In the night of the cheap apartment somewhere on Earth, the PC monitor on the small desk glowed with a soft blue hue in the dimly lit bedroom as the ending credits scene rolled out while the wall of texts that most people do not even attempt to read slid up the monitor screen with sleep-inducing orchestral music playing along like it'll actually help convince anyone to read the random names of these random people in the credits scene.
"The Squid Rejected's games are still better…" The man in his forties muttered with some contempt in his tone as he leaned his arching back in his worn-out gaming chair, but his fingers were still resting on the keyboard in the WASD and shift key position by instinct deeply ingrained in his soul.
"My back is getting worse because of this damn game…" He groaned, as he hadn't moved from his chair for hours, not even to eat or drink, as he'd pushed through the last part of the game just so he wouldn't have to play this grindy game again tomorrow.
This turn-based RPG game, "Greatest Empire: Rise Again," had consumed his time for weeks already; its pixelated characters and landscapes might even look more real than his own apartment's bedroom at this point, and the man is not young anymore, so he can't just casually pull the all-nighter gaming session with just his sheer will like he used to. He has grown weak and requires a bare minimum of four hours of sleep just to function like a normal human being in the morning now.
Finally, with the game finished, the man quickly dropped a 3-star with the fat and useless "MID" comment on the game reviews, and then he shut down the PC before the accumulated fatigue immediately hit him all at once. His exhausted mind turned towards the bed behind him that was beckoning him to sleep while he stared at the black screen of his PC monitor and wondered why there's no skip button for that super long ending credits scene and why he even played this game to the end to begin with.
"At least put some busty girls in it or something…" The man sighed tiredly and got up from the chair while stretching his back with no satisfied pop to grace his ears.
A yawn cracked his jaw as he finally pushed away the chair blocking his way. His eyelids feel heavy from too little sleep. He didn't even bother with anything else as he climbed on the bed with a grunt. He didn't get in the blanket; he collapsed on top of it with his face buried in a pillow that smelled faintly of shampoo. The bed groaned under his weight, a familiar sound that usually signaled the end of another day in his single life. The man closed his eyes, welcoming the darkness, hoping to see some nice boobs in his dream...
÷×÷×÷
After what feels like a very long sleep, the man finally woke up and opened his eyes… to find out that he had reincarnated into a goddamn baby!
A newborn baby!
He is now a goddamn newborn baby!
Not dreaming, not metaphorically, but with the undeniable reality of suddenly inhabiting a body that couldn't lift its own head. His vision was blurry and unfocused, swimming with shapes and colors that barely made any sense.
"Ahhhhhhhh~!" He tried to curse, but what emerged was a thin, gurgling wail. Panic reigned as he—the grown-ass man—suddenly became a baby the next morning for an unknown reason. He was trapped and helpless in the pitiful infant body. His adult consciousness was screaming like a man possessed, and his baby body was wailing like... well, a baby.
"Ayeeehyi—hahahahahahahahihihiii—!" Then suddenly an awful loud sound pierced through the baby's confused mind. It wasn't his bowel movement or the merry voices of the surrounding people. It was a mad laugh. Raw, crazy, utterly unhinged, echoing from nearby, or rather from the very next to him actually. It almost scared the living soul out of the reincarnated baby, a laugh so devoid of any human warmth, filled only with a terrifying, bottomless derangement.
The laugh wasn't just loud, but it weirdly vibrated in his tiny bones, resonating with his primal survival instinct that bypassed reason. His young baby bladder, already strained by the sheer shock of the sudden existential crisis, clenched violently.
There's nothing he could do as a warm, humiliating wetness spread across the rough linen beneath him, soaking the swaddling clothes. He couldn't stop it. He could only lie there, pissing himself in abject terror while the madman's laughter polluted his ears like it was a funeral dirge for his old life.
"That's my boy, Zarba Altra Zigma! Hyohohohohihihihiiii~!" The mad voice continues to say something the baby doesn't have a clue about as he suddenly gets lifted up by someone and repeatedly gets thrown high up in the air with his piss spraying everywhere. The reincarnated baby understandably lost it as he cried loudly while the mad laugh continued to echo in the room while the owner of the mad voice repeatedly threw the baby very high and caught him roughly when he fell from the air without any sign of stopping such dangerous action anytime soon.
With his young baby eyes, the reincarnated baby, now Zarba, couldn't see that currently his father, the brown-skinned man with messy brown hair and deranged brown eyes in a regal red robe, opened his mouth wide as he laughed crazily while he played the dangerous up, up, and away with his newborn son, while the maids and servants watched on with trepidation but kept silent, as they didn't want to trigger the madman's legendary random insanity.
For them, this is the most sane they have ever seen this man acting...
And that concluded the reincarnated baby's first meeting with his new daddy and, unfortunately, also the last "normal" encounter he will ever have with this madman for many years to come.
÷×÷×÷
Time flies, and before anyone knows it, 20 years have passed since the birth of Zarba Altra Zigma.
The reincarnated baby from Earth, now a fully grown man with a handsome face and a tall, lean build, known as the elusive crown prince of the Great Golden Empire, could be seen strolling through the imperial family's exclusive hunting ground as the afternoon light slipped through the tall trees in a golden ray of sunlight that shone on Zarba's short brown hair and brown skin while he was dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt with a black cloak and light brown pants with two brown leather belts and brown leather boots, while he carried with him a hunting bow and a quiver filled with arrows strapped on the left side of one of his belts.
Right now Zarba is walking alone while carrying a big fluffy bird with blue and white feathers on his shoulder as he glances around with his sharp brown eyes for any sign of a predator that might be waiting to ambush him along the way to his camp, a habit he cultivated since he was 12 years old after he was chased by a large boar one time when he was hunting alone for the first time, and it has made him very cautious of danger in the forest ever since.
After traveling through the forest until he arrived near the outskirts, Zarba had already dropped his cautious level and was humming a cheerful tune under his breath as his boots crushed a bunch of dried leaves underneath his feet with every step; the sound of crushing leaves was extra satisfying to his ears after his successful hunt of the Hoho bird, a rare bird species that cried "Hoho~! Hoho~!" just like their namesake. This bird was famous for its delicious spicy meat without needing any extra spices for cooking, so Zarba was very enthusiastic about his dinner tonight.
Thinking back about it, it has been twenty long years since he reincarnated into this fantasy world of sword and magic, which is actually the world of the game "Greatest Empire: Rise Again" that he just finished before he slept and woke up as a baby here.
Zarba is pretty sure this is the world based on that game since there are just too many things that are exactly the same as both the game setting and lore in this world for it to be just a coincidence. The most obvious point is that he's actually reincarnated as the protagonist of the game, the crown prince, and his new daddy is the mad emperor of the Great Golden Empire himself. With this information even a dumbass could figure out that they are currently living in the world from the game.
After he accepted the reality of being reincarnated in another world by something or someone without his consent, Zarba has spent most of his baby year thinking about his past life and his new life.
In the past life he doesn't really have anything going for him, as he is just a little cog in the society, just working and paying taxes until he will eventually die alone in the apartment or in some elderly care facility. A very unfulfilled life.
And now in this new life, it is also not really better than his old one; he can say that it is even worse even though he was reincarnated into a crown prince of the empire in the fantasy world, since this Great Golden Empire is currently on its last leg with a mountain of problems from both external and internal sources. It's like the world itself is hell-bent on breaking this ancient empire apart in any way possible.
Zarba has personally witnessed the empire's decline in real time for the last 15 years, and right now there's a large-scale rebellion brewing among the vassals and imperial citizens alike, and not only that but also the inevitable multi-way war with neighboring countries, which is creeping up on the horizon while the empire's military might is at an all-time low in history. Zarba feels like this is the calm before the storm, as they are all waiting for the trigger that will spark this huge volatile gunpowder keg of an empire.
And with the mad emperor sitting on the throne, nothing is going to get solved fast enough before that madman will definitely cause another problem that is going to be piled up in the already huge pile of problems within the empire.
Zarba is not even going to try, as he has already given up on this stupid empire. He knows what the problems are and how to solve all of them since he played the game, but this is reality; every problem is not going to wait for him to solve them one by one like in the game, as they are definitely going to come at him all at once.
'What the hell can I even do then?' Zarba thought about his current life with a careless attitude as he glanced at the little hourglass icon on the top left corner of his vision. It's always there without actually doing anything throughout his new life. He has an idea of what it could be since he read many reincarnation stories in his past life.
To be honest, he is not very enthusiastic about this, as this might be the infamous "System" that might force him to save the empire or something…
And then Zarba arrived at his small campsite outside of the forest as he put down the hunted Hoho bird on the flat surface of the tree stump near the bonfire before he put down his hunting bow and the quiver on the log while he walked to the small tent where he keeps his things inside.
He rummaged through his rucksack in the tent and pulled out a small magic wand with a bunch of feathers attached to the tip like a feather duster with intricate blue runes carved around the stick surface. He had bought it from an apprentice artificer in the random back alley in the capital city for a small price years ago.
This magic wand is named "Pluck the Feathers!" by its creator as a magic wand specifically crafted for one purpose only: to magically pluck the feathers of any bird instantly without the tedious manual labor of plucking them yourself. Zeno, of course, appreciates this convenient magic tool and wants it for his hunting trip, so he decided to not haggle for this wand so he can avoid hurting the promising artificer's feelings and not cause the guy to suddenly open PVP with him over the argument of an already cheap merchandise price.
With the wand in his hand, Zarba then placed the feathers of the wand on the dead Hoho bird, activated it with mana infused from his small reserve, and watched as a faint blue light shimmered over the carcass. Then the dead Hoho bird feathers began to vibrate violently and then detach from its skin in an explosion of blue and white feathers, swirling around in the air as the feathers fell down on the ground slowly.
Within seconds, the dead bird was now naked, its plump flesh and skin almost shining under the sunlight. Zarba smirked, pleased with how effective this magic wand is. Though before he could continue butchering the bird, the hourglass icon that was silent until now suddenly expanded and filled his vision with text.
÷×÷×÷
[ System Alert! ]
—Please wait…
—All conditions fulfilled!
—The [Spamming Summon System] is activated!
—Quest triggered!
—Quest: The Story Begun!
—Objective: survive your first assassination.
—Reward: [Updatable User Template]
÷×÷×÷
"Well, shit…!" Zarba cursed after he was done reading what was in his vision, which notified him that his system had suddenly become active and he was already about to be assassinated!