Second Chance in a New World

Life… can be so cruel. It can be unexpected in many ways. It is never fair to people.

True there are people who lives the wealthiest of life, but the number of people who lives that life… is little compared to those who are too poor to provide for themselves. There are people who can live without care, but compared to those who live with trouble, they are also quite little.

I am one of the many who lives in a poor and troubled life. I, who was apparently found by a kind nun of the orphanage I live in, am the lone survivor of my now-destroyed village and an amnesiac. No… That doesn’t sound right. It is what the nuns and priest thinks, and what the other orphans were told, but that wasn’t true in the very least. Or maybe it was true, and the real owner of this body had passed on before I arrived, hence the amnesiac.

I remember my old life. It wasn’t at all nicer than the life I live in now. I had such corrupted parents who would order me to do their every bidding, treated me more like a slave. I was then saved, one day, by the man I love and was married to him. I had thought I can finally live a truly, happy life. But that turned out to be a lie…

It was half a year after we were married that he stopped coming home. I had assumed something happened to him and sent him a message, hoping he was okay. I received a response, saying that work suddenly piled up and he wouldn’t be able to come home for a while. I was so naive at the time and believed him, and continued to believe him for the next six months. And during these six months, I never got to tell him, because I wanted to tell him in person, in our own home, I was pregnant with his child.

However, that was when things took a turn for the worse. I was walking home from grocery shopping when I saw… him… with another woman. I had hoped my eyes were playing tricks with me, that the man there wasn’t my husband, that the woman with him was just a friend or co-worker. But they told no lies… With the way the woman was wrapping her arms around his, how they were happily chatting along, how he didn’t mind her flirting the way she did, it was all there…

’He never loved me…’

A part of me told myself to forget about him, to just file a divorce and leave. However, another part of me, the more emotional and broken part of me, didn’t want to believe it. I remember calling out to him, dropping my bags, and rushing across the street to hear from his mouth just what I am to him, when I was hit by a large truck and died…

The fact that I remember these things so clearly, in the body of what seemed to be a four-year-old, a body that doesn’t look remotely close to myself when I was at that age, can only mean one thing; God took pity on me and gave me a second chance in a new life, in a new world.

How do I know if this world is not like my old one? You know in games where there are magic, creatures, and player status? This world is exactly like that. Here, magic exists. Here, each and every one of us can see our own level, health points, mana points, stamina points and our strengths and weaknesses. Here, there are living beings that are not human, beings that humanity either fight against or live in peace with, beings… that are seen as something lower than humans in the eyes of the wealthy, powerful, and idiots.

“Check this out, guys! This newbie here is a monster!” exclaimed one of the older orphans of the orphanage.

In this orphanage, about 90% of us are humans. The other 10% are elves or half-humans. While most of us humans either come in peace with that 10% or just don’t care much about them, there are some of us who sees them as lesser beings. That ‘some’ are none other than Keil and his group of bullies.

“I’m not a monster!” cried out a half human, and one of the newest addition to this orphanage. The half-human was half wolf, her white wolf ears on her head and white tail were there for all to see. And even if it weren’t for the ears, something told me that Keil would still bully her for her white hair and red eyes, giving her a sort of vampire appearance, if it weren’t for the sun.

“Says the monster with wolf ears and tail!” shouted Keil’s subordinate number 1.

“Or are those things fake?” suggested Keil’s subordinate number 2.

“Oh! You have a good point there,” Keil said to his second subordinate. “Those might be fake parts that are stuck on her. Let’s help her and pull them out!”

The half-human whimpered and tried to cover her ears and wrapped her tail around herself from the group of bullies.

It may be because she reminded me of myself in my past life, but I wasn’t willing to stand back any longer and stood up to them. “Hey! Leave her alone!”

That got Keil and his group’s attention as they turned to me. “Well, well, if it isn’t the lonely amnesiac,” Keil mocked. “This is quite a surprise. You usually stay by your own lonesome. What’s the change? Are you secretly a half-human?”

What he said wasn’t wrong. Ever since I was reincarnated in this world, I lost the will to trust anyone. I lost the ability to feel any sort of happy emotions when I was with the other orphans. I couldn’t hold a conversation with any of them, and just stuck to myself.

“There are things even I can’t turn a blind eye to, Keil!” I told him.

“And what are you going to do about it? Fight us? You’re just a lonely, weak, level 1 girl! I may be a kid, but I’m also a level 3! And these guys are level 2!” At his words, Keil’s groupies all laughed in agreement.

“Is that really what you think I’ve been doing alone?” I muttered, getting the guys’ attention again.

“What was that?”

Without giving them a response, I suddenly got to Keil’s face and landed a hard punch at it, breaking his nose and forcing him back.

“Hey!” subordinate 1 shouted, as he and subordinate 2 tried to hit me at once.

Unfortunately for them, I was faster and ducked, avoiding the hit and made the two hit each other.

Keil stood back up, holding his bleeding nose in pain. “You wench!” He charged at me with a fist pulled back.

I leaned to the left, avoiding his punch, and delivered a knuckled sandwich to his chin. While he was airborne from the punch, I grabbed Keil by the collar and tossed him over my shoulder. Without giving him a chance to recover, I delivered an axe-kick straight down his shoulder and broke it. Keil screamed in pain at the damage he took from it.

The other two bullies were clearly frightened by the sight, but managed to hold their ground and still attempted to land a hit on me. Note on the word ‘attempt’, for I used Keil as a shield to take their punches and kicked him to them. With the two distracted, I charged at them and hit one in the neck and reverse roundhouse kicked the other in the gut.

“Oh… How…?” Keil managed to breathe out.

“For the past two years since I came here, I had been training nonstop,” I answered. “And thanks to that, my level is 10.”

Hearing those last four words made the three boys look at me in fear.

“L-Level 10?!” subordinate one questioned.

“But that’s not possible! You’re around our age!” subordinate two exclaimed.

“And yet I managed to achieve that,” I said. “Now don’t expect things to be just as easy next time. If I see you bully the other half-humans, or anyone else in general, Keil’s broken shoulder will be more like a pinch when I’m done with you then.”

With that threat, the trio screamed and ran in fear. I didn’t bother looking at the half-human and just walked away to my usual spot. What I didn’t know, though, was that the person I saved that day later turned into the best friend I’ve ever had.

******

It had been a week since the day I confronted Keil and his group. The lead bully tried to explain to the nuns about what I did that broke his shoulder, but none believed him. The main reason? The highest level a child could ever go for is level 5. Until they reached puberty, no child would ever go another level higher. And secretly? I am glad the people here can’t really see other’s levels. Not only that, but everyone knew I usually kept to myself; getting myself in a petty fight would not sound like me at all. As a result, Keil, out of fear, and his boys kept their distance from me.

That wasn’t the only thing that changed. For the past week, I was being followed and watched. It wasn’t in a creepy, stalker way, but it was still kind of bothersome. And as much as I wanted to confront the person following me, I figured that since they didn’t do anything to me, it wouldn’t be fair that I’d do anything to them.

One day, when I was doing some push-ups, I heard rustles nearby. I had assumed the stalker finally decided to try to attack me and grabbed a stone nearby, throwing it at the direction of the sound. The pebble hit a tree with a strong ‘clunk’ and got out an ‘eep’ sound.

“Who’s there?” I asked, taking another pebble. “Come out or the next one won’t miss!”

Seconds later, peeking out from the tree was the half-human I saved last week.

“What are you doing here?” I questioned. “What? Did Keil and the others threaten you to spy on me so they can try and catch up to my level? That’s a new low. And here I thought they stopped bullying after what I did to him.”

In response to my question, the half-human shook her head.

“Then what?”

It was silent for a while. And while I like the silence, I don’t like it when my question is ignored, as any person would.

“… you…” I faintly heard.

“Huh? What was that?” I asked.

“T-… Thank you…” the half-human repeated.

I felt my world stop when I heard those words. There was never a time, even in my previous life, when someone had thanked me for what I had done. I… I didn’t know what to say or how to react to that.

“You were spying on me all this time… just to thank me?” I asked her.

Apparently, and most obviously, that was the wrong thing to say, for I had frightened the half-human.

“I-I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude all this time!” she apologized, her tail curled between her legs. “I-It’s just… you were so busy all this time, and there was never a good time to talk to you…”

The more I listen to her speak, the more I couldn’t help but think that she’s a lot like the old me. The similarities were so much, I couldn’t help but laugh. The half-human looked at me in confusion.

“Um… Is something funny?” she asked.

“No. You just remind me of someone,” I answered, calming myself down.

“O-Oh…” From how her tail was up and slightly wagging, I could already tell that she was happy with how this conversation is going. And truth be told, it was kind of cute.

“Say. Do you have a name?” I asked her.

“Um… No…” Her ears and tail drooped at the answer. “We half-humans and non-humans are seen as monsters and animals, so we weren’t given a name. It’s kind of forbidden to be given a name by someone who isn’t human, especially in this kingdom.”

I had heard of that, but didn’t think that it was true. Who’d have thought that was an actual law of the world? If one can even call it that here. “Do you want me to give you a name?” I offered.

Almost instantly, the girl perked up with an expected look, her ears up and tail wagging. “Y-Yes! Please and thank you!”

“Okay. You don’t need to shout it out,” I told her, patting her on the head. That made her wag her tail even more.

’She’s so honest it’s cute!’ I couldn’t help but mentally shout. Shaking the thought out of my head, I looked at her and thought of a good name for her. As I did, I couldn’t help but look into her eyes. Looking at them up close, I noticed how red they were, kind of like…

“Ruby…”

“Huh?” She tilted her head in confusion.

“That’s your name,” I decided. “It’s Ruby.”

She undoubtedly liked it, a lot, for Ruby caught me in a huge hug. “Thank you! Thanks so much! I love it!”

Seeing her so happy made me smile, for the first time, since I was reborn in this world.

“And… What’s your name?” Ruby asked me.

“Me?” Now that I think about it, I was never told of my name here. No, that wasn’t it. No one knew what name to give me. And whatever name the nuns tried to give, I didn’t react to any of them. Many thought I was trying to remember my old name, wanting to keep some part of me alive, and gave up on giving me a new name. But… now that I’ve been reborn, I’d rather discard what was left of my old life and give myself a new name.

“My name is… Caro.”