Quillen suddenly woke up. He had been in this position countless times, and he had hoped that this time, this time—he would be the one to choose where he was born, what he would become, and maybe even craft the perfect body for himself.
Too bad everything had gone wrong the moment System Genesis decided to intervene.
Damn trash system. He hadn't accounted for that. He had hoped it wouldn't detect the clone he made… but somehow, it did. And now, here he was—reborn and stuck in a world he barely recognized.
[Exo, you useless system… where are you?]
Quillen waited several seconds.
Silence.
It should've responded immediately.
But instead, he was left alone. No voice. No guidance. Now he had to figure out everything by himself.
"Damn it…"
He looked at his hand—it was the size of an infant's.
He estimated he was a little over a year old by now. Just around the time babies begin to gain self-awareness… and when the brain could start processing the information of a past life.
That's when it hit him.
Damn it, here it comes…
If he had been an ordinary human being reincarnated, things might have gone smoothly.
But he wasn't.
He was a former deity, with countless lifetimes and vast experience. Regaining those memories—trying to compress them into the fragile shell of a mortal baby—wasn't just difficult. It was torment.
All that information came flooding in, and his small body began to convulse.
It was like having a seizure—only worse. Blood streamed from his eyes and ears. He coughed some of it up. His stomach churned violently.
After half an hour, the shaking finally stopped.
He lay there in silence, wondering why no one had come to help him.
"Oh yeah… damn it. I forgot…"
He exhaled softly, a dry chuckle escaping him.
"I forgot how to cry…"
Good thing, then, that he'd kept his habit of breathing—even as a god who no longer needed to.
Quillen looked around himself—he was a complete bloody mess, and his body felt weak.
He didn't know what would happen when whoever was watching him saw the disaster he had caused, but it had to be done. The loss of blood might soon kill him, and dying now would mean dying for real.
How the hell do I even cry…
"Waa, waa." Quillen tried to make his best impression.It wasn't convincing—not even to himself—but it was the best he could manage.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone entering the room.
It was a woman holding a candle. Just the sight of her outline was enough to make him stop crying—or so he thought.
He instinctively began to cry again, but this time it felt different. More real. As if he were truly seeking comfort.
He didn't know why, but it felt like a faucet had been opened—no, a whole fire hydrant—and, oddly enough, he also felt a strange relief.
Quillen couldn't control his emotions. There was instinct, yes, but something deeper took over as he began to softly cry for real.
The figure before him began to blur and blend with memories of all the mothers he had lost, each one gone and never to return.
His first mother on Earth. His second on Teros. His fifth… all the way up to the twenty-third.
Each one is unique. Each one he had cherished and loved.
He always tried to seal away this part of himself—the part that remembered what it felt like to have a family.
His brothers, sisters, fathers, friends…. Even pets.
But those thoughts were suddenly cut off.
The woman screamed, and more people rushed into the room.
Damn… I must look like a nightmare… Sorry, Mom.
His mother quickly picked him up and began checking every part of him. Moments later, a man entered the room with a candle in hand. Alongside his two parents, two more entered—children in nightwear, looking tired but deeply worried.
Quillen didn't understand what they were saying, but it was clear they were distressed. All he wanted, though, was to eat.
His stomach grumbled, his throat was dry, and he felt terribly weak.
Suddenly, an old lady entered the room.
She looked around and saw everyone crowded around the baby boy, clearly worried.
Quillen began to cry once more, but his self-awareness had already shut down again.
Morgan, the family elder who had just entered, looked at the young toddler.
Her silver hair was tied in a tight bun, and her sharp green eyes scanned the room with authority. Wrinkles lined her face, but her posture remained straight, commanding respect from everyone present.
The deep blue robe she wore showed her family crest, it was blue and faintly glowed the the light of the candles, showing the embroidered sigils—faded, but clearly noble.
"Does he have a cut or wound? It's strange for a child to start bleeding, but it's also a good sign. Hurry, Hector—bring me some milk from downstairs. Add honey, and tell the maid to put in three spoonfuls of core essence. Remember, just three."
Morgan watched as the firstborn, twelve-year-old Hector, ran off downstairs. He was tall for his age, with tousled auburn hair and a freckled face, a mix between a boy and a teenager.
She looked around and noticed the caretaker was missing.
"Where is Hilda? She should've been the first to notice this."
Nora, her daughter, the baby's mother, shook her head. Her long, dark brown hair was braided over one shoulder, and her tired hazel eyes were wide awake as she feared for her son's safety. She wore a simple but elegant nightgown that had once been pure white but now bore faint traces of Quillen's blood.
"I let her take today off. She'll be back tomorrow."
Morgan clicked her tongue.
"A caretaker in a Marquess's household takes the day off? I keep telling you you're too gentle with them…"
Then she turned toward the girl, Mary, who looked a little lost. The six-year-old had just finished wiping tears from her chubby cheeks. She had short sandy-blonde hair, a round face, and wore a woolen nightdress decorated with stitched stars—clearly a child still attached to her comforts.
"Mary, go get Laura. Tell her she'll be on night duty to watch over young Auren. After that, go back to sleep. Everything's fine here, okay?"
Unlike with the firstborn Hector, she softened her voice into a sweet, grandmotherly tone for her favorite grandchild.
"What do I do, Mrs. Morgan?" Victor called out. He was the baby's father and just as distressed as Nora. His tall frame looked out of place in the doorway, hunched awkwardly with worry. Messy blond hair from being woken up in the middle of the night, a handom face, and his deep-set blue eyes darted between Quillen and his wife. He was dressed in a half-fastened robe, clearly roused from sleep in a panic.
"I don't know—but why are you crying too? Go get a bucket of warm water or something. We need to wipe him down and check for wounds."
Morgan really just wanted the useless man out of her sight for now.
"This sometimes happens… It's impressive, though. We might just have to welcome an Archmage into this family—only my brother had such a reaction when he was an infant," Morgan said, even at her old age, with a hint of excitement.