Chapter 1: Becoming the Scoundrel of a Novel
`Something straight out of a novel happened to me.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself inside a novel.
“Knight of Blood and Iron”
A grand epic led by the cold and calculating hero, Javier Asrahan.
I was thrown into that world.
As the drunkard young master Javier served during his obscure days.
At the time, I didn’t realize it.
This was, in fact, the beginning of a story where I, once an ordinary civil engineering student, would become the protector of an entire world.
♣♣♣
[RP (Relationship Point) System Activated.]
[You can earn RP by improving relationships with key characters.]
[You can invest earned RP to unlock talent skills.]
[Current RP: 0]
A strange message rang in my head like an alarm.
What on earth is RP, and what does it mean to unlock skills?
“Ugh, I’m so tired… sleepy…”
Still half-asleep, I grimaced and rolled over in bed.
It was annoying.
Of course, it was.
During the day, I was stuck in lectures, and at night, I sweated away working part-time jobs.
On top of that, I had stayed up all night reading a novel to relax, so of course, I was exhausted.
No, it was almost like karma.
‘But at least I finished my assignments.’
I could sleep in 30 minutes longer than usual.
A satisfied smile crept across my face at that thought.
But my smile didn’t last long.
“…Please, wake up.”
A strange voice reached my ears.
It was cold, with a sharp clarity to it.
‘A dream, perhaps?’
It must have been a sound I heard in my sleep.
I turned over, but the voice came again, this time more insistent.
“It’s late. It’s time for you to wake up, Lord Lloyd.”
…What?
This wasn’t a dream.
The voice was definitely coming from right next to me.
‘What the…?’
I snapped out of my daze.
This was my tiny, 2-pyeong [1] studio apartment. The door was always locked.
But now, someone was in my room, talking to me?
I cautiously opened my eyes.
And then, my body froze in place.
“You’re awake. Today, you woke up rather quickly.”
“…”
Sitting beside my bed was a silver-haired man, stunningly handsome.
He looked to be about twenty, maybe just a bit older. His face was devoid of any hint of a smile.
His expression, sharp as a blade forged from the coldest ice, suited him perfectly.
“Javier… Asrahan?”
I muttered his name instinctively.
No doubt about it.
Last night, I’d stayed up reading Knight of Blood and Iron, and the illustration of the main character, Javier Asrahan, was the spitting image of this man.
No, it wasn’t just similar—it was identical.
Even the way he smirked with just one corner of his mouth.
“You finally remember my name. Thank you.”
“…”
Judging by his face, he didn’t seem all that thankful.
“But why are you here?”
I blurted out without thinking.
Javier’s smirk deepened slightly.
“My lord has entrusted me with your protection.”
“Your lord? My protection?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To prevent another incident like last night.”
“Last night…?”
“You were so drunk that you couldn’t walk. You caused a scene at the tavern, broke three tables, five chairs, nineteen plates, and six candlesticks. Ah, and you also wrecked the pub owner’s prized buffalo horn decoration.”
…I’m innocent.
Honestly.
I was just reading a book in my studio apartment.
But my head throbbed as if suffering from a hangover.
How unfair.
“Sigh… At least, give me some water.”
I wanted to clear my head.
Javier handed me water, which I gulped down, and I took in my surroundings.
The room was unfamiliar, clean, and spacious.
It was a far cry from my dingy 2-pyeong studio apartment with its yellowing wallpaper.
‘This place is fancy.’
Could it be that I really had been transported into a novel?
And as a noble, no less?
I began to accept this new reality.
Compared to my life scraping by in a studio apartment, this was heaven.
But something caught my eye.
“What’s that?”
I pointed to a red slip of paper stuck on the cabinet opposite my bed.
It wasn’t just the cabinet.
A massive bookshelf, a snack table, even the chair Javier was sitting on—all the furniture had the same red tag.
And even the bed I was lying on.
‘No way…’
I gulped involuntarily.
Javier answered my unspoken question.
“Have you forgotten? It’s a seizure notice. It was posted yesterday.”
“…”
A short, succinct answer.
And suddenly, I remembered.
In the early part of the novel, the barony Javier served collapses.
The Baron and Baroness are tricked by a swindler, lose all their wealth and land, and commit suicide.
And their eldest son, Lloyd?
He drinks himself to death.
Javier, afterward, buries Lloyd and leaves the estate, marking the beginning of the hero’s grand saga.
‘So I’ve possessed… the wastrel son who dies of alcohol poisoning at the beginning of the story?’
Any excitement about becoming a noble vanished quickly.
This was bad. Very bad.
♣♣♣
“Sigh, it’s real. It’s all real.”
A few hours later.
Suho—no, now Lloyd—stood in front of a mirror.
The same mirror, like all the other furniture, had a red seizure tag on it.
In the reflection was a man with sleek black hair and handsome features.
It was Lloyd.
‘So that’s me now.’
To be honest, I still didn’t fully believe it.
But I didn’t hate it.
No, to be completely honest, I kind of liked it.
Life back in South Korea had been nothing but a struggle.
‘It was just a series of hardships.’
I had once been the only son of an ordinary family.
Like everyone else, I had taken the college entrance exams.
I ended up studying civil engineering.
Then came the military service.
But during my time in the army, disaster struck.
A real estate scam crushed my parents under debt.
They left behind a mountain of debt when they passed away.
Everything was seized—the house, any remaining assets.
I had to renounce my inheritance just to avoid inheriting their debts.
‘If it weren’t for low-income scholarships, I wouldn’t have been able to stay in school.’
I studied hard, but living expenses were a whole other problem.
I had to jump from one part-time job to the next.
Balancing schoolwork with jobs was no easy feat.
A tiny 2-pyeong room where I constantly got nosebleeds from exhaustion.
The free rice and kimchi provided by the boarding house were all that kept me going.
That was Suho’s life, up until yesterday.
‘And now, here I am, a noble inside a fantasy novel, of all things.’
Not a grand duke or a count, though.
Just the son of a baron, overseeing a rural estate.
But I liked that more.
‘I won’t have to get caught up in any big incidents. Like, say, a rebellion.’
In historical or medieval dramas, that’s always the problem.
No matter how high up you climb, once you get tangled up in a rebellion, it’s game over.
No chance to explain or defend yourself—just an immediate execution.
‘I’d rather be a baron in a backwater region. It’s like a niche market.’
No threat of a rebellion, just an easy, comfortable life in the countryside.
Living leisurely, avoiding conflict, while enjoying a steady, secure position.
‘Of course, that’s only if I can clear the baron’s debts.’
That was the issue.
‘Why did it have to be this point in the timeline?’
I remembered what Javier had said.
The seizure notices were posted yesterday.
If I had been brought into this world just a couple of months earlier?
I might’ve been able to stop the swindler who duped the baron.
I felt like grabbing the author by the collar.
‘Still, it’s already happened, so I need to fix it.’
If I don’t, the Baron and Baroness will commit suicide next year.
Their estate and house will be sold, and I’ll be left a beggar.
‘It’s the same disaster all over again.’
Just like back in South Korea.
That was a nightmare.
I wanted no part of that again.
To avoid that, I had to make money—somehow.
Enough to clear the baron’s debts.
I stared into the mirror for a long while.
Then, something came to mind.
I turned to Javier, who stood silently beside me.
“Hey.”
“Yes, Lord Lloyd.”
“Does our estate have a lot of money?”
“Pardon?”
“If we collect from the residents, how much could we gather?”
“Are you referring to taxes?”
“No, not taxes.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Like a fundraising campaign… Forget it.”
I shook my head.
For a moment, I had considered collecting money from the estate’s residents.
But that idea wouldn’t work.
If I tried to gather money without a legitimate reason, it would only spark a backlash.
‘Besides, even if I collected some money, it wouldn’t be enough to pay off the debt.’
The opening events of the novel came to mind.
The debt had to be repaid within two years.
But before that deadline, the Baron and his wife would take their own lives.
Constant debt collectors. Interest piling up with no way to pay it off.
Crushed under that burden, they lost all hope.
‘That happens exactly one year from now.’
And five months after that, Lloyd vomits blood and dies in his regular tavern room.
That’s how the Knight of Blood and Iron begins.
‘Damn it. This is too much like my own family’s situation back in Korea.’
How could it be so eerily similar to the ordeal my family went through?
The more I thought about it, the worse I felt.
“Tsk. I need a walk.”
When your head’s full of clutter, walking helps clear it.
Taking a walk had been Suho’s habit back in Korea.
In fact, it was almost his only solace.
After all, walking didn’t cost money.
So, I stepped outside the mansion with Javier by my side.
We walked into the mansion’s hallway.
We crossed paths with a certain woman coming from the opposite direction.
She had a dignified and graceful aura about her.
A middle-aged woman who had aged beautifully.
‘Could it be…?’
A name flashed across my mind.
Marbella Frontera.
The lady of the barony and Lloyd Frontera’s mother.
In this mansion, the only woman with such an air would be her.
I gulped nervously.
‘Why now, of all times?’
What mother wouldn’t recognize her own son?
What if she found out I was an imposter?
Thankfully, my worries were unfounded.
As soon as she saw me, the Baroness clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
“Are you going out to drink again?”
“…”
Her eyes, filled with worry and disappointment, pierced me.
Her expression was one of deep concern.
Was she troubled by her son, who drank himself into oblivion every day while the family was falling apart?
It was hard to say.
“Try not to overdo it. It’s not good for your health.”
“…”
With a small sigh, she walked past me.
I breathed a secret sigh of relief.
‘She didn’t notice. Should I consider that a stroke of luck?’
Lloyd Frontera.
The man who drank his days away as soon as he opened his eyes.
Even his own mother seemed to harbor such prejudiced concerns about him.
‘It’s a little bitter, but…’
It reminded me of my freshman year of college.
Back when my family was still well-off.
When I was still a clueless freshman.
I remembered drinking at every opportunity—orientation, membership training, you name it.
Every time I got home hungover, my mom would quietly make me a bowl of dried pollack soup.
But those days are long gone, a time I can never return to.
‘Tsk.’
I bit my lip and hastened my steps out of the mansion.
Maybe that’s why.
As soon as we stepped outside, the estate’s residents hurriedly moved out of my way.
They lowered their heads, avoiding eye contact.
One woman clasped her hands together and trembled.
A farmer turned pale as a sheet upon seeing me.
In that moment, I realized my current situation.
‘Right. Lloyd was that kind of guy.’
The novel’s description came to mind.
The Wastrel of Frontera Barony.
That was Lloyd Frontera.
Whenever he got drunk, he’d break things or throw them around.
He regularly verbally abused and assaulted his servants.
In short, he was an irredeemable scumbag, with that behavior basically hardwired into him.
‘No wonder everyone seems to hate me. I must be totally despised.’
A bitter smile crept onto my face.
“Hey.”
I threw a question Javier’s way, half in complaint.
“Why’s everyone acting like that? It’s not normal to treat the lord’s son this way.”
That’s common sense.
The son of a lord is one of the highest-ranking individuals in the region.
Unless he’s an utterly terrible person, people usually try to at least pretend to respect him.
They make an effort.
Just like how a restaurant owner treats the landlord’s son extra well, or how a veteran manager sucks up to the CEO’s son at work.
Shouldn’t the son of the local lord be treated the same way by the estate’s residents?
“In general, that would be the case.”
“In general? What do you mean, ‘in general’?”
“Indeed.”
“Then what’s going on now?”
Javier answered coldly.
“It’s a state of emergency.”
“An emergency?”
“Yes. Generally speaking, an emergency in an estate refers to the appearance of something that threatens the lives, peace, and safety of its residents.”
“…And I’m that threat?”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, you don’t hold back.”
“What does ‘not holding back’ mean?”
“It means you’re hitting me where it hurts. With the facts.”
“…”
Javier stared at me.
It was the kind of look that said, What on earth are you talking about?
Even that look was cool and elegant, like a painting.
‘Right, this is exactly who Javier is.’
A noble and honorable knight.
A man who doesn’t compromise with injustice.
The quintessential hero, the very embodiment of what it means to be a knight.
In the novel, Javier eventually becomes famous across the entire continent of Lorasia.
Even in his obscure beginnings, his character wouldn’t have been any different.
“Frankly, it’s a bit uncomfortable to be accused like this. I swear I’ve never physically struck Lord Lloyd.”
“You have, though.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Not even a verbal smackdown?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Are you sure I haven’t done something to make you dislike me?”
“Absolutely. Never.”
…The expression on his face said otherwise.
I could tell.
‘This guy definitely dislikes me.’
Javier was a knight who valued honor above all else.
Of course, he would despise someone like Lloyd, a wastrel of the highest order.
But despite that, he had stayed by Lloyd’s side until the very end.
He had kept his loyalty to the Baron until death.
‘What a guy.’
Javier was destined to become one of the greatest sword masters in Lorasia’s history.
An unparalleled Grandmaster.
That future hero was now my loyal bodyguard.
Feeling a strange sense of amusement, I continued walking.
Eventually, we stopped in front of a shabby building.
“Where is this?”
“It’s a tavern.”
“A tavern?”
“Yes. You spend more time here than in the mansion.”
“This is my regular spot?”
“Indeed. Unless you’ve secretly been frequenting other taverns.”
“…”
Good grief.
I clicked my tongue in disbelief.
I had only been walking aimlessly, just for the sake of a stroll.
But my feet had brought me straight to my regular tavern.
Just how often had I come here that even though my soul had changed, my body still led me here on its own?
‘Is this some kind of homing instinct? Like a dog returning home, or a spawning salmon? Or maybe General Kim Yushin’s horse?’
I inwardly scolded Lloyd, the former owner of this body.
Then I turned away.
‘No matter how you slice it, day drinking just isn’t right.’
Lloyd might’ve enjoyed it, but I wasn’t the same.
I already had enough to think about—drinking wasn’t on my agenda.
“Are you leaving without going inside?”
“Of course.”
I answered Javier’s question without hesitation.
But his response was unexpected.
“In that case, I’m disappointed.”
“…What?”
“Exactly as I said. I’m disappointed in you, Lord Lloyd.”
“Wait, were you expecting me to go in and down some drinks?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I thought you came here to apologize and offer compensation for the damages you caused last night.”
“So you’re disappointed because I’m just leaving?”
“That’s correct. Responsibility is the duty of a noble.”
“…”
This guy doesn’t just hit you with facts—he throws them at 160 km per hour.
Javier had a peculiar talent for delivering his candid advice with bone-crushing force.
“This tavern is the owner’s life’s work. Though it may be shabby, it’s still a place filled with precious memories. Yet last night, you caused a commotion and destroyed his furnishings.”
“…”
“And as you’re aware, the owner takes care of his elderly mother all by himself.”
“His mother?”
“Yes. Recently, her health has been deteriorating. The tavern owner’s worries have been mounting.”
“So I picked on a poor guy like that?”
“Yes.”
“…”
I didn’t even do it.
But Javier’s brutal honesty kept coming.
“In fact, the owner confided in me last night. He said that with his mother already suffering in the late winter cold, and now having to deal with your antics, he feels like he wants to die.”
“…”
“As the future lord of this estate, you must not turn a blind eye to this.”
“Hold on. That’s enough.”
I interrupted Javier.
Was it because I couldn’t bear to hear any more?
No.
It was because his words sparked a question in my mind.
“The tavern owner’s mother is suffering from the late winter cold?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then why don’t they just heat the floor with wood?”
“…What?”
“Wait… Are people here not familiar with ondol [2] heating?”
“…”
They didn’t know.
I could tell by the look in his eyes.
Realizing this, a thought struck me.
‘Now that I think about it, there wasn’t any ondol heating in my bedroom at the baron’s mansion, either.’
As a civil engineering student, I had a habit of inspecting the structures of buildings wherever I went.
So I had quickly grasped the layout of the baron’s mansion.
There were no ondol or ondol heating systems.
Instead, a fireplace occupied one corner of the bedroom.
The tavern owner’s house must have a similar setup.
But while noble homes have fireplaces in every room, a commoner’s house probably has only one, in the kitchen, heating the whole house.
‘Of course, it’s going to be cold. Fireplaces lose a lot of heat compared to ondol heating.’
Of course, ondol has its drawbacks too.
To install a ondol system, you’d have to tear up the entire floor or build a new house.
You’d also have to improve the building’s insulation.
And the firewood consumption would be enormous.
But those problems could all be…
‘I can overcome them. No, I can actually use them to my advantage. If it’s me, I can do it.’
Using my knowledge of civil engineering?
I saw a way to make a fortune, a plan to pay off the enormous debt.
The solution was right there in front of me.
I could see the big picture.
‘This is it. Not just for the tavern owner’s house, but on a larger scale. A massive construction project. I have a good chance of success.’
I was certain of it.
To turn the idea forming in my head into reality.
I walked straight into the tavern.
Footnotes:
[1] In Korean, pyeong (평, 坪) is a traditional unit of area used primarily in real estate and architecture. One pyeong is equivalent to approximately 3.3 square meters or 35.58 square feet. It’s often used in South Korea to measure the size of homes, apartments, and land.
[2] Ondol (온돌, 溫突) refers to a traditional Korean underfloor heating system. It consists of a heated floor structure, typically made of stone slabs, and works by transferring heat from below the floor into the living space abov
