02. You can’t check the rule book

I was thrown into what felt like a coma for a while again.

A few sounds eventually echoed gently inside of me.

“Silvia”.

And then it felt weird. And painful. Suffocating, blinding. Loud. I probably screamed.

My memories were all confused for a while.

And then my new mother nurtured me gently.

It was a little shocking how much the natural touches could soothe me. I was still painfully confused by what was happening to me.

But my mother was now holding me dear all too naturally.

~

My brain didn’t handle everything it held properly. I was in fog for a long while about everything. Where I was, who I was. Where did that Kami-sama tricked me... All my knowledge and memories were scrambled for a while. It took me a while to uncook them and recover some of whom I once was.

I eventually got that I was a baby, between hunger and tiredness. I could feel my body growing almost, and it was exhausting.

l struggled for a long time over one thing particularly. When I was looking at the adults taking care of me, and listening to them... I didn’t understand a single word!

Their faces were more European looking, and one thing for sure, they weren't speaking Japanese.

Eh... God, if it wasn't too late for the cheat skill, I wouldn't mind some auto learning or translating?

Given how my prayers remained unanswered, I eventually accepted my fate, being clumsy and too late.

I had to learn the language entirely like any new-born or nearly! I repeated my new words for mama and papa with a mixture of shame and curiosity. I was growing fast but oddly.

~

I quickly got how my name now was Silvia.

My mother always had weirdly soft pink hair colour. That bugged me more than anything.

I can't tell the shame of breastfeeding with a reasonably adult mind. But I also had forgotten how much the whole embrace and hearing another heartbeat could melt doubt and sorrow.

I did cry, panicking at times over my split past and new realities. But she shushed me gently, and her presence reassured me.

Father... I rarely saw. At first I didn't mind, because I already had one, whom I still remembered.

It would take me some time to bond, embracing this new life. But I would. Starting with my new mother.

It would take time to settle in my mind.

And more importantly or annoyingly, it took me years of childhood to understand my parents’ language, and where I was.

“Svenska”, as I would say.

And I began noticing weird things around me. Like how our maid had cat ears over her head. I kept trying to reach out for them, to check whether they were real. It amused the adults.I needed to know!

For a long while, I struggled with this new reincarnated life. I was stuck in a baby’s body, unable to move properly and I didn’t understand anything they were saying to me.

I was scared and sad, I wanted to tell them everything about me. Only... in Japanese maybe?

But I chose to be cautious. Even if it pained me.

I was presuming how people being reborn with older memories might not be such a common occurrence it was widely accepted in society. What kamisama had told me led me to believe, I'd better keep a low profile.

If anything, I was more likely to spook the hell out of them anyway, or bring some unwanted attention toward me. What could I even hope to gain?

Truth is, my parents would probably have laughed at my babbling, since they didn’t understood Japanese any better than I did their language.

From my knowledge of novels about reincarnation, I thought I shouldn’t assume anything. What ifthere is an elf or demon lord looking to kidnap people like me for nefarious ends? Better shut up sadly...

And from my understanding of the possible science behind it... I was a little more clueless and bewildered as a young child.

What did the people in that truck do to me?!

Did he say the company operating it was called Technology Isekai? And they carried what to brain copy people... For what?

And then they built a system of nanomachines...

That shouldn't but could reincarnate me?

Except my baby brain and body couldn't fit everything I used to be. So...

What did that god do to me!

~

As a baby, it was horrendous.

But since I had my time and nothing better to do, I began learning. Walking. Talking.

Weird. But real...

My mother loved my weird accent when I began to speak.

She and the maid were kind to me. The head butler was actually a bodyguard I would later understand. I saw this severe looking man more often than my own father as a young child.

I kept pestering him for fun. I was a bored animal! I was never brought out of that huge house you know.

So as a child, it was a little lonely...

I grew all too many years never seeing another child...

~

As a kid running through our estate, I was learning to speak “Svenska”, and about things of my immediate surrounding environment.

I was born to a rather rich family obviously. The manor was huge. The park was wide.

I lacked nothing. The bodyguard and the maid cared for me along with my mother. Until she disappeared one day suddenly. I didn't understand why.

There was snow in winter, meaning we lived in a rather cold country. That kept me curious.

I studied the seasonal and perennial plants and trees in our park. It was a fantasy world without much imagination I often thought. Even the moon was the same as on my old planet.

Look, I just didn't want to fully admit it you know?

Metempsychosis on a Buddhist perspective depends on your karma score, but it's the same world and time. On a Christian, Muslim and other religions side, it should have been a really different place. A good place?

And isekai in modern anime style, it's not supposed to be Earth.

I couldn't yet tell what it was.

Or to be honest, I didn't want to. The signs were accumulating but I pretended not to notice or dismissed them.

Everything was pretty familiar for me. I could enjoy all the amenities I would have expected in my past life really. Only... I was secluded to this house, its garden, and its few employees.

Around six years old, I was puzzled by how I hadn’t seen my father since my very infancy. And my mother no longer showed up lately.

I had never been to school and only the maid now was tutoring me, using computers to help.

So I was lonely. And growingly suspicious there was something more eluding me.

S - Where are my parents?

G - Eh... Young lady, I’m sorry, I can’t say.

It was less that she didn't know, and more that she wasn't allowed to.

Passing by the mirrors every day, I saw myself growing up slowly. I was a cute child with rather unexpected big eyes. I sure wasn't Japanese anymore.

I missed it a little, but I embraced rather merrily my new look. And I wanted to do the same with this new life!

My hair had an unusual light metallic pink shine to it. How could this be natural? My mother had the same... Well, perhaps it was normal in this world that is definitely not Earth.

My maid had cat ears as well and no one seemed to fret over it. I did though. I often played with her and I liked touching her ears. They were the real deal. Soft, able to move according to her emotions, and cute as on would want. She even had earrings there.

I kept playing with it, attaching bells and more trinkets when she wasn't looking.

G - Please my lady, it’s unbecoming... And they’re sensitive.

S - But it’s so cute. How come you have some and not me?

She eluded with a mixture of sad and happy smiles. I never saw so many conflicting emotions on someone’s face. I was young enough still not to understand what discrimination could be.

I kept teasing her ears as my main game. The second one was playing tricks on the guard. Like escaping his watch by a hundred different means.

I became a master of deception, much to his growing frown and grey hair.

He never really scolded me.

He only repeated how he would report it to the master, my father. I would never know whether that was true.

~

I hadn’t fully picked up what world I was in yet. But I hadn’t seen much of it, since I wasn't allowed outside the walls of the park.

Until I would find my way to leave this golden jail for good, there was something else apparently secret I could explore.

I wanted to know about myself. I mean new identity as lady Silvia and what it truly entailed.

So I began searching. Through the house first, and then through the computers. Behind their back.

From my name and other little clues scattered around the domain I could eventually find who my parents were.

And I eventually made my breakthroughs there.

My father was the count of Blekingen?

Isekai nobility, here we go, I recall thinking at first.

But the wife I saw on pictures wasn’t my mother...

I didn't find her.

I began to understand I was an illegitimate child, and kept hidden for a handful of reasons. Some might have been good or kind, but most were likely selfish and unfair.

Now that was annoying, but what can a kid do when their parents are no good?

I held myself together, and I tried to figure out more. If I was stuck along a river in this life again, I would figure out my way out to freedom this time. I would break out someday.

Thankfully I had a lot of place and time, and I was already literate enough to understand most things. Guess what, for some intellectual things, I was a precocious child.

I began to understand I wouldn’t ever have a real place in this family. My father wasn't living here because he could not risk being seen with me, and he was a public figure.

Apparently his title wasn't just honorific, it really meant in an antiquated manner that he had to rule his domain. And that was a full life job apparently. The county wasn't the best nor the worst doing of the kingdom, but it had issues. Like all over Europe, criminality was endemic, and monsters were not rare.

There would always be something more important than me... I eventually accepted it.

And that meant I would indeed need to forge my own path.

I would. Definitely.

~

I learnt a bit about the other species. But they didn't feel more real than reading another author's fantasy.

Until I met my first fairies one day.

The shock.

They were passing through our park in a hurry. The typical picture of little ladies with dragonfly wings, buzzing their way around.

I ran after them in awe, curious and playful. I was after all still a child. Too much energy.

They threw a spell at me.

Droplets of water appeared in the air, the sight of which stopped me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Combo shock! Stun lock achieved!

Then the accumulated bucket of water was thrown at my face to stop me. It made me dizzy.

I was petrified from confusion and awe, more than anything.

Real magic?

That was astounding!

S - Do it again! Do it again please! Lady fairy!

The fairies stopped for a moment to look back at my cheerful amusement. I couldn’t quite make out their faces but I think they were wondering what kind of freak I was.

They fled before I could catch up with them.

I was super excited. I was in a world with real fairies!

And I thought my maid with cat ears had gotten them through some kinky surgery, but actually that wasn’t the case at all?

I was holding in my squeals, running in circles. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

This world has everything! I was excited to explore it.

Now I wanted to discover everything.

~

Along these years, I understood many an important thing.

First. My birth was a mistake that jeopardised the titles inheritance in our family and in this country. Cadet branches who would have inherited the title after my father now had to face a bastard child higher in line of succession. That couldn’t be good.

This was why everyone around me was a little fidgety. I had a target painted on my back, and this was most likely why my mother in this world had suspiciously passed away.

My father was kept busy and at bay, and I would be next. As soon as he or I would be eliminated, the other would follow rapidly.

So he kept me hidden here, because so long I was hidden... An assassin adventurer wouldn’t find me.

Then, I shrieked loudly across the room when I finally looked at the maps of the world and the history.

I could no longer deny reality.

This was Earth.

And this was the 22nd century.

I had been isekaied from last century’s Japan to the kingdom of Sweden!

I knew I should have listened more closely to what Kami-sama was saying rather than at how he was looking...

But no matter how much I knocked my own head now, that was my reality.

I noticed tiny discrepancies along the maps I looked at. Things had changed slightly here and there from what I could recall. Russia and the USA had been dismantled into a few different countries. That surprised me. Competing unions of African countries were extending into a continental superpower in the making, but not achieved yet.

And Europe was partially dislocated as well, and at war with itself apparently. Or odds and tensions were at high level currently, with tiny skirmishes or unfortunate accidents along some borders occurring repeatedly.

I would need to learn more about the world’s history over the last century or two since I left it, because it seemed important now. There were news channels focusing only on the whereabouts of the current European war risks and hostilities.

The part I didn’t get for a while, were these talks about adventurers and heroes, repeatedly. Some channels were focusing to obsession on these peoples carrying swords and staves like anime characters. And they seemed happy enough to wear the fashion extravaganza that went along.

To me it was like looking at idols and artists playing their counterparts of a live action RPG or Gacha game. They looked like a constant weird fashion show and advertisement for some animated fiction or action game I never could catch the name of.

Never mind that I would become one of them... I was clueless at the time and for a long time.

However the most important thing I’ve learnt as a child, above everything else, was that reality of the system.

The nanomachines swarm behind most of these weird things...

~