I used to think that my previous life's childhood was rough.

You know- getting thrown into ruling the demon empire weeks after my birth, demanding respect from other big wigs when I turned one, heading into battles when I turned fourteen months old, all that good stuff.

But at least back then I matured quickly and was able to look after myself.

And that's precisely why in my previous life, I was never in a situation as grave or as dire as the one I'm in right now.

My head was throbbing and all of my concentration was now focused on one thing and one thing only. I could truly say that I, Asama Mao, age thirty-six hours, had underestimated the hardships a half-human had to go through. Or maybe I chose to remain in blissful ignorance.

Either way, I was torn.

"NNNNGHHHH!" I yelled trying to suppress the urge coming from within…

"Uwein! Uwein!" I cried to call for help…

But no one came to save me. My new family was sitting right in front of me yet not one of them batted an eye. It was as if I was invisible. The attention that was dedicated to me a while ago had all dissipated.

I suffered and held on as much as I could. But even I had my limits.

'Alas, I must now give up.' I resigned.

The sphincter on my butt let loose and unspeakable things happened.

"Darling I think Mao-kun poo-pooed." My mother finally looked at me.

Regrettably and to my great dismay, it was indeed true, the former demon lord just shat his pants. This was probably the biggest stain in my history. Literally.

"Oh dear... Let's change his diapers then- ooh there's quite a lot in here. Stinky!" My father came up to my cradle and fixed my sullied undergarments gently. This man might look like a seasoned warrior but he was more motherly than my mother. Or at least that was what I surmised in our 36 hours together.

The whole process of getting my soiled undergarments changed was extremely shameful as one would expect. It felt more like humiliation play than it did a normal mishap, if you even consider this normal.

Why do I insist on that analogy?

The answer is evident if you look at the girl behind me who has been giggling nonstop.

My family had been in the hospital since I got reincarnated yesterday. There was no reason whatsoever to be here since my mother seemed fine and so was I. But it was deemed somewhat of a 'formality' from what I could gather.

Either that or the hospital is blatantly scamming us in the name of health.

Point is, we would be here until tomorrow.

To keep our family company, my father's friend (presumably) brought some members of his family along too, and they haven't left since. A truly wholesome relationship between two families… or so I'd say if it weren't for her. The reincarnated hero wench.

[Did the demon bitch just SHIT HIS PANTS? Pfft-HAHAHA] I could practically hear her mocking me.

Wait a minute…

I could actually hear her mocking me! Was she using thought transmission?!

I turned around dramatically.

[Yes, I am.]

I couldn't really respond since I was unable to use external mana, so I just keep staring at her.

[You can't use thought transmission can you?]

I shook my head sideways subtly.

In layman's terms, thought transmission is the act of using mana to compress neural waves into mana waves and then transmitting them through radiation to another person.

Internal mana control or contact mana control is something even babies have, what I'm unable to do is externally radiate it to another person.

Mana inside and in direct contact with my body, I can control. Mana outside, not.

Thought transmission without skin to skin contact, I can't do. Thought transmission with skin to skin contact, I can.

I had plenty of questions I wanted to ask her but I couldn't verbally communicate with her because apparently, babies shouldn't be able to talk. So I just stayed quiet. But much like the limit to my faecal discharge, there was a limit to my curiosity.

'Now how do I solve this?' I started mixing my brain juices.

AH!

'Let's do this! Initiate plan hero wench communication strategy!'

Phase one: I turned backside down and started waving my hands.

"Aw… does baby Mao want something?~" The hero wench's mother was the first to notice.

Phase two: I started waving my legs in the air too.

"Do you want auntie to pick you up?"

Phase three: Giggle.

'Auntie' took my giggle as affirmation and picked me up. She started oscillating up and down as if to play with me.

'I apologise, but I must turn this invitation down as I am on a mission right now.'

Phase four: I reached my hand out and pointed it towards the hero wench who was in another bedding.

"Ummm… Mao-kun do you want to go to Yuu-chan?" She asked.

Phase five: "Uuunn."

"That's great! You two want to be friends already!"

With that, 'auntie' took me to and laid me down next to hero wench. Unable to take my own weight, I found myself leaning against her. Well, this worked out for me since I needed some sort of physical contact to transmit my thoughts to her.

[What a pitiful state the demon lo- ah I mean former demon lord is in!]

[You're not much better yourself, former he- vampire.] I transmitted my thoughts to her.

I couldn't use mana radiation but transmitting thought through mana conduction didn't require any external mana control.

[Tch…]

[So… when did you reincarnate?] I jumped straight to the meaty part of the conversation. As I said, the curiosity had been killing me.

[About a year before you did.] She answered. I thought she'd be more disagreeable but she was rather fine.

[A year?] She spoke of a term unfamiliar to me.

[Oh yeah, we didn't have that back in those days. A year is 365 days.]

[Ah, so an annum.] It must've been a while for them to change terms so drastically. The two words don't even have the same origins. [Did you figure out how many years in the future this is?]

As soon as I asked this she went silent for a second.

[About that…]

[Hmm?]

[It's been three thousand years.]

Ahh three thou-

[WHAT? THREE THOUSAND? ARE YOU SURE IT'S NOT THREE HUNDRED?!]

[OI! Quiet! Your thoughts are too loud!] Woops, almost forgot we were speaking brain to brain. [But I can't really blame you, I had that reaction too.]

[What's your source?] My first instinct was to doubt her.

Hero wench lifted her finger and pointed at her father…

[He practically worships you and talks about your story all the time.] She put it down again. [And whenever he talks about you it's always three thousand years into the past.]

Three thousand years is an insane amount of time. Culture changes every decade. By the time two decades pass, people fail to understand each other properly. But now there was a three millennia worth of generation gap between my parents and myself!

'That's insaaaannneee! I'm like super old now... damnnnn... Wait, no!

I'm not three thousand years old. I've been dead for the most part. So in reality I'm only thirteen years old (including my previous life's age)! Yep, I'm not ancient at all!'

Ah, yes, I did die when I was 13. But it was fine, since in my previous life I matured much faster than humans did, both physically and mentally.

Nonetheless, I was baffled.

Hero Wench gave me a minute to compose myself, as I wrapped my head around the new information. But the information she had just presented was so out there that it only fueled my curiosity.

[What state is the world in right now?] I asked the next most important question. The only reason I wanted to reincarnate was that my previous era had gone to crap. So if that were the case for this era as well, this whole plan would have been a failure. But I'm sure that everything will be fine. It has been three millennia aftera-

[It's actually pretty bad.] God damn it!

[Eh? Why? It looks pretty peaceful to me.] I looked at the two families of mixed races intermingling. Demons and humans existing together. How could this era possibly be bad?!

[Well, activists and revolutionaries. The usual. The reason why you might think that this place is peaceful is that we're currently living in what you would consider a utopia.]

[How's that so?]

[Right now, the world is divided into three parts. The demons rule a landmass called Eurasia, humans are settled in the Americas, there are empty wastelands called Africa and Antarctica with no inhabitants whatsoever, and sandwiched between all of them is a stretch of islands where we're right now.]

[It has been three whole millennia, how are these idiots still not together?!]

I was surprised when I saw the two races intermingling at first, but that's because I assumed it hadn't been thaaaaat long. The world always worked under the influence of homeostasis and the constant need for streamlining.

Smaller groups, no matter how different, would settle for common ground and come together to form a larger group as there's safety in number. This was a phenomenon that lead to drastic generalization in decades. If that rate continued, all the different peoples of this world should have been in complete unison by now.

The absence of that fact was baffling.

[Not being together isn't even the worst part. The different races have been preparing for war.] She dropped another bomb.

[You've got to be kidding.]

[I wish.]

Our heads went silent for a bit. I call bullshit.

[So what are you going to do about this?] She asked expectantly.

.

.

.

[What do you mean? I'm not going to do anything. This isn't my problem, to begin with. I've suffered enough in my previous life. And no matter how bad this world might get, it will still be better than the hellhole from our era.] I answered immediately.

I stared at the two families laughing in front of me. In these thirty-six hours, I've received more warmth than the entirety of my previous life. There was no way I would go through something as pointless as war ever again.

[If war does break out, I'll just run away with them.] My eyes were fixated on my parents.

[Hmm… If that's your goal, I don't think you'll be able to do that.] She looked over to my side. [Afterall… your parents are the generals of our army.]

Horsedung!