A few months had passed since his reincarnation; for Kale—who was now called Elan in this new life—nothing particularly remarkable had happened.
He had read enough isekai novels to know that this part was supposed to be exciting.
The protagonist opens his eyes. He assesses his new world with analytical calm. He formulates a plan. He starts gaining the upper hand, doesn't he?
However, in those novels, no one ever mentioned that being a baby was extremely humiliating for someone with the mind of a twenty-two-year-old.
Elan couldn't move his arms or legs the way he wanted to. He couldn't say a single word—just babbling sounds that made it seem as if he were hungry.
...But that wasn't the worst part; the worst part was when his mother would breastfeed him. He found it too uncomfortable, but, being the good person he is, he had to adapt, even though the idea still makes him cringe.
Besides, what can a newborn baby like Elan, who's only a few months old, possibly do?
He found everything painfully boring; all he could do was stare at the wooden ceiling in his crib, its carved symbols, and he was beginning to form somewhat coherent thoughts.
I'm sleeping eighteen hours a day.
Elan realized this at some point, after days of letting his mind wander or using his memories to keep himself entertained.
Although… it wasn't all as bad as it seemed; it was every adult's dream: no taxes, no worrying about what to eat tomorrow, and no having to put up with an annoying boss.
Weren't those all the great benefits anyone could dream of?
But that wasn't what mattered; what Elan had actually been able to do all this time was observe—especially when his mother took him out of his crib.
The house was large without being ostentatious, built of dark, tightly grained wood, with high ceilings and a central hallway where the adults walked with the same deliberate silence he had always associated with discipline.
However, that wasn't the most important or interesting thing.
What caught Elan's attention most during his morning walks were the walls, covered with symbols—some carved, some painted, and others drawn — with something that glowed faintly when the light hit them at just the right angle.
Not knowing what it was, he naturally associated it with magic.
Magic!
That discovery stirred up a feeling he hadn't felt in a long time: excitement.
In the world where he had been reincarnated, there was magic.
And his father also made his first appearance when Elan was probably about two weeks old.
He was a man who filled the door frames—not with fat, but with that other kind of bulk, the sort that builds up over years of physically demanding work. He had the same scar on the same jaw as his mother.
Elan thought it was statistically unlikely—until it occurred to him that perhaps it was a clan or ceremonial scar rather than the result of an accident.
There was also a little girl. She appeared more often than her father, always at night, peering over the edge of the crib with narrowed eyes and a curious expression.
She was perhaps eight or nine years old, with the same black hair as her mother and the same quiet grace in her movements.
So, naturally, he knew she was his older sister.
However, something caught his attention during his third month after being reborn into this world.
One morning, his mother was carrying him down the hallway—on one of those trips that Elan had already come to recognize as the routine journey between the bedroom and the main living room—when they passed by a side door that was slightly ajar.
Inside, there was a room that stood out from the rest: fewer pieces of furniture, an earthen floor instead of wood, and on the back wall, mounted on a black wooden stand, a detail that seemed deliberately displayed… a sword.
Not just any sword.
Even through the eyes of a three-month-old baby who couldn't yet perceive depth clearly, he saw it.
The sheath was dark, almost black, unadorned except for a single line of those symbols he was beginning to recognize as runes, running from the hilt to the tip.
That image wouldn't leave his mind.
He let out a long yawn.
Elan pushed his thoughts aside; he felt extremely tired: both his body and his mind were those of a baby.
So he fell asleep.
***
The years flew by; the early ones were painfully difficult, especially as he adjusted, so that before he knew it, four years had already passed.
Elan looked at his own hands, still small, with soft knuckles and unmarked fingers. His eyes drifted toward the window.
The sky had that color I still couldn't name—that soft violet at the edges of the light that meant this world's sun was different from Earth's.
I really am in another world…
He let out a long sigh.
Elan had decided to live this life without regrets; he didn't want to repeat the mistakes he had made in his first life.
He clenched his small hands tightly; he was determined to learn everything he could before anyone realized what he was doing.
But he had to do it in a way that wouldn't get him into trouble.
He had enough common sense to realize that a four-year-old asking overly specific questions about magic systems would raise suspicions.
It's really hard to act like a kid...
Elan let out another sigh and kept walking through the house's hallways, with no particular destination in mind. Now that he was four years old, he had a little more freedom to explore the house.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
The sound caught his attention because he heard it often. He peeked out the window and saw his older sister practicing with a wooden sword that he recognized as a bokken.
Elan, who now had a better grasp of the language, which sank in, just as everything does when you're little: effortlessly, without conscious grammar, absorbed directly by osmosis from the environment.
The language was called Valdric, and the continent was called Valdaeron—something he already knew… well, that god had told him before he was reborn into this world.
And the family… his family—that concept he was still coming to terms with, with the sense of strangeness that comes from knowing it's real but not quite feeling it fully yet—was called the Ashenveil Clan.
He realized it that afternoon when he heard his father say something to his mother about the honor of the name.
Ashenveil.
Elan repeated it silently several times, weighing the syllables. On his new tongue, in this new language, the name had a solidity that the surnames of his former life had never possessed.
Her mother's name was Seran, and her father's was Davan. The sister who would show up at night to study them with a researcher's eye was named Erika.
"Elan, how long are you going to keep watching me? If you're going to do that, at least come down and train with me."
Elan pushed her thoughts aside and met her older sister's gaze, feigning confusion. He stepped away from the window with the most convincing innocent expression he could muster.
And he heard his sister's laughter, and a smile spread across his lips.
Clever girl—she knows I understand her… but she doesn't care.
He liked her even more.
Elan continued walking through the hallways of the house until he came to a room filled with shelves holding items he couldn't immediately identify: carved metal pieces, patterned fabrics, and objects made of materials he didn't recognize.
And his mother, Seran, was sitting there with a notebook; she appeared to be reading.
"Mom!"
He ran toward her with open arms, acting just like a kid his age, and Seran welcomed him with open arms.
"What's up, Elan? I thought you were out exploring."
Elan ignored her and fixed his gaze on the notebook, which contained the same symbols that covered every wall of the house. Then he placed his hand on one of the symbols in the notebook and said, slowly, enunciating each word clearly:
"Mom, what are those things?"
"They're runes."
"Runes?"
Seran nodded and pointed to several symbols.
"A protection rune, a blade rune, and this is our clan's rune."
Elan looked at the Clan rune. It was more complex than the other two, with more internal lines and a symmetry that required careful observation to appreciate.
And as he looked at it, something happened that hadn't happened before: he felt something as if something were awakening inside him.
What's going on? What's happening to me?
That strange sensation ran through his entire body. He looked down at his hands resting on his knees.
There was nothing visible. No distortion in the air, no glow. But the vibration was there, soft and steady, like a hum at a frequency too low to hear, but not too low to feel.
Oh, no, could it be that I've seen something I shouldn't have?
Seran looked at him. He walked around the table, sat down next to her, and placed a hand on her head in a reassuring gesture.
She said something quietly that took Elan a second to translate.
"It's okay, it's okay, don't be scared—you're just awakening your mana."
That was all his mother had said—just that.
Elan's eyes were wide with shock; he had seen only a rune, and that had awakened his mana.
What kind of shit was that?
Even in his mother's arms, the vibration in his chest wouldn't go away.
But that was the least of his concerns…
His mana had awakened!