Repeated Play Volume 1 Chapter 2

 Chapter 2: Living in This World - 1

──Why, in the world, did I set my appearance to its lowest value?

Covering for some disadvantage with raw ability only works when the disadvantage really is “some”. If I could, I'd go back right now to the moment before I reincarnated and make my appearance at least passable as average.

No, I won't even ask for something as extravagant as average.

If I could just have an appearance that gets me treated as “human”, at the bare minimum, that'd be enough.

Please, somebody, just treat me like a person.

The moment I was born, I realized my choice had been a mistake.

Because the eyes of the parents holding me were twisted with fear and confusion.

If there's any real love involved, picking up a newborn should be something done with a smile. But in the eyes of the man who was apparently my father, all that was carved was fear and shock toward his own child.

I remember clearly how my mother forced a smile onto her face as she picked me up.

At the time, I had no idea just how distorted my own body was.

Even so, I could tell from my parents' reactions that my appearance was something unbearable to look at.

I couldn't understand what they were saying or what the words meant but I could read enough from their expressions and from the beautiful, tearful woman I could tell was my mother.

Time, felt through a child's body, passed in an instant.

Probably because of how small my brain was. At first my thoughts were scattered and refused to come together and the days went on with me barely able to control my own emotions. My feelings and behavior got dragged along by my body too, and pathetically enough, I'd end up crying when I didn't even want to or wetting myself.

That's how much influence the body has over thought and emotion.

I still remember the first time I checked my own face in a puddle.

──A monster.

No other thought came to me beyond that.

Eyes so warped and unevenly sized I wanted to cover my own and a mouth split wide like the Slit-Mouthed Woman's. And the finishing touch: something jutting out from my forehead like a devil's horn. That alone made me look like one of the hideous monsters supposedly living in this world.

──This is me?

Still held in my mother's arms, I stood frozen in front of that small puddle.

The unbearably ugly creature reflected on the water's surface wore that same stunned expression and when it started crying right along with my own feelings, I understood with a sickening clarity that that was me.

It's honestly a wonder I hadn't been killed yet.

I could understand my father's shock at the moment of my birth too. If your own newborn child turned out to be a monster like this, anyone would want to cry.

A child. A being born from two people loving each other. If that turns out to be a horned monster, of course it's only natural to be shocked and afraid.

I wanted to cry too. But I was the one who'd brought this on myself.

All I'd needed to do was give up on that tiny sliver of stats and put it into appearance instead.

Because of some pointless obsession of mine, I ended up making the parents of this life grieve.

The instant I saw my own appearance, the thought that came to me was: 『I screwed up.』

Would it be better to just die now and start over?

While I was thinking that, I caught sight of my mother's gentle, kind face as she desperately nursed me.

That's right. Right now, I'm this person's child.

No matter how terrifying my appearance, no matter how much I looked like a monster, this person was trying to raise me as her own child.

Until I'd actually reincarnated, the sense that I would 『live in this world』 had never really sunk in.

Becoming someone's child and living.

The Goddess had told me that my reincarnation would borrow the body of a child fated for misfortune.

In other words, it wasn't as though I'd taken a life but I was still receiving someone else's life all the same.

I'd been thinking about it all so carelessly, telling myself it was reincarnation, a build, just a game but from here on, I'd be living in this world as these people's child.

She'd gone through labor pains to bring me into the world and now I would grow up, living with their help along the way.

Time to reflect on that.

I'd been thinking about reincarnation far too lightly.

Starting today, I would live in this other world.

I can't just throw away a single person's life so easily.

For now, since I had to actually live, I started by sorting through the things I hadn't been able to confirm with the Goddess, along with the information she had given me.

First, about this world's language: obviously, it's different from Japanese.

Aside from Japanese, my native language, all I know is the English I studied through high school and a bit of simple Chinese I picked up to play Chinese games, but I get the feeling the grammar structure here is a little closer to English.

I say I get the feeling because I still can't read most of the writing in this world, so I haven't been able to properly grasp the grammar.

Part of it is that I'm a child and don't get many chances to encounter writing but more than that, this village just has a low literacy rate.

The only people I've ever seen actually handle writing properly are the village chief and the middle-aged merchant who comes by periodically to trade with this village.

There seem to be a few people who can read a little but the only two I've confirmed can actually write are those two.

There might be others besides those two but it's probably safe to say the literacy rate here is pretty low.

The cultural level, just like I'd been told, is roughly what you'd call medieval.

As for what people are actually saying, or individual words, I've gotten to where I can pick up a vague sense of it just from the sound.

Especially when it comes to insults and cursing.

Next, the place I was born sits on the western side of the two great continents in this other world.

This world has two major continents, east and west, and the western continent is crowded with all kinds of nations competing for space.

The nation I was born into is a great confederated state up in the north. It's less a single country than what you'd call a confederation, several large cities banding together and calling themselves one nation. Its size is pretty massive, but the Goddess told me its national power is scattered thin, and it lacks the cohesion of the other major nations.

Where I live is the outskirts of one particular city within that confederation.

The village itself has a population of around two hundred, give or take, and they seem to make their living through farming and hunting.

Apparently tens of thousands of people live in the city, which makes this village about as backwater as it gets.

At first I was honestly disappointed the capital was so far away, but now I think it worked out for the better.

The reason I'm still alive even though my appearance is known throughout the village is that this is a small, tight-knit community, and the village chief's word carries a lot of weight.

In a world where magic and sorcery genuinely exist, it seems there's such a thing as being cursed.

Since I was apparently born looking like some kind of demonkin or monster, I was naturally suspected of it. Probably because these horns of mine happen to match a racial trait of demonkin.

The village chief even came in person to see my face once and I caught snatches of talk like 「that curse-touched thing〜」 at the time.

Even on Earth from a long ago, children born with disabilities were treated horribly and people with mental illness used to be treated as though they were possessed by foxes or demons.

If that's how it went even without magic being real, then of course I'd be suspected in a world where magic and sorcery genuinely exist.

Even so, thanks to my mother's desperate pleading, the village chief allowed me to stay in the village. And because of that, I've managed to go on living even now.

If this had been a place full of deeply devout people, there's a good chance I would've been forced to death anyway, with someone claiming I'd bring down misfortune or something along those lines.

The only reason I'm alive right now is because my mother bowed her head and begged for me with everything she had. I owe her nothing less than my gratitude.

By now, I've turned three years old.

My mother still finds me unsettling, as ever, but she keeps raising me anyway, doing her best to hold onto some kind of love out of a parent's sense of duty.

My appearance really must be that unsettling. Even I feel a visceral disgust and fear just seeing it reflected in water, so for someone caring for me face-to-face, it has to be worse.

And on top of that, she's been raising me like this for three years straight now, so the mental toll on her must be immeasurable.

My father has completely given up on me and treats me as though I don't exist. On top of that, his relationship with my mother has been getting worse lately too.

Being treated like I don't exist is hard to bear, but I think my father's reaction is understandable.

After all, I was the one who chose to be born looking like this.

Even if it was originally the body of a child who was going to die anyway, I still turned these parents into people who'd given birth to a monster.

Anyone would be shocked if their own child turned out to be a monster and anyone would find it hard to want to love that child.

If anything, my mother's doing a remarkable job taking care of me.

I decided that, if nothing else, I'd live in a way that never betrayed her.

When I reincarnated, all I'd thought about was what kind of life I could build once I grew up, but in reality, it was just nursing, sleeping, relieving myself, sleeping, and nursing again, over and over.

On top of that, my brain was still too small and underdeveloped for my thoughts to come together properly.

I could already walk around on my own but since I wasn't allowed outside the house, so the only thing I could do was watch the outside world from indoors.

Naturally, there weren't any books either. Printing technology seemed to already exist but paper was apparently still fairly precious for this era and the only place I'd ever seen a book was the village chief's house. It wasn't like I could borrow one so there really was nothing for me to do right now.

I closed my eyes, hoping the time would pass as quickly as possible.