Dying wasn't so bad. It was the "being reborn" part that was weird.
One minute, I was walking home from Akihabara with a limited-edition figure of a certain sword-wielding waifu, and the next, I was staring at a wooden ceiling. I tried to speak—maybe ask for a refund on my life—but all that came out was a wet gurgle.
It didn't take long to figure out the situation.
I had been reincarnated. The classic Isekai setup.
"Jackpot," I thought, kicking my chubby little legs in the air.
I was an otaku back on Earth. A proud one. I loved fantasy, I loved magic, and I loved the idea of swinging a sword around. I knew exactly what to do. Step one: figure out my cheat ability. Step two: find the harem. Step three: world domination.
But there was a glitch in the system.
I turned my head to the left. There, in the same crib, was another baby. He looked exactly like me, just with a dumber expression on his face.
"A twin?" I thought, narrowing my eyes. "Great. Player 2 has entered the game."
My parents were standard fantasy fare. Paul, the dad, was a scruffy-looking swordsman. Zenith, the mom, was a healer. They were sickeningly affectionate.
They named Player 2 Rudeus. They named me Lucius.
As the weeks turned into months, and months into years, I realized something about my brother. He was weird. He didn't cry. He stared at things with the eyes of a forty-year-old man. And he was always reading books when he thought nobody was looking.
Nerd, I thought, doing sit-ups in the corner of the crib to get my strength stats up. While you read, I train. That's the rule of the Shonen protagonist.
I didn't know it then, but I was in the world of Mushoku Tensei. I'd heard of the anime back on Earth—some of my friends wouldn't shut up about it—but I refused to watch it. I heard the main character was a total creep, a peeping tom, a borderline predator. I had standards. I preferred the cool, battle-heavy shows.
The irony that I was now sharing a room with that very protagonist was completely lost on me.
II.
The incident happened when we were three years old.
It was a rainy afternoon. Paul and Zenith were downstairs. I was busy trying to lift a heavy wooden chair to test my grip strength. Rudeus was sitting on the floor, staring at his hands.
I watched him. He was concentrating so hard his face was turning red.
Is he pooping? I wondered.
Then, I saw it. A small ball of water formed between his palms. It hovered there, defying gravity, wobbling like jelly.
My jaw dropped. Magic. The little nerd could use magic!
Jealousy didn't creep up on me; it hit me like a truck. I was the one doing pushups! I was the one trying to learn swordplay with sticks! How come he gets the cool lights?
I dropped the chair. "Ah!" (Hey!) I shouted, pointing at him.
Rudeus jumped, the water ball splashing onto his shirt. He looked at me, panic in his eyes, then put a finger to his lips. "Shh."
Don't shush me, Player 2.
I sat down on the floor opposite him. I mimicked his pose. I put my hands together. I remembered the concept from all the manga I read. Mana exists in the body. Visualize it. Push it out.
I closed my eyes. I searched for the energy.
And I found it.
But it wasn't a flowing stream like the books described. It was... heavy. It felt like magma sitting in my gut.
Come on, I gritted my teeth. Fireball. Lightning bolt. Anything!
I pushed. I squeezed the energy. I wanted it to come out of my hands. But it wouldn't move. It was stubborn. It was stuck.
"Ghh..." I groaned.
Frustration bubbled up. Why couldn't I do it? Was I the side character? Was I the comedic relief?
No!
The frustration turned into anger. Hot, blinding anger.
MOVE! I screamed internally.
That was the trigger.
It didn't come out. It exploded inwards.
III.
The world turned red.
The rational part of my brain—the human part, the otaku part—suddenly went offline. It was replaced by something ancient. Something hungry.
I didn't feel pain. I felt power.
"Lucius?" Rudeus's voice sounded far away.
I opened my eyes. But I wasn't seeing normal colors anymore. I saw heat signatures. I saw the flow of mana in the air.
My hands felt strange. I looked down.
ZZZZZT!
A spark of blue electricity jumped from my thumb to my pinky.
My skin was rippling. It wasn't an itch; it was an armor plating itself over my flesh. Patches of metallic, silver-blue scales erupted along my forearms, tearing through my toddler shirt. My fingernails lengthened, hardening into black, curved claws.
"Lu...cius?" Rudeus scooted back, his eyes wide with terror.
Fear, my instincts whispered. Prey.
I didn't want to hurt him. I loved my brother. But the Thing inside me didn't care about brothers. The Thing was angry that it had been woken up, and it wanted to break something.
I let out a sound. It wasn't a child's scream. It was a low, guttural growl that vibrated the floorboards.
"GRRRRAAAAAH!"
I lunged.
I didn't mean to. My body just moved on its own, propelled by a burst of static electricity. I covered the distance to Rudeus in a blink.
I raised my clawed hand. The air around me crackled with ozone. The static made my hair stand straight up.
Rudeus threw his hands up, terrified.
Stop! the human me screamed. That's Rudy!
I fought the urge. I jerked my hand to the side at the last second.
BOOM!
My claws slammed into the floorboards beside Rudeus. Wood splintered and exploded as a bolt of lightning discharged into the ground. The shockwave knocked Rudeus onto his back.
The smell of ozone and burnt wood filled the room.
I stood there, panting, saliva dripping from my mouth. The scales were creeping up my neck now. The anger was pounding in my ears like a war drum. More. Fight more. Destroy more.
The door burst open.
"Rudy! Lucius! What was that—"
Paul froze in the doorway. Zenith was right behind him.
They saw the hole in the floor. They saw Rudeus cowering in the corner. And they saw me.
A three-year-old boy with one arm covered in dragon scales, crackling with blue lightning, snarling like a wild beast.
"Paul..." Zenith whispered, her hand covering her mouth.
Paul didn't hesitate. He was a veteran adventurer. He saw a threat, and his body moved. He dashed forward, grabbing me by the shoulders.
"Lucius! Snap out of it!"
Contact.
ZAP!
The moment Paul touched my scales, a jolt of electricity surged into him. He grunted in pain but—to his credit—he didn't let go. He hugged me tight, pinning my clawed arm to my side.
"Calm down!" Paul shouted, his voice ringing in my ears. "It's okay! Daddy's here! Calm down!"
I thrashed. I wanted to bite him. I wanted to burn him with the heat building in my throat.
But Paul was strong. And the heat was exhausting me.
My vision started to blur. The red tint faded. The scales began to recede, dissolving back into my skin like they were never there. The lightning flickered and died.
I went limp in Paul's arms.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was Rudeus staring at me. He wasn't looking at me like a brother anymore. He was looking at me like I was a ticking time bomb.
Yeah, I thought, as the darkness took me. I think I might be.
IV.
I woke up hours later.
I was in bed. My body felt like I had run a marathon. My throat was dry.
I looked at my hand. It was a normal, chubby toddler hand. No scales. No claws.
"You're awake," a small voice said.
Rudeus was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching me.
"Did I..." I tried to speak, my voice raspy. "Did I hurt you?"
Rudeus shook his head. "You missed. You hit the floor." He hesitated. "What... was that?"
I looked at the ceiling. How do I explain that I apparently have a dragon living in my spleen that comes out when I get pissed off?
"Magic," I lied. "It went wrong."
"That wasn't magic," Rudeus whispered. "I saw your eyes, Lucius. They were slits. Like a lizard."
I clenched my fist. The memory of the power—the pure, unadulterated strength—was terrifying. But... God help me, a part of me liked it. It felt better than doing pushups.
"I got mad," I admitted. "I couldn't do the water ball. I got mad, and then... everything went red."
Rudeus was silent for a long time. Then, he got off his bed and walked over to my crib. He reached through the bars and poked my arm.
"Don't get mad at me, okay?" he said, trying to joke, but his hand was shaking.
I grinned. It felt good to be back in control.
"No promises, Player 2," I said. "Just don't steal my loot."
Rudeus tilted his head. "Loot?"
"Never mind," I said, closing my eyes. "Just... teach me how to read tomorrow. I need to figure out what the hell I am."
"Okay," Rudeus said. "But you have to protect me from Dad. He's furious about the floor."
"Deal."
I lay back in the dark. My arm still tingled with a phantom charge.
I was Lucius Greyrat. I had a dragon's blood, a berserker rage, and a severe lack of waifus.
Let the game begin.
Downstairs, the atmosphere was heavy.
Paul sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of cheap ale. His hand was shaking slightly. The burn mark where his son had shocked him was already healing thanks to Zenith, but the sensation lingered. It wasn't just magic; it was killing intent.
"He's three, Paul," Zenith said softly, wiping a plate. "He probably just... has a high mana capacity. Like Rudeus."
"Rudeus is a genius," Paul muttered. "He's terrifyingly smart. But Lucius..." Paul looked up, his eyes serious. "Zenith, that wasn't normal magic. There was no incantation. No circle. He just... became mana. I've fought monsters in the Labyrinth that felt less dangerous than he did for that split second."
Zenith frowned. "Are you saying our son is a monster?"
"No," Paul said quickly. "I'm saying he's a fighter. Did you see his stance? He didn't cower. He prepared to strike."
Paul looked at his own sword resting against the wall. A grin slowly crept onto his face—the grin of a man who just realized he won the lottery.
"Rudeus can be a mage," Paul whispered. "But Lucius... I'm going to make him a Swordsman. If he can channel mana into his body like that instinctively? He could master the Sword God Style. Hell, maybe even the Water God Style."
"Paul," Zenith warned. "He is a baby. No swords."
"Sticks," Paul corrected. "We'll start with sticks tomorrow."
Upstairs, I sneezed.
"Someone is talking about me," I muttered to Rudeus.
"Go to sleep, lizard-boy," Rudeus replied.