I don't think there's much hope for me anymore. Father tells me not to worry but no one else I know has ever had to wait this long to find out. If they're a Neurovant. Or an Neurovacant.

Dad says there's no way something like that would happen. But I read a lot, so much it annoys him. Because it usually means I end up knowing a whole lot about stuff that usually doesn't matter. Topics like how to eat a cake in a formal setting. Or how to best take care of the blade of a spear tip once it's dulled. Sometimes it's just stories of events from the past. 

One of those is the rebellion of the young nobleman in the northeastern kingdom of Eshrak. It was part of a greater conflict that... I don't feel like thinking too hard about that right now. The main point is that he was abandoned by his father, and many believed he was lying about being the son to one of the most powerful leaders of the Isles in the west. Why did they believe that? Because he was Neurovacant. A Neurovacant son to a Neurovant man.

The final proof that came to show that he was the man's son was a test of blood. A ritual that lets someone ask the Syneonex to confirm ancestors and relatives. That young nobleman also had a kid that inherited the neurograms from his grandfather which made it that much more tragic. I guess I'm just thinking about where that leaves me.

Dad says mom was a Neurovant too. So realistically it should've been impossible for me to be born without any of them. But it also shouldn't be taking this long to manifest if I was a Neurovant. Everyone else gets them at fourteen at the earliest, or sixteen at the latest. Why am I thinking about it so much? I ask myself. 

It's because tomorrow's my birthday and Clara asked me something the other day. I'm afraid and excited all at the same time because of tomorrow. Whether I can accept a proposal and whether it's okay to live my life being less than everyone hoped. I'll know that tomorrow. I'll be eighteen then, a man for certain.

That's why I can't help but feel dread, I can't even be happy that someone else accepts me even when I have little to offer. It's like there's so much people expect out of me, but I'm drowning, I don't think I can be that person. Do I disappoint you mother? Are you ashamed to have a son who wasn't everything you and dad hoped for? Should I have died sooner instead?

That's enough of that. I think to myself as I focus my mind back to sleeping. It is a strange trait I've had since dad taught me about the dual minds. Forcing my self back into a zen-like present and calming all doubts and worry. It's neat but odd.

In my dreams I see a wave crashing on a sunny shore but never receding instead it keeps going forward. I turn and run faster and faster however the water of the wave reaches my feet in a flash and then I'm off the ground being swept away. I scramble to grab at anything and everything. I abandon trying to keep myself somewhere firm to desperately trying to ascend to get air. I drown.

I wake up coughing and gasping for air. Almost choked on my saliva as it turns out, I breathe to recover. How ironic would that have been? Dead from the same shit my mouth makes every day. 

Save. 

Huh?

【Save 0 Completed.】

I shrug my shoulders and stretch out my arms. Absent-mindedly, I try to grab something off my nightstand. For some reason I expected to find something to put on my face but all there is on my stand is my trusty knife. It feels like there's something missing or something not connecting here.

I look at my knife outside of the sheathe and further observe the reflection on the blade itself. What's going on here? I ask myself because I don't recognize the face I'm staring at. Re-sheathing the knife I get up and instantly feel an alien chill wash over me.

How am I towering over literally everything in this room? I even have to bend my neck down to see the door knob to the bathroom. Looking into that larger mirror didn't fix anything. I pressed my finger between my eyes and above my nose thinking it would adjust my eyesight.

Why did I think that would work? I start thinking back to how this started. I woke up and suddenly I don't feel like me. Why? Hmm, I continue to ponder until I get this idea in my head. 

"Let me just try to remember something, anything that happened before just now."

I say that aloud without hesitation but even that feels strange for me. Regardless, my mind starts to replay the memories from before I fell asleep.

"Right, so yesterday I was working at the convenience store stocking the shelves late at night. On the way back, right as the sun was coming up I decided to head to the beach."

Hold on a second, that didn't happen yesterday. Because yesterday I had a chat with Clara in the morning then we came back to our home village. I started preparing my tools for tomorrow's hunt and spoke with dad about my lack of neurograms.

If that's the case then when did I ever work in a convenience store? Before yesterday all I've ever done as a job is take whatever scraps the adventurer's guild in Linktown put up for freelance contracts. And before I moved to Linktown I was one of my village's main hunters. Even earlier than that I was training with dad day after day after day to get my body past perfect condition, to the point where I stopped feeling sore no matter how much I pushed myself.

My mind scrambles to place this ill-fitting piece into the various memories of my life.

Just now.

"Woah, hold on a minute. Wait, I already said that. Whatever... Maybe this isn't a memory from my life. Or well, it's not a memory that fits into my life but what about before?"

Thinking back even further I come to the earliest memory I can think of. The moment where I was staring at the void of space. Somehow, someway it's the first memory I have before I started thinking properly.

And yet now. I get the sense the nightmare I had just last night takes place before even that.

I smirk at the thought that was quickly spreading in my mind.

"Holy shit! Holy shit! I reincarnated."

The very idea gets me giddy. It's a common story in stories I've read in my current life and the one before, a loser gets killed in some kind of accident or disaster. They end up in another world and have the chance to do whatever they want, have a ton of chicks vying for their attention, and get to play the role of hero. Uh, hehe assuming I didn't end up in the revenge genre that is. 

Although in the stories of this world, it's more like a hero from the past comes back to save the people from something terrible again. But if it's a guy from another world it means something more significant, well more like it's got a religious connotation to it. Because of the power they end up with when they cross over, it's considered a sort of miracle.

While I'm trying to wrap my mind around what's happening, I can't help but hear my heart thumping loud as fuck in my chest. And what was that I said when I woke up? I said save right? As in save the game. And like a game there's a response to indicate the current progress was saved. What about trying to go back to that moment?

A smirk slices through my lips. I do believe that I'm in the latter category of the stories from this world. Nothing left but to test out that power or "miracle".

Load.

【Save 0 Loaded.】

I'm back to the moment right after choking on my saliva. Sitting up in bed. I turn to my left and see the same knife sitting on the nightstand. 

I jump off the bed, grab the knife and throw it out the window next to my bed straight through the glass. It shatters with pieces of the glass managing to shoot back at me from the hole I just made.

Load.

【Save 0 Loaded.】

Once again, I'm sitting up in my bed with my heart beating fast from the nightmare I just had. No not a nightmare, an old memory. The rest of it is still jumbled but I am starting to remember more about my past life.

The lack of friends, the loneliness, the sadness and melancholy. It's trying to unravel itself the more I linger on the overall aspect of who my past self was.

"Yeah fuck that."

I try not to dwell on my past any further and instead focus on another test for my new found power. So far, I haven't noticed a single transition or 'loading screen', it's just instant. This is definitely stupid but with a body like mine, as tough as it is, this won't leave much of a dent.

Putting my feet over the windowsill of my bedroom I proceed to climb out of it and onto the roof of my father's house. It's about fifteen or so feet high. I psyche myself out and let out a deep breath before jumping off.

Load.