POV: Arelia Elba, formerly Acil Harlem

Six years, six years had passed since the three of us had been reborn. Of course, as luck would have it, I was reborn a girl while Hannah and Martin, now Sarah and Herkal got to at least be the same gender. My name was Arelia Elba, daughter of the mayor of the Elba Village, some small village in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Life here was easy but boring. As that strange guy... Nexus or whatever his name was, said, we had been reborn in a world of magic and shit like that, and we had also been promised powerful magic... although neither of us could use any type of magic. According to our teacher, we would first need to have our mana awakening or whatever. I really didn't care that much, I only wanted to know what Ethan or... Altarl or whatever his name was now was up to. Every time I thought about tormenting him in this life as well I smiled. That was the whole reason I even got him, to torment him. After some point in my life, I just got bored being a gang leader, so I decided to get a slave to torment, a slave that I wouldn't let die easily. And now he couldn't even escape me in death.

I began chuckling.

"You alright?" Herkal asked.

He had been reborn as a boy destined to be a brute. At the early age of six and a few months he was already quite bulky and tall with blue eyes, blond hair and tanned skin. Currently, he was wearing dirty clothing... which was considered to be quite expensive in our village, having cost him twenty coppers, which was enough to live for days.

"Yeah, yeah. Just thinking about Ethan," I responded.

"You're going to make me jealous," Sarah responded.

Just like in our last life she was clinging to my arm. She was a little smaller than I was with blue eyes and black hair. She wore a dirty dress that reached a little below her knees with a belt tightened around her waist.

"Oh shut it," I said as I looked at the small pond we were standing in front of.

I looked down at my own reflection. A girl with amber cloured eyes and dark blue shoulder-length hair looked back. I wore the same clothes as Herkal was, cause I didn't really like dresses all that much and I was already dreading the time I would reach puberty. It was already difficult enough dealing with Hannah's periods in our last life but now I'd have to experience them myself... at least I knew that that time was still quite far away and that there might be some magic against that shit.

"Let's just go, I don't wanna stay here any longer," I said as I kicked a stone into the pond.

"You're the boss," Herkal responded.

I somehow had the feeling that he had become more of a mindless goon since the reincarnation. And Sarah was also more clingy than she was during her life as Hannah, and she made a lot more jokes about being a lesbian now... which I simply didn't care about.

There were a few things I missed about my old life. One was being an adult and being taken seriously by people older than me, another was smoking. I hadn't smoked in six years and while this body wasn't craving it my mind certainly was.

We walked along the narrow dirt path that led from the plains, through the wheat fields, towards our little village. It consisted of no more than thirty to forty wooden houses, some of which were not inhabited either because they were for business or because of other reasons. We also had a mill a little further away from the village itself. Along the way, we came across a group of younger kids. As soon as they saw us they ran away without looking back, it made me smile. At least these little shits knew respect. They hadn't even told their parents, that's how afraid these kids were of us.

"So what you got planned for tomorrow?" Herkal asked.

"Dunno, hang around the market or something?" I answered.

Our village had a small market but nothing exceptional, people just sold clothes, some food and things they crafted.

"We could go on a date!" Sarah suggested excitedly.

"We're six, Sarah, six," I responded.

"So? Our parents will just think it's a play date or something and instead, we'll be maki-" Sarah continued but I slapped her.

"We. Are. Six!" I said loudly. "Wait 'till we're fourteen or something, then we can start doing that shit."

"Fine... fine," Sarah responded, sounding quite disappointed.

We continued walking back to the village. Sarah would often ruin the mood with her overly high amount of love for me. It was strange and even disgusting at times. I mean I had no problem with it in our old lives but we were in our forties then, no we're not even ten yet...

After about a quarter-hour we reached the village and each of us went home since we could already see the sunset and we needed to pretend to be at least a little normal if we didn't want to get bothered by everyone.

I opened the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. My mother, who looked like me but much older, greeted me with a smile and a hug.

"How was your day?" she asked as I followed her to the kitchen.

"It was really good," I said with a childish tone.

"That's wonderful sweetie. Now let's eat and then get you bathed so you can go to bed," my mother said.

"Yes!" I responded, trying to imitate a childish but overly serious tone as if I was playing soldier or something.

My mother chuckled at that. We ate shortly after, just some bread and meat and some vegetables. My father didn't return, he had to work late again. After we were done eating my mother bathed me and put me into bed, read me a bedtime story and then put out all the lights, which were some kind of bugs or something that could be turned off by pressing on their head with a stick through an open space in the lantern. I tried falling asleep but something just felt off.

I tossed and turned up until I suddenly felt a sharp pain throughout my entire body. It felt like I was exploding from the inside out. I screamed loudly, shaking and crying at the same time. It went on until I lost consciousness.