kscans

Chapter 3 - The Starting Point

A feeling like waking from a light dizziness came over him. He looked around to find himself in a place he did not recognize at all. It was different from any of his faint childhood memories, and even from the settings of any movies, novels, or manga he had ever seen or read. Most importantly, he had been in a private hospital room before falling asleep, so this had to be the "reincarnation destination" the god had spoken of.

He calmed his fiercely pounding heart with two or three deep breaths, then slowly looked around again. He had selfishly asked for a place to farm where there were no people, and it seemed the god had properly granted his wish. Indeed, a place that so perfectly met his conditions would not be easy to find...

An abandoned village.

That was where Yuuri now found himself.

(I see...)

It had certainly sent him to a clever spot. Since it had once been a farming village, it was undoubtedly a place that was reasonably suited for agriculture, or at least had the potential for it. The reason it became abandoned was an unsettling unknown, but he would probably figure that out in time. It did not seem like many years had passed since it was deserted, and the buildings still looked quite usable. From Yuuri’s perspective, however, all the buildings seemed quite large...

(No... is that wrong...?)

Here, Yuuri realized his mistake. It was not that the buildings were large, but that he had become small. When he looked at his own body again, judging by the size of his palms and the comparison with the houses, he appeared to have been rejuvenated to around ten years of age. The god had certainly said it would make him a little younger...

(I guess twenty or thirty years is just a fleeting moment to a god...)

He was anxious about how much he could accomplish in a child’s body, but he reconsidered, thinking the god must have chosen this age because it believed he could manage. ...The unsettling possibility that it had misjudged the degree could not be completely dismissed... but there was no point in complaining about it now.

(In light novels, it seems standard to start by checking your status...)

"I should probably check my belongings first."

He tried speaking aloud. He could vocalize without any issue, but just as he expected, his voice was high. It seemed to be pre-puberty...

"...I wonder if puberty even exists in this world."

There was also the possibility that this was a world where everyone’s voice was high-pitched, unrelated to puberty. Perhaps the atmosphere contained helium or something. And, though he honestly did not want to think about it, he could not ignore the possibility that his gender had changed during the transfer or reincarnation... A sense of crisis prompted him to check... and his gender was still male. What a relief.

He collected himself and returned to checking his belongings.

He was wearing a set of simple upper and lower garments. He could not quite tell if they were made of linen or cotton, but they were crafted from undyed, ecru-colored cloth. The top was like a rather long tunic, its length likely because he was wearing an adult’s garment. The baggy waist was tied with something like a rope. The pants seemed to be ordinary pants, but they too were tied with a rope instead of a belt. The cuffs were rolled up, suggesting they were also repurposed adult clothing. On his feet were not shoes but something like leather sandals. They were tied with leather straps to keep them from falling off, resembling the waraji of old. Though all of it was crude, it did not feel unclean.

At his waist, he wore a rather large dagger, or perhaps something more like a billhook knife. A leather pouch was also fastened there. Upon inspecting the pouch, he found only a few nuts, likely meant as a snack. A sense of crisis welled up at his meager equipment, but then he remembered that he had pestered the god for the Storage skill.

He immediately checked his Storage and was relieved to find food, a waterskin, and the classic Potion, along with several small tools and what looked like materials.