“I don’t know how I feel about this,” I said, leaning back in my chair in the white void.

  The administrator laughed. “Why not? I mean, you saw her mother, right?” He waggled his eyebrows and let out a low whistle.

  I glared at the higher dimensional being wearing the image of a meek librarian, and shook my head in disbelief. “Felris is only fourteen.”

  “Yeah, but if this even happens, it won’t be until sometime after you graduate. You’ll be seventeen, pushing eighteen then, and she’ll be, what, almost twenty?”

  “Eighteen? I’ll be, like, a hundred,” I said, thinking back to my first life. It had been a lonely life, and a rough one, but it had also somehow been a long one.

  “Nah, you can’t think like that,” the admin said. “First of all, you’re probably much older than that, if you count past lives. You just can’t remember them. And this is your first System world, but not necessarily hers. Her soul could be even older than yours.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t remember any of her previous lives. I do, at least the one. Isn’t that… wrong?”

  The admin looked up at the infinite white. “Well, what then? Because after this life, you’ll be even older, by your count of years recalled. The more lives you live, the more that manufactured distance will grow. Are you just never going to have an intimate relationship ever again? For eternity?”

  I frowned. That sounded pretty bleak. “Maybe I’ll meet another traveler? Someone else reincarnating with [Metasurvival]?”

  The admin snorted. “You probably will, sooner or later. But I doubt it’ll go that way. Probably… quite the opposite.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “When travelers meet… well. The types of people who usually strive to live forever don’t really like meeting someone strong enough to kill them. It usually turns into a fight.”

  “Surely not always,” I said.

  The admin simply shrugged, and I filed that tidbit away for later.

  “Still feels wrong. Like I’m taking advantage of her.”

  “Did you, though? It sounds like it’s the opposite, and that she’s taking advantage of you. Assuming it’s even viable, kind of seems like you’re doing her a favor.”

  “Yeah, but… what about grooming? Using my experience to my advantage?”

  “So don’t do that,” the admin said, looking at me like I was an idiot. “Yeah, you’ve got memories from past lives, and in the future you’ll have an advantage in terms of skills and stats. But it’s not like you’re leveraging a bunch of power over her to make this happen. The other kid—Gustar, was it?—that’s what he was trying to do. You don’t actually have any real power in this life at all, aside from what you’ve gained so far.”

  “But I gained that with, you know, my memories of my previous life. And knowledge about reincarnation. I’m not actually a twelve year old.”

  “Aren’t you? You had all this wisdom from your first life, so you… waltzed into the forest with a wooden stick to fight sword-wielding goblins? You’re such a skilled manipulator of people that you, let’s see, failed to notice that one of your closest friends fell in love with you?”

  I grunted, slouching slightly. “When you put it like that…”

  “See, you do have your memories from your previous life, but you’re also twelve. Your physical body is always going to have an effect on your thought processes.”

  My brows furrowed, and I sat forward. “Even with a high Mind stat?”

  The admin made a waggling motion with his hand. “Yes and no. You didn’t start this life with extra stats, but in future lives, you won’t just pop out of the womb with the Body of a full grown adult. There’s a curve to it. You’ll definitely be stronger, and it’ll be a huge advantage for when you start training, but until your muscles catch up with your stats, there are some physical limitations. It’s more potential until it gets truly realized, although... it’s also not that clear cut. You could leverage your full Body, especially while using an associated skill, but you’ll probably pay for it when the physics of that reality catch up.

  “Likewise, Mind. You’ll learn faster, memorize things easier, perceive things more deeply, and so on, but are you actually more intelligent? Are you immune from biochemistry? It’ll depend on your brain. As a child, you may still make impulsive decisions, though you’ll almost certainly make less dumb ones and more better ones, since experience matters for those kinds of things. But right now, you very truly are a preteen boy entering puberty, even if you also are a supposedly wizened old man.”

  “Huh,” I said, considering that. “What about Will?”

  “For you? That’s simultaneously the stat least impacted by starting a new life, and the most.”

  I glared at the not-a-librarian. “How so?”

  He shrugged, grinning. “Where’s the fun in that? You’ll learn on your own.”

  “Ugh,” I muttered, leaning back again.

  “I honestly don’t think you need to worry about the relationship thing,” he said, bringing the conversation back on track. “It’s not like there weren’t old men who got into relationships with twenty year old girls in your first world, yeah?”

  “Well, there were, but they were pretty... skeevy.”

  “So aspire to not be skeevy. Aim to be the opposite of skeevy. The nega-skeeve. Transcend skeeviness. Be skeeveless.”

  “I’m leaving now,” I said, standing up and turning away.

  “Skeeve you later,” he said, and I opened my eyes in the temple.

  I shook my head, standing from my prayer position, but considered what he said. He was right in that there was nothing I could do to make situations like this better, moving forward, and that in time I would only get worse. I’d have to learn to adapt. Maybe that meant making rules for myself, or a code of conduct. I would have to figure it out.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The other aspect I had to consider was how honest I would be. I had long decided not to ever tell anyone that I was a reincarnator, Metasurvivor, or a traveler, as the admin called it. I just couldn’t see how that would ever help, and saw a million ways it would hurt. But what about a romantic partner and lover?

  Maybe. But maybe it just scares them away. And then I’ve got a problem to deal with.

  I didn’t know what was permissible when it came to truth or lying. I could be truthful about everything that happened in the life in question, while omitting [Metasurvival] and where I got any information about my previous life. That seemed like a decent middle ground.

  Debating my moral quandaries, I made my way back to the manor. I had burned enough time for classes to let out, so it was safe to go home. I suppose I will lie about skipping class, though.

  * * *

  Somnial enjoyed a good laugh at my expense when I confronted him about Elsa being the queen, and Dargan being the prince consort. Apparently, Elsaria hadn’t believed him that I wouldn’t have known who she was, and they kept it silent as a bet to see when I would figure it out. The inside joke between them was entirely at my expense, but I couldn’t be too mad about it. She had regrown my hand, after all.

  Having my hand back opened up a lot of doors for me, especially after gaining some new skills in the time that I spent without. I had [Ambidexterity] now, so I was immediately able to return to [Swordsmanship] training with my right hand, while also being equally capable with my left. Byron was contacting some dual wielders that he knew to see if any could train me and help me acquire the skill quickly, and in the meantime I was focusing on tactics that would have been impossible to me before, trading off my hand given the situation and maximizing my single-sword potential.

  The other skill I had gained while one-handed, [Manakinesis], was now a bit of an outlier. The way I was using the skill before in place of my lost hand no longer worked, now that I had my hand back. I had already started using mana circuit extension, by way of [Mana Manipulation], to extend my reach with [Manakinesis], but now I relied on that entirely and stopped limiting myself to reaching from my missing hand. At first, my skill was worse off due to regaining my hand, but I hoped with training I could level up the skill and surpass what I had been capable of before.

  I stayed up a bit late that night working on it, then dragged my exhausted self to class the next morning. I was too tired and focused on [Manakinesis] to really think about what I was walking into.

  “Morning, Felton,” I yawned, collapsing into my seat next to him.

  He didn’t respond.

  I looked over, and saw him looking at me from the side of his eye.

  “So,” he said. “I had an… interesting conversation with Felris last night.”

  Oh. Right. That.

  I squirmed slightly. “Uh… what did she say?”

  Felton turned his head to me, making eye contact. I realized I had to look up slightly to meet them. The small kid I had met the previous spring had started to hit a growth spurt this season and was now taller than me. While I had filled out with exercise and a year of eating good food at the academy and Somnial’s manor, my height had yet to catch up. On the other hand, Felton’s frame was still thin and lanky, despite our training. All of his nutrition must have been going into growing up, not out.

  Finally, the boy—seeming more of a young man, as he glowered with concern over his sister—sighed, shook his head, and gave me a partial grin. “Well, you’d be better than Gustar, at least.”

  I scoffed. “At least.” We chuckled for a moment, then relaxed into our usual companionship. After a moment, though, I looked back at him. “Is it even possible? I sort of just… went with Felris’s flow. Not that I’m, uh, opposed, per se, just… you know I don’t really know how this stuff works. Math and magic, sure, but nobility, not so much.”

  Felton’s lips pursed as he debated that. “Realistically, dad will name me his heir, which simplifies things. That was probably happening anyway, if Felris married Gustar, since he was the count’s heir. Felris’s marriage to a neighboring lord would have strengthened the barony’s ties, which we do sort of need, and she is his only daughter, which makes things a bit harder,” he said. “But then, you’ve also met my parents. They want what’s best for us, more than power. That’s part of why we were both able to attend the academy, despite one of us likely to be named his heir.”

  I nodded. “Unlike how Ramius is here, but only because his brother was named heir to the duke.”

  “Right. Learning magic is a privilege and, as you know, many nobles do, but it does take years of focused training which would normally go towards politics and leadership training. Dad likes being a small, out of the way baron without getting too involved in Argadian politics, and we have the dungeon, which is… both good and bad. Knowing magic can be a help, with the dungeon, which is part of why we were both allowed to come here. At the same time, not a lot of nobles actually want to manage a dungeon at the fringes of the kingdom. Obdorn is mostly left alone to, quote, farm bugs, while also being responsible for any consequences—”

  “Like the Nightmare Ants and possible dungeon breaks.”

  “Exactly. That, plus the taxes being so severe on dungeon products, doesn’t make a takeover of Obdorn that attractive to most. I think that was part of why our parents agreed to an engagement for Felris to Gustar so readily. It would have made a strong ally, and allow us to lean on our neighbor in an emergency, without much risk of our neighbor seeking to usurp our family’s lands, since they come with so much responsibility. In theory, at least.”

  I scratched my chin. “But if that’s off the table…”

  “There’s the rub. Normally, my parents would seek out another marriage candidate that would similarly benefit Obdorn, but it would have to mutually benefit the family or territory she married into. If that’s not possible, well then…” He shrugged. “It’s not like we’re royalty and need to worry about crown succession. She’d probably just marry into a wealthy merchant family, someone who wanted ties to the dungeon products and could otherwise support her. You’re not that, but you’ve got other things going for you.”

  “Felris made it sound… more serious than that.”

  “My sister has a pretty strong sense of duty, and this term has been... stressful for her,” Felton said, frowning. “I think she justified her engagement to Gustar through duty, so when that was lost, she herself got lost in the details. It’s not like our family wouldn’t have supported her if she remained unwed in Obdorn.”

  “Huh,” I said. So I guess I don’t need to commit to this, I thought.

  “Of course, Felris has become… rather excited about it,” Felton said, as if reading my mind. “She’s back in class today, at least.”

  Professor Trisabel entered the classroom then, which silenced out conversation, and I leaned back in my chair, thinking things over.

  It sounded like I could probably get out of marrying Felris in this life, and that she’d be fine anyway, her own self-destruction aside. It probably wasn’t healthy to stick to it just to keep her on track in school if I planned to later break it off, but I also didn’t want to tell her that I changed my mind and it actually wasn’t going to happen and watch her downward spiral. Besides, I did care about Felris, putting aside the weight of her expectations and my concerns and discomfort about being a reincarnator.

  If I didn’t end up engaged to Felris, though, then what? It’s not like I’d be comfortable casually dating in my teens, especially among my academy peers. Using my own status, meager as it was, to date other teenage girls in Ivarnel or back in Redding was even more uncomfortable to consider. By the time I was graduating, I would also have to consider that anyone who displayed interest in me was after something as well, like a connection to the [Sage]. Even if I waited, put off any thoughts of romance until well into my twenties, would I find someone I could truly fall in love with, without feeling like I was manipulating them in some way? People married young in this world, too. Was it even possible for me to find a natural, comfortable, adult romance in this life if I waited?

  Somnial was a case study in eternal bachelorhood, and his regrets about it were plain to see. They were even familiar, as I had felt similar regrets in my first life, but had sworn off children then due to the state of the world. This world was relatively at peace, at least for now, but the demon king would still return, one day, though I wouldn’t live to see it.

  If I hadn’t gained [Metasurvival], I probably wouldn’t even be in this situation. But if I was, what would I decide then?

  It was a lot to think about. For the moment, I shook the thoughts away and tried to focus on Professor Trisabel’s lecture.

  reported the story because of last chapter, I locked the comments until it could be resolved.

  [For now, that's still not resolved, so comments remain locked. Sorry.]

  could have seen in the preview I provided yesterday in the author note, to avoid what ended up happening) Tovar is thinking about this. He is also presently trying to get out of it, because of his concerns. This will continue to take many chapters to resolve.

  is welcome. Simply arguing about something that isn't even happening, or taking a hard personal stance on things just to fight about it--rather than discussing actual issues and their solutions--only distracts and delays me continuing to provide chapters for what appears to be quite a lot of others who are happily enjoying it.

  can have a post-life mentality in a child's body, since this sort of reincarnation is entirely fictional. If you dislike it or fundamentally disagree with aspects of it, even after the admin canonized the fact that Tovar should consider himself 12, you are free to stop reading.