Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

8 years.

The time spent forming new attachments and adjusting to my new life after being reborn in a different world.

It was a seriously long time, but as a child it was really far too short a time. Since, even after having reincarnated, it took 4 years for my head to mature a bit and could properly move around.

"This is really fucking hard."

And today was the 8 years and 12th day since I was born in this world. It was the 3rd day since my village basically disappeared, and…

"My shitty body is really fucking weak."

It was the second day since I found a shovelhead with a burned-out handle in what had been a smithery and began digging a grave with it.

"My blisters fucking sting!"

Eating and drinking immediately wasn't a problem since a drinkable mountain stream was flowing and since there were things like half-burned potatoes in the village storehouse, but the child's body was helplessly too weak.

Since magic was said to exist as befitting a fantasy world, I could have more easily dug something like a ground if I had learned it, but because the village I lived in was a tiny rural village, I couldn't learn something that precious. At the least, a mage visited by chance about 3 years ago and I managed to at least imitate up to sensing a thing called magic power by doing all sorts of cutesy-charmy begging, but I couldn't use magic with that.

He said he would teach me magic if he could tell I worked hard when he returned 4 years later. Since people said mages didn't lie, wouldn't I have used at least a ground-digging spell if the Demon King Army attacked just 1 year later?

But what use was there to that? Now was still the 3rd year.

Fortunately among the misfortunes, I could do the completely fantasy-like act of moving the magic power I sensed to strengthen my body. Mesmerized with the fantasy-like experience I could only describe as fucking awesome, I endlessly trained at it for 3 years. With that, I could run at a speed an 8-year old could never do, and for short instances could swing things like a heavy longsword at a speed close to an ordinary adult.

But separate from that, my untrained body had its limits. The blisters on my palms were its proof, and having to feel pain that couldn't be imagined as muscle pain when running fast was its evidence. Thanks to that, I dug the ground trusting only my pure body and the shovelhead. In the end, it took two days to completely dig my parents' grave.

"But, despite that, I worked hard for a mere 8-year old son."

Although my body was 8 years old, because my head was nearing thirty when combined with my past life, I couldn't ignore what it meant when my dad who left the hiding place saying he will get mom didn't return even after a day had passed, and with a shitty feeling I could discover my parents fallen together at the village outskirt when I came down early in the morning.

I cried really sadly even for me. I nearly fainted from exhaustion while crying. That was the reason it took 2 days to dig the grave despite it being the 3rd day.

"By tomorrow I should be able to fix together the remaining fences and finish even the grave markers."

They lived as hunters now, but my parents said they once worked as adventurers and then settled here while traveling the continent.

Could it perhaps be because of that? Both my parents had stopped their breaths while holding a bloodstained sword taken from someone somewhere in one of their hands. It was an embarrassment to even call it fortunate, but seeing how their corpses weren't swept by the fire nor disfigured and simply had their hearts pierced clean, I doubted they had felt a lot of pain.

Because my last life's death was like that.

"Well that thought made me angry."

I got completely drained just from digging the grave before noon and ripping a luckily-unburned sack from an underground storage and moving my parents on top of it. Since it was obvious I would instead have collapsed without a single strength to twitch a finger if I had moved them while enhancing my strength with magic power, I just moved them while clean.

It was lucky the rotting hadn't started yet due to fall having nearly passed and being right before winter.

"Huh. Fuck lucky."

How would an 8-year old survive the winter alone? The thing I called a hiding place was merely a small earthen cave dad used as a meat storage during winter. There would've been even a little food for winter save up there if it had happened a little later, but now it merely was completely empty. Even if I clawed together the food storage's half-burned foods, I couldn't last even a week.

I was merely acting out of an obsession that I had to immediately do my duty as their child, and there was nothing lucky nor easygoing.

"I thought it was fantasy, but looks like I'll be filming a survival in a foreign world instead."

The sun was setting. Usually around this time was when I would have come home with dad smelling mom's stew. Since I turned 6 I had followed dad along asking and learning about things like hunting tricks and herbs he had learned in his adventurer years. I also liked reading books at the village head's house, but the process of learning knowledge merely for living and without anything like college or job search and whatnot was not only leisurely but full of a form of happiness I had never experienced in my entire life.

My tears unconsciously flowed at the fact those happy days had disappeared as if they were a lie.

It was really pure happiness. Enough that I had to feel relief that I had properly experienced and enjoyed that happiness because I wasn't a child.

"Hah… let's go back."

At the least, I was lucky the mountain stream was fine and I didn't have to worry about drinking water. Because otherwise I would have died from dehydration from crying.

It was clear it would turn dark by the time I pick the potatoes for dinner and bring them to the hiding place. Without a single thing to make a fire right now, there wasn't a moment to rest. It would be fucking cold if I didn't quickly go back to the cave and wrap myself with the scrapped clothes to raise my temperature.

As I was about to stand up like that, I felt a tiny vibration through my seated butt.

A sound I had never personally heard once in my last life but familiar in my current life.

The sound of horse hooves kicking the ground and neighing of horses.

"Fuck."

My goosebumps stood. It was a sound more horrifying than any time before. When I took out and placed at my side a longsword I had grasped in my parent's hand as naturally as I could and slightly turned my head to look at the source of the sound, there was a gang standing with the setting sun behind their backs at where the village gate used to be.

Even just from the silhouette I could tell it wasn't a normal army. There wasn't even a single flag identifying their group that even mercenaries carried. Most of all, there weren't many of them.

"Fucking shit."

It was bandits. I wasn't sure if they had seen the village burn or if they saw the Demon King Army's tracks, but it was clear they came to check if there was anything to pick and eat.

I should easily survive if I ran to the mountain right now.

But then those fucking sons of bitches would loot not only the swords I grasped in my parents' hands but even dust the few trinkets they had.

I couldn't let that stand even if I were to die with my entire body ripped apart today.

They began coming towards the hill I was on.

The place I stood was where a small shrine 'had' stood on the village hill. There wasn't any particular reason to it. I merely thought that it was appropriate to bury my parents here since they were devoted.

Their number was seven. Having arrived near me, they soon dismounted from their horses and walked towards me while looking around. One at the least seemed to be a woman based on her outline, but, as if she was a slave, she had on a metal leash and was being forcibly dragged along.

Their armors were sparse. There wasn't anyone who wore a helmet, and the most well-equipped set was just the breastplate, greaves, and gauntlets of the one walking in the forefront. The one holding a sword was just that one too. The rest not only held merely things like daggers and axes, but didn't even seem to have anything like a bow. No, to be exact, they did have bows but dismounted with them on the horses.

It felt like blood was escaping from my hands and feet at the tension. What did I have? An 8-year old's body. The swords my parents had grasped. Pebbles nearby.

And… magic power. The magic power that could strengthen my body. The magic power I hadn't used once and had saved up for 3 days.

"Oi. Kid."

The head-looking man who had walked at the front a bit faster than the gang called at me. He was messy and had greasy disheveled hair as if he hadn't washed for several days, but there wasn't anything like a scar on his face.

"W, who are you?"

I drew a pitiful face and asked while fearfully trembling and tightly hugging the sword as if it was my parents' memento. Internally I had a hope that they were somehow just adventurers and would go away after checking out the scene, but that possibility seemed slim.

In the first place weirdos who would tense up before an 8-year old shouldn't be common, but with my life immediately on the line I could only pretend and act with my utmost. At my question, the man laughed as if he found it pathetic and walked closer.

"Huhu. That's fucking none of your business and hand over that sword."

"T, this is my parents'."

Turning my body sideways, and acting like the sword was slipping from the weight, I grasped the sword's grip. Then he crumpled his face tight and shouted at me with even his back bent down.

I was aiming for that you son of a bitch.

I exploded the magic power I had spread throughout my body and swung the sword.

"You fucking son of a bitch give it here immediately if you…kuk?"

Talent in swordsmanship? Not sure if I had a talent, but my hobby in my last life was martial arts. In my school days I even drowned my life in Kumdo and considered becoming an instructor.

So long as there was strength to back up, I had enough technique to do a horizontal slash aimed at the neck. And I had a strength called magic power.

"Kuhph. The, fuc…"

Fuck the pressure of killing someone to shitters. I got killed by a homicidal robber in my last life. I had managed to snap his neck and kill him with my last strength, but I near-simultaneously got my heart stabbed and died without a single twitch. I already had a history of killing.

My reincarnated life began like that. But now even that was all gone.

I was a rabid maniac right now.

"Eh? Chief?"

Looked like the guy rasping in cognitive dissonance with his head on the ground really was the chief. When I turned back into a naive lamb and pretended to shiver and tremble in fear, one guy with a face that hadn't grasped the situation ran up and crouched down at his side.

Should have focused on the bloodstain on my sword instead.

"Chief what's… blood? Ik?"

I immediately took a step back to match the range and then swung the sword aiming for his neck. The diagonally slashing movement even by my standard cleanly slashed a cut deep into his carotid artery. His shocked eyes stared at me, but it was already too late.

"Eh? Eh? Fuck what the hell did you do you little shit!"

Only then the rest of them got a hold of themselves and looked at me. But my acting hadn't ended just yet.

"I, I don't know. T, the sword just suddenly…"

The stares of 4 shocked and dismayed bandits and one slave drawing an odd expression poured down on me.

"What?! F, fuck is that actually a devil sword?"

Wow, looked like something like that did really exist. What a scary world.

I worried what to do if by any chance they immediately jumped and tried to kill me, but they were flailing around in terror.

"Fuck you, why the fuck would that be in this fucking backwater!"

"B, but didn't the Demon King Army pass through here?! Couldn't they have dropped it?"

Fucking hell, what idiot drop something like that? Fuck, I nearly slipped my soul-bound act from being speechless.

Sad thoughts. My dead parents thou… fuck, I actually got sad. Sons of bitches, I won't forgive them.

"Hey, hey. Kid. H, hand that here first."

One of them that at least seemed to have guts began coming towards me with a hesitant pose. With one arm extended out afar, he shakily bent his back to match my eyes and approached.

"Hick, b, but this is my mom's…"

"Motherfucking hell. I got it so give it here first! I'll give you back later!"

Hiccuping, I moved closer as if trying to hand over the sword by the grip I held with both my hands. As if he was a guy who had never held a thing called a sword in his life, he didn't foresee even a little that I could immediately swing the sword like that.

He wasn't a very big guy. Around 160cm tall? His arm should be at most between 60~70cm.

The instant I neared enough for his fingertip to nearly touch the pommel, I swung the sword with full strength towards his neck.

"Kuhugh!"

"Uwaaaang!"

"Uwaaagh fuck Glen!!"

"It's a devil sword! It's a fucking demon sword!"

Looked like my acting would still continue on a bit longer.