Transcendence?

***Norfolk, Sarn-Valley***

***Arran***

Mother Tanith hugs me tight while I sit on her lap. This whole situation wouldn't have happened if I had kept my mouth shut and pretended to be a normal baby. But mom caught me while I was reading one of her books. There would be no problem if I didn't have the bad habit of reading aloud.

So I exposed myself to my mother, who in turn spilled the soup to my father, who brought us here. Up until today I thought that dad and mom were normal merchants. But that's obviously not the case.

Apparently they can come and visit the rulers of Norfolk like good old friends. Today they dropped one bombshell after the other on me. We entered this mansion and got greeted by a hot beauty and her daughter, who turned out to be my fiancee! The mother was introduced as Celestial Asceron, the Jarl of Norfolk.

Normally I hate worlds with prearranged marriages, but when I took a look at the hot device which was the mother of my fiancee, I thanked the gods for being lucky for once. Though I hoped that the princess in question wasn't too spoiled.

My hopes were crushed when Celestial returned with her husband Ascathon. The cute little girl opened her mouth for the first time after studying me with a calculating glare for quite some time.

“I changed my mind. He is cute and after thinking over it for some time, I came to the conclusion that it's better to start training them young. Changing their behaviour to your preferences early should be easier than to wait until they are adults.”

“I am not some kind of pet!” I immediately snap back before realizing that the girl in front of me can't be much older than me. That was an extremely calculating sentence for a little child.

“That's my son, Arran. I wanted your advice on how to deal with this, as you are obviously in a similar situation.” My father Kane points at me with a forced smile.

Sera is still looking at me with a shocked expression. But then she closes her mouth and starts to giggle. “I see. I guess not everything can be as easy as I believe. Looks like I will have to invest a little more effort into you.”

Gods. I think I found a really troublesome and manipulative woman. “Are you a reincarnated person like me!?”

“I am. And my mom and dad are reincarnated too. They've lived many more lifetimes than me, so I still regard them as my elders.” Sera points at Ascathon and Celestial, who are now looming over me with the same calculating glare.

Gods! It's frightening when someone who is ten times bigger looks at you like that.

“Hi. That's a first. Is this world something like a focus point for reincarnation? How old are you guys? I've lived one thousand, a hundred and four lifetimes.”

“One thousand and seventy eight.” Sera smiles and pats her chest. “We are almost the same age!”

“Three thousand and four hundred and five.” Celestial smiles down at me with a dangerous expression. Probably she wants to point out that you shouldn't ask women about their age.

“I stopped counting after a few thousand lifetimes. It gets boring.” Ascathon replies with a tired voice. “So, would you care to introduce yourself. I am not giving my daughter to a stranger.”

I gulp while looking into a pair of dangerous eyes. This guy would do perfectly fine as some kind of dungeon boss, or demon king.

“I am not a bad guy. I live by the rule to help, if it's within my power. I am good with the sword and guns. Spells aren't my forte, but I am confident in my battle aura and at infusing my mana into weapons.” I answer fast.

“Haah... hearing that from my baby is strange.” Tanith draws me closer and places her cheek on my head.

Ascathon scratches his cheek while looking down at me, obviously in deep thought.

“So? What do you think? And could you explain this reincarnation story to your best friend?” Father Kane looks at Ascathon with a forced smile.

My father's friend covers his face with both hands and starts to rub while moaning. “Okay! Here are the facts. Souls exist! Everyone has one. But some souls are stronger than others and able to carry the memories of previous lives to the new body. We came to call ourselves Immortals. That's because we are simply reborn if our body is killed. I am one, Celestial and Sera too. The Immortal Empress is apparently an Immortal too.” He looks at me. “... and your son is one. That's why he is already able to speak.”

Tanith sighs above my head. “Somehow that's a little too much for me.”

“Why don't you lie down on the couch, mom?” I ask her with a worried voice. Please don't lose consciousness and drop me on the floor. That happened to me once already. Speaking of bad parents … Kane looks a little pale too.

“How many of you are on this world? Are there more?” I ask my elders politely.

Celestial shakes her head. “We five are the only ones we know of.” She looks at Ascathon. “They should stay here. With the war and all those assassination attempts, there is no way of knowing what might happen to them otherwise.”

Woohoo! I will get to see the hot device everyday from now on! Suddenly my cheek is grabbed and twisted harshly.

“Your expression! One minus point! At ten, I will give you a personal training session.” Sera puffs her cheeks.

“Can we wait until we are sixteen? These bodies aren't suited for such exercises.” I apologize to Sera. I am not a paedophile.

My mother inhales sharply.

*SMACK!*

“Ow …”

“That wasn't what she meant!” Tanith hit me. My mother gave me a clout! She never did that before.

“I will try to keep the jokes to a minimum from now on.” I mumble with a silent voice. Unfortunately I am still a baby and dependant on the ones around me.

Sera hops down from the couch and smiles up at me. “Let's go and play somewhere else, while the adults do their talking.”

“Huh? I don't see how that's possible, unless you can carry me around with that body of yours?” I look down at the girl to my mother's feet.

“~No problem! I will take him for a while, Miss Tanith. You adults can keep talking about adult stuff.~”

I am somehow lifted from my mother's lap and levitate half a metre above her. “W … wait!” But Sera pays no heed to me and skips out of the room while I float after her.

On the corridor she stops and sets me down to the ground. “I just thought about showing you around the mansion! But it would probably be rude to do so without consent, so where do you want to go first?” Her eyes sparkle.

This is a strange proposal! No matter how you think about it? You are concerned if I want to be shown around at all, so by letting me choose the location everything becomes okay? What if I want to stay with my parents?

On the other hand, being shown around by my maybe fiancee isn't that bad? “Which locations are there to see?”

Sera takes a thinking posture. “Well, there is the survival parkour in my mother's office. Or my father's laboratory! We could play with one of his machines! There are the guards' quarters too. I have an ongoing battle with Den on how far I can infiltrate his private quarters. Then we could avoid traps and guards in the garden. Or we could go and watch the deadly training exercises of Liandra and Violetta! They are trying to keep it a secret from me though.”

I feel one corner my mouth starting to twitch. “Why do all those options sound like they are life threatening?”

Sera nods. “I see, you want to do something that's not life threatening. In this house. Well, lets see.” Her forehead starts to create cute wrinkles while she is obviously thinking very hard. She starts to play with her fingers after several seconds.

“There are no non life threatening activities within this mansion?” I ask after several more seconds of silence.

“~Nope.~” Sera smiles at me.

“What's the least life threatening activity you can think of?” I continue the interrogation.

“Humm... Maybe reading books in the library? Though my dad forgot one of his research notes there and when I looked into it I almost got mindwiped, because he protected it against unauthorized usage.” Sera smiles at me with excitement.

“Is it safe if we just keep sitting here and do nothing? Except for talking?” Just sitting on this corridor can't be dangerous.

“We can't do that! Dad installed traps against assassins! If you stay too long in one spot, the corridor starts to do some strange things with your mind. Last month an assassin slit his wrists right here. I found him the next morning and asked my dad about it. He said that I should never watch the walls for too long while it's dark. Though it should be safe in daylight.” She touches her lips like being not sure about that point.

“Then please move me to the next safest location.” I urge Sera forward.

Suddenly her face brightens. “I have a good idea! The kitchen!”

“Ah, good. Kitchen doesn't sound very dangerous.” I nod and smile for the first time.

“Mom has just a few of her potions there. They shouldn't be very poisonous. And in the big pot at the highest level lives something, but I didn't muster the courage to check it out until now. We will explore that! With you, I have finally someone to watch my back.” She starts to toddle faster while levitating me after her.

“Potions? Poisons? Something that lives? What kind of kitchen are you talking about!?” I start struggling, but it's in vain.

“Ah, I haven't told you. My mom is a witch. And dad is a mad scientist. I was never so lucky with my parents!” Sera starts to hum while taking me along.

The hot device is a witch? My world view is crumbling. I stop struggling and resign to my fate with a dead expression. “Aye. Let's explore the kitchen.”

That day we had a life and death encounter with a slime, after knocking over the mysterious pot.

We fought a small moving spider construct in Ascathon's laboratory.

Then we avoided traps in the garden.

And we finally got caught and done in by Liandra and Violetta, who turned out to be something like the final boss of this mansion, according to Sera.

That day I realized that my fiancee had a very hard childhood up until now. And when Kane and Tanith informed me of our prolonged stay, I came to the conclusion that I'll have to share Sera's fate from now on.

Why is she so oblivious of her living circumstances?

.