A/N:
The update is here.
Thank you for your patience, understanding and continued support. Taking the time to do this properly mattered, and I appreciate you all for being here for it.
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Chapter two — A World Unfamiliar
Days slipped by in a hazy blur, and Azeroth had somewhat adapted to his new life as an infant.
Strange as it was to nurse from his mother and be carried everywhere, he couldn't exactly complain. After all, he needed the milk. And though he would never say it out loud, it wasn't exactly the worst situation to be in.
Meanwhile, his mind—which was very much that of an adult—worked overtime, trying to understand the unfamiliar environment he had been reborn into.
And the more he observed, the clearer it became.
This life wasn't just different from his previous one.
It was entirely other.
⸻
Two sisters…?
The first real shock came in the form of two girls who burst into his life with excited pitter-pattering footsteps and shrill squeals.
Alina—tall, bright-eyed, and no younger than ten.
Sophia—bubbly, mischievous, and around five.
Both of them were his sisters.
That part was fine.
What wasn't fine… was how his parents didn't look a day older than twenty.
How?
How did a pair barely into their twenties have children that old?
Did they start having kids at ten?
Or did people age backward in this world?
He couldn't quite decide whether he should be horrified or impressed at the thought.
Beyond them, many other people came to see him too. All cooing over the newest Clinton child. Though he could not yet understand their exact relationship to him, he understood enough to know that his birth meant something.
Something significant.
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His new home was an ancient castle straight out of medieval Europe — towering walls, stone corridors, stained glass, long tapestries swaying in drafts of cold mountain air.
Beautiful.
But inside…
Inside was another story entirely.
Azeroth nearly choked the first time he noticed some of the "decorations."
A massive wolf's head was mounted on the wall.
Except it wasn't just a wolf.
Its fangs were enormous and cruelly curved.
Its fur dark and matted.
And right in the middle of its forehead—
A single, unblinking eye.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
That was no normal wildlife.
That was a boss monster straight out of a video game.
And it wasn't alone.
Creatures with twisted horns, scaled hides, multiple tails—things no zoologist on Earth could explain—lined the hallways as trophies. Their preserved heads watched silently, each lifeless gaze whispering the same undeniable truth.
This world… was no Earth.
If he had carried even a sliver of doubt before, it certainly was gone now.
⸻
Still, that mattered little compared to the moment when everything clicked.
His mother had taken him out for a walk.
A normal, peaceful stroll…
…straight into the soldiers' training yard.
The second he saw it, the old Sam surfaced.
'Holy shit!'
But of course, only the sound of a growling baby came out.
What he witnessed was beyond anything his imagination had prepared him for.
Soldiers casually lifted weights that belonged in superhero movies—hundreds of kilograms at the very least.
A couple others moved with terrifying speed, swinging cold weapons so fast they blurred through the air.
And then—
One soldier exhaled.
A strange, shimmering aura burst from his body.
He punched.
The boulder before him—easily over a ton in weight—exploded.
It was like movies or anime where they had control over some forces like qi, mana, or whatever this power was. This was something he never expected to witness, even though he had joked about the idea of cheats or of a mysterious grandpa in a ring, He never expected... this.
This was straight up anime level stuff.
And every cell in his body screamed with excitement.
———
Another thing Azeroth managed to grasp—ironically the most normal of all —was that his new family was definitely not ordinary. No average household lived in a massive stone castles filled with numerous servants and patrolling soldiers.
Even without knowing how big the castle was or how many servants or soldiers they truly had, it was certain to be a lot from what he had seen in just a few days.
And honestly? That was great news.
Having a strong background was clearly going to be a huge advantage for him in this world.
He could not be sure if the resources or knowledge of the extraordinary power that he saw was being controlled or monitored by powerful groups or forces. So having a backing felt nice.
He knew nothing of the people, the structure of their society, or the workings of this world,
But he did know human nature.
Selfishness. Greed. Ambition. The relentless hunger for more.
If the troupes he read were anything to go by, these things do not change no matter what world you get dropped into.
If extraordinary ability existed, then so too would people desperate to seize, hoard, and control it for their own benefits.
And he did not have much expectation that there would be some sort of human rights in this world.
Anyway, watching those soldiers show such strength was a mind-blowing experience for him, and he really wanted to know how it worked and what the limits were.
For someone like Sam—someone who'd grown up on anime, manga, and superhero movies—discovering that people here could wield real, tangible strength was like stumbling into a kids' dream. The kind of dreams they fantasized about but never expected to experience.
Curiosity had always been his greatest drive even in his previous life, and it burned even brighter now. His mind buzzed with questions from dawn, till dusk, till dawn again.
Unfortunately...
He was but a baby.
One whose greatest accomplishment was not rolling off the bed and not bringing the castle down with his cries.
Still, time moved quickly.
In just two months, he had pieced together a surprising amount simply by watching and listening.
He couldn't speak yet, but he could understand perfectly.
The "how" eluded him, it wasn't that they spoke in English or any other earthen languages but that for some reason he could comprehend theirs—perfectly.
The servants tended to gossip near him, thinking him nothing but a child, but their careless whispers slowly painted the picture of his new life.
His family name was Clinton, making his full name Azeroth Clinton.
His father was Leon Clinton.
And his mother, Selena Clinton.
They belonged to a hereditary noble family with a history stretching back over ten thousand years. Once, long ago, the Clintons had even held the lofty title of Duke.
But not all stories aged gracefully.
With time, their might faded. Now the title they possessed was only that of Viscount—a shadow of past glory.
Even so, "declined" didn't mean weak.
Thanks to his grandfather—whom Azeroth had yet to meet—the family had been slowly recovering in recent decades. Their influence was rising again, their armies growing stronger, their reputation sharpening.
At present, the Clintons were considered the strongest viscounty in the northern region of the Indra Kingdom, possessing military strength that surpassed several other viscounts combined.
Some rumors even claimed it rivaled that of a Count.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
It would seem he'd been reborn into privilege, power, and legacy—
Exactly the kind of environment where a future monster could grow.