Reincarnated as a Genius Mage Chapter 2: Resolve

It’s that ti... The ti when I finally realized what I felt for her, I was such a fool for not realizing it earlier.

– ’Are you saying you love ?’

– ’Yes, Marcelle, I love you. I don’t know why I couldn’t say it, I’ve never felt love or received love before, because of my inexperience– I almost ruined the relationship that I’d built with you, I’m sorry Marcelle, I don’t know why I’m like this, I swear I love you, I love you, I really do lo-’

The warmth of her body covers as she hugs – stops from talking and kisses .

– ’I love you too Edward.’ she says to as she caresses my cheek, her sweet voice soothing my soul, healing my heart from sorrow.

Tears roll down her sunken cheeks as she declares her love for again and again and kisses dearly.

____________________

I jolt awake.

Huff.. Huff..

My chest tightens with every breath. My skin’s damp– sweat? tears? I don’t know.

Her warmth... It’s still lingering. Marcelle...

My fingers swipe at my eyes, but they just keep leaking.

The ceiling stares back– empty and flat. Just like , except, my heart aches like it’s been torn out and left to bleed.

This dream keeps.. it keeps haunting .

I shake my head.

Stop thinking about it, Edward, you’re only making it worse.

I turn my head, shifting my thoughts and my gaze around the room, distracting myself from this pricking feeling in my heart.

The people in this house are very odd. I was born in this room, and it seems like it’s this room I’ll keep living in. I haven’t even seen my family, I have no idea what they look like. I’ve only been seeing maids.

It’s been a month since I was born into this constant dilemma of depression and haunting dreams.

I’m learning little bits about my surroundings. Been learning for the past month. And one of the few things I know now is... my new na.

The person I’m learning them from...

"Oh, Charlie! You’re awake my #cutie patootie#!"

Is her– Jennette, my Nanny. She’s a bit...

"Oh- how ~cute~ you are!" Jennette squeezes my cheeks and kisses my nose.

...Bubbly, she’s a bright and cheerful girl in her twenties, her neat brown hair and refined steps sotis create an air of elegance around her, I wonder if she’s truly a maid.

But all her refined elegance deflates whenever she’s around .

Her firm hands squeeze tenderly as she lifts from the creaking cradle made of wood and foam where I sleep and hugs tightly.

"I was ~just about~ to wake you! It’s ti for breakfast, abububu!"

She keeps trying to play with every single damn ti! Even when I don’t laugh and giggle with excitent like other babies.

"Okay, I made pudding! So eat up!"

Ow— damn it! My ears. She’s yelling again, smiling like sunshine, like she didn’t just make my eardrum reverberate.

Haaaah.

Pudding again... It’s bizarre, I never thought there would be a day.. a day when I would die and get reborn as a baby, one being forced to eat pudding every single day.

The only ti I eat sothing other than pudding is during hot afternoons when she feeds a weird tasting milk.

The pudding she feeds .. it tastes so bad, but I swallow my disgust and still gulp the pudding down everyti because I have no teeth.

I tried starving myself. I swear I did– but that girl, she kept shoving that godawful pudding down my throat with that damn sunshine smile.

"Yay! You ate ~two spoons today~!That’s good Charlie!"

During the one month I’ve spent around her, I’ve learned the language of this place to a certain degree, but I don’t know so words– no, many words.

The language is surprisingly similar to Mandarin so it was easy for to pick up so of it.

But sothing that I’m not used to is the na she calls . ’Charlie’, it’s the new na given to by my new Father, and of course, I still don’t know what he looks like.

Haaaah.

The reality of my situation hits my heart again. Like a damn hamr. The fact that..

I’m no longer Edward Walters, the big-shot businessman, Expert Physicist and Millionaire. I’m now Charles Liam and I don’t know the last na, but it’s sothing along the lines of Fl~~ew~r~h.

My current problem; Marcelle. Every single night she shows up in my dreams, reminding of a love that I’ve lost. I try to forget, but I can’t. It’s killing .

Worst thing is, I’m stuck in this room, just eating, pooping, drinking, doing nothing, getting used to my new na, trying to understand the language and gathering so basic information about my family.

Being a baby is tough, I respect babies now.

"Okay, All done!"

She says as she cleans up, changing the pooped-filled clothing wrapped around my bum.

Yes– I pooped on myself, but it wasn’t sothing I could control. But still, the humiliating feeling is far from gone. How would it go? I an, I was once a man advising billionaires on investnts to make and now I’m pooping on myself.

She puts fresh baby clothes on , drops back in my cradle that’s sohow still hard despite the foam on it, and drops a few wooden toys for to play with.

"You can ~play~ with ~them~, I have to go ~continue~ my #research~"

Her lips curl up with a bright smile as she pats my head.

She strides on to the small wooden table about ten steps away from my cradle where she always neatly stacks so books and papers.

She sits down on her creaking wooden chair, her focus heightening as her quill scratches on paper.

There’s an ’I’m serious right now’ frown on her face. Her back is straight, her shoulders broad and her eyes narrowed.

A maid? That can’t be right.

As she focuses on writing and reading, she doesn’t give off the vibe of a maid, she looks like an eloquent lady who has experience in multiple fields.

I turn my head– shifting my focus away from her, and the world around turns dark as I shut my eyes.

From everything I’ve seen so far, only two conclusions make sense.

One: I was reborn in the past, to a ti like the Victorian era or a more dieval ti in a family in England. Based on the number of maids I see in a day, this might be a noble family.

Or...

Two: I’ve been reborn in another world that looks exactly like Earth, but their technology and civilization are still far behind Earth’s and I was born into a noble family. It ans I’ve been reincarnated.

I feel a chill crawl up my spine.

I gulp saliva down my dry throat, my breath hitches, my chest tightens, I wipe the cold liquid rolling down my temple– sweat.

Both of these options an I’ll never see my family again.

I’ve been trying to delude myself into thinking that it’s impossible, but the evidence keeps flashing like a torchlight in my face.

Everybody I’ve t looks English, they don’t look like Chinese people... but sohow their language sounds like Mandarin, and another valid evidence...

The moon. It’s split– not cracked, no, it’s cleaved like soone cut it perfectly with a blade.

A quarter of it was cleaved, and the two unequal halves orbit each other; casting eerie light like nothing I’d ever seen.

The day I saw that... It hit , but I tried to deny it.

But even as I tried to deny it and delude myself, sothing deep down inside of knew that... this wasn’t earth. It’s not my world.

All the plans I made to run away and search for Marcelle when I got a bit older have beco invalid, I planned to stay with her, even if it ant that I had to change my identity and self and appear as another person, she always loved children and will never abandon a runaway child.

If it was the first conclusion I had, I’d have found a way to stay alive until the modern era. Until she gets reborn but, it’s not even possible.

It’s wicked, reality– it’s truly wicked. It keeps stabbing my heart with it’s sharp blades. The pain... It hurts.

It’s impossible. It’s all impossible.. I can’t go back, I can’t.. return to her. The only ti I’ll ever feel her warmth– that I’ll ever feel her touch, is on nights that she appears in my dreams.

My heart keeps throbbing.

No, I don’t want it to drop. I’m tired of it, I’m a grown man. But I can’t stop it– the tears.

It’s torture.

It keeps piling up– the pain, the sorrow, the grief shackled to my heart, all of it. Life keeps giving reasons to shed tears.

Argh!!

Why? Why does fate choose to subject to such pain?

Damn it. Damn it all, damn the universe, damn fate, damn it all!

I try hard to stop my cries from ringing out. I can’t let Jennette find out that I’m crying, but..

Why? Why should I keep living a life like this?

Yes.. as I thought, it’s better to die than to keep living with this pain.

But I can’t kill myself now, I have no strength or ans to do that, So I’d wait.. wait until I’m matured enough to end this torture. To end my own life.

I’d do it when I start walking...

If I don’t have a ’why’ to live, how can I survive the ’how’?

I clean the streaks of tears that runs down my cheek with my baby hands as I sniffle the snot in my nose.

I have resolved myself.