As I felt a dazzling light, I saw a beautiful, large-breasted blonde woman drenched in sweat and a muscular, brown-haired handsome man looking down at me with delight.

What in the world was going on?

I had definitely died.

Where was this?

A man and woman spoke in a language I did not recognize.

For a moment, I was amazed by the incredible strength of the man who lifted someone over a hundred kilograms as if it were nothing—

"Twin."

The man holding me looked at the baby in the woman’s arms and realized it.

I had been reincarnated with the memories of my previous life.

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About a month after I was born.

I finally managed to accept that I had been reborn.

I was a newborn baby.

I did not know how my memories of my previous life had remained, but there was no reason for that to be a problem.

Reincarnation with your memories intact—everyone fantasizes about something like that at least once.

I had never imagined that fantasy would become reality.

The man and woman I first saw when I opened my eyes appeared to be my parents.

And the newborn baby I had faced seemed to be my twin sibling, born at the same time as me.

I could not deny that I felt a little disappointed it was not a twin little sister, at least.

Like Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len from Vocaloid.

Wouldn’t life be worth living if I had a beautiful twin sister like that?

Well, I supposed I ought to be grateful just to have been reborn with my memories.

More than that, though, I worried whether I could be satisfied living in a place without computers. The future looked bleak.

Another half year passed.

After listening to my parents’ conversations for half a year, I became able to understand the language to some extent.

I learned that my name was Rudy, while my twin sibling’s name was Lumi.

By then, I had learned to crawl, and I was grateful simply to be able to move around wherever I pleased.

Lumi, on the other hand, was usually either lying in bed or sitting in a rocking chair and looking out the window.

Well, that was probably normal for an ordinary baby.

I was not especially interested, nor was it anything I needed to worry about.

Still, once I could move around, even if only by crawling, I learned various things.

First of all, this family was well-off.

The house was a two-story wooden home with more than five rooms, and they even employed a maid.

At first, I thought the maid was my aunt, but judging from how deferentially she treated Father and Mother, she did not seem to be family.

The location was rural.

The view through the window was of quiet countryside.

There were not many other houses—just two or three scattered amid the sprawling barley fields.

It was an incredibly rustic backwater.

Having lived swept along by the waves of civilization, I felt a pressure that this might be a little difficult for me.

Even after reincarnation, my desire to use a computer had not disappeared.

But I only kept thinking that way until one afternoon.

With nothing to do, I climbed up onto the chair where Lumi usually sat, as I always did, intending to look out over the peaceful countryside—and froze in shock.

Father was swinging a sword in the garden.

‘H-Huh? What is he doing?’

That was my father, swinging that thing around at his age.

Did he have eighth-grader syndrome?

‘Ah, damn it...’

I was so shocked that I unwittingly leaned my head backward.

The rocking chair shifted, and Lumi, who had been poking his head over the edge, lost his balance forward and fell to the floor.

Apparently a nail had been sticking out, because blood flowed from Lumi’s head where he had fallen.

"Aah!!"

Mother must have heard the sound. She dropped the laundry and rushed to Lumi, one hand pressed over her mouth, her face drained of color.

"Lumi! Are you all right?!"

Mother hurriedly lifted Lumi into her arms.

After checking his wound, Mother sat him down, put a hand on his head, and was about to chant a strange spell.

"[O sacred power, abundant nourishment, unto those who have lost their strength—.]"

"M-Madam!! Please, look at this!"

Lilia, who had picked me up from the chair, urgently called out to Mother.

As I listened and wondered what was going on, Lilia told us to look at the floor, so I lowered my gaze as well.

And then I saw it.

‘H-Huh? What is that?’

It was unbelievable.

A small light seeped out from the spot on the floor where Lumi’s blood had fallen, and a flower bloomed.

Starting from a sprout, the process of its blossoming into a full flower unfolded in a rush, like a video of plant growth I had only ever seen in textbook photographs during science class.

"N-No way!"

Mother watched it with a gravely stiff expression, then touched Lumi’s wound.

Then—

"N-No... The wound... the wound is gone."

She said something difficult to believe.

The wound was gone? He had been bleeding so much, yet there was no wound?

As I blankly stared at the incomprehensible words, Mother embraced Lumi and stamped her feet. Her voice sounded as though she were sobbing as she said through tears,

"What do we do? What do we do?! My son... my son is a God’s Child!"

"Madam."

"That’s why his hair color was completely different from ours. Ahh, this is terrible!"

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After that, I was laid in bed alongside Lumi.

But my ears were open, so I listened closely to the conversations between my parents and the maid.

Then I realized there were many unfamiliar words.

Especially the names of countries, territories, and regions.

Every proper noun was something I had never heard before.

The words I heard most often were “God’s Child” and “Curse Child.”

Mother repeatedly told Father that Lumi might be one of those two beings.

Father and the maid, Lilia, agreed with Mother, saying that if the kingdom learned of Lumi’s existence, it would take him away from us.

They said he would never see the light of day again, becoming a plaything for the powerful kingdom to exploit until he eventually died.

As such chilling talk emerged, I understood for certain.

No, perhaps I had known from the moment I was born.

I simply had not accepted it.

I could be certain now. This was not Earth, but another world.

A fantasy world where swords, magic, and supernatural powers reigned.

At that moment, rather than jealousy or sympathy over my brother having cheat-like powers, another thought came to me first.

Could I make something of myself in this world, too?

If it was a world of swords and magic, a world with different common sense from my previous life, perhaps I could make something of myself.

Could I live like other people, work as hard as they did, rise again even after falling to my knees, and keep facing forward?

In my previous life, I had regretted everything in the moment of my death.

I died frustrated by my own helplessness and by the fact that I had done nothing.

But if it was me, knowing all that—

If it was the current me, with the knowledge and experience of my previous life—could I do it?

Could I live giving it my all?

I made up my mind.

I would give it my all in this world and live a wonderful life.

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About two years had passed since my reincarnation.

My body had grown quite a bit, and I could walk on my own.

I could speak the language of this world as well.

After resolving to live my life to the fullest, I first considered what I ought to do.

What had I needed in my previous life?

Education, exercise, skills, perhaps?

But there was little a newborn baby could do.

At most, I could bury my face in someone’s breasts when they held me.

Thinking exercise could wait until I was a little older, I began reading the books in the house to learn letters.

I took books from what seemed to be Father’s study on the second floor and spent my days reading them.

Mother or the maid might have been expected to scold me for roaming about the house as I pleased, but the two of them were so concerned with Lumi that I barely registered to them.

No, I knew they loved me equally.

They always smiled kindly at me and stroked my head; as parents, they did not lack in communication.

They simply worried more about Lumi.

After learning that Lumi had cheat-like abilities, Mother began to pay particular attention to him.

She practically constrained his freedom to the point where it was almost surveillance.

It was enough to make even me feel stifled watching it.

Unlike me, who moved about freely, Lumi was always lying or sitting beside Mother, doing nothing but listening to picture books over and over.

Perhaps time with one’s mother was the happiest thing for a newborn baby.

But I only thought that for a moment.

It seemed Lumi envied the fact that I could move around freely.

Whenever I left the room, Lumi would try to climb down from the bed as though to follow me, but Mother stopped him and laid him back down.

The instant I saw that, I understood.

‘He wants to go around like I do, too.’

He wanted the freedom I enjoyed.

Once I thought that, I felt sorry for Lumi.

It was pitiful that, at an age when he wanted to roam around, he could not get away from Mother.

So I wanted to help Lumi.

I did not know whether I was the older or younger one, but Lumi was my sibling.

The strange feeling of kinship, of having been born from the same womb, made the desire to help him take root in me.

And so, one day—

When Mother was away and the maid was looking after Lumi, I secretly approached Lumi and held out my hand.

"Lumi. Want to play with me?"

Lumi, who had been gazing at me from over the bed rail, nodded with eyes as round as marbles.

"...Yeah."

The moment I heard his answer, I took Lumi’s hand and went upstairs with him.

Still, I could not play anything too vigorous with Lumi, who somehow gave the impression of being frail. And since I wanted to learn to read as soon as possible, we spent our time reading books and chatting.

I felt sorry for Lumi, who must have wanted to roam around, but perhaps he was happy simply to read books and talk with me, because he kept me company without a single complaint.

Something I learned when it was just Lumi and me was that, while he was not very talkative, he listened earnestly to everything I said.

Far from disturbing me while I read, he became a stimulus that fueled my passion for learning.

Sometimes, when he came across writing he liked while reading, he would lightly tap the floor with the top of his foot.

It looked like a puppy wagging its tail in happiness, and it was unbelievably cute.

To be honest, perhaps because of the cheat-like power he had possessed since birth, Lumi’s hair grew quickly.

Unlike mine, which had only grown enough for my bangs to touch my eyebrows, Lumi’s hair reached all the way to his waist, like a girl’s.

Mother and the maid tied it up with ribbons, making Lumi feel like a real little sister.

‘A cool, withdrawn, sickly beautiful little-sister moe archetype, huh.’

Even knowing he was my younger brother, I found Lumi moe.

‘What the?! Am I crazy? He’s my younger brother.’

It was not as if I liked men or anything.

For a moment, I berated myself for mistaking Lumi for a little sister, then immersed myself in reading once more.

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