Even before opening my eyes, the first thing that my senses could perceive was pain, a mind-numbing pain whose origin was my legs.
*Fuck, I'm just reincarnated and am already on the doorstep of death! *
Trying to suppress the instinctive scream arising from my throat, keeping my eyes closed.
I decide to sense my surroundings checking for possible enemies.
After a few seconds, I open my eyes, sighing in relief at the missed danger.
Then I cast a simple Heal on the seemingly broken bones of my legs.
I analyze the situation, this time opening my eyes, and I understand that I'm in a forest with vegetation looking like a mix between a rainforest and a desert oasis.
Finally, over a rocky precipice, there was a little cabin that was probably built by the last user of this body.
*So that's it.
I took the place of a suicidal, well at least I've got a roof over my head for tonight. *
Yes, Eric Blake had become that type of person, or maybe he was always like that: he didn't care about other people's worries.
During his experience on Earth had average looks, was raised by his mother, Olive Blake: a Greek history scholar, and had no memories of his father, who was still searching for milk after 25 years.
Then he transmigrated to the world of Ouroboros.
His family situation was always the reason for the bullying he suffered during school.
Probably as a defense mechanism, he developed a disposition as creepy as effective.
After a couple months after the beginning of the episodes of bullying, accidents magically happened to the bullies in a variety of ways.
The cause always seemed untraceable.
Be it as it may, the result was always the same.
Eric overcame the bullying, magically fit into the class, and became the class representative in just a few months.
Social norms were always a joke to him.
He always thought: rules are written by humans to control other humans, and someone is punished just because he was dumb enough to be found out not following the rules.
Seemingly in contrast with this rebellious idea was his passion for chess as an allegory of life: in fact, even if you're dealt a bad hand at life if your king is in check, you must be able to retrace the action which led to your demise and learn from your errors.
This was the past that produced the man Erechtheus Blake: whose name was decided by Olive after an ancient king of Athens, who grades in school just above average, the winner when he was 8 in the national chess competition in the state of New York and then Human Resources Manager for an international company.
Underneath this apparently successful life were hiding the seeds of his unhappiness.
The names of the monsters which gnawed at his sanity were low self-esteem and boredom: since early childhood, he felt rejected by his father first and his classmates then.
He was able to manipulate the opinion people had of him but didn't feel like himself.
He was able to get past easy in the game of life, but he lacked the drive to push for excellence and settled for the boring but predictable routine.
All this would have granted him a peaceful death if it wasn't for a hearse running him over on a Saturday night.
That was one of the few times everything didn't go according to his plan and, in a similar manner as he was doing now, after returning to Ouroboros and checking for his immediate safety, he was screaming and punching the ground, red in the face out of anger.
After a couple minutes, out of breath and with flowing blood on his knuckles, he regained himself.
Given the dire situation, he didn't have the leisure of wasting time now.
Moreover, he was excited about his future for the first time in more than ten years.
There was already a similar situation when he was called a Hero Tamer by the royals of the Pan Kingdom, but now he was said to have the potential to become a god-king by a goddess herself.
Eric was wiser than to trust at face value what Nemesis said.
"It is sure she kept information from me, and in an easy way to put it, everyone in this world puts his interest before others."
He said, deciding to talk aloud as if keeping himself company.
Then after healing his hands and finding a water source, he decided to return to his house since the sky was probably darkening, and he learned from his second life that most predators are nocturnal creatures.
As he closed the door kilometers away in a dark and humid cave.
Two burning eyes suddenly opened.
The cave was filled with vapor as the temperature inside rose dramatically.
Then a sleepy, sweet voice raised: " Uh, what happened there? I better check tomorrow."
Eric had a chill under his spine but gave it away as excitement and resumed sleeping.
Ignorance is bliss sometimes.