Chaotic Good. (Overlord Fanfic)

Chapter 1 | Act 1: Prologue

I woke up.

Now, ordinarily, this would be a common occurrence. But for someone who just celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday, it was quite the achievement. I had lived a good life, though I had never married due to my job. By the time I retired, I was well past my prime and had no desire to find love. So I continued to live, doing the things I loved. Watching the new anime, reading light novels, keeping up with the otaku culture. It might not be what you think an old man should be doing, but I never cared about those kinds of stereotypes. I might not've been the perfect role model, but at least I spent my life as I pleased.

Which made my current situation a bit of a slap to the face.

I sat up, blinking. My joints didn't ache as I moved, a pleasant surprise. My limbs didn't creak softly as I took my first steps. In fact, I felt younger than I had in years. I reached for my glasses, blinking blearily, only to find the nightstand by my bed to be suspiciously absent. I rubbed my eyes, glancing down at where my glasses should've been, only to see an empty floor. An empty floor, viewed with crystal clarity.

I blinked. Twice.

'Did someone give me glasses or something while I slept? That would explain the room. Am I in a hospital?' I glanced about, immediately discounting the theory. This was a small bedroom, not a hospital room. The design seemed Japanese, with bamboo sliding doors and a simple futon rather than a bed. I didn't know how I missed that bit, with the futon being much closer to the ground than my own four-poster bed.

I stumbled towards the dresser beside me, my hands reaching for something. I pulled out a mirror, examining my face. Sharp features, pale skin, black hair. Asian, to be sure. The odd slant of the eyes was my last clue, tipping me off to my new ethnicity.

I sighed, finally accepting the inevitable. I had died in my sleep. I was in an unfamiliar child's body, so I must've been reincarnated. Some god somewhere must be laughing their ass off at the irony of reincarnating me as a Japanese child.

"I'm not a weeaboo." I mumbled automatically. "I'm an otaku."

All of this was spoken in perfect Japanese.

"…Dammit, I really am a weeaboo. Fucking Kami…" I felt dead tired for some reason. I joked, sure, but deep down I knew this feeling of exhaustion. I wasn't meant to be here, in this time. And I doubted I ever would be.

Old memories rose to my mind, familiar despite their strangeness. They were like an old set of keys—they had always been there, all I had to do was reach for them. I hesitantly accepted them, and had the disorienting experience of living someone else's life.

Keirou. Kitsugiru Keirou. That was my new name. Orphaned at three, taken to an orphanage, left for seven years.

Damn.

I mentally adjusted my age to 'over eighty', slightly amused by the jump. I was surprisingly okay with taking over the kid's life, since the kid didn't really have any dreams or aspirations. He just lived. I, on the other hand, had the benefit of a whole life of work. I was easily one of the best programmers back at my old job, so I should be able to have some sort of head start.

My mind froze as one last detail registered.

Kitsugiru Keirou was born on January 3, 2116.

…Fuck.

'Are you kidding me? Here I was thinking that I had some kind of head start! Shit! Why can't it just work like in anime and let me reincarnate in the modern age? Now I have no fucking clue how much programming has changed since I worked at M**ros*ft!'