Past Life Returner - Chapter 2

My eyes suddenly opened as I felt like I was falling off a cliff.

With blurry eyes I saw small arms moving arbitrarily. The arms belonged to me but it didn’t feel like they were mine yet. I couldn’t control my body yet because it only performed reflex movements irrelevant to external stimuli.

Modern science claimed that this happened due to a newborn’s immature brain activity. They were right. My brain must not have been fully grown yet. Nevertheless modern science would not be able to explain my current thinking ability. That belonged to the realm of religion since the ability came from my true soul. 

I found it hard to move my eyes toward the two people looking down at me. My undeveloped sight only allowed me to see the shadows on their faces and my hearing was also limited. My mother had given birth to me at home instead of the hospital with help from her sister who was a nurse due to her poor financial situation. So the two people staring at me must be my mother and aunt.

Even though my vision had not fully matured the system message on the window appeared clear. Reading it had nothing to do with vision as it probably functioned on the same basis of a fetus’s imperfect brain being able to properly think because of the soul. 

They forced us to read the messages as if they were stuffing them into our brains. I ‘read’ the message that popped up in front of me.

[Quest ‘Become Healthy 1’ begins.]

[Become Healthy 1 (Quest)

Mission: Drink breast milk three hundred times in one month.]

Looking at this I realized why the First Evil stood out as a powerful being from the ‘Day of Advent’. He had gathered points from his infancy. In other words he was the chosen one. 

***

“You have to wrap the baby’s arms and legs like this or he will wake up surprised and flounder” Jung-Hee said.

“But my son is crying so much. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with him? He has all his fingers and toes right?” Mi-Hee was worried.

“You’ve asked that three times now. He just wants food. Congratulations. It’s a boy” Jung-Hee replied.

“Thanks sis” Mi-Hee said. 

Jung-Hee washed off the placenta from Seon-Hu and then let Mi-Hee hug him. Mi-Hee was crying not because of the pain but out of gratitude for her baby being healthy. She still couldn’t believe that she had become a mother and had given birth to a child. 

Mi-Hee couldn’t take her eyes off the baby who was crying for milk. She started breastfeeding him. Her worries of not having enough milk dissipated when she saw Seon-Hu sucking vigorously at her nipples and gulping down milk. 

“He is such a glutton” Mi-Hee remarked.

***

As soon as I latched on my mother’s breast my mouth moved instinctively. It was an involuntary movement similar to my flailing limbs and I felt like I was inside a small beast.

There was a guy whose major skill was Soul Transference. When he entered a victim he would have observed his target like this until he completely swallowed their soul. However this was my body and the uncontrollable movement of my lips and limbs were just reflexes. There was no reason for me to fight because I wasn’t using Soul Transference to occupy and then hijack another person’s body. 

I felt the lukewarm liquid going down my throat. It had no taste but I could feel its presence as it moved down my esophagus and stomach. It resembled the sensation of drinking cold water right after waking up in the morning.

Thanks to my aunt swaddling me in a blanket I could finally focus on drinking the breast milk because my limbs were no longer flailing anymore. My mother carefully supported my neck while gazing at me with love. My stomach slowly continued to fill up.

This was bliss and I was about to cry out of sheer happiness. I was glad that I couldn’t burst into tears in this body. My mother would have been astonished to see her son crying after his first meal on her breast. I only removed my mouth from her breast when I could no longer drink anymore and my lips stopped in reflex once my stomach was full.

A message popped up. 

I really wished these notifications wouldn’t cover my mother’s face.

[Become Healthy: Drink Breast Milk 1/300]

When I started to feel stuffed and annoyed by an odd feeling my aunt lifted me up and started patting my back. I couldn’t throw up what I swallowed. I thought something was stuck inside my stomach but it was just a burp.

“Burrrrrp.”

I felt refreshed and the sound of my mother and aunt laughing was music to my ears. 

It was time to sleep at least for my mom who had just suffered giving birth to me. But the pain all over my body did not let me sleep. The pain from passing through the birth canal did dissipate after drinking my mother’s milk. This however was much better than that previous pain. It just annoyed me enough from falling back to sleep. To be honest I didn’t want to sleep.

My aunt’s touch was as gentle as my mother’s and the time I laid in her arms as she supported my back and neck was so endearing and comfortable. Yet I wanted to be in my mother’s arms even though she was a bit awkward. I cried until my aunt handed me over to my mother and did not stop even when my aunt rubbed my back and sang to me. 

The moment my mother held me I stopped crying and they all started laughing again. I already felt sorry for my mother because I needed to drink her breast milk at least ten times a day for a month to complete this mission. I would have to drink about twelve times a day to be safe. This meant I had to cry out in hunger every two hours for breast milk. It was clear that my mother had to make a lot of sacrifices in the future for this. She would have many sleepless nights and weekends.

***

I woke up feeling hungry. I must have fallen asleep.

Since I had the mind of an adult I could repress crying from an empty stomach or wet diapers. 

I wanted my mother to rest today. There were no postnatal care centers in 1985 and mothers stayed by their babies in this period. Moreover my mother could not ask for anyone else’s help since both my grandmothers had passed away and my aunt had to go back to work. I remembered that my mother started having big problems with her hip in her forties. This was because she could barely take care of herself when I was born because she had to raise me all by herself.

The Day of Advent was still far ahead and I had thirty days before the deadline for this quest expired. So my mother had to rest at least for today since she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night from tomorrow. 

I began to endure the emptiness in my stomach. This reminded me how weak infants were because my hunger was starting to turn into pain. Although it wasn’t a huge agony it felt like someone was poking my stomach. Maybe this was why babies couldn’t hold back their hunger.

I had fought against the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues and overcome the adversity of birth canal with my mother. I could not ruin my mother’s only day for rest because of this hunger. 

However when the time came my mother let me suck at her breast and the survival instincts of an infant kicked in.

I should not do this… At least not for today…….

[Become Healthy 1: Drink Breast Milk 2/300]

***

[Become Healthy 1: Drink Breast Milk 9/300]

……

[Become Healthy 1: Drink Breast Milk 10/300]

……

[Become Healthy 1: Drink Breast Milk 11/300]

……

Despite my efforts my mother would not be able to sleep on her first day. My father couldn’t even help her because he had just begun his work. 

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Father…….

Also parenting was solely the mother’s responsibility during this time. My mother never took her eyes off me when she was alone in the house with me. 

She wrapped me up carefully whenever my limbs flailed out of the blanket even though she was drowsy. She tried to help me fall asleep after feeding me and burping me. My mother’s daily routine was an endless repeat of feeding me burping me then putting me to sleep. When I wanted to help her out I pretended to be asleep when she wanted me to. The only time she could sleep was when I pretended to sleep for an hour or so. 

After about a week I saw my mother crying for the first time. A weary weeping sound came out from her vague silhouette. Her sobs were completely the opposite of the laughter I had heard with my aunt. My mother was facing her limits since she had not slept well even once during the week. I was her first and only child so it was her first time raising a child. She couldn’t go to the bathroom alone and couldn’t sleep enough for a week. That was why she burst into tears and I realized it had been difficult for my mother to raise me. 

She stopped crying to feed me and around that time I didn’t care about the quest anymore. There wasn’t going to be a problem with my future plans even if I failed one quest. I didn’t mind being hungry for one day if that would let my mother sleep soundly. However my mother became anxious and called everywhere when I repressed my hunger and didn’t cry. 

Twelve times per day every two hours. 

My mother fed and burped me again as if she had not cried out of despair. My ultimate goal was not too far away or far in the future. It was right in front of me. 

I placed one word on the top of my list of goals – filial duty.