***The World***

***Angrod***

I was reborn in the year 1932 a.C. (after Creation) on a planet which the inhabitants just referred to as ‘The World’.

Because of how reincarnation happens to work, I wasn’t fully aware of my past until my body gained the ability of independent thought, so my memories slowly started to return bit by tiny bit. It’s a happy circumstance that immortals aren’t reborn as babies with their full personality intact. Though, toddlers with the mental capabilities of an adult are still pretty creepy in my opinion.

In my case, it took some time, but as my memories returned I eventually managed to work out most of what happened to me in my past existence.

At least I hope so. How would I know that I forgot something if I don’t remember forgetting it in the first place?

And therein lies the crux of why even immortals should avoid dying at all costs. The memory loss just isn’t worth it. As for me, I was relatively puzzled once most of my old personality had returned at the age of four and I started trying to make sense of what was happening around me.

Given what I remembered of my judgement, I would have expected some kind of horrific reincarnation as a slave or some measly peasant without any hope of rising through the ranks of society.

I could also have reincarnated as a girl. Not that I would have had a problem with that, though I prefer to be male. Nonetheless, after a few hundred reincarnations I learned to roll with the hand that fate deals me.

There were also no malformations on my body and I even understood the local language, so things were well as far as I am concerned. All in all, I had gotten away pretty lightly. Given that I was reborn as the prince of a powerful nation, the whole situation felt hardly like a punishment.

Had Seria screwed up somehow? I could hardly imagine that a goddess of her calibre would fuck up something so simple as putting a soul into a new body. Unless ending up with 'that' kind of parents counts as a punishment.

My dad, King Nicol of Tirna, turned out to have a habit of doing irresponsible things to his only son. Like picking me up and throwing me up into the air, just to catch me again. Or sending me on a merry-go-round until I was just on the verge of puking.

In fact, I already did so once or twice, given my new body. Unfortunately, being whirled around like on a carousel means that the centrifugal forces are arrayed against me and I ended up sullying myself instead of my father. Yes, that’s how much force he used when he sent me on a merry-go-round – as he likes to call it.

I can’t wait for the day when I am large enough to reach his nuts before he manages to pick me up…

Sadly, scenes like this happened on a daily basis:

He would storm into the room after a hard day of doing his kingly duty. Then he would scream, “Who is my dearest son!?”

With a target acquired, I would be picked up and treated like a hostile football player.

Thankfully, there was always my mother who soon came to the rescue with, “Give me my child! You can't do that with a baby!”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. Here you go.” And I would be returned to a proper caretaker.

On the other hand, my mother isn’t exactly a role model either. In the stories, you always anticipate that the king and queen of a country are too busy to take proper care of their kids. Then you end up with a spoiled or neglected prince.

Not so in this case. Queen Ireth of Tirna was a mother hen who didn’t leave me unattended for a single second. Even if she was busy with work, I had to stay close, even if there were more than enough servants to take care of the country’s future.

Hence, I started thinking of Mom and Dad as the MotherHen and the MadKing.

The only thing that was even more worrying was that everyone treated me like I was more than just a prince. My parents looked at me like I would be their salvation and the servants behaved as if they were in the presence of a hero.

Frustratingly, given my current physical state, I could hardly request a proper explanation. That’s why I decided to ignore the current state of affairs and to learn everything I could about my new world, hoping that with time the answer would reveal itself naturally.

So I bade my time and twiddled my thumbs, reading what books I could get and keeping my ears open without revealing my capabilities. Long ago, I had learned the hard way that revealing my identity to my mortal parents, or trying to be some kind of genius child, almost never resulted in something good.

So it happened that one day, I was being carried by my mother along the palace’s hallways while she used the portraits there to introduce me to some family history, incidentally also giving me some hints about the world’s political state.

“Oh, my. And this is Nicosar the 8th, little one. He’s your grandfather and is currently away inspecting the borders to Stricc.”

I study the picture of an old geezer who was so far strangely absent from my life. The man on the picture looked strict and wore a military uniform with more medals than I managed to count before mother continued onwards. It suddenly occurred to me that up until now I only had contact with my parents and some selected servants.

“Later, you should know all of your predecessors by name. All forty-seven of them,” Ireth explains, unaware of my inner monologue.

‘Really? I will have to know them all by full name!? Well, isn’t that a giant pile of useless knowledge!’ I moped internally.

The family seemed to be very important in this world. What a pain!

But back to my earlier train of thoughts. If we have so many relatives, then where are they?

Is there a point to being kept isolated? It's been four years since I was born and Mother rarely left me out of her sight. Let’s say that I found the way Ireth was treating me a little strange.

Normally, I would have expected someone to treat a toddler like… well, like a baby you know? It would be normal if people talked to me in baby-talk, but Ireth started teaching me as if I were an adult right off the start. It’s like she is trying to indoctrinate me and expects me to understand every word.

Hell, the way she explains everything feels like she expects me to start asking questions any second now.

Well, sorry for not fulfilling your expectations and not answering. I could talk, but forming a word that doesn't sound like baby talk is just a no go with this body. And babbling some barely comprehensible words is just beneath my dignity.

Again, my thoughts returned to the fact that I am being held isolated. The matter just didn’t allow my mind to have a rest.

Ireth never lets me out of her sight. When there is an important meeting, our Head Maid has to be in my room all the time. At my current age, it wouldn’t be a problem to leave me alone for an hour or two. It would be sufficient to keep someone close enough to hear me scream if there is a problem.

Taking care of a child twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week will just spoil it.

Once, another maid had to take care of me, because the Head Maid wasn't available. The girl who jumped in as a replacement was a nice person and even read books to me, but something came up and she had to go outside for a short while.

Fate had it that mother came back just at that moment and found me alone in the room. Judging by her aura, I almost expected that the poor maid would be a head shorter the next day. Thankfully, I got her to calm down by playing the happy child.

Still, she was furious and I hope that I never manage to arise her ire like that.

The maid is still working at the palace, but she never got to take care of me from that point onwards. It's a pity since the woman was my type.

I won't complain about having a mother who actually cares about me, but it still creeps me out! Let’s just hope that she isn't the type who reaches for the knife when she is denied. I’ve seen many things in my time and it’s undeniable that there are many diseases of the mind that can catch a personality on the wrong foot.

At least her preaching allowed me to learn about this world’s circumstances. Being around the country’s leadership all day gave me all sorts of important insights into the government’s workings.

This world has three large continents which are divided into two great Empires. The two larger continents are connected by the third, smaller continent which functions as a land-bridge between them. The smaller continent incidentally also has a large mountain-range which is so high that it’s impossible to breathe properly at the peak.

The people call this natural barrier ‘Heaven’s Peak’, and it is incidentally also the border between the nations which control the two main continents.

The eastern continent is occupied by the Stricc-Nation and the west belongs to the Tirna Kingdom, which I am currently living in.

Surprisingly enough, the world as a whole is populated by various races from all over the multiverse, like our head maid, who is an elf.

Still, we are apparently all one people, and the different features are only a symptom of their bloodline. As an example, it’s entirely possible for what I would call an elf and a beastkin to have children, and their offspring would develop features of either bloodline.

This isn’t the only thing that’s strange about the world and its people, who I came to call Chimerans in my head. It’s the best way to describe this mixed race as a whole. But it’s not only the people. Even animals and plants seem like all sorts of strange, mixed breeds.

There are so many different types of chimeras in this world and I am starting to believe that whoever created it spliced all types of races together in order to create a single one.

Strangely enough, there seems to be no discrimination against the various bloodlines. That little fact caught me off-guard. The main animosity between Stricc and Tirna seems to come from a dispute between the ruling families.

The whole setting reminded me in an uncomfortable way of my old world.

Could it be that Seria artificially created a whole world, just to hold some kind of mirror in front of my face? That would be an absurd amount of effort, though many little things led me to believe that this world wasn’t entirely natural.

But if I am not wrong, then where does the punishment part come into play?

The longer I thought about the whole thing, the less comfortable I felt with this reincarnation. Maybe Seria didn’t mess up at all, and I have yet to learn the true extent of her deviousness.

I return my attention to my mother’s tail which she used to point at one of the portraits. The picture shows her, Ireth of Tirna the First, 24 years old. It took me some time to realize it, but my mother seems to be some kind of demon.

At first, I thought those dragon-like horns curving out beside her head are some sort of royal tiara. They sure look that way. They are black and polished enough to the point at which they are sparkling like obsidian.

If Ireth hadn’t accidentally scratched up a doorframe with her horns, I would have kept thinking of them as some sort of crown, especially since I myself seem to be a pretty normal human toddler.

Let’s just say that the whole biology of this world is still escaping my comprehension.

Not to forget that one incident when Ireth picked me up with her tail, carrying me upside down into the throne room while having her hands full with a pile of documents. The head maid was following the queen with tears in her eyes, complaining that this wasn’t the proper way to present herself in front of the servants.

I shared the head maid’s opinion, but not because it wasn’t ‘proper’ to treat me in such a manner. Being carried upside down like luggage was no fun, so I started to cry.

Admittedly, in a certain way, my mother’s horns look cool. In combination with her black hair, almost white skin and those red eyes, Ireth can look really frightening when she is angry.

My father is Nicol of Tirna the 5th, 26 years old. He looks mostly human, except for him being a giant of a man with more muscles than brain. I have seen him pat one of the guards on the back once. The poor guy flew five meters before a wall stopped him. He is still on a sick leave by the way, so I am not all that sure about dad being human.

He must have the blood of some giant running through his veins.

I gulp, imagining Nicol squeezing me a little too much, or using a little too much strength when he throws me up into the air. I should be happy he didn't already crush me on accident by now, given how hard it seems to be for him to control his own strength.

Regarding myself, my new name is Angrod of Tirna the First and… well… at my age, I obviously don't have any accomplishments beyond being a good, little toddler.

Our head maid is an elf by the name of Rose and there was nothing extraordinary about her as far as I could tell. She had a lean figure, which meant there wasn’t much to watch in the boob-department. Her hair was brown, giving me the impression of a pretty ordinary wood-elf.

There really aren’t many people who are close to me. I wasn't introduced to society yet.

Despite myself having a pretty easy life up until now, this world wasn’t perfect.

Tirna and Stricc were looking back at a long history of border conflicts. The Heaven’s Peak was a valuable source of important minerals and therefore a never-ending source of conflict for the two nations. The ongoing quarrelling had only stopped in the recent past since my parents had taken control of power. They were cool-headed and managed to negotiate an uncertain peace with Stricc.

According to the current peace treaty, we are sharing the resources fifty-fifty. Stricc is in dire need of the minerals for their weather control system and terraforming efforts since most of their nation would be desert without it. Tirna requires the materials for the bottomless hole of their developing magitech.

Stricc is constantly complaining that valuable resources shouldn’t be wasted on frivolous magitech. Strangely enough, the machines which are turning Stricc’s deserts into fertile fields are a creation of that very magitech, and happen to be one of Tirna’s most important export articles.

This dependency on resources was the cause of why they started fighting over mining rights and borders. That was over a hundred years ago and no one remembers who fired the first shot that started the conflict. The situation got out of control and they went at each other's throats.

I feel for them because it reminds me of the circumstances which brought me here.

But in their case, they managed to make peace, just a month before my birth.

The situation is still dangerous since the cold blood of such a long war doesn't go away overnight. There are many parties who are very unhappy with the current treaty.

Come to think of it, is that how Seria fucked up? She just checked in on this world, saw that there is a shitty war going on, and reincarnated me in a position which would make it hard to turn my back on the people of this world? Only that she didn’t predict that they would make peace right after her departure. The theory seems sound.

If I am right, then I have time to relax until Seria decides to check in on me. As gods happen to operate, that could happen tomorrow or in a hundred years.

My thoughts return to the present when Ireth reaches the end of the hallway and shows me a big picture with her and my father. Each of them holds a little child in their arms. By the look of it, they are four or five years old.

Hey, I have siblings? Why didn't I meet them by now?

“And those are your big sister and your older brother. They would have been six and seven by now. If they hadn’t been assassinated by some bastard!”

She presses me to her chest, her fingers digging uncomfortably into my flesh, but I don’t dare to complain.

“I will never let that happen to you. If I get my hands on whoever is responsible, they will wish they were never born!” she sobs.

Rose approaches from behind us, offering Ireth a handkerchief. “Here, Your Majesty. Wipe your tears.”

Okay…

I guess the question of why I am being isolated from the public is answered! Note to self, be quiet and don’t protest about being pampered until you are able to protect yourself.

It also explains why Ireth is an overprotective parent.

Good thing that I am still playing mute. Otherwise, I would have surely said something stupid and hurt Ireth.