The life of an infant is truly the worst, depending on others and being forced to do things by others, throughout my time in this new world I have come to realize one universal fact, the life of an infant is a life of shame.

I pay my sincere respects to all the newborns who are forced by others to do things they don't want to.

“Peter, don’t be like that. Finish your milk right now! Or you are not going to get bigger” a woman whom I had mistaken for a kind and gentle person was literally shoving the milk down my throat.

I refuse to live this life of shame! I won't go down so easily, try your best!!!

“Noooooooo!” With a battle cry I retaliated against this messed up world, I struggled desperately with my life on the line, but... sigh... in the end, I had to give in to my circumstances and gulp down all that milk.

Such is the tragic story of an infant who can't even properly relieve himself on his own. Is this the redemption for all the vulgar acts I had committed in my previous life? Oh god, why am I so miserable?

"Now that's a good boy!"

Being applauded even after losing, this humiliation... just watch me, woman, I will make sure to pee on your favorite bedsheet today!

***

Sitting on the top of a dining table, a 6-months old child was carefully and intently looking at his mother who was about to do something that might change the boy’s life forever, or that’s what he believed anyway.

The woman collected a pile of twigs together, then she brought her two hands forward and started reciting a poem,

“O the elemental ‘ferocious’

Show thy mercy and light the world

Like a firefly lighting the dark night

Fire spark!”

It was a weird poem, no doubt about that, but even so, the boy didn’t get distracted, not even for a moment, and then ‘it’ happened,

A few sparks of fire got released from the woman’s palms and the pile of twigs before her got set on fire!

Even though the result of that long chant was completely disappointing, the boy kept on clapping and smiling like an idiot, well, I guess that’s how kids are, they get happy about just anything that looks flashy.

Oh, by the way, the boy, whom I had just mentioned was none other than me, though.

“Oh Peter, stop, I didn’t do much, really~” said the woman with an embarrassed but happy smile on her face,

And well, as anyone might have guessed, this woman was none other than my mother, Kristen Griffith and I was her son Peter Griffith.

It's been 6 months already since I got reincarnated into this new world,

And just as I have mentioned earlier, this place is a fantasy world, or maybe I should say, a different world from my own.

The first time I saw my mother do the chant I completely ignored her at first but the moment I saw the twigs catching fire I completely lost control over myself.

‘I should have watched it till the end!’ this thought kept on repeating over and over again in my head and because of that, I wasn’t even able to get a moment of sleep.

It was a very bad experience, so after that, I decided to pay extreme attention to anything that my mother did, which my mother mistook as me wanting to cling to her, which I… no this body actually wanted to do, so from then on my mother would always keep me close to her.

Whilst shopping outdoors she would carry me on her back by placing me on something of a makeshift baby cradle strap on her back which looked more like a backpack that children carry on their way to school. This allowed me to experience this new world all on my own! And oh boy, was it a pleasant experience!? I got to see many people along the way, some of them selling vegetables, fruits, and meat, some of them carrying weapons, some of them selling weapons and different colored liquids in small glass bottles, which if I am not wrong, are the elixirs.

There was also one more thing I noticed, the people around me were not all human! Yep, I spotted dwarves, elves, and beasthumans alongside humans, all of them minding their own business as if it was no big deal for the people of other species to exist alongside humans.

It came to me as a surprise that there was no visible discrimination amongst the people of different races. A beasthuman shopkeeper was giving as much importance to my mother as the other two women of the same race as him, which strike me as odd, because if I am not wrong then there should have been a rift of differences between the different species, at least according to all the fantasy novels that I have read in my previous life.

Well whatever, I guess it’s good that there is no discrimination in this world.

On our way home, I and my mom accidentally met with a young man with disheveled dirty blonde hair, noticing the two of us, the young man came running and offered to carry the two heavy bags full of groceries and vegetables which my mom had already given to him by the time he finished earning her a good laugh from the man himself.

The young man was none other than my father, Patrick Griffith, the chief guard at the manor of the Mayor of this town that I have been residing in for the last 6 months. This town goes by the name of 'Alenram', a weird name with no meaning whatsoever, but what can I say it was actually the name of a hero who participated in the ‘Last War of Domination’ around 30 years ago.

My parents kept on talking along the way, their main topic of conversation being me and the things related to my habits. I felt strangely embarrassed when they kept on calling me cute and adorable.

My parents looked more like friends than couples, well, considering their history they actually became friends before they eventually fell in love. My mother and father both of them were lone adventurers who once, because of a mission had to band together. It was then that the two of them became friends and started going on more and more missions together until they eventually fell in love and settled in this small town far from any adventure to live a peaceful life.

“And Patrick he is just so cute!!!” my mother said for the tenth time expressing her joy over my birth

Well, it only made sense for her to do that since my mother wasn’t able to conceive for three years which made her fall into depression. Not being able to conceive for three years is considered to be a very depressing thing even on earth, I could only imagine the pain my mother had to go through during those three years. It was only around one and a half years ago when she finally found out that she was pregnant with me in her belly.

...

Hm? Oh, have we reached our home already? Now that was fast, I guess listening to my parents’ conversation made me forget the passage of time.

My father stood in front of the locked door of our house. It was a small but beautiful house in my opinion. My mother stepped forward and opened the locked door using the keys she had in her pocket and the three of us entered our house together.

As soon as my mother stepped inside the house, I looked at the mirror that was placed at the entrance of our house, its purpose as anyone could have guessed, was for us to make sure that we looked at least presentable before we are about to leave the house.

I looked at the mirror once again, it showed the reflection of a boy around 6-7 months old with pitch-black hair and shining amethyst-like eyes. The boy had disheveled hair and pale skin that only added to his inborn cuteness. The boy looked so adorable that even I felt like holding him in my arms, which I am pretty sure that I will never be able to do since the reflection in the mirror belonged to me.

So yep, here ends my daily routine of praising my otherworldly beauty.

***

“Good night, darling” a lovely mother gave her son a good night kiss on his cheek and left the room.

A moment later, her ‘lovely’ son, as if he was possessed by an evil spirit (which he was) broke into a creepy smile and sneaked out of his bed to a separate room that was full of books.

The boy wasn’t able to walk so he crawled his way through the different books that were lying on the floor and after a good two or three minutes emerged out of the mountain of books carrying a small guide book which someone might mistake as a tourist guide book that tourists are given when they go to different places.

The boy placed the small book on the floor and started reading it whilst laying on the floor with his chest against it.

…

After a few minutes, the boy closed the book, the smile on his face vanished and got replaced with a serious expression.

The boy was obviously me and yeah I did snug out of my bed and read a book even though I was just a 6-months old boy, if anyone is wondering how I did that then that’s because the script they used in this world was very close to the Latin script that is used on earth. That’s why after a few months of trouble, I finally got used to reading the script of this world.

Coming back to the topic,

The things I read in that small tourist book told me a lot about this world,

First, the only land in this world is a continent named Galandora which is surrounded on all sides by an untraversable ocean called the ‘Ocean of Death’, a sure-death region that no one has been able to cross for god knows how long.

Second, there are three nations on the continent of Galandora, they are, Magnolia, Aurelia, and Amperia. These three nations have been in existence for more than a thousand years and have always stayed enemies with each other.

War has erupted countless times amongst these nations over the last 1000 years, but all of this came to a stop after the last war that ended 30 years ago with the mutual and unconditional giving up of any forms of aggression. Since then peace has been instated throughout the entire continent leading to the prosperity and development of the citizens of each of these nations.

I also came to know that all the nations on this continent are multiracial, what I mean by that is; there is no difference between humans, elves, beasthumans, and dwarves, no racial difference at least.

In this world, people are distinguished only in terms of their nationality, not in terms of their race. Although there are specific jobs that tend to give more weight to someone’s race but I guess that much is acceptable since some people tend to be inherently better than others at some things.

I checked the time on the clock and decided to read the book again for more information, I should have around one more hour left until my mother comes to check up on me.

So I opened the book once again,

Until the point where I had stopped reading the book, everything in this world seemed more or less normal to me but what I read after that made me lose my breath for a moment,

It went something like,

“In the past, the nations of Magnolia, Aurelia, and Amperia were known as the Aristocracy of Magnolia, Theocracy of Aurelia, and the Kingdom of Amperia respectively, but after the war ended a new form of government called ‘Democracy’ emerged into fruition”

The moment I read these lines I almost jumped to my feet.

Democracy? In a fantasy world? How could it be?

I kept on reading forward,

“Democracy is a rule in which the rulers or in more correct words, the representatives of a nation are decided with the help of voting from the general people without any discrimination being made on the basis of their race, sex, or social or monetary status. This form of government was widely accepted by the common masses and now because of that peace and prosperity has finally come to the continent of Galandora”

I closed the book once again, my face was drenched with sweat.

It was only after I finished reading that I realized something, I was unconsciously holding my natural call for a while now! And now I feel like my bladder’s going to burst!

I have to move…! Otherwise I might wet the very book that I was reading,

Holding my urge to get lighter I kept on crawling slowly towards my destination, the toilet!!!