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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Prologue
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One day at the age of thirty, I died.
The world I was reincarnated into was a brand-new one. Sure, I was born as the fifth or sixth kid in a dirt-poor tenant farmer family, but it still felt like I'd been given a fresh start at life. Of course, I couldn't help thinking that in most reincarnation stories, you get reborn into a noble household—that's the rule, isn't it?
But life as the child of poor tenant farmers was nothing but hardship for me. Living alongside livestock in the same house was standard fare, and the filthy, nauseating conditions claimed the lives of two siblings above me and five below. And that was with seven more kids still around.
Truth be told, the birth order didn't matter much. Whether it was a brother or sister who died, I'd suddenly become the fourth or third child that very day.
"I'm leaving."
That's why my otherworldly parents, poor tenant farmers themselves, could only wish me luck when I said I was going. Even though I was just a six-year-old kid.
Maybe they let me go because a scrawny six-year-old wasn't worth much as labor anyway, and who knew when I'd drop dead. The lord? As if the lord would care about a six-year-old serf brat.
And so, risking life and limb to change my fate, I left for the city at six years old—and I successfully settled there.
"Johnny!"
"Johnny!!"
By the time I turned ten, I'd fully settled into a minor noble household in the city. I'd barged in, showed off my math skills, caught the House Keeper's eye, and now it had been four years since I started working here.
Even at just ten years old, with the House Keeper's favor, I wielded real power. Most of the adult servants and maids couldn't mess with me. And that's when I met her.
"Ren! You damn bitch! Can't you even do this right?!"
Ren was a pitiful slave girl from who-knows-where. She didn't even know her exact age, but she looked about five. Her hair was a dull, ashen gray, her eyes a murky shade of the same, and her body was skin and bones.
"I specifically told you to clean the window frames!"
On top of that, she had no knack for work, so beatings and starvation were her daily routine. You might feel sorry for her, but that was the reality for minors in this world. Treated as immature adults, they were given the same workload as grown-ups but with even fewer rights.
I felt sorry for her. Maybe that pity was just hypocritical sympathy born from my own newfound security. But I took the beaten Ren, treated her wounds, and started looking after her.
I even talked to the House Keeper and brought her to the stables—my assigned area—to help manage the horse gear. Whenever there were leftovers from my meals, I'd give them to her, and little by little, she regained her health.
"Oppa..."
"Johnny oppa!"
Ren started calling me "oppa" and sticking close to me. I was five years older, after all. Maybe she saw in me the parents and siblings she'd never had.
We grew close by filling in each other's gaps, and then... we parted ways.