Life in Vain: Jobles 2 – Infancy Period – I

2 – Infancy Period – I

A month passed by. Eventually, I ca to terms with the fact that I was reincarnated. No, I was forced to co to terms with that fact.

No matter how hard I tried to deny it, no matter how much I closed my eyes, the reality that I was reborn as a baby didn't change.

Even if it was ridiculous. After all, what kind of person was reborn with all of their mories intact?

...No. That was wrong. My mories weren't intact. At the beginning, I could rember everything. But as ti passed, more and more of my mories were starting to fade.

Not everything. I still rembered random trivia, how to count, various bits of knowledge... but mories about my past life were starting to disappear.

Who I was. What my family was like. The life that I had been living up to this point...

I still rembered the broad strokes. I still clearly rembered my regrets. How I was held out as a genius since I was young and never lived up to that. How I died with nothing but regrets on how I never once made my parents proud. How my father finally told

how proud he was... but was forced to do it on my death bed without

able to reply and apologize.

I knew it for a fact. I could never forget those things.

But everything else was beginning to fade.

I rembered reading about sothing in the past that knowledge was built up of semantic mories. And that semantic mories were stored in a separate place from the episodic mories that made up life experience and what we usually called 'mory.'

Was that why? Semantic mories were more automatic and episodic mories were active.

Now I wasn't a very religious person, but it seed like 'knowledge' persisted across my life and death while 'mories' were scrubbed away. Maybe since the 'soul' was a record of everything you experienced? But then why were my past life's mories being slowly erased while my knowledge wasn't?

And why was I still aware of the fact that I *had* a past life in the first place?

I didn't think I was very special... No. I knew I wasn't special. My past life was proof of that.

In that case... I was just lucky. Sohow or another, I was lucky enough to keep my mories... Or at least, part of them after I died.

Maybe it was good fortune due to my sincere attempts near the end of my life to make up for my past mistakes. Maybe it was because soone prayed for

in the afterlife.

I didn't know. But I knew that this was my reality.

I had another lease on life... and I had another chance.

So cheer up! Have fun! Enjoy being a kid again!

...That was what I tried to tell myself. But I just couldn't.

No matter how hard I tried to cheer myself up and act like a normal baby... No matter how much I tried to just live in the mont and forget the past, I couldn't.

Thankfully, since I was a baby I wasn't expected to do much other than eat, sleep, and repeat.

...I had to admit that it was more than a bit awkward being breastfed though. While not my first ti seeing an attractive woman's breast, it was definitely my first having it shoved in my face and sucking on it.

Good thing that hormones weren't a thing yet. Though the ntal fact that the woman was definitely my new mom helped

get through the weird bit.

A little.

It was still freaking weird. But that was my life now.

And speaking of my life, since I was reborn, I realized a few things.

First, my new parents were young. Younger than I had been when I died, at least. From their looks, they seed to be in their early twenties at the latest. I would probably put them more towards the late teens though.

Whatever the case, I was the first child of a loveydovey newlywed couple.

Second, it looked like I was reincarnated into the past. The clothes that my parents and the maid wore had more in common with a Renaissance fair or cosplay than modern casual wear. Also, the house... what little I could see of it from being carried around, at least, looked to be a rustic wooden house like in the old Victorian days. Like sothing from Pride and Prejudice.

Third... Everyone was talking in a weird language that was almost like English, but a bit distorted. Or maybe they were actually talking in English but my baby brain just couldn't process the words yet.

Probably that.

Fourth, and most important of all... I was bored.

Was this why babies cried so much? And why they always looked around the room with wide eyes?

It would explain a lot...

What I wouldn't do to have my body listen to

again and let

walk around...

-LIV-

Another month passed. And with it, another month of the usual life for a baby.

My body wasn't cooperating with . While I could flail my limbs around, I didn't have any coordination or ability to move on my own. Because of that, I spent most of my ti lying on my back in a crib or carried around by my mom or the maid.

I *did* have control of my mouth though. A little at least. So, since I was bored, I started making random sounds. Gurgling, bubbles, raspberries... You couldn't do much without any teeth. But sothing magical was happening with that.

Sohow, the more I did that, the more it felt like my brain was linking up my thoughts to the words I was hearing. And because of that, I felt like I could just about understand what my parents were saying.

Just about.

But I couldn't, and that was seriously frustrating.

Honestly. It was like listening to a video while you were on the verge of falling asleep. Or maybe a college lecture after an all-nighter while you tried to keep yourself from nodding off.

On the bright side... No. That was a lie. There was no bright side. But there was sothing interesting.

Since I was sohow fully conscious as a baby, I was fully aware of the weird changes that were happening to my body as I grew. Like, I could *feel* how my limbs were growing steadier with every passing day. How my will and my movents were slowly lining up.

And I could even feel how the blood flowed through my veins as my tiny heart pumped it throughout my body.

...And how I could weirdly control that a bit. Not much. It was just like how you could hold your breath for a little while. For so reason, I could make my blood 'wiggle' a bit in my veins and even stop moving for a little while.

It was probably dangerous and unhealthy, but I was bored. And I had already died once, so... why the hell not, right?

Fortunately, all it did to

was make

tired and fall asleep from exhaustion. So all in all... pretty much just a normal baby life.

But seriously. Could all babies do this? No wonder so many randomly dropped dead...