One hour.
It has been one single, fleeting hour since my birth, and I can state with my eons of experience that it has been the most profoundly comforting sixty minutes of my existence.
I have met humans. I have, in a manner of speaking, conversed with them. True, my contributions were limited to gurgles and coos—"gooogooogaga" seems to be the foundational lexicon of this form. Yet, they responded. They smiled. A woman with a tired, kind face—presumably my mother—came to feed me, her touch gentle, her presence a warm, humming constant.
Seeing these people smile… it caused a strange, pleasant tightening in my chest. A new sensation. A good one. I have catalogued it for further study.
It seems I have been born into royalty. As a god, such opulence could be conjured with a stray thought—gold was just another atomic arrangement. But now, seeing the polished marble, the silken blankets, the intricate carvings through human eyes… it feels luxurious. A faint, airy sound escapes my lips.
Hah.
I chuckled. A reflexive mimicry of the happy sounds the servants make. My first laugh, born not from joy, but from observational replication. Still, it counts.
My analysis is interrupted by a persistent variable.
Him.
The boy. The one who called himself my brother. He looks no more than three years old himself, a child with ash-brown hair and serious blue eyes. And he has been sitting in a chair by my crib, staring at me with an unnerving intensity since the moment I was swaddled.
I know human history. Royal siblings often kill each other for the throne. The logical part of my mind, the part that remembers being digested and swatted, calculates the threat. Would he try to eliminate an infant rival?
…Would he?
Finally, he stands. He toddles over, his small hands gripping the polished wood of the crib. He leans in, his face filling my blurry field of vision.
"Brother," he whispers, his voice a soft, solemn thing. "Lucius."
So that is my name. Lucius. It has a regal weight. I store the data.
"Don't worry," he continues, his tone suddenly much older than his body. "You won't have to work your entire life. You can eat and sleep all you want." His little hand reaches out and pats my head with surprising gentleness. "Just… don't die on me."
Die? What is he talking about?
"The previous two little brothers I had," he confesses, a world of sorrow in his tiny voice, "they have gone to a faraway place."
Ah. Mortality. Infant mortality. The concept is academically familiar, but now, faced with the raw grief in this child's eyes, it feels… heavy. It is a burden no three-year-old should carry. A strange impulse stirs within me—an urge to offer comfort. To cheer him up.
I decide to act. I deploy the only tool at my disposal. I contort my face into what I hope is an expression of delight and let out a string of bubbly nonsense. "Gooogagagoooo!"
His somber expression shatters. A real, bright laugh bursts from him. "Hahaha! You're telling me not to worry? You're already so wise." He beams at me. "Alright. Our third brother, Kron—or rather, your twin Kron—is also in the next room. I'll go see him now. I have my lessons, but don't worry. I'll return by evening."
A twin? A twist of fate, indeed.
He leaves, and I am alone with my thoughts. The silence stretches, broken only by the distant hum of the palace. My divine nature, suppressed by the trauma of birth, begins to stir. The fundamental question surfaces.
Does this world have mana?
As the Origin God of Magic, the question is as instinctive as breathing. I must know. I close my new eyes, turning my awareness inward, probing the limits of this tiny, fragile body.
Huh.
It's… empty.
That can't be right. Every sentient being has a spark, a wellspring. This vessel feels like a perfect void. A normal human, then. Is this the final lesson of my curse? Ultimate power trapped in ultimate powerlessness?
A sudden, sharp heat blossoms on the back of my right hand. Did something go wrong with the reincarnation? I look down.
A rune pattern, intricate and blazing with golden light, etches itself into my skin. It is not a spell I consciously cast. It is a concept—fireball—made manifest by my mere will, drawing power not from within, but from the world itself. The air shimmers. A sphere of roiling flame, a meter wide, materializes above my palm.
Ah. So I retained my proficiency.
It isn't that I have no mana. It's that I don't need any. As the Primordial, I am a conduit. The universe is my reservoir. I can borrow from nature. Infinitely.
The fireball, untethered and obedient, shoots forward. It doesn't fizzle. It doesn't fade. It punches through the ornate wall separating my room from the next with a deafening BOOM, leaving a smoldering, gaping hole.
A slight, almost imperceptible smile touches my lips. I am… pleased. I have a place to perform magic now. I couldn't do that as a distant, observing god.
Through the hole in the wall, I sense it—a ripple of power. A conscious, directed magical inference, probing the scene. It's searching, assessing.
A voice, not in the air, but in my mind, speaks. "Who are you? An infant's room should not contain such power."
I respond in kind, my own mental voice a calm, ancient wave against his. "I thought there was an infant in the next room. So, who are you?"
"Not a reincarnator," the voice replies, laced with a familiar, weary arrogance. "A criminal."
"A criminal? How so?"
"I helped a being commit a sin. Although, without him knowing."
A cold, divine certainty clicks into place. "Ah. I, too, had to commit a sin to reincarnate here."
There is a pause. A psychic intake of breath. "I helped a god reincarnate as a human. I gave him one hundred lives as a disguised punishment. His wish was to be fulfilled if he was capable enough to be human in the hundredth." The mental voice turns grim. "The other gods saw through my 'help.' They deemed it a betrayal of cosmic law. And so, here I am. Also living my first and last life as a human."
"So, you were helping me," I send back, the truth settling in. "I was thinking about killing you if I didn't become a human at the last moment."
"Huh? Wait. What? You… you're the God of Magic?"
"How do you think an infant is talking to you all this time?"
"That's true, but… doesn't that mean… you're my twin brother?"
"It seems so. But you… you took the easy way out while pushing me through ninety-nine lives of horror."
"It was necessary!" his mental voice is sharp, defensive. "Before you could become human, you had to understand what a life is. You had to know fear, futility, and fragility. If you had tried to quit, to use your power to break the cycle even once, you would have been ejected back into the cosmos, unchanged! It was the only way to force you to experience."
The logic is… sound. Inhumanly cold, but sound. "But we're siblings now."
"Call me a partner rather than a brother. I will design a law to slightly alter the features of this body so we do not look identical."
"Why? I don't mind us looking similar."
"You think I care? I now have freedom from the tedious work of designing causality for eleven universes! A freeloader like you, who creates infinite problems, wouldn't understand the bliss of retirement."
A freeloader? The accusation is so absurd I almost generate another fireball. "We can explore this world now."
"Yes. But don't you know about this world? It has magic."
"Obviously. I can freely use it."
"It's more than that," Kron sends, and I can feel the smug satisfaction in his psychic tone. "Your name is Lucius von Crestfall. This is the Kingdom of Ardentis. And you will not believe this next part. They—the people of this kingdom of magic—are the only people in the entire cosmos who worship you. The Primordial Magus. The little bit of divine power you had left, the dregs that kept you from fading entirely, was fed by them."
The revelation is… staggering. They prayed to a forgotten god, and their faith was the anchor that kept me from dissolving into the void. "It's a good place to be born, then."
"Don't you have things like feelings? How cold. Should I write a law of emotions for you, too?"
"No," I reply, my mental voice firm. "I want to learn and experience them myself. So, that brother of ours, who is he?"
Kron provides a data-dump of information, his thoughts crisp and efficient. "Cassian von Ardentis-Crestfall. The Crown Prince. Ardentis is the strongest kingdom on this planet precisely because mages are almost exclusively born here. He is… intensely devoted. A good anchor point."
"I see. We should start using our names. Kron."
"Right, Lucius. But remember, I'm the big brother here. I was born first."
"So, what is this Kingdom of Ardentis about?" I ask, and he provides a swift, comprehensive overview—its feudal structure, its reverence for mages, its political landscape.
"I understand now," I conclude. "So, to live comfortably, we need money and power. And we both have them."
"Not money," Kron corrects. "We're the second and third in line. The treasury isn't our personal allowance. Perhaps when our doting brother becomes king, we will have access. But human kingdoms are rife with 'unforeseen circumstances.'"
"Right. I forgot about that. I have no knowledge of earning a living."
"Don't worry. With the power of Laws, I will establish a merchant union. Shifting probability to make our products the best, ensuring contracts are always in our favor… it's trivial. I can generate a million gold coins a month."
"Then I'll leave the money to you."
"And you will handle power."
"Yes. But I don't want the throne. We will support Cassian. As the Origin God, I have infinite mana. I will graduate from whatever magic institute this world has and establish my own battalion of magic troops."
"Then it's decided."
"Yes."
A perfect, symbiotic partnership. God and Law, united once more.
Our silent planning is shattered by a piercing scream from the hallway. "WAAAHHHH! SOMEONE, COME QUICKLY! THE PRINCES' ROOMS!"
I sense the maids panicking outside.
Oh. We forgot about the wall.
Kron's mental voice is the picture of serene detachment. "You take the responsibility."
And with that, the psychic link severs, leaving me alone in my crib, a smoldering hole in the wall, and the approaching footsteps of alarmed adults.
It seems my last life will not be boring.