I thought I succeeded, but as with anything I anticipated, I failed. It should be a joyous thing in the perspective of others who wished to live, but it certainly was not for one such as myself who wished nothing but to die. Life was said to be a sacred thing, something to treasure, but it held no meaning to me.

I simply wanted to stop and rest.

Instead of giving a second chance to another who was far more worthy than I, the World decided otherwise. The World didn't even deign to erase my memories of the past, as if daring me to commit the greatest sin once more. Strange that It wanted me to live, but retained my memories that went against the very concept of living.

Regardless of my thoughts, I made no sound; at that instant, I was nothing like an infant, save for my physical limitations.

As with newborns, I was nearsighted, so the faces of my new parents were unclear and blurry. At best, I could only make out their general outlines and colors. It was only when one of them—a woman, my mother—put her face close to mine could I finally see her facial features.

The woman's face was familiar—blonde hair and in possession of gentle blue eyes. Had I seen her before? However, where? I knew not of a person with such western features.

Then, she spoke. Unintelligible were her words to me at that time, I could still catch a name I never wanted to hear: Rudeus Greyrat. 

Anger rose from within.

What came after was a stream of tears and a cry so deafening I couldn't hear my thoughts. My parents—who I then realized to be Paul and Zenith Greyrat—panicked. They rocked me in their arms, cooed words that I couldn't comprehend but knew to be something in the lines of, "It's okay! Don't cry! Nothing bad is going to happen!", and when that failed to abate my wailing, a maid came from the side to help.

With dark red hair and glasses perched atop her nose, she took me in her arms. I knew her to be Lilia, but even being recognizant of the person was not enough to calm me.

The tears turned my eyesight worse. Snot dribbled down my philtrum, mouth, and then chin; I flailed my infantile limbs as if they held the power to destroy the world and return me to the cold embrace of water, minutes and seconds before I became a cadaver in the ocean.

All the while that I cried, the World laughed.

When I caught onto that, I stopped, quieted.

It was more of a feeling than something audible. The laugh reverberated in the air as something pushed and pulled, twisted and untwisted—I later realized that something was mana. That feeling increased and then decreased as time passed. The laugh petered out and I stilled.

That alone, granted me understanding.

My fury returned with a vengeance upon the enlightenment that my reincarnation was intentional. For what reason had my soul been chosen to replace the original Rudeus Greyrat escaped me. The original did fine; he helped Orsted, bested Hitogami at his game, and paved a future in which the imposter Human God would perish at the hands of the 100th Dragon God.

Despite the lives lost along the way, it was the most desirable timeline.

My coming here must mean only one thing: to do better. If the World wanted Hitogami to win, then the son of Paul and Zenith would have stayed a stillbirth. After all, the best way to rid of a threat was to cease its existence.

The World made a mistake, and I would make that abundantly clear.

I then stewed in silence, waiting for the day where I gained enough mobility to end myself. 

As if It heard my thoughts, the World laughed once more.

When I first reached the age of three, I attempted suicide and succeeded.

My death was by way of an icicle through my throat—quick and painless, albeit it left quite the mess of a blood pool afterward. It didn't matter though, for I went back to being a newborn not even a second after my death.

The World laughed.

I tried again, each of my attempts assisted by the use of magic: imploding myself by taking in too much mana in the surroundings, draining myself until no mana sustained my life, burned by fire, deprived of air, buried underneath layers of earth. Each time, the killing method was different, but it all ended in the same result: restarting my life as a newborn flailing its limbs at the world.

I once tried dying from "natural causes", from something that looked wholly accidental. I fell from the second floor of the house, only to end up being caught by Lilia. It was as if the World directed the maid to the location I jumped, for I had checked for the absence of Paul, Zenith, and Lilia beforehand. 

Then, I tried killing myself when I was older than three. Whether I died at four or five or six years of age, it didn't matter; my restart point stayed the same.

I didn't give up then, thinking that perhaps, at the very least, if I had triggered a canon event and died afterward, I wouldn't need to bother with the process of growing up once more.

And so, I complied with the canon events to the best of my memory and met Roxy. Shortly after, I killed myself and went back to being a newborn.

Again and again and again. I died and restarted. It mattered not how old I was at that time, whether I met Roxy or went past that and met Sylphy. There was even a loop where I met Eris and died at the hands of another, but no matter how many times I tried, no matter the years I had lived, it all ended the same way: back to the start as a newborn.

The World laughed then.

And I?

I despaired.