Light again.
I was getting used to this. The falling, the darkness, then the sudden light and cold.
Third time's the charm, right?
I opened my eyes. Or tried to. Baby eyes don't work that well.
Someone was holding me. A woman. She was crying. Happy tears, I think.
A man's voice said something. The language was different again. I'd have to learn it from scratch.
Great.
But at least I was alive. At least I got another chance.
Over the next few months, I started to understand this world.
And I immediately regretted my wish.
No magic? Check.
No monsters? Check.
No technology either? Check.
No adventures? Check.
Nothing interesting at all? Big fat check.
I was born on a planet that was basically stuck in medieval times. But worse, because at least medieval Earth had some cool stuff happening. Crusades, knights, castles.
This place? Just farming. And more farming. And even more farming.
My parents were peasants. We lived in a small village where everyone knew everyone. We grew crops, raised chickens, and that was it.
That was life.
I tried to be optimistic. Maybe I could use my knowledge from Earth to make things better. Invent stuff. Improve their lives.
I waited until I was old enough to talk and move around properly. Around five years old.
"Father," I said one day, "what if we tried a different way to plant the crops? I read about something called crop rotation—"
"Where did you read about that?" he asked, confused.
"I... I just thought of it."
He laughed. "Boy, we've been farming this way for generations. It works fine. Don't go thinking too much. It'll hurt your head."
I tried with other things. Better tools. Better irrigation. Better anything.
Nobody listened. Nobody cared.
"That's not how we do things here," they'd say.
"We've always done it this way," they'd say.
"Stop trying to be smart," they'd say.
Years passed. I grew up in this boring, mundane, painfully ordinary world.
No magic to study. No monsters to fight. No adventures to be had. No technology to work with.
Just farming. Just survival. Just existing.
By the time I was twenty, I had given up completely.
This was my punishment, wasn't it? I wished for a world without magic and monsters. And I got exactly what I asked for.
A world where nothing ever happened.
A world where I would live an ordinary life and die an ordinary death.
At least in the magical world, I had hope that things might change. Here? There was no hope. Just endless days of the same boring routine.
I couldn't even blame anyone. No evil master. No monsters. No truck-kun.
Just me and my stupid wish.
One day, I was walking through the village carrying water buckets. It was a normal day. Sunny. Peaceful. Boring.
I was thinking about my past lives. Earth, where I was bullied. The magical world, where I was a slave. And now this world, where I was just... nothing.
"Maybe the next life will be better," I thought bitterly.
Then I heard a child's voice from above.
"Watch out! Ball coming through!"
I looked up just in time to see a ball bouncing off a roof.
The ball hit a chimney. Bounced off. Hit a bird's nest.
A bird flew out, startled. It flew straight into a man's face.
The man stumbled backward, flailing his arms. He knocked over a ladder.
The ladder fell and hit a donkey tied nearby.
The donkey panicked and kicked. Its hoof connected with a merchant's cart.
The cart started rolling down the hill. Picking up speed. It crashed into a pole.
The pole tipped over. Fell sideways. Hit the side of a building.
The building shook. A flower pot fell from a window.
The pot hit an awning. Bounced sideways. Hit a hanging sign.
The sign swung violently. Its chain broke. The sign fell and hit a wooden beam.
The beam tilted. Knocked loose some roof tiles.
I watched all of this happen in slow motion. It was like watching dominos fall. Each piece hitting the next. Creating a chain reaction.
It would have been funny if I wasn't directly below it.
The tiles started sliding down the roof. Multiple tiles, creating a cascade effect.
Then I noticed something. One of the tiles looked... different. Darker. Wet.
Oh no.
Oh please no.
I remembered seeing the village's sick dog up on that roof earlier today. The dog had severe diarrhea. The whole village knew about it.
That tile. That specific tile. The dog had used it as a toilet.
And that tile was now sliding down, heading straight for me.
The weight of the dog's shit made it fall differently than the other tiles. It created an asymmetric load. Changed the trajectory.
A gust of wind caught the tiles mid-air.
The normal tiles scattered. But the weighted, contaminated tile? It flew in a perfect arc.
Straight. Toward. Me.
I couldn't move. I was frozen, watching this impossible, ridiculous, absolutely humiliating death approach me.
My mouth was open. I was going to shout something. A warning. A curse. Anything.
The tile spun through the air. The feces-covered side rotating downward.
Time slowed down.
I could see it. The dog's disgusting, disease-ridden excrement. The tile getting closer. And closer.
"You've GOT to be kidding me—IS THAT DOG SH—"
The tile hit me square in the face.
Contaminated side first.
The dog's poisonous shit smeared across my face. Into my open mouth. Up my nose. In my eyes.
The smell. Oh god, the smell.
It was the most horrible, ungodly stench I've ever experienced in three lifetimes.
The tile's impact knocked me unconscious. I fell backward, hitting the ground hard.
But I could still feel it. The toxic waste on my face. In my mouth.
While I was unconscious, the poisonous bacteria from the sick dog's diarrhea entered my bloodstream. Through my mouth. Through my nose.
My body tried to fight it. But there were too many bacteria. Too much poison.
Fatal infection spread rapidly.
For a brief moment, I regained consciousness.
My eyes widened. My last thought was clear as day.
"SERIOUSLY?! DOG SHIT?! I'M DYING FROM DOG SHIT?! AFTER ALL THAT?!"
Then everything went black.
Again.
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