It's strange, isn't it? The idea of waking up one day and finding yourself in a body that isn't yours. It sounds like the kind of story you'd hear from a madman, or perhaps a folktale spun to explain some bizarre phenomenon. But here I am, living it—if this can even be called living. One moment, I was... dying, I suppose—the final act of living—and the next, I opened my eyes to a world that feels entirely wrong. Or perhaps it's I who am wrong for it.The body I now inhabit is foreign. Familiar enough for me to move with some semblance of grace but still, foreign. My hands no longer have the rough, callused appeaence I accumulated over the years of labor. It's maddening. Not emotionally—my sense of self feels intact, untouched—but physically. The limitations are stifling. My muscles are weak, my coordination almost nonexistent. I've gone from holding scalpels with steady hands to barely being able to grip a wooden toy without dropping it. And the speech... words come so haltingly, so slurred. My mind races ahead, fully formed sentences piling up in my thoughts, but my tongue refuses to cooperate.Yes, I am in the body of an infant. It's been a year since this has happened and I, more or less, have grown accustomed to it.I am born in a world that I still do not know the name of, in a time hundreds of years in the past from my original time, and in a completely different reality. In a magical world. Magic. Something mostly associated with superstitions or bed-time stories for the young. But it was real. A grounded reality. I had seen my mother—Alice Leywin, a beautiful young woman with auburn hair and hazel eyes—use her hands to heal a wound like it never existed. My father—Reynolds Leywin—pick up stones without touching them and swing his wooden sword in a way that it summoned a tempest. All of this was real, I was not hallucinating. The house I am born in is modest, though far from impoverished. Thick wooden beams run along the ceiling. The stone walls are solid, patched here and there where time has left its mark. A faint scent of woodsmoke often lingers in the air, mixing with the earthy aroma of damp stone. The furniture is simple—a sturdy table, a pair of chairs, and a bed that, while coarse by modern standards, is meticulously maintained. Slowly, while laying on the warm floor, I looked to the side where the mirror was. My face was quite cherubic, with pale ash-grey coloured hair and sapphire-blue eyes. It's hot today. The cicadas were droning outside, and the occasional sound of a bird chirping was the only sound other than the usual hustle and bustle outside. I wish I could go outside. Despite it being a year, I still think about my past life, the one I left behind—or was ripped from. Reincarnation feels like the simplest explanation, though it raises more questions than it answers. If I am here, then what became of the "me" I left behind? Was my soul displaced, or was this transfer inevitable? Did I die, or was I... reassigned? And what of the original owner of this body? Is he gone, or am I merely a guest, sharing space with a consciousness I can't perceive? It's disorienting to think about. My mind drifts to what I've lost—well, I don't have much to lose, but still, any notion of loss feels distant, almost numbed by the sheer strangeness of this situation. I remember the sterile white walls of the hospital where I worked after being accpted into a medical college following ANHS, the hum of monitors, the controlled chaos of the operating room. A few years of peaceful study, of uninterrupted practice—I'd decided to run away and dedicate my life to something mundane. That maybe, to prove that man wrong, I would do it. However, the process of doing so was even more so...boring. I still think back at it. Was Horikita's loss to me what drove her to become a politician and me picking the path of a doctor, miles away from each other? There certainly was something about her, that I liked—I realised after many years. It's not love but—it's not my selfishness or scheme either. I wonder what she would've said if we had met. Right before I died—or was 'sent' here. I wonder about it all the time. What would we have talked about? Would we be able to reach to a concensus? Would she be able to reconcile with me after I left her class? I can make a mental map deducing what exactly she would've answered. But a part of me doesn't want to. The 'emotion' I had felt back then, when she called me to meet after 10 long years, it was grounding. Like a bright blur of something in the heart of darkness. "—and so, this iscaused by overuse of spells beyond the practitioner's capacity, or using aspell too powerful for his or her mana core to handle. You get that, Julian? You should never overuse your mana or a scary scary mana backlash will hit you!" The voice fainted before rising again. "Hey! Listen to me!" Oh yes, amidst my musings, I forgot to pay any attention to this idiot. This non-stop talking machine is my older brother, and a peculiar one at that—Arthur Leywin. Apparently he is supposed to be a year older than me, but given how fluently he can speak and how well he acts, I have my suspicions. But well, it's nothing to consider for now. Because for now, this is my new family. I have a second chance at life—despite how absurd it sounds. However, mundanity has only served me so much. Hence, this time, I will not hold back—if I want to explore the full extent of life, and what should my life represent. Because when my end draws near one day, I do not want to die as I have already.