[You are walking. Leg strength increased. Speed and endurance increased.]
Gavo carefully stretched out one little foot after another, taking small steps forward as she searched for that special feeling.
After managing two more smooth steps, that feeling finally came.
"Now!"
Her chubby little body dropped along with its center of gravity, and she successfully took a painless fall.
[Fall count +1. Body coordination increased. Resistance to impact increased.]
[3 falls remaining until objective completion.]
That's right. The reason Gavo was walking so carefully was not to avoid falling.
It was to make sure she fell with the least possible damage.
A few days ago, the system had opened a new childhood objective: Fall 5,000 times.
With the effect of the talent Infinite Growth, even though she was only six months old, normal walking and even light running posed no problem for her.
But in order to complete the childhood objective, she could only deliberately throw herself to the ground.
After taking a brief moment to recover, she went all in and successfully finished off the remaining three falls as well.
[Objective complete: Fall 5,000 times. Physical attributes comprehensively improved.]
[Reward granted: Unbreakable Tumbler. More falling postures, reduced fall damage, and a greater chance of accidents while riding aircraft.]
"What kind of garbage talent is this?"
Gavo was stunned.
She had been throwing herself onto the ground like an idiot for several days, and this was what the system gave her?
"Why do I feel like this system has a really twisted sense of humor?"
"And the talents it gives always seem to come with one debuff or another."
That style made Gavo feel that something was vaguely off.
She thought and thought, but still could not remember exactly what was wrong.
After all, some of her crucial memories still had not returned.
But the good news was that those memories were clearly coming back little by little as she grew older.
For example, not long ago, she had finally remembered that in her previous life, she had been male.
Then she realized she seemed to be missing a few inches of flesh.
But before she could spend even a moment mourning her lost little brother, a far more terrifying question appeared in front of her.
What year was it now in the Warhammer universe?
The history of Warhammer had very clear turning points. If she could figure out the exact current year, then at the very least she would gain the initiative when it came to the direction of certain major future events.
The Space Marines she wanted to become were a high-risk profession in the Warhammer universe.
But if she could use her knowledge of the future to take part in some major events, then not only could she reduce the chances of encountering danger, she might even have a chance to live out her life peacefully here.
That's right. Become a Space Marine, then die peacefully.
That was Gavo's current dream.
Though in this grimdark universe, that dream was, in a sense, pure fantasy.
"So how am I supposed to figure out what year it is right now?"
Gavo thought while doing squats.
[You are doing squats. Leg strength increased. Explosive power and endurance increased.]
Looking at the system pop-ups that kept appearing, she felt no joy whatsoever.
Because she had realized that in the underhive of a hive world, trying to figure out the exact current date was absurdly difficult.
If a hive world was a towering building of human civilization, then the underhive was the public toilet inside that building.
And not the kind anyone ever cleaned.
The people living here were not even regarded as citizens of the Imperium.
Those officials from the Administratum had even given them a special name:
Scum.
For scum like these, a scavenger like her adoptive father who could write a few prayer lines used by priests of the Ecclesiarchy already counted as highly educated among the highly educated.
In a garbage heap where the average cultural level was practically book-burning and scholar-burying, trying to figure out what year it was really was not an easy task.
Likewise, trying to figure out which planet and sector she was on was just as challenging.
She did not know the year, did not know the place, did not know her own origins, and was stuck inside a starter zone with hell-level difficulty.
That was Gavo's current situation.
She tried to comfort herself by looking toward the future, only to realize that surviving long enough to even reach that future was already difficult.
Gavo instantly became depressed, and even her squats lost the energy they had at the start.
Just as her mood was sinking, the familiar sound of the door latch unlocking came from outside.
The light in Gavo's dim little eyes instantly returned. Her two short legs moved at once as she hurried to the door to wait for her adoptive father.
Accompanied by a series of clanks and rattles, her adoptive father opened the door with a smile, his body hung with all sorts of little broken objects.
His smile was still frightening, but to Gavo, it looked incredibly warm.
Gavo also greeted her adoptive father with an adorable smile of her own, but when her gaze shifted to a clearly visible bruise on his head, the smile on her little face immediately vanished.
She pointed to her own head with one tiny finger, then pointed at him, showing a sad expression.
"Mm ah."
Her adoptive father quickly explained in sign language that he had only accidentally taken a fall.
Then he seemed to think of something, and suddenly became animated, beginning to tell a story through sign language.
The story was short, but for an adoptive father with an inborn defect, telling it took a very long time.
Meanwhile, Gavo sat patiently in front of him, tilting her head and watching him seriously as he narrated.
Countless millennia ago, there were two people who could foresee their own futures.
One day, both of them foresaw that they would fall in the future.
The first person panicked because of that prophecy.
The second person only smiled and said, "Is that so? Then I'll make preparations before I fall."
The first person began seeking help from others, but because of his crazed words and actions, he was treated like a monster.
The second person accepted his future and finished all the things he would no longer be able to do after the fall.
In the end, the first person fell alone in a corner. He tried to change the prophecy, but ultimately only reenacted it.
The second person accepted the prophecy, yet also changed it.
At the very least, he did everything he still could.
"So this story tells us not to be afraid of falling."
After making the final gesture, her adoptive father wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hand that had become slightly sore and numb.
Gavo's eyes went round as bells.
What kind of cursed story was that?
Why did it sound a little like the story of two certain people?
"Wait, a story!"
Gavo suddenly realized something.
While the truth behind many events in the Warhammer universe would never be known by ordinary people, some events could still be passed down as urban legends, strange tales, or even mythological stories.
Even though the truth of those things would become horribly distorted through generations of retelling, their rough original outlines could still be seen.
For example, this story about falling seemed to be alluding to two Primarchs.
If she listened to more stories, then maybe she could indirectly piece together the general time period she was in.
At the same time, the system gave her another pop-up.
[New objective established: Listen to 1,001 stories.]
[1,000 stories remaining until objective completion.]
(End of Chapter)
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