There was once a quote from a famous artist in my past life: "When you're 10 years old, they'll call you a prodigy; when you're 15, they'll call you a genius; but when you reach 20, you're just an ordinary person."
That quote reminded me of this life, where I, the lucky one, was only lucky for a short while. What I had was trivial compared to those who were born with a silver spoon or a golden spoon.
Even if I wasn't ordinary in the eyes of normal people, as existentially, it had no other use than being a portable encyclopedia. Because of that, I decided to stop playing around as a prodigy or genius when I reached my first year of high school.
So then, did I have a bright future after everything I had done in the past? Not really, my life was ordinary. No lover, no purpose, my life just went wherever the wind carried it.
Just ordinary.
As the quote said, I would just be a simple, ordinary adult when I turned 20. Tonight was the celebration of having lived until the 20th year in this world.
If most teenagers would be drinking or smoking with their friends, I decided not to do that. Since my past life, I grew up in a family that rejected alcohol consumption as an intoxicating drink, but that didn't mean I couldn't drink it.
Even though there's a good side to it, alcohol only destroys your life if you consume it without self-awareness.
In my past life, I had drunk before and didn't like it, so it would be pointless to waste my night of adulthood on something I didn't enjoy. I would rather watch the night sky or look for comets on my birthday night than be surrounded by light radiation.
In the future, seeing a starry sky would be difficult with the abundance of light sources. But this was 2010. Even though Japan was highly developed, the countryside where my grandparents from my mom's side lived still had minimal light pollution.
Gazing at the beauty and wonder of the sky from the earth, the land of mortal beings.
Perhaps that was my purpose in life.
To be an observer of the universe.
I had found my life's purpose.
To admire and give thanks for the beauty of the universe with my own eyes and mind.
[You have altered the life paths of many important individuals who were destined to die young. You have gained the chance to join the Deadman's Rebellion Chat Group and help them fight against the death that was predetermined from the start.
Do you accept?]
[Yes?/Yes./Yes!]
"What the—?"
"Alright, I understand."
There were many possibilities as to why this happened, but logically, from a limited human perspective, this could have happened due to hypothermia, fever, exhaustion, or maybe I ate something wrong and got poisoned and/or had an allergy, or even fell asleep.
From my past life's experience, something like this only happened to the main characters in free novels you could find on any platform. I wasn't sure, but it was an interesting read. Unfortunately, in this era, there wasn't (or perhaps never would be) a platform for reading such things.
I could feel my heart pounding rapidly.
Alright, calm down, this couldn't be a dream because I could count my fingers normally, and you wouldn't be able to read properly in a dream.
Even if there was a possibility that this was a lucid dream, that wasn't possible either because I couldn't manipulate reality to make something appear before me or have superpowers to fly or jump high.
"Am I dehydrated?"
Most likely, because my throat felt dry. I took a sip from the water bottle I brought just in case something like this happened, then checked my phone afterward. The classic flip phone that would be considered a fossil if it were in the same era as my past life, but for now, although not the most modern for this time, it was still considered fairly modern. This was the year when touchscreen technology exploded. Sooner or later, the world would experience a very significant shift in the future.
It was already past midnight, and the day had changed. My age had officially increased to 20 years old and would continue to increase in the future. Having an imagination like this was useful when I painted, but I didn't need such imagination right now.
"But that doesn't mean I never needed it," I muttered. Looking again at the holographic screen that was too advanced for this time, it was still hard to believe that something like this existed. Even if reincarnation was real, that didn't mean something like this could exist. Unless… "How stupid of me. Am I not aware of the state of this world after living two decades?"
This world wasn't the past of my previous life, but a completely different world. A parallel universe that stood independently with its own unique Earth. That meant there was something I had missed all this time.
Whether it was a place name, a person's name, or even myself!
"So, is this truly that cliche reincarnation?"
I don't think it's that simple.
If this were the same world, the object in front of me wouldn't and couldn't exist. I also shouldn't have been born in the past since I received the memories and knowledge of someone from the future, not a further future.
"Which means from the start I misunderstood my past and present life."
Even so, this didn't completely change what had already happened—it was just a small shift in perspective that was a bit surprising. I never thought I would be reborn into a parallel world.
Now then, the remaining problem was what I should do with the object in front of me.
[Yes?/Yes./Yes!]
From the given choices, there was no rejection option, but the closest one was the choice that showed confusion from the potential member. But of course, anyone would be confused if given such a strange and suspicious choice.
I wondered what would happen if I kept ignoring it until I died. Because the message said I had diverted the fates of many people who were supposed to die. That meant there was something I had done that allowed them to live now. To be fair, if I remember it again, I did done few things that helped a lot of people in the past.
Usually, that could only be known by the one who received it, and apparently, that applied to me too. I didn't know what I did to let others live, but I was grateful they still had long lives ahead.
"Then, it's time to accept?"
I pressed the middle choice, not intending to see what would happen if I didn't choose at all until I died. In the end, the only option was to move forward and regret it later. Because if I regretting without moving forward, I would repeat the same mistake as my past life.
[Yes.]
[Welcome.]
["Ordinary Person" has joined the group chat through admin's invitation.]
["Nerdy Raijin" has joined the group chat through admin's invitation.]
["War-Dummy Mutant" has joined the group chat through admin's invitation.]
["Ramen Topping Wannabe" has joined the group chat through admin's invitation.]
["Frozen Flower" has joined the group chat through admin's invitation.]
For some reason, when the notifications appeared, I felt a déjà vu with certain apps on my phone from the past life.