The boy yawned and stretched as he woke up. The sun had already risen halfway up in the sky which meant it was now noon. He had overslept. Today again he had spent his night in a tree though he no longer took the precautions for hiding himself as much as before. He slept in peace without that. If a beast wanted to attack him as he slept then he dared it to do so. He was a tyrant. He didn’t fear a challenge. He didn’t fear for his life. The one thing he feared was no longer being himself. And his habit in suppressing himself had shown prominently in the previous days. bn

Years after years of ignoring his own wishes, his own way of doing things for practicality had left him twisted. He could no longer be sure what was him and what was an act. But he wasn’t afraid of death. He no longer had any reason to avoid it either. Whatever his last life had made him into didn’t matter. This one was for his enjoyment. He would make sure of that. Why should he be cowardly and hide from the beasts in this forest? Let them come. Let them attack him. Whether they could kill him or not, he grinned ‘I will make them regret it. Even if I die I’ll make sure to take as much of them as I can with me.’

He let out a deep breath, calming himself and putting on an indifferent expression once more, before untying his bag from the branch next to him. So far it still only contained the dagger and cloak, as well as some bigger fruit that wouldn’t be damaged by his two possessions, that he knew were safe to eat. He had already spent a week in this forest and had learned what’s eatable and what isn’t based on the animals around him.

Jumping down from the tree, he walked for a few minutes before arriving at the stream he had been following the whole time. He put his bag aside and splashed some water in his face. He took out one of the fruit which looked like a pear and cleaned it, before taking a bite, the sweet juices of the fruit travelling their way along his tongue and down his throat as he chewed, as if the sweetest thing he had ever eaten. The fruit in this forest, all being tasty was an amazing blessing. Why would animals even be predators here? What was wrong with them? This was where ti was really at. Yup. Fruit were the best.

He was about to head down the stream again, when he heard something new. These past few days were full of sounds he quickly learned to ignore. Things walking around in the grass was one of them. Because of this he had completely ignored the sounds of two things approaching the stream from the other side. But what he heard now made him focus on it again. A voice. No. two.

He quickly noticed that the two were already very close. In fact, a bush rustled right as he concentrated and an old woman walked through from the other side, followed by a young girl, maybe nine or ten years old. They were further upstream, but since the boy didn’t even make an effort to run, nor to hide, they quickly spotted him. The grey-haired old woman suddenly took on a more serious look than a moment ago and said something to the girl who quickly hid behind her.

The young boy couldn’t understand them, as they were talking in a language, unknown to him. The old woman then said something else, seemingly to the boy this time, though he just scratched the back of his head. “You wouldn’t happen to speak English would you?” he said, using his voice for the first time since he found himself in that world. Just like him, it was undeveloped and sounded no different from a normal four-year old’s.

Of course, the old woman did not understand his language either. She examined him for another moment, obviously cautious, before turning around and crouching down. She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and told her something in their language once again. This caused the girl to run off. The tyrant wondered if the old woman had told her to go inform someone. Though he didn’t run after her. If others wouldn’t be on good terms with him just because of his appearance or race he didn’t care much if they would inform others of his location.

Five minutes passed the old woman simply standing still and starting at him, with the boy staring back, then ten, then twenty, before the girl came back, out of breath and carrying a necklace, which looked a bit like a dog tag with strange symbols written into it. The boy examined it curiously. The old woman took the necklace while saying something to the girl again with a kinder tone of voice. The girl sat down, leaning her back on a tree, while the woman turned to the tyrant, throwing the necklace to him.

The necklace was caught effortlessly, the boy looking at it then back at the woman curiously and after the woman gestured for him to put it on, he reluctantly did so.

“Maybe now we can speak?” the boy heard the old woman say. His eyes widened in surprise but he quickly hid it behind his usual blank expression. He hadn’t expected the problem of communication to be solved so easily. It wasn’t that difficult to speculate that magic could exist in this world. He already had a small inkling of the possibility when he was born from the egg, which only grew stronger as the days passed and after his encounter with the goblins it mostly turned into a certainty. And if magic existed then translation magic wasn’t much of a stretch at all.

“Interesting. How does this thing work?” he asked while examining the metal and the symbols written into it. The old woman observed him do so with caution, though less so than before.

“You haven’t seen runes before, boy?” she asked a question of her own, though it was a slight mistake on her part. Of course she couldn’t have known that the boy would figure out so much just from what she called it.

“Runes? Hmm? So it works through these letters that are scratched into it? They’re certainly complicated.” He continued examining them, committing the “runes” to memory already. It wasn’t that hard to do for him, though he speculated there’s more to it than just the symbols themselves. If it were just that it would be too simple. Then again. If a random old woman had one, then maybe it was simple after all?

“Are things like this rare?” he asked snapping the old woman out of her state of surprise. It wasn’t as if she was that shocked. It was simply that she didn’t know how to respond to the obviously highly intelligent boy. She unintentionally put up her guard again.

“More importantly, what are you doing here?” she asked, not wanting to give the boy more information.

“I’m just wandering around. This forest is really beautiful. If only all the animals that come out at night didn’t try to eat me I might have even considered living here.” the tyrant answered nonchalantly. It was true. In the week he had spent in this forest he had gotten completely used to the slight alien look of the trees and learned to appreciate their beauty in full. “Plus the fruit are all delicious.” His heightened sense of taste reminded him ‘Maybe I should eventually kill off all the predators in this forest and really settle down? No. If I’m able to kill them all then I don’t need to go out of my way to do so do I?’ the boy let his thoughts wander, as he considered if he could ever truly live here in the future.

The old woman noticed he was getting distracted as he stopped examining the necklace so she coughed loudly, bringing his attention back on her “You say you’re just wandering but surely you must have a purpose.” She noted in doubt.

“Regardless of what you think, I don’t.” the boy answered matter-of-factly. How was he to have a purpose when he knew next to nothing about the world? He let the necklace hang around his neck freely, already having memorized the symbols on it and looked at the woman again.

“Your kind are rare around these parts. Even if you don’t have a purpose for being here in particular, surely you must have one for coming to this country, or to the human lands in general.” She said, causing the boy’s interest in her to suddenly rise. Of course his scales were visible. Both on his neck and on the hands he was using to examine the necklace. Even if he was wearing the robe that didn’t mean it covered everything. Even his tail which was slightly moving behind him could have been noticed albeit not as easily.

“My kind? You know what I am then?” He asked, slipping up in his excitement. He noticed immediately that he revealed how little he knew but only sighed mentally about it. It was too late to fix and it’s not like it mattered much. It was true he knew little. If the old woman could fill that missing knowledge in, then maybe he should just have her do so.

The old lady on the other hand had her eyes open wide in surprise. “Y-You don’t know what you are?” she was surprised not by the fact such a thing could exist. Amnesia was something familiar to her and was in fact not very uncommon. She had traveled much in her days and had seen many instances of one losing their memory. What she was surprised by was that even someone of the race she recognized him as and so young at that would have it.

“I don’t. I simply woke up in this forest and have been wandering around, trying to leave for around a week.” He answered, not caring about revealing his lack of knowledge to her. He did leave out the fact he had woken up inside of an egg though.

The woman looked at him doubtingly for a few seconds “And you remember nothing else?” she asked as a final confirmation.

“I remember some things. But not what my kind is.”

“I see… that is quite unfortunate.” Some pity was evident in her voice. She paused in silence for over a minute, looking down at the ground, thinking something over. The boy didn’t disturb her and the girl was too busy trying to make sense of what was going on, when suddenly the woman lifted her head up again and smiled kindly “Boy. Do you remember your name?”

“My name? I don’t…” Of course he remembered his name from his past life, but he wanted to leave that behind. As prideful as he was that life was that life. This life was this one. He had never thought of a name so far. But if he wanted to interact with civilization then it was true he would need one so he thought about it, not putting too much effort in.

“You don’t, do you? My name is Ann and this girl is Maya. As for you… Hmm…” She put a hand on her chin, trying to think of one as well, but before she could say something she was interrupted.

“Rex. Call me Rex.” The boy interrupted her before she could say something he would regret. He thought the name fit perfectly. Yes. He felt he could grow attatched to this one.

“Rex? An odd name… but I suppose it’ll do. Very well, Rex. It’s nice meeting you. Tell me. Would you like to come live with me?” she asked suddenly, taking the boy off-guard. Even he did not expect her to ask him something like that.

“What? Why would I do that?” he answered with his own question, slightly bewildered.

“Because I have much to offer. I know alchemy, I’m an able rune crafter, I have lots of books and I could even teach you the language of this country so you don’t have to rely on something like that” she pointed at the necklace “to speak it.”

“… That’s an enticing offer. Let me ask then. Why are you offering me this? What do you have to gain from it?” he was understandably cautious. The woman was too enthusiastic about this.

“Of course I’m not expecting you to do it for free. So, in exchange, after you’re satisfied and want to leave, you’ll do me a favor. I want you to get something for me.”

“What is that?” Of course Rex didn’t want to suddenly owe this old lady a legendary item of some kind.

“I’ll tell you exactly what it is as I teach you about them. You said you don’t know much correct? I promise it’s not something that should be hard to get… for one of your race at least.”

‘So it would be difficult for someone of yours’ he thought “How long will I have, to bring that to you?”

“As long as you do it before I pass away It should be fine and I’m not planning on dying anytime soon hahaha!” she laughed heartily as if showing off that despite being elderly in age she was still full of vitality.

“… Fine. But don’t expect me to keep my part if it turns out to not be worth it.”

“That’s fair enough. Maya, we’re going now.”

“A-Ah! Yes!” the girl quickly got up from the ground, dusting herself off.

The boy jumped over the stream effortlessly and though it wasn’t beyond the capabilities of a normal human to achieve, the fact that he was still a new born and how effortlessly he achieved it garnered attention by both Maya and Ann. The woman smiled at the display, her decision to trust whatever she had in mind to him, being reaffirmed. She started walking towards her home, the boy followed, leaving the bewildered girl by herself. Though she quickly snapped out of her trance, running after her master and the new boy.

Though it hadn’t gone exactly how he expected, Rex had discovered several things that day. And the thought of magic alone was already enough to almost make him grin. It was really hard for him to maintain an unimpressed look through that interaction.

They walked in silence for an hour or two. Maya would occasionally glance at Rex, though he simply kept looking ahead, even as he noticed. He didn’t really care to feed the girls curiosity. Eventually the boy noticed they were approaching the end of the forest. The light hit him as they left the tree line and he saw wide plains of farmland. Well. Wide in a relative term. Considering the village that looked to be around a ten minute of a walk away was simply too small to truly cultivate any grand fields.

He had expected they would head here but the old woman betrayed that. She turned to the right and as Rex followed her gaze he noticed a wooden hut, which, though certainly well=built and not very small was still nothing compared to a house and was only a short distance away from them, that meaning a large distance from the village.

The boy let slip an audible sigh as he gazed at his new home for the foreseeable future.