Chapter 111

How long had it been since he'd been reborn?

He glared up at the mobile spinning above him, bored. When he reached out wanting to get the distracting thing out of his sight, everyone would just laugh and tickle his palm, thinking he loved it.

This was how things would stay, at minimum, until he could make himself clearer. He'd considered crying like he was having a fit every time the mobile came into view, but it took too much out of him and he gave up. Just making crying noises every time he got hungry was tiring enough as it was.

He had to start talking. When did babies say their first word? How was he supposed to know about child development milestones when he'd never raised a kid?

Thankfully, he had a reference right next to him.

"Aah."

Chubby, milky cheeks. Black hair falling softly over a pale forehead. Innocent, shining blue eyes and pudgy fingers reaching toward him.

His twin.

A drool-covered little hand swam into view.

There wasn't much you could expect from a baby still on milk, but it was obvious what the little hand was reaching for — him. He hated getting touched by wet hands.

Before the wet hand could land on him, he clapped. The sound from small palms wasn't loud. But it was enough to catch the baby's attention. Edgar's blue eyes — clearer now than they'd been — went wide, and then he burst into giggles.

Watching his twin squirm, he clapped a few more times, and the baby clapped along.

"Young sirs. What's got the two of you so excited?"

A low chuckle came, and his body was lifted up.

Movement he hadn't asked for. Even if he thrashed with all his might, it would only look like fussing. So he stayed still — and another laugh came.

Even the babbling from right beside him was tiresome. If there was one benefit to being a baby, it was that if you closed your eyes, people left you alone.

So he closed his eyes.

To everything.

As if opening them again could erase all of it.

---

Now, let's talk about Edwin Bertholdt.

The second son of the late Count Albrecht Bertholdt, Edwin Bertholdt. Not the Edwin Bertholdt who would later inherit the title from his twin and come to be called the "last archmage" and "mage of the new dawn"... but the man named Edwin Bertholdt who woke up to find himself born into the world of the mobile game he'd been playing right before he died.

At first he didn't know. But as he grew and began to make sense of this world's language, he started catching words he recognized from somewhere.

Understanding full sentences was still beyond him. But it didn't take long to realize that the word he'd been hearing since birth was a name.

It started with Bertholdt.

The next one that struck a chord was Alharn. Every so often he'd pick up one or two more from his parents' conversations. Lambert. Reichnek. Barun. Kunakshe... All proper nouns.

His suspicions built. But there was only so much you could dig up in the body of a newborn.

Edwin's plan to figure out this world naturally became a plan measured in years. Countless side quests to clear before he could even reach the main quest.

Babbling. Learning to walk. Talking. Getting off baby food.

Feeling sorry for the parents who'd suddenly ended up raising a baby with a thirty-something man's soul, he did his best to mimic his twin. When Edgar spoke, he spoke; when Edgar started walking, he walked. Well, being twins, no one gave it a second thought.

"..."

And finally, Edwin got his chance. Three years after being reborn.

After a few tries, Edwin managed to make it to the library without being picked up by a parent or a servant. He'd timed it for when his father, Albrecht, was out. His mother Cecilia was busy with a visitor at the moment.

Edwin didn't stop to marvel at the ceiling-high shelves. He couldn't afford a single wasted minute. Thankfully, the book he was after hadn't been moved from where he'd spotted it before. He could reach it at his current height, without the extra work of dragging over a chair.

[Complete Map of the Eastern Continent]

Proper "letter study" hadn't started yet. The characters he could read were limited. In a three-year-old's body, learning to speak hadn't been hard, but letters were another matter.

Fortunately, Edwin had been born into money. Wealthy enough to have a whole room set aside as a library. If his guess was right, they were nobility too.

Well — his parents' status wasn't the pressing question right now. Without Edwin having to lift a finger, his twin Edgar loved the storybooks Cecilia read to them. Clapping along beside him was easy, and pretending to love the childish illustrations while fumbling at the letters was easier still.

Cecilia, despite being told it was too early to teach them their letters, showed Edwin and Edgar the alphabet anyway. She'd fallen into the classic first-time-parent trap of being sure her children were geniuses. Not something Edwin was going to complain about.

Anyway, letters weren't the priority. The map was. Even without knowing a single character, a map would tell him what he needed to know.

Lines drawn on thick paper, finer than he'd have expected.

Edwin traced them carefully. Not a crude hand-drawn thing. This was a properly surveyed, printed map.

So it wasn't a world where civilization had collapsed past bearing. And if his hunch was right—

Alharn.

That was the one place name Edwin could read without hesitation.

Actually, "read" was a stretch. He'd matched up the few characters he knew with the names in his "memory."

There were a few more names like that. Eraadan, east of Alharn... But it wasn't quite the map Edwin remembered. No lands had sunk or been wiped away.

Edwin traced the map, working from memory.

Definitely, this was where Reichnek Island was supposed to be. Right now it was firmly joined to the mainland. And this stretch here should have been a lake.

With this kind of hard evidence in front of him, Edwin couldn't deny it any longer. The world he'd been reborn into wasn't a familiar one, and the proper nouns that had struck him as familiar couldn't be brushed off as coincidence.

Edwin drank in the map.

The geological changes hadn't happened yet. This was before the world had become the "game map" Edwin knew. Which meant this was earlier than the game's timeline...

"Edwin."

A voice soft enough to make him want to smile called out to him.

"Was there something in Daddy's books you wanted to see?"

Edwin turned around wearing Edgar's beaming grin.

The first thing that caught his eye was dark blond hair, gleaming like gold. Loosely tied, it fell to her waist.

The next was the warm brown eyes.

Ah. Did every parent in the world look at their child that way? Edwin dug desperately through the memories he had from before he died, but he couldn't be sure. He'd been on good terms with his family, but surely there was a difference between the way you looked at a grown child and the way you looked at a newborn.

Even so, he still couldn't get used to it.

"There are still a lot of books here that would be too hard for Edwin."

Edwin stretched both arms up high and called out to the woman.

"Mama."

"How did you get all the way in here?"

"Bored."

"Bored? What about Edgar?"

"The doll..."

"Edwin doesn't like the doll?"

Cecilia scooped Edwin up with practiced ease. Acting like a small child on purpose was tiresome, but there were definite advantages.

Edwin yawned and rubbed his eyes for show. He'd been wide awake a moment ago, but the second he started faking sleepy, real drowsiness came crashing in.

"I like books better."

"You really do take after your father."

Cecilia poked her son's cheek with a laugh. Looking put out, Edwin shook his head and ducked away from her hand.

As her son kept yawning, Cecilia started walking.

"It's your nap time, and you slipped out to look at Daddy's books instead. Edgar's already all ready for his nap."

"Edgar?"

"He may already be asleep."

"Edgar's little, so he needs a nap."

"Oh my. Isn't Edwin little too?"

Held in Cecilia's arms, Edwin passed down the hallway.

The house was always kept spotless. A faint, pleasant scent of flowers hung in the air. Through the sunlit windows, he could see the well-tended green garden.

An unfamiliar sight. Edwin's lips twitched. Even a sulky face, on a three-year-old, just came out as sleepy fussing.

Cecilia kissed Edwin's furrowed brow as she stepped into the nursery.

In the crib, another small child sat rubbing his sleepy eyes just like Edwin. His eyes went round when he saw Cecilia and Edwin.

"Edwin!"

"Edgar. Were you waiting for Edwin?"

"Mm."

Cecilia laid Edwin down beside Edgar and kissed Edgar's forehead too.

Unable to bear the tickle of it, Edwin reached out and grabbed a fistful of Cecilia's dress. Cecilia didn't seem surprised, as if she'd been expecting it.

"What do you need, Edwin?"

It was the same thing every time before he fell asleep. Even so, Cecilia asked him calmly. Edwin pointed at the storybook lying on the floor among the toys.

"Mama, book."

"Book? You want me to read to you?"

"Mm. Read the book."

Before Cecilia had even finished the first sentence, Edgar was already fast asleep, gripping Edwin's hand tight.

Edwin didn't even think of pulling his hand away and focused on the story his mother was reading. He already knew how it went...

At some point, Edwin was asleep too.

---

"Edwin."

Unlike the gentle Cecilia, "Daddy" was slightly trickier ground.

The house was bustling. In a few months, Cecilia would be away from home for a long stretch for her research, so before that, the whole family had decided to head down to the Bertholdt domain together. With everyone going for once, there was plenty to prepare. A trip with young children — there was no getting around it.

"Want to look at the map again today?"

"...Mm."

Edwin nodded, pretending to be shy.

His father, Albrecht Bertholdt, was an extremely busy man. But even Edwin could see that he cherished the time he spent with family. Because Edwin, unlike Edgar, wasn't really a small child, he saw it all the more clearly.

A good father. But that wasn't why Edwin found Albrecht difficult.

He knew this world was set in what amounted to a prequel to the game he'd known. But the name "Albrecht Bertholdt" had come up a few times in the game's main story. He was a character already dead by the time of the main story, but not that far back in the past.

The present timeline was closer to the main story than Edwin had hoped. Which was... not great. Not when you considered what the roles of "Edwin" and "Edgar" in that game had been. He'd wanted to believe they just happened to share the names, but apparently his luck didn't stretch that far.

"The map... but, Edwin."

"Hm?"

"There's something Daddy's curious about."

"What?"

Albrecht folded the newspaper he'd been reading and set it down on the desk.

"Edwin. Daddy would like you to stop imitating Edgar. Would that be all right?"