Wizard of the Abyss – Ch. 1

Wizard of the Abyss

[Extra Novels]

Chapter 1 - Birth (1)

When I came to, I found myself completely naked.

And it was winter.

“...?”

But if my memory was right, the place I had fallen asleep in yesterday was my bed.

"What the..." 

My skin felt soft. Unnaturally so. 

I barely even noticed that my voice sounded a bit too youthful, since this wasn’t even the strangest part. When I opened my hand, I realized it wasn’t mine. Chubby and small. 

This was the body of a boy, about five years old. 

Looking around, I saw what looked like the streets of a medieval town at night.

In short… I couldn’t make sense of a single thing that was happening to me right now. 

While I stood there shivering, dumbfounded, a startled voice called out from somewhere. 

"Oh my, is that child out here naked? Is he from the orphanage??” 

"You think so? What are you doing out here in the cold, kid?” 

"...Huh?" 

Two women dressed like nannies rushed over to me, fussing as they draped clothes over my shoulders. 

"Wait, he’s not one of ours, right? I’ve never seen this boy before.” 

"Then this child is…… Oh my, what a poor thing, tsk tsk……”

"E-excuse me. Where is this place?” 

When I asked them in a rather hushed voice, pity flashed across the women’s faces. 

"Oh dear… He doesn’t even know what’s happened.” 

"If someone abandoned him in this weather and in this state, they basically wanted him to die. These kinds of people really deserve to be punished…” 

"No, what are you talking abo–” 

"Come inside first. You’ll freeze to death out there.” 

One of the rather stubborn women pulled me into some building. 

Inside I was subjected to a horrifying sight. Ragged children choking and beating each other. Most of them were wailing. 

It wasn't all that surprising, though. Put over fifty kids under the age of ten in one place, and this was what usually happened.

Instead of scolding them, the woman clapped their hands to draw their attention.

"Alright, everyone. We have a new friend today. Please be kind to him, okay?” 

"..." 

As I felt the weight of a dozen curious stares, I finally realized something. Could this be…

This… another world reincarnation thing? 

"Why the fuck is this happening to me when I was just minding my own business…?” 

"Oh my, from now on, you can’t use such bad words in our orphanage!” 

I couldn’t make sense of any of this. 

* * * 

After reincarnating, I spent the next five years until I turned ten agonizing thousands of times over the same question. 

Why me? 

I didn’t kill myself out of despair, nor did I get hit by a truck. I wasn’t betrayed by a lover, nor was I defeated by my most hated enemy or something. 

I’d just lived normally and fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion. 

If I had to name something as my sin, it would be that I was simply satisfied with my ordinary life. 

And when I opened my eyes again, I was in the body of an abandoned orphan. 

All of this felt like walking down the street only to be slapped across the face out of nowhere. 

I kept wondering which bastard decided to send me here, instead of all the others who were suffering, and why–

But I couldn’t find a single answer. 

So, what else could I do? In this world, I was nothing more than an ordinary orphan.

So I just lived. 

"Alright, class is starting soon, everyone gather in the classroom~."

 "Yeees~" 

Living in the orphanage, I came to realize something. 

This country was filthy rich. 

“Jern, how much allowance did you get?” 

“Five hundred copper.” 

“What? Why did you get twice as much as me?” 

“It’s not that I got more. You just got half because you peed on Louis’ face while he was sleeping last time.” 

“He said it was fine if I peed on him as long as he didn’t wake up!!” 

Jern– that was the name I was given. It still felt unfamiliar to me, though. 

I stared blankly at the green coin in my hand before slipping it into my pocket.

This money wasn’t even meant to cover meals or something. We regularly got meals provided to us. So, this allowance was exactly meant to be spent on snacks or cultural activities.

The quality of the meals was also excellent. With so many strange vegetables and meats, I couldn’t say for sure what they were, but seeing the kids shoot up rather than simply grow at a normal rate the past three years made me seriously wonder if they were slipping growth hormones in there. At the very least, the portions were big enough.

The living space was also fine. Although every room had four kids in them, the space was large enough that it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, and we could bathe whenever we wanted. 

Above all else, they took education pretty seriously here.

“Who can tell me the three essentials for farming?” 

“Me! Soil, power, and… Water!” 

“While power is important, of course, these essentials are things that, without them, crops will never grow, no matter how hard you till the fields. Think again.” 

Compared to South Korean, the classes here were about elementary school level, but well, we literally were elementary-school aged. When I eavesdropped on the older children’s lessons, I realized the curriculum was far broader, though.

Only the basics of math and science were taught. 

Most of the focus was on history, law, language, and vocational experiences to broaden our career options. 

Kids who showed academic talent were even supported with programs encouraging them to become civil servants. Honestly, I hadn't expected anything even close to this.

At first, I thought being in this medieval orphanage meant that they’d starve us, beat us, and send us out to the streets to beg like some shady gang, but it turned out that this place was really bright and hopeful instead.

That was nothing short of a blessing to me. 

While I silently expressed my gratitude to the unknown princess who decided to invest so much into child welfare, I sat through the class, feeling crumpled bits of paper getting flicked against the back of my head. 

I tried to ignore it at first, but when I heard the sound of someone carefully lifting a rock from a desk, I frowned and turned slightly.

“What?” 

“You’ve gotta come see the performance after class.” 

“?” 

After pondering it over for a moment, I realized this was one of those suggestions that were practically mandatory invitations children liked to make.

Lately, they've been clinging to me more and more. Probably because my black hair was a rather unique trait in this place, which caught the children’s attention.

A blonde girl grinned at me slyly as she spoke. Her name was Linmel, I think. We were… fairly close, I guess.

Probably. I shook my head. 

“I’m not really interested in the performance.” 

“Then what are you going to do?” 

“Watch ants. And when I get bored, I’ll just crush them to death.” 

“That sounds fun! Can I do it with you?”

“Didn’t you… want to be at that performance?” 

At this age, ‘fickle’ doesn’t even begin to describe how fast kids change their minds. Watching the teacher scribble the basics of farming on the blackboard with loud clacking sounds, I quietly changed my reply. 

“Actually, I need to study. So I can’t play with you. Sorry.“

“Study? But we’re doing that right now.” 

“I need to do even more.” 

“Why?” 

“It’s smart kids that get adopted more easily.” 

“Adopted?”

 “...That’s when parents show up to pick us up.” 

“But I was told that my mom and dad went off to a faraway land.” 

“......Don’t you think it’s better to at least have fake parents than none at all?” 

“Hmm...” 

After hesitating for a moment and thinking it over, Linmel nodded. 

“Yeah, that does sound good! I’ll study too!”

“Phew...” 

The facilities were nice, and the people's perception of us wasn’t too bad. 

But—at the end of the day, this was still just an orphanage. The first wish of the kids here that were still young enough for it was adoption. 

Whether adoption was possible or not was decided around the age of ten. From what I had heard, nobody ever got adopted past that age.

But honestly, I didn’t really want to be adopted. I didn’t really want to be forced to think of strangers as my parents. 

My only goal was to become a scribe. Sure, the path to wealth and glory was that of a knight, but—

Tak- 

“Jern, you’re pretty weak, huh?” 

“...” 

A wooden sword rested on top of my head. 

Of course, there were plenty of hot-blooded kids in this place who dreamed of becoming knights. The orphanage even had a training ground and practice swords, so I brought Linmel along with me to spar one day…

Well, turns out, I probably have no talent for the sword. 

I couldn’t understand how others made these swords move like that.

Rather, it seemed like Linmel possessed quite the talent for it. She effortlessly parried my sluggish swings and rubbed the flat of her wooden blade against the crown of my head.

She even had the technique to pull her strikes at the last second to avoid injuring me.

This girl was destined to be a knight. 

I sighed and pushed the wooden sword off my head. 

“Amazing.”

“What? But you’re way cooler, Jern. You got first place on the history test again, right?” 

“That’s...” 

Because I was the only one who actually paid attention in class. 

Besides, the software installed in this body was that of an adult man. If I couldn’t even memorize stuff at an elementary-school level, I might as well just die on the spot.

From my perspective, Linmel’s talent with the sword was far more impressive. I had seen countless kids good at studying back on Earth, but never anyone who could handle a sword like that.

I cleaned myself up and got back on my feet. 

I should just live moderately and be satisfied with what I had, even in this different world. 

It was the very next morning that I realized my ‘talent’ wouldn’t allow me to do that. 

* * * 

Early morning. 

I woke up to find the ceiling in my view trembling. 

“What the...”

As I tried to get out of the bed, I tumbled across the floor with a loud crash.

My legs wouldn’t move. The floor against my cheek felt freezing cold… 

But my body was burning hot.

It felt like my entire body had turned into a fireball. With a cracked voice I tried to call for help, and the kids who had slowly started to wake up immediately jumped to their feet, screaming in shock.

“Uwaaah! Jern’s dead!” 

“Sh-should we call the director?”

Their fussing made my head pound. With my mind feeling as if it was in a haze, I fell unconscious again. 

A bad cold? The flu? No, this felt very different. It wasn’t like being sick… more like something was trying to fuse with me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the infirmary. I immediately found myself surrounded by the director and the teachers, all wearing grim expressions. 

One kid catching a cold wasn’t nearly enough for all these people to gather here. Feeling rather anxious, I asked:

“...What’s happening? Am I dying?” 

They exchanged hushed words with each other. Then the director stepped forward with a somber expression on his face and spoke.

“Jern, you’ve received a terrible gift from your parents.” 

“Huh?”

Soul Fever. 

That was the name of the illness that made me feel as if I was getting roasted in a fire.

To put it more simply, it was an illness every wizard had to go through as a child.

You might be wondering something like, ‘A wizard? Someone like me who didn’t have the slightest about magic?’ But that wasn’t what this meant.

In this world, a wizard was like someone born with three arms. 

You had to be born with it to use magic. If you weren’t, then you would never be able to even touch upon it no matter what you did. 

And, of course, people weren’t born with three arms every day or something.

Even with fate, destiny, and luck stacked upon each other, one might appear every ten years. And even then, most of them had a wizard somewhere in their bloodline. 

But there was one sure way to produce one—

If both parents were wizards. 

"Wait, but from what I remember in class, wizards are…” 

I trailed off, recalling the common sense of this world that I had learned in class. The director gave me a nod with a stiff face. 

“So, shouldn’t we be addressing him more formally?” 

“Nothing’s certain yet. It could be from some distant ancestor…”

“Hmm, still. We have to consider keeping it hidden.” 

A bewildering ‘birth secret.’ 

So it seemed like I was some illegitimate child of a noble family. 

The reason for this conclusion was quite simple—because all nobles were wizards.

For countless generations, nobles had married, and married, and married again into wizard bloodlines…

That was why every noble was born with magical talent. 

Of course, there were exceptions, but it was very rare for a wizard not to be a noble. 

They were mostly ascetic, prophet-like people training in the middle of the snowy mountains, or so we were taught.

But these kinds of people were rather unlikely to have children, which meant that the odds that I was the illegitimate child of some noble family were rather high.

I, an orphan, actually had noble blood? 

Hmm. 

That kind of status reversal wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for.

“I’m sorry, Jern, but this matter is…” 

“Very serious.” 

“N-not exactly, but nothing good will come of spreading it around.” 

I thought about it for a moment.

This really was a serious problem. I knew they were just trying to comfort me.

For a noble, the idea of a non-noble being a wizard was deeply upsetting and offensive.

And from a commoner's perspective, it wasn’t anything simple either. It was like having a completely tangled-up family registry.

So I had become a troublesome existence for both nobles and commoners alike. 

“So, for now…”

“I’ll keep it a secret.” 

“Huh? Umm, yes. That would be for the best. Just don’t show it off to others.”

“Okay.” 

It seemed like the teachers felt even more uneasy because I agreed so readily. 

I mean, why would I go flaunting something that would only become a weak point the moment it was revealed?

Unless I was some peerless genius or something.

 …

 ..

 .

 “Am I actually...?”

After levitating about a hundred books in the storeroom, my opinion started to change slightly. 

I might actually have some talent.

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