Timing Is Everything When You're Reincarnated

"This novel got locked away once, so I guess that makes it a novel with some experience."

"This is a Mushoku Tensei fanfiction. You can read it even if you haven't read the original. All you need to know is that Rudeus is the protagonist of the original.

"It's a harem novel, but the original protagonist won't be mistreated, and I won't steal Rudeus's white (Sylphie) or blue (Roxy). P.S. Their boobs are too small to be interesting!

"All the other female characters with potential will be added to the harem. The novel gets censored often, and this is already the Nth revised version. If you like this type of novel, I recommend following each chapter instead of saving them all up to read later. I hope you enjoy it."

(And now, the story!)

This was Akihabara, the holy land of anime. Ever since I came to Japan on vacation, it was the place I'd most wanted to visit.

Wow, it was Ken Kaneki! And Miyuki Shiba, too. There was Jibril from No Game No Life over there! There were cosplayers everywhere. This really was my paradise. Time to shop, shop, shop!

The collector's edition of Attack on Titan on Blu-ray—wow, I loved it! I had to get it. Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann... I had to buy them all. I couldn't leave anything behind.

As I passed the novels section, I saw a wonderful surprise. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn't believe it—it had finally been published. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation was my favorite novel. There were only the first two volumes, but I had to get them today.

I bought twenty copies, planning to show them off to my best buddies when I got back home, then give the novels to them as souvenirs while they looked at me with grateful eyes.

After leaving the store, I looked at the heavy backpack I was carrying. It was full of all my favorite things. The sunlight scorched the ground, and I carefully held the backpack in front of me, afraid my precious treasures inside might get knocked around or damaged.

Just then, the rumble of a car engine came from the distance. What was going on? The pedestrian light was green, wasn't it? I looked to my left and saw a dump truck full of dirt hurtling toward the crosswalk without slowing down at all. Taking a closer look, I realized it was over. The driver had probably fallen asleep at the wheel. Drowsy driving killed people no matter what country you were in!

The truck was heading toward a woman pushing a stroller at nearly sixty kilometers per hour. It all happened too fast. I had no time to think; my body instinctively tried to do something. I reached out and shoved the woman in the back.

At that critical moment, time suddenly seemed to slow down. Every second unfolded before my eyes, frame by frame. I saw the woman and baby get pushed to safety. For some reason, the corners of my mouth began to rise. I was still in danger, so why was I smiling?

The truck was only a few meters away. I saw the driver's face as he suddenly woke up and tried to swerve. How careless. I wondered whether the compensation for getting hit by a car in Japan would make it to my parents.

Without thinking any further, I instinctively raised the bag in front of me, hoping it would cushion the impact. Bang! Then I lost consciousness.

I didn't know how much time had passed. I was like someone jolting awake from a nightmare.

The only thing I could feel was pain. So this was what it felt like to get hit by a dump truck.

Through the sensation of my skin, I could tell I was surrounded by water. I couldn't open my eyes. It was pitch-black, as if a layer of film covered them. Was I blind?

I couldn't summon any strength. Was it the effect of anesthesia? I tried to feel around. I could move my limbs a little. That was good. If I could move them, it meant I hadn't been crippled.

I tried to breathe. Cough, cough, cough! I'd forgotten I was underwater. I'd choked on the water. How had I not suffocated yet?

I couldn't breathe, but I didn't feel like I was suffocating, either. I groped around in the water and felt a smooth tube.

It was pretty soft! I tried squeezing it and tugging, hoping to let the medical staff outside know that I was awake.

As I kept squeezing the tube, my head suddenly grew heavy again. It felt like the chest tightness you got from holding your breath too long and running out of oxygen.

So I really would die if I couldn't breathe? I squeezed harder and tried to kick the walls of this tank as much as I could, hoping to make some noise.

My consciousness slowly faded.

I let go, ready to face my death.

Huff. As I let go, I suddenly felt as if a breath of air had miraculously appeared in my chest. How could I breathe air underwater? My nose hadn't moved, and I hadn't made any breathing motions. My consciousness gradually returned.

I began a new experiment. Even though I couldn't see, I could touch things with my hands and feel my surroundings. Maybe, once I'd become blind, this was the only way I could understand the world.

I tried to feel around as best I could. Something was strange. It felt as if I was wrapped up in something, and my head seemed to be pressed against something soft. I tried swinging my arms to see if I could get out of this strange place.

My arms weren't strong enough, so I turned my body, gathered my strength, and tried to poke through the soft membrane around me with my feet. I wanted to get out of this hellish place!

Dragon God Calendar, 402 / November 11, Gregorian calendar, night,

"Darling, it seems to be moving again. Come feel."

"Oh, my beautiful Aria, the baby must have just woken up and be saying good evening to you!"

A man and a woman were in the room. The woman was leaning against several large pillows, her belly swollen high. The man sat at her bedside, gently stroking her belly and feeling the bond of blood between them. The life inside turned first one way, then the other, and every so often pushed up against the huge belly with a little hand. The outline of the hand was even visible.

The woman said to the man, "I feel like the baby is especially active today. It seems to have a lot more strength than before."

"Really? I just saw it settle down for a moment and thought it was going to fall asleep. I didn't expect it to get so excited again. I guess it can't wait to see its mother, huh?"

Ah! The woman clutched her belly and groaned in pain. "I think it kicked me. My water might have broken."

The man jumped to his feet and shouted toward the door, "Someone! Get in here! Call the midwife!"

It hurt. My whole body hurt. After I kicked hard against that thin membrane, I felt like I'd broken through something.

Then I felt the water around me slowly draining away, and something strange began squeezing my body. At last, someone had noticed I was awake. I was ready to leave this hellish place.

After I was squeezed into a head-down position, I suddenly felt a tremendous force. It was as if I was being squeezed by incredibly resilient flesh. The immense pressure crushed my whole body. It felt like my head was about to be flattened.

There was no time to think. All I could feel was pain. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn't. My mouth wouldn't open, my body wouldn't move, and my eyes wouldn't open. Maybe this time I really was going to die.

I didn't know how long the torment lasted. It felt like years, but also like only a few hours.

I was at my limit when I faintly heard a woman's voice. She was screaming as if her life depended on it, as though she were shouting the words I'd been trying to cry out for so long.

It was as if I'd found a kindred spirit. Did she hurt as much as I did? The difference was that she could scream, while I could only suffer in silence!

Before long, I slid out of somewhere. My body had been completely wrapped up, and then suddenly I could stretch out. It felt so good.

The pain ended, too. It was like I'd been given a new life.

I felt the air, and my body tried to breathe. Cough, cough, cough! My nasal passages and throat were clogged with some unknown liquid. I struggled to cough it up and breathe in air.

Just then, someone gave my bottom a hard smack. I summoned all my strength and tried to open my mouth and make a sound. "Waaah, waaah, waaah!" I finally started crying. The mucus and liquid in my throat came out along with my cries.

I could faintly sense light in my eyes. I tried opening them and saw the blurry glow of candlelight. There were several people bustling around, too. From the way they were dressed, were they maids?

I was completely bewildered. What was going on? A strange European man with two little mustaches picked me up. He wore a weird but elaborate formal outfit. I had no idea what he was saying. What language was that? Smack! He kissed me right on the face.

Waaah! He scared me into crying. My first kiss! No, wait, not on the lips. Still, I didn't want a man kissing me. Was this some kind of punishment? At first, I'd thought he was going to eat me. His enormous face and mouth looked half as big as my own. Was this the Land of Giants?

I raised my hands. It seemed like I'd become a child. My hands were tiny, and my arms were covered in chubby rolls of flesh. Had I really transmigrated into a baby's body?

Did I have to go through nine years of compulsory education and three years of hellish college entrance exam prep all over again? This was so tragic.

To keep the man from kissing me again, I could only cry nonstop. At least he didn't do anything weird while I was crying. He looked awkward and handed me to someone else.

She was a blond woman who looked to be in her twenties. She wore silk pajamas, and her long, golden curls fell in waves. There was a beauty mark at the corner of her eye. Could she look any more like Audrey Hepburn? Her beauty was as clear and pure as morning dew, yet as gentle as the dawn.

Was this my mother? Maybe being reincarnated as a baby wasn't so bad after all.

After taking me, she laid me sideways and opened her clothes. Wow, beautiful lady, no! Men and women shouldn't be so intimate. I was thrilled, though, and eagerly prepared to press my face against the place I'd never touched in my entire life.

It felt different from what I'd imagined. When I actually touched it, it felt a little hard, and nothing like I had expected. I could clearly feel the ribs pressing against me.

I opened my eyes, feeling a little awkward. I couldn't say there was nothing there, but it was close. It was a little better than completely flat—about like an ordinary fried egg.

Like Kakyoin Noriaki eating a cherry in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I performed the normal actions of a nursing infant. This was the first time in my twenty years of life that I'd seen where a baby's food came from. The real thing was quite different from the pictures on a computer.

I'd decided: I would act like a baby and get enough nutrition from the start so I could grow up fast.

"Xerxes, have you picked a name for the baby? Look how much he looks like you. He was staring at my chest."

"My beautiful Aria, I've already decided. If it's a boy, we'll name him Dolin Prodia Greyrat. Liking flat chests is an indelible gene in the blood of the Prodia family. We Prodias feel nothing for those two lumps of fat. Only those disgusting Notos like such deformed things.

"Praise slender, beautiful women. Only women like that deserve to be called beautiful. Aria, believe me, your child will one day be amazed by his mother's beauty, too."

"But darling, I'm worried I won't be able to feed him enough. Should we hire a wet nurse so he can get full sooner? I'm afraid he'll get hungry."

"Aria, this is your child. The Prodia family motto is that a mother must nurse her own child. That way, after he's weaned, your beauty won't grow bigger. It'll get smaller and smaller. That's the wisdom our ancestors passed down, and we have to stick to it."

As the couple discussed size, I fell into deep thought. Had I returned to being a baby, or had I transmigrated? Judging by the clothes people wore here, this wasn't Japan. The man and woman both looked Western, with fair skin.

I hadn't seen any East Asians around, either. There was no electricity in the room, and candles were used for lighting. The bed wasn't modern in style, either. Had I gone back to medieval Europe?

This was unbelievable. Were Japanese dump trucks cursed? They sent people off to another world every day. Maybe there was no local Granny Meng, so I still had all my memories.

At least that was one bit of luck in this misfortune. I needed to learn the language here as quickly as possible. What year was it? Was this even still Earth?

Sigh, there were so many things to think about. This family seemed pretty well-off, and the room was so big. Sure, there were no computers, TVs, or phones, but living in a wealthy family and having a harem of wives and concubines didn't sound so bad.

Hey, hey, ma'am, stop pressing your ribs against me. There's no cushioning at all. Your ribs are really hard.