A village with no entertainment.
Past noon.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of lumber being hammered echoes throughout the village.
“Waaah♪ Kamishibaiiii♪”
The neighboring country is at war.
The adults of the village, who served as its labor force, are gone, and the village has lost its vitality.
Children, being sensitive, withdraw into their homes all day, overcome by loneliness.
The village is increasingly becoming a poor village, swallowed by a dark, desolate atmosphere.
Recently, a kamishibai storyteller with children has begun to appear in such a village, traveling and performing once a week or every few days.
“Thank you for waiting♪ What story shall I tell today♪”
“One where a commoner becomes a brave warrior!♪”
“I prefer the one about the princess who refused the prince’s proposal and rose to become a princess in another country♪”
The kamishibai storyteller soothes the gathered children, who have many requests, by telling them they will get their turn one by one.
After calming them down and assuring them that the genres they requested would be told in order, the storyteller begins.
First up was “The Rise of a Commoner Who Was Born with Memories of His Past Life’s Battles.”
“Waaah♪ Ooooh♪! Giggle giggle♪///”
As the story reached its climax, the children were all excited.
The boys thought, “I want to be like that too, to go through near-death experiences with my comrades (friends).”
The girls’ hearts fluttered with “Kyun♡” for the protagonist who was caught between love and country, and they looked with hopeful eyes at a boy with a similar name to the protagonist.
“Next is the long-awaited romance story!”
“!!!” “Hurry, hurry♪!”
“Ugh, romance stories…”
On the boys’ side, they disliked the flower prince and his entourage that appeared in the story.
They declared that if such people existed in reality, they would surely be eaten by monsters the moment they stepped outside the village.
“Trying to show off to the female protagonist,”
“Going to dangerous places on purpose,”
“No way~. I would never do that~.”
Even though there are hunting grounds that suit their abilities,
They gamble their lives for the woman they love.
“No way~,” the boys agreed in unison behind the girls’ excited giggles.
As the story progressed, the prince’s entourage sacrificed themselves to protect the female protagonist and the prince, falling one after another.
They weren’t dead, just near death, unable to fight.
“AAAAAHHH”
“…What idiots.”
Instead of protecting them,
The entourage threw away a perfect opportunity to attack.
The boys brought their sense of reality to this romance story, no matter what.
It was evident something had happened with the girls who were so engrossed.
Had they been rejected? Had they been harassed? In such a small village,
Marriage is naturally to someone you’ve known for a long time, usually a neighbor.
Expecting anything from girls outside the village was futile.
“Ugh, ugh…”
A child under two years old began to cry from the stroller with wheels.
The child’s eyes and facial features were exactly like the kamishibai storyteller’s.
The boys, bored with the story, offered to babysit.
“I’m sorry to trouble you~”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m used to babysitting.”
“Here, let’s play over there♪”
“Kya♪ Kyaa♪”
The boys, remembering when their younger siblings were small, soothed the child in the stroller.
Evening.
“See you again then.”
“We’ll be waiting for your next story~~♪♪”
The kamishibai storyteller, accompanied by their child, says goodbye to the children.
On the night road,
Deserters from conscription and the battlefield had turned into bandits.
“Wait up!”
“I’m in a hurry…”
“Heh, I won’t let you get away.”
The bandits attacked the surrounding villages to secure food and lodging.
At that time, when they killed or violated parents,
Several children would say, “I will become the protagonist of the kamishibai storyteller’s story!”
Annoyed, they would stab or cut the children’s chests and necks.
At the village elder’s house, they obtained more information about the area before killing the entire elder’s family.
“We don’t have any money or food!”
“Is that so♪?”
“It’s been dangerous lately. And the fact that you go to another place every evening… it smells suspicious♪ Smells like money♪”
The bandits weren’t going to let them go.
The kamishibai storyteller drew a weapon hidden in the stroller.
“Whoa! If you’re gonna pull out something like that♪ It must be a jackpot♪”
The bandits, believing their target was inside the stroller,
Moved to kill, regardless of who the kamishibai storyteller was.
“Kuh, gufuuu!”
“Ooh, ooh!”
“Die quickly.”
The kamishibai storyteller and the bandits.
The bandits won the battle.
The bandits’ cruel blades approached the child in the stroller.
Flash!!
The sleeping child’s eyes opened.
As the bandits stared in surprise at the child’s multicolored, shining eyes, their consciousness faded.
“Ugh, ugh…”
“What?! What is this brat?! Hah, hah?! Y-you’re alive…”
Suddenly, their companions collapsed.
The child was definitely doing something.
They tried to throw a weapon to kill the child, but
Suffocating, they couldn’t throw it and fell to their knees on the ground.
“Gaaah, ah…”
Swaying, they dropped their weapons and writhed in agony, becoming dead bodies.
“WAAAAAAAAAH! MONSTERS!”
The surviving bandits disappeared into the night.
“…Ugh.”
All that remained were many corpses and the child in the stroller.
The child looked around, and seeing that the danger had passed, fell asleep.
No one walked the night road.
Now that the bandits were gone, it was certain no one would appear until morning.
The child was sure of this and slept.
(My father is dead too. What should I do from tomorrow onwards~~)
In the story told by the kamishibai, there was a person who
Had memories of their past life.
Their past life was that of an archcriminal.
In this life, the mother died of illness a few days after childbirth due to a lack of proper sterilization.
The father was now, in front of the child, brutally killed by the bandits’ cruel blades.
The child’s past life memories indicated they were a high-ranking member of an organization.
With that knowledge, they had secretly practiced magic since birth, growing to the point where they could use magic to drive away bandits.
In this life, their name was taken from the protagonist of the kamishibai story.
In their past life, they were known by a nickname.
Their nickname was “Amanojaku” (Trickster).
Their underworld organization, the “Memory of Despair,” was the same as Lord Vegetarian’s.
And they were one of its executives.
It was Lord “Amanojaku.”
He would dress men and women in reversed clothing.
A very dangerous person whose boiling point was difficult to gauge.
This was the child’s true identity.
One of the unfortunate archcriminals caught in Rayos’s large-scale teleportation to another world.
By some twist of fate, instead of going to the wheel of reincarnation with a broken Astral Body from the rubble of Rayos,
They were bounced off the wheel.
The place they were bounced to was the fetus body of their mother in this life.
Was it good luck? Or bad luck?
With the neighboring Tartarus Kingdom at war, the father set out on a journey to create a kamishibai of his wife’s imagined stories from their past conversations, leaving it behind for many children. Relatives pointed fingers, saying he had deserted from conscription.
Their hometown must have already become a battlefield.
The father’s decision to set out on the journey was correct.
However, being killed by bandits in the end stirred something in him.
Was this regret?
“Amanojaku” let go of their consciousness while thinking such things.
The night was cold. After several “night hunts,”
When they woke up in the morning.
“Auuu? ”
They were all bundled up like a cocoon.
Their struggles to untangle themselves with their short limbs exuded an endearing quality that belied their past life as an archcriminal.
“Uu! Uu!”
Finally, they escaped using the magic power recovered during their sleep.
They made the stroller run as if by telekinesis.
Though saying “run” is an exaggeration. It was as fast as a baby crawling.
Faster than a turtle, but
The magic consumption was ridiculously high.
Moving something larger than their own body.
Deep down, they couldn’t help but flow extra magic power.
After 30 minutes.
Panting heavily, “Amanojaku” tried to recover their magic power.
Gazing into the distance, they looked up at the sky, wondering if a solitary child’s journey would continue from now on.
