My tired eyes wandered between the blurry faces that had gathered before my deathbed.

  My son knelt before me, clasping my bony hand. My daughter stood behind, face half-covered, on the brink of breaking down. Their families stood at a distance, chins lowered in respectful silence. This gathering was too humble for a samurai as legendary as myself. But then, I'd already attended the funerals of those missing from the crowd.

  "Please don't leave me, Father! I'm still too weak to be in a world without you..." grieved my son.

  "Fool, no son of mine shall weep before his wife and children for the sake of an old, unaccomplished man like me."

  And even as those consoling words left my trembling lips, the same thoughts surfaced in my mind as before every death:

  How natural.

  How natural it is for people to bawl before their dying beloved. Sparing a few sentimental souls, I have seen not a single person mourn any death longer than a week.

  People see no issue in comforting the rich, famous, or dear as they drift off to eternal sleep in cushioned beds, with warm hands to hold. They seldom pay heed to the cold, rotting corpses of the impoverished and downtrodden buried under the snow. Similar is their indifference to the life leaking out of the fallen soldier's body, his service forgotten by all but the family left behind, his coffin reduced to just a statistic, a mere casualty among thousands.

  How utterly dull this aimless jest of life and death is. Every person is cut from the same fabric, woven of the same desires and tied up by the same flaws - yet masquerades as something unique, interesting and worthy of my attention.

  The thousands of lives I have lived through, all have this same predictable pattern. Birth, Death, Friendship, Enmity, Love, Lust, Anger, Regret, Joy, Grief, Passion, Hatred... Each stirs in me no stronger emotions than an overused joke.

  I do not understand why I have been damned into this cycle of reincarnation, and I always open my eyes in a new body wondering why. The transition is always swift and cold, without any farewells, no 'life flashing before my eyes', no sentimentality. Even the Gods seem know I treasure my experiences too little to miss them.

  Let's see, next up would be life number... ten thousand? I jokingly wished for the round number to mean something. Anything. While fully conscious of the vanity.

  Every time I died, a flicker of hope would light itself within me without permission - a hope I'd deemed taboo after being proven wrong thousands of times - that Death would be merciful enough to release my soul or destroy it completely.

  "Perhaps this time I'll be dead for good," I mumbled, too softly for my weeping son to make out my last words.

  ...That light was snuffed out yet again. In the next second, I was staring at the wooden ceiling of another bedroom.

  How jarring. Seems I have been sentenced to life yet again.

  Though I felt no need to, I began to cry like a newborn. In one of my previous lives as a woman, I had been declared a witch and burnt at the stake, with one cause for suspicion simply being that I hadn't cried at birth. It's a lesson I've long since learned - a newborn that doesn't cry is incredibly unsettling.

  One of the maids rushed out of the door. "It's a boy, my Lord!" Another maid handed me over to my mother. She was a gorgeous young lady. I observed her fair-skinned face, long golden locks of hair resting on both shoulders, her sapphire-blue eyes that watched me lovingly. I noted her soft facial features and her blushed rosy cheeks as they curled into a smile. If I had any sense of vanity left over after, I would take pride in having inherited her looks.

  Moments later, a middle-aged man burst into the room, rosary beads clenched in one hand and leather-cased book in the other. He wore a lavish satin-like purple gown embroidered with golden patterns, excessive for a man in prayer. As he strode towards us, he seemed to be chanting, "Etephus, Etephus, Benevolent Etephus..."

  "Karl, we've been blessed by the Gods!" said my mother.

  The man, my father, with an ecstatic expression on his face, carefully extended his arms towards me and gently took me into his embrace. I could feel him tremble as he held me. His hair and mustache were black with specks of white here and there. The sides of his wrinkled face were partially hidden under locks of hair, grey at the base. I could tell he looked older than he actually was, and the expression on his face was pitiable.

  My parents spoke as I looked around at the semi-luxurious room we were in- cold, grey stone-slabbed walls, silk curtains covering the windows. Large fireballs floated near the four upper corners of the room, crackling dangerously close to the wooden ceiling, yet not settlling it aflame. The aroma of incense—and smoke— prevailed throughout the room. A large rosy-red wooly carpet covered much of the wooden floor.

  "Thank you, thank you so much, Catherine! You've saved me from a world of pain! There'll be no more whispers behind my back," he sighed. "They have no reason to pass remarks anymore."

  "They won't dare. Look at him honey, he's so healthy and handsome. We're blessed indeed."

  "He's gone on you, sweetheart."

  "*Giggles* Look closer, honey. He has your dashing looks!"

  Giggling like young lovers would have made for an adorable sight, had it not been for their obvious age difference.

  "Oh Katy! The perfect name for our son came to me while I was in prayer!"

  "You were confident enough to decide a name before knowing the gender? *Laughs* That's so like you dear!"

  "Nevermind that... we should name him Ronan."

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Mother paused for a while and studied my face.

  "Hmm... Ronan of House Ashcroft. It suits him! Okay, it's grown on me. Welcome home, Ron!"

  Infancy is dull, but also the perfect opportunity to gather valuable intel on family dynamics. I pieced together information until I had finally grasped the full picture by month ten. This was made especially easy by the frequent arguments and insult-hurling that took place within the house.

  I was the son from Karl's second marriage. He was a commoner who had married into an affluent household by wooing a lady named Josephine, the third daughter of a fairly influential baron. This, as Josephine alleged in arguments, was not out of love, but to avoid compulsory military service, among other obligations for commoner bachelors.

  This world, like most others I've been in, has a misplaced obsession with male heirs. Unfortunately, Josephine had only borne Karl two daughters, Annabel and Julia, in that order. Unfortunate why? Because as per the law of the Empire, men had the right to remarry if a spouse gave two or more daughters in succession, and no son. Karl believed Josephine had been 'cursed' by some political enemy, as wives commonly were in unscientific times, and was eager to remarry. Honestly, women could do with a little break.

  Josephine naturally opposed this notion vehemently, but he gained the approval of her father and proceeded to marry Catherine, my mother, another mere commoner. She gave birth to me five-and-a-half months after their marriage, as well as another daughter two years later.

  My birth appears to have raised Catherine above Josephine in my father's estimation, which drove her madly jealous.

  "That hag is a witch, I say! That wench - she has the gall to claim that son is Karl's! All pregnancies I've heard of take at least eight months until delivery, she must have been sleeping around!"

  The maids before whom she was complaining looked at each other, refraining from bringing any other outrageous yet more probable possibilities to the table.

  In a nutshell, the flames of insecurity lit by Josephine's failure to conform with what was expected of her, fanned all the more by Karl's neglect, made the air at home more suffocating than the inside of a burning brick kiln.

  Josephine and her four daughters remained distant as I grew older.

  Wait, didn't I say two daughters?

  "Love, are you tired?"

  "Not really, Josephine. I'll be at supper in a moment."

  "How about we spend that moment... working up an appetite?"

  With that, Josephine parted her silken robes to reveal her body.

  "No, thanks. I'm not in the mood."

  Karl rose up to briskly walk away without a word.

  You cannot blame Josephine for trying - she had laid this trap twice before and succeeded. She hoped to conceive a son and regain her legitimacy in the house. But even a fool like Karl would notice eventually, though I would have recommend he at least show concern for her increasingly frail appearance instead of shutting her down so abruptly. Elise and the younger Sophie, two more daughters, were testament to her failure.

  "Mama?"

  Josephine turned sharply to see a confused Julia, who had just passed her father up the stairs.

  Josephine began to tear up.

  "Mama!"

  Julia ran up to her kneeling mother and embraced her. They stood for a while in silence as Josephine's sobs failed to reach beyond Julia's shoulders.

  I received plenty of attention from my parents. Under their watch, I regained many old skills quickly. I obviously wouldn't be able to lift a horse immediately out of the womb despite being capable in a previous life, but all the skills I'd learned before lay dormant within me, waiting to be activated via a sort of latent muscle memory.

  The servants were shocked to see me speaking full sentences by my sixth month, and running around by my eighth. I rapidly mastered melee, swordsmanship, and archery, beating my instructors within months.

  It was a sunny day. The wind blew gently as if to cradle the birds’ nests. The rustling trees amid the otherwise pin-drop silence made for a scenic showdown with my father.

  "Okay boy, I won't lose again! Here I come!"

  My father and I had duelled with wooden swords twice before. I won both times, though he claimed he went easy on me. This time, both mother and my younger sister Diana watched from under the shade of a tree. My combat instructor moderated the duel.

  Father dashed up to me and slashed downward, aiming for my right shoulder. As I blocked, I felt the vibrations reverberate throughout my body, from my hands down into the ground. The force was almost enough to break my grip on the sword.

  "Feeling sorry yet?"

  "Hardly."

  I'd fought gigantic beasts as a swordsman in a previous life, so I could handle the pressure.

  "Looks like we're done, boy!"

  Father swung his arm to strike an opening he had created at my side, but my sword reached in the nick of time. My parry was followed by an elbow jab into his gut.

  "Oof, you hit hard for a six-year-old. But don't under— Aahh!!!"

  As he lowered his guard, I struck at Father's knee with my foot and flung the sword out of his hand as he dropped to one knee.

  "You were right, Dad. We are done."

  "Urgh... third time in a row? You have serious talent, son."

  As he limped up to his feet, I turned to look at Mother, who was scurrying up to me, with Diana trailing behind.

  "Ronny, are you alright? Did he hit you anywhere? That father of yours can get incredibly rough. I know from experience. I saw that your right arm shook a little. Does it hurt? I can apply a cold press if it does..."

  Mother ran her hands all over my face and torso to look for injuries. I wouldn't say I disliked being pampered once in a while, so I just stood there and relished it.

  "He's too tough to get hurt, honey," said Father, while Diana tended to the bruise on his knee.

  "Dear, I must advise you to be gentler with our son. I've seen men who fight like animals — your aggression was not too far off. If anything happened to our son, I swear that no mage or warrior would be able to keep my fury at bay."

  The concern was well-founded. I could feel Karl was capable of lethal damage had he shown less restraint.

  "All right, all right, I get it! I wouldn't want to cross a beautiful lady like you anyway!"

  On the other hand, Diana, a typical Daddy's girl, began reprimanding me for some reason.

  "Brother, please don't give Papa a tough time. You could have let him win for once. Don't you care how he feels? You're so—"

  "It's fine," Father interrupted, while patting her on the head. "He'll make us proud one day."

  When I was done, I walked back towards our mansion. I noticed Karl speaking to my instructor, both of them watching me as I walked away.

  I took the long route home, and along the way, overheard two retainers talking while on patrol.

  "John, I'm thinkin' o' switching o'er to House Chefield. Will you come?"

  "'Ell no, Joe! Are you outta your mind?"

  "Naw, but John, think! We ain't seen our Lord out on the field with his men even once. Besides, he has two wives, TWO! I've got a feelin' he's a coward who spends more time in the bedroom than the war-room, eh?"

  "You're a sod, Joe. Haven't you heard? Old Baron Ashcroft nominated him, a son-in-law, as his successor. He has five sons, goddamnit. Have faith in our old Lord, he's got what it takes. Don't jump ship yet, Joe; Us old-timers will be laughin' soon!"

  So his underlings, the sensible ones, actually respect him? I never expected anyone to speak of that old man with such importance.

  Other than physical prowess, I also excelled at scientific studies, history, and social studies. Mathematics, especially, became a cakewalk with the knowledge I had amassed over my lives. The family math and philosophy tutor, a stern old man who was a clergyman by day, placed me in the same group as Josephine's elder daughters, and I excelled despite being too young for those classes.

  "I'm incredibly disappointed with your conduct, Sophie and Elise."

  Our tutor was scolding Josephine's two youngest daughters. Being the younger class, they had been seated behind my group. Elise kept doodling in her notebook and showing Sophie her artwork, who couldn't help but giggle. Not to mention Diana, who was all by herself. This had continued despite our tutor's repeated warnings.

  "I need to discipline you two, it seems. As punishment, you both shall add up all the numbers from 1 to 1,000 by hand and share your answers tomorrow."

  Elise went red. "This is all your fault, Soppy! Maybe stop giggling at every little thing!"

  "I-im sowwy, sis." Sophie hated that nickname more than being yelled at.

  Perhaps some remaining naivety within me was eager to establish rapport with the stepsisters. So I decided to help them out.

  "Five Hundred Thousand Five Hundred."

  "... Pardon me, Ronan?"

  "That's your answer, sir."

  Taken aback, the old man quickly opened his notebook, leafed through the cluttered pages to a fresh side, scribbled for a moment with his pen, and arrived at the same answer as I.

  "But that's impossible!" he said. "I haven't taught you anything in this regard yet—"

  "It's elementary, sir," I replied. "See—"

  I paused for a bit, wondering if showing off here was a bit too much. I then remembered that I didn't actually care and had already committed too much to the bit.

  "—Adding 1 and 1000 gives 1001, so does adding 2 and 1000, 3 and 999, and so on. There are five hundred such pairs up to 500 and 501. So the answer should be 500 times 1001, or simply 500500. So you need not wait for those two to answer."

  The old man was speechless. I looked over at Sophie, the youngest and most gentle of the four. Her eyes were clearly beaming, but Elise butted in and stuck her tongue out. When I turned back to my group, Julia sassily looked away and mumbled, "Show off" under her breath.

  Annabel, the eldest sister, stayed quiet. She was definitely my favourite of the four. The first time I tried to make small talk, she shot me down, simply saying, "I don't hate you, but Mother will go nuts if she sees us talking, so shoo." Ever since, we've only acknowledged each other in glances.

  Josephine was in the room too, and I could see Diana savouring our stepmother's frustrated expression. How unladylike were most of the women in this household.

  Everyone considered me a prodigy, though I genuinely had no intention of showing off. It's simply more convenient to reacquire my skills early on than pretend to learn them at an ordinary pace.

  However, my antics earned me a bit of a reputation among my tutors, some of whom had connections higher up the social ladder. Word was bound to reach there.

  Still, I was caught a little by surprise one morning when I saw my father kow-tow before two gentlemen who had shown up at our doorstep, before they even stepped in.