Earth, 2120.

Science has become so advanced compared to 100 years ago.

A lot of things that weren't possible 100 years ago, became possible. Things like; reversing age, space travel, and many other things from science fiction.

One thing that contributed the most to the terrifying speed of advancing science was space travel.

In the year 2045, humans discovered alien life, or rather, it was the other way around. Since we humans became a space faring civilization, aliens discovered us. In return, our technology advanced by an unimaginable rate.

It was such an unimaginable rate that we entered a 5th industrial revolution. It was more commonly known as the intergalactic industrial revolution.

By the next couple of decades, Earth became more and more riddled with alien species. And so the intelligent life on Earth consisted of 80% humans, and the rest were from other planets.

Benefitting from the sudden boost of intergalactic attention, Earth became sort of a tourism planet.

Of course, all of this came at a cost.

In return, the Earth became a planet under the rule of the Someranian Empire. An empire having almost half of the Milky Way Galaxy under it's rule.

What was surprising was the fact that the Earth was actually already under the empire's rule since a few thousand years ago. It's just that they waited for us humans to be ready for space travel first.

Interestingly, many things from Earth became popular for the whole galaxy.

Things like the internet became so popular that G**gle is now an intergalactic corporation.

It was honestly baffling that not a single civilization in our Milky Way galaxy had an internet like ours.

Well, that's not fully true. They already had an internet, but it wasn't as entertainment focused as ours.

Things like Y**Tub* and other social media didn't exist in their version of the internet. Taking advantage of this untapped market, G**gle thus became an intergalactic corporation.

In the year 2120, this year, the population on Earth have basically become 60% human, and 40% other alien species.

Why do I know all of this like I have lived through it? Well....

Let's go back to the past again.

I died in 2021. I was 17 at the time. The cause of death was from a certain pandemic that started in 2019. Even though the vaccine had become available for all, I had already contracted it before getting the vaccine.

At first, it was mild. Then it turned into moderate, then severe, then I fell into a coma, only for my plug to be pulled after a couple months.

It was honestly horrifying.

But for some reason, the endless void that I was expecting did not show up. Instead, I woke up.

Well, sort of....

My soul wandered through 100 years, witnessing the advancement of humankind. 

Then, for some unknown reason, my soul entered a fetus, and I was born 9 months later.

One hundred years of my soul wandering around Earth felt like a dream, a realistic dream. Though, I do know that it wasn't a dream.

In the year 2100, I was reborn as a baby. Using my past life knowledge, I became a succesful person.

Or that was what I wanted it to be. Reincarnating in real life wasn't like reincarnating in light novels and manga.

It was hard, especially keeping my behaviours like that of a child and so on. It was also difficult to study in schools having the outdated knowledge from 100 years ago.

Middle schools and high schools taught so many things that were considered as college level 100 years ago.

Thankfully, I was a computer science undergraduate back in my previous life, so math in the 22nd century wasn't that complicated for me compared to other science subjects.

Long story short, I painstakingly got my diploma and went to a decent college.

But things weren't that simple for my economic situation. Coming from the 21st century, I was a gaming addict.

Last year, 2119, I scraped up my allowance money and bought a VR pod. It was basically an advanced version of a VR headset. This one taps into your mind and simulates a virtual world. That might sound dangerous, but VR pods are a normal thing in this century.

Now, after getting myself a VR pod, I purchased a VRMMORPG, called Valhalla.

And that was the moment I got addicted. Day and night, I was always in that game. Of course as a human, I also didn't neglect my human needs such as; eating, sleeping, and pooping.

It didn't take long for me to get greedy for the in-game items. And so, I got scammed multiple times.

I was so severely addicted that those scams made me loan money from shady people to get back the items I lost. In return, I had a huge debt behind my back.

Not long after, a tech company reached out to me. They offered me a contract to become one of their "Beta-testers" for their newest project. My dumbass self signed the contract without looking into it that much.

I then was brought to some sort of facility. It was then that I knew that I had become some sort of a lab rat. Well not really, I only assumed that I was going to be a lab rat by the looks of it.

'And that was pretty much what I remember from the past.'

'I don't know much about my situation right now, but it seems that I'm in someone elses body?'

'My hands and feet are definitely a child's one.'

"NO. 499, WELCOME BACK."

"What the hell?"

'Behind me, there's a voice behind me. Wh-who could it be?'

'It sounded like an AI. Like the ones people are using for their smart home system.'

As I looked behind, a giant machine thing around the size of a bedroom looked back at me with a mechanical snail-like eye-camera.

"Oh my god! What the fuck are you??!!"

I fell on my back, and I desperately crawled backwards trying to stay away from it.