(Lucan's POV)
The first thing I need to do is to find information. I need to know what this world is. I need to know where I am and what my state of affairs is. The only information I know about this world is what I saw from the memories. My only source of information right now is Miriam, but I cannot outright ask her about this world because she will become suspicious of me. I need to approach her in a way that would be normal for a five-year-old.
I can't tell Miriam the truth as not only will she not believe me, even if she does, she will probably be heartbroken beyond repair. I have never felt maternal love but even I could see much she cared for Lucan through those memories. Those kids that killed him might know something but they are too hostile and think that Lucan is dead.
The only option for me here is to act like Lucan. No, I have to become Lucan.
I also need to get out of these slums as fast as possible. There is no hope for a good future here, maybe even worse than my past life. Those slum children would only try to hurt me more once they learned that I wasn't dead. But even this was a goal that could only be possible in the future, no matter what I do or what I am on the inside, on the outside I was just a five-year-old brat. The burdens of my responsibilities were overwhelming me already, even before I started to act on them. I wanted to move on but my fears and insecurities were still hounding me.
"Lucan, are you awake?" I heard Miriam as she came into the small room where I was sleeping.
"Oh! are you awake, thank god! I was so worried" she embraced me in her arms again.
The last time she did this, I was on the verge of fainting but this time I could perceive what I felt. It was unusually warm, I could hear her heartbeat like a ticking clock, which, for some reason, soothed my heart. I suddenly felt her hand on my head as she started patting it. I was once again flooded by emotions I had never felt before. I felt a sense of security and coziness. It felt like for the first time in my life, I could let my guard down. I always had to be vigilant of my surroundings because troubles could come from anywhere. I had to be alert at all times till the very day of my death but just for this single moment, I did not have to do that because I felt protected. I looked into her eyes and saw a sight full of tenderness and care, nobody had ever shown such emotions in front of me. I wanted this moment to last forever and I felt a sensation of wetness on my cheek.
"Are you crying baby? It's okay... it's okay... I am here now, your mother is here now. No one will hurt you, ok. calm down...calm down" she said as she continued to pat my head.
At that moment I felt a dam break and a flood of emotions overflowed in me. In my past life, I used to cry every time I was hit but I soon learned that it would only lead to a more severe beating. I slowly forced myself to stop crying to protect myself and today, years upon years of unshed tears came raining down my cheeks. Mariam didn't say anything and just held me in her arms without complaint. This was the first time I understood what being loved felt like even though it was directed at someone who had died.
Once I composed myself again I had found a newfound resolve for myself. I knew that I had to leave the slums but was depressed at the fact that I was too weak to do it but when I shed my emotional burdens I understood that if I am weak then I had to become strong if I didn't have money, then I had to make money. If I wanted to change my destiny I had to work on myself. I found the determination to hope again, a hope for a better future in which I am not bound by my shackles of despair.
I don't know why but even though I had known Miriam for only a few hours, I came to trust her completely. Maybe it was because of the influence of the memories on my own emotions or maybe that I latched onto her because she was the only person who was good to me. Maybe one day I could think of her as a real family. She called me for dinner and this was the first time I saw the house I have to live in for at least the next few years. It was a very small and worn-down apartment home, we lived on the second floor, the room I slept in was the room I had to share with Miriam, there was a tiny kitchen area and a small common area. In essence, it was like a 1LDK apartment in the real world but far worse. There was no running water and electricity wasn't even a concept yet. Through this, I could gather that this world was very primitive with its technology and could probably be most closely related to the post-medieval renaissance period in my past world.
The dinner was just bread with a type of lentil soup but it was filling and was still much healthier than the stale and unhealthy store-bought food that I had no choice but to have in my old world. Since I wanted to know more about this world, I tried to ask Miriam innocent questions a curious boy would probably ask.
"Mother! Mother! What is outside the slums" I asked her, imitating the thirst for curiosity a child would have.
"Oh, curious are you? Hmm, I would love to answer that Lucan but even your mother doesn't know that much. I have also lived in the slums my whole life and I'm also illiterate like all the other slum dwellers. All I know is that we are in Sepia town and apparently, we are part of the territory of some big Duke or something. I only went to the main town a few times over the years but that is it. One day, if we have enough money, I'll take you there" She answered with passion.
Through this small conversation alone I could gather a few things, I already expected this but I could confirm that the literacy and communication development was paltry in this world. It was like the story about the frog in the well, the frog thought that the place inside the well was the whole world because he never knew or saw what was outside the walls of the well. The literacy was probably abysmal in the villages themselves, not even considering the slum area. Maybe my knowledge of the modern world can help me in the future.
The other thing that struck me was that this place I lived in was governed by an empirical monarchy. The village we lived in was part of a dukedom and the country we lived in was probably quite powerful since it had the right to call itself an empire. This information is of no use to me currently but that may not be the case in the future.
I continued the conversation by asking more silly questions like a cute child would and gathered some more information, although it was only about the general knowledge and the common sense of this world. The next question I asked was probably the most important right now. The children who killed Lucan were calling him 'heretic' and said he had some 'abilities'. The closest thing I could deduce was that it was something akin to magic. Magic was the only thing that was so out of this world that would remotely even come close to eliciting such a reaction from the slum kids. I also felt that the memories that I had seen were incomplete because there were some sudden and irregular blanks in them, so I thought there was still more to this story than it seemed.
"Mother, what is magic?" I asked with apprehension but at the same time, I felt excited for some reason.
The second Miriam heard this, she stared at me wide-eyed. My heart started beating faster, my mind fell into an ocean of anxiety. The fears that I thought I could forget when I came to this world were coming back to me, I started panicking and my body started shaking.
Did I do something wrong...