[The characters, places, organizations, events, and so on that appear in this work have no relation whatsoever to reality, and are fictional creations born from the author’s imagination.]
When I opened my eyes as if waking from sleep, the first thing to greet me was a Gothic ceiling that looked like it belonged in some old British nobleman’s manor.
For a moment I wondered if this was a dream, but I had no time to indulge in such stupid sentiment. The original owner’s memories came crashing in like a tsunami and began trespassing through every corner of my brain cells. Amid pain so intense I couldn’t even scream, without even the leisure to panic, I was forced to accept the facts being hammered into my neurons.
I had fallen into America in 1979.
The thirty-two-year-old Korean debt-ridden office worker who had lived in 2026, whose only joy was reading web novels, was gone. In his place, there was only Henry Selsberg Devenger, a twenty-two-year-old British-American who had just graduated from Stanpod and had only just finished his parents’ funeral.
‘Is starting as an orphan the default in this world too? Or is it just some kind of industry-standard perk?’
As someone who had been an orphan in my previous life as well, the death of my parents was dry knowledge, like subtitles in a film. The memories of them were vivid in high definition inside my head, but there was no particular heart-wrenching sense of loss. Rather than sadness, I was simply dazed. It felt like peeking into someone else’s diary; there was no way I could emotionally immerse myself in it.
I couldn’t tell whether this was reality, fantasy, or an overly detailed lucid dream, to the point that a mental illness I’d never had felt like it was about to flare up. There were none of the familiar names commonly seen in novels, and though no unreal status window popped up, the sensation called pain was as vivid as full HD.
The fortunate thing was that even if I couldn’t accept this insane situation and sat around blankly in my room, no one took issue with it.
“Young Master, I’ve brought your meal.”
Even if I stayed shut in all day, picking at the food they brought me, the people around me simply turned a blind eye, saying it must be because of the immense grief of losing my parents. After spending quite a while like a corpse, a thought suddenly crossed my mind as if a light had switched on in my head.
‘Why am I doing this like an idiot? What does it matter if it’s a dream or reality? Isn’t living well all that matters? I lived hoping for a lottery-like situation like this in the first place!’
I snapped back to my senses. I slowly began to accept the current situation. I organized the memories in my head one folder at a time, scanning first the habits and speech patterns of this body.
But the more I sorted things out, the more I wondered whether there was any need to run around until my feet sweated like protagonists in novels. No, to begin with, the household had so much money rotting away that I wondered if I needed to spend my precious time making more at all.
‘The Devenger family?’
No matter how much I searched my memories from my previous life, it was a completely unheard-of nobody family. And yet, for a family that existed only in this parallel world, its background was far too ferocious. This wasn’t just generous; it was on the level of having hacked an administrator account.
Even if it didn’t make it into America’s top ten families, it was a deeply rooted landowning family of New York that could comfortably squeeze into the first division, a prestigious family among prestigious families whose bloodline was practically American history itself! Apparently, it was a Founding Fathers family, with its name proudly stamped among the signers of the American Declaration of Independence.
Even that much alone would have been enough to crush most American families in a business-card duel.
As if such glorious blue blood were not enough, when I traced the family tree back, an actual British duke popped out. Once I learned that much, there was no way this could be anything but a dream.
I was so stunned I could hardly believe it. No matter how Korean I was, there was no way a family like this wouldn’t have appeared in NewTube Shorts when old-money fashion was trending. It was a world where updates on all sorts of families had been dug up, after all. That was when I became convinced this place was a parallel world.
‘What is this, the Mary Sue protagonist setting from an overpowered fantasy novel?’
Unless Iron Mans suddenly started flying around or this turned out to be Gotham City, these specs were enough that I would absolutely not lose in a background contest against most protagonists from novels.
Though I was not from the direct line of the British Cardish ducal family but a collateral branch, this was none other than 1979. It was a romantic age when having the label of nobility alone earned one recognition of refinement. Later, when Britain’s national power declined and America’s momentum pierced the cosmos, such things might be mocked as old-fashioned relics of the past, but right now, that vintage British sensibility—especially the gentleman image—definitely worked.
Since the family had changed its surname to its title name after settling in America, our surname differed from the British main house, but the genealogy was as solidly connected as if carved into marble. In other words, I was not merely an American nouveau riche, but genuine blue blood who even held the legitimacy of European nobility.
Overwhelming honor and legitimacy. Yet strangely, this family’s name was hard to find not only among the top ten families, but even among the top twenty. I wondered how a family with such a splendid background could end up like this unless it had deliberately secluded itself, so I retraced the memories, and the reason in them was absurdly simple.
Compared to famous prestigious families, it had not a single noteworthy achievement.
In politics, it had failed to produce even one common senator or representative, and without revealing even the party it supported, it merely played at being pacifist and remained neutral. The economic side was the same. It was always called rich, a great fortune, a great landowning house, but it had only dipped its feet into various industries and never held the champion belt in any field.
In other words, just as oil automatically springs to mind when one says Rockefeller, there was no field in which only this family overwhelmingly devoured the market. Judging from my memories, this family’s golden age ended exactly when it signed the Declaration of Independence.
Back then, northern New York was said to have been the country of Devenger, boasting a vast territory of one million acres, but because they had sold off the land bit by bit over generations, only a mere six thousand acres remained now.
Of course, even that was enormous considering it was New York, and near Manhattan at that, but it was clear that after its heyday, the graph had steadily curved downward.
‘Looks like my ancestors sold land to buy steaks. Turning one million acres into six thousand—if that’s a talent, it’s certainly a talent...’
On top of that, there was another decisive reason the family’s public recognition was rock bottom. The family had always had far too few members.
I didn’t know whether it had been intentional over hundreds of years or whether some curse had been placed on the family. It had never once branched off to the side and had continued down a single line, so for an American family, it didn’t even have any notable collateral branches.
Even illegitimate children were precious, so bloodlines that other families would have hidden in secret were carefully placed on this family’s genealogy. You could call it a kind of insurance. Only when an illegitimate line became more than two generations removed would it be deleted from the family register.
The birth of descendants was more precious than the honor or legitimacy accumulated in the family. At this point, I was worried there might have been serious defects in my ancestors’ activity levels or sexual function.
‘Don’t tell me there really is some physical defect? Well, for now the tent gets pitched sturdily and firmly every morning...’
In this generation in particular, that symptom was especially severe. Because excluding me, not a single member of the family remained!
There were no paternal grandparents, no cousins, no distant relatives. Even the illegitimate line had died out twenty years ago and was now extinct. In other words, the living being using the grand family name Devenger was solely me. Thanks to that, the one consolation was that even if I sat blankly in my room for days like this, I didn’t have to worry about my property being stripped away in an inheritance dispute.
A secluded prestigious family completely unknown to ordinary people, whose name was only mentioned among the upper class or experts with an “Ah, that family?”
I figured that was roughly where it stood. Well, I would be able to feel it immediately if I showed my face at a social party or year-end event later, so I decided to set that aside for now.
Compared to my paternal family, my maternal family’s recognition was absolutely insane. The reason the middle name “Selsberg” was attached to my name was also clear. It was the landholding family of the New York Time, a representative American daily newspaper and media group.
The union of an old, honorable old-money family and a media empire that led public opinion. That was the overwhelming spec and background I now held in my hands.
Naturally, the inheritance left to me also made the words “insane for 1979 standards” come out on their own.
Two trust funds and five charitable foundations. And the old New York Time headquarters building located in Times Square, “One Time Squer,” was in my name. But the real core lay in the assets tied up in those two trust funds. Their scale surpassed imagination.
The trust fund inherited from my maternal family was a treasure that could not be obtained even with money. It contained 3.5% of the New York Time Class B shares, the core of the dual-class voting structure, and 1% of the Class A shares. On top of that, there were bonds and deposits that could be liquidated, totaling 1.25 million dollars.
That alone was already a luxurious starting point, but in terms of asset scale, my maternal family was no match for my paternal family.
The inheritance from my paternal side was on a completely different level. The great mansion in Westchester where I was currently residing, the six thousand acres of land surrounding it, and the five-story stone mansion directly in front of Central Park known as the “Devenger Townhouse.” In addition, the list of real estate and bonds was dozens of pages long, to the point that my eyes grew dim while skimming it and I gave up.
That was only what I had roughly grasped. Treasury bonds and other bonds that could be liquidated immediately amounted to a staggering fifty million dollars. On top of that, there were various works of art that could be turned into cash at any time, and five hundred kilograms of perfectly legitimate physical gold bars—not even a slush fund.
The five charitable foundations attached on the side also added up to ten million dollars, and the chairmanships of these foundations were already reserved for me.
What was even more interesting was the fact that almost not a penny in taxes was needed to succeed to this enormous paternal fortune.
Originally, the inheritance tax rate in 1979 took a whopping 70% for amounts over five million dollars. But the paternal trust fund that formed the body of my wealth had used a legendary cheat key called a “generation-skipping trust,” or GST, established before the 1976 tax law revision. Thanks to cleverly avoiding retroactive application, the inheritance tax was zero dollars—legally, it simply did not exist!
After all, that wealth had not been handed down to me, but gifted to my children who had not even been born yet, and I was merely the skipped generation in between. Since I only held the management rights and income rights and was in a position to suck out the sweet juice, there was no need for me to pay taxes. The contributions to the charitable foundations were also in the form of donations, so they were fully deductible.
‘...The American government hasn’t done jack shit for me, but just not ripping away my money is already making patriotism well up inside me. Ah, I don’t have to serve in the military either? My God. I love America!’
A sigh of relief and a wicked laugh burst out at the same time.
If this mechanism hadn’t existed, the inheritance tax alone would have been in the hundreds of millions. If hidden assets I hadn’t grasped yet were included, the asset scale might easily have surpassed one billion dollars.
For reference, tens of millions of dollars in 1979 would be worth at least hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in 2026 standards. They were printing dollars like crazy, but this was still an era when the lingering scent of the gold standard remained and the authority of the dollar was terrifyingly sharp. Considering living prices and the power money held, the value one felt from it was beyond imagination.
In the end, all I had to resolve was the inheritance tax on the trust received from my maternal family. The family’s dedicated tax accountant cleanly paid the inheritance tax amounting to 2.5 million dollars, and all the procedures were completed. Since we were paying taxes anyway, even the maternal trust assets were bundled together, leaving only one thing behind: the Devenger Family Trust.
If IRS investigators saw my asset list, they would clutch the backs of their necks and collapse, but legally it was flawless. It meant there was no more money to be extorted by the nation—no, to be offered up as tribute.
This was a diamond spoon beyond an overwhelmingly golden spoon.
Thinking about it carefully, this possession—or regression—was the lottery of a lifetime that had come to me. Compared to my previous life, there would be fewer things to enjoy due to the lacking technology, but this was a life where I could live lightly for the rest of my days without worrying about money, the greatest problem in life!
A hundred million dollars, even at the current exchange rate, would easily exceed at least one hundred billion won in 1979 Korea, and even the amount I had grasped was already more than enough to reach a hundred million dollars.
In truth, now that I had fallen into the past, making money hand over fist with the information advantage of a regressor who knew the future was nothing difficult. If you asked whether things like tradition or honor, which couldn’t be built with money, mattered, I honestly didn’t care much. The downsides of getting tangled up in bothersome formalities while fussing over tradition and dignity seemed far greater.
‘But I’m the only one in the family, so who the hell could force etiquette or tradition on me?’
A slight doubt crossed my mind, but in any case, the mere fact that I had plenty of seed money was enough to keep the corners of my mouth from falling. Still, the core of this life, above all else, was obviously my special ability! And not just any ability, but a game system visible only to my eyes. This mysterious system, which I’d been too afraid to even examine in case I touched something wrong and broke it, had to be the true cheat key that would define my life.
Even if it wasn’t the flashy interface I’d seen in my previous life, and even if its contents were pathetically bare.
“Status window.”
Forcing down my awkwardness, I tossed the words into empty air, and a translucent window popped up as if it had been waiting.
[Status Window]
Name: Henry Devenzer (Henry S. Devenzer / Henry Selzberg Devenzer)
[LV 1]
Health: 4
Knowledge: 4
Remaining Points: 125
Available Clones: 0/2
“This is fucking bare-bones...”
Compared to the countless systems in the web novels I’d devoured in my previous life, this had less content than a convenience store buy-one-get-one-free item.
Usually, there’d be dozens of stats lined up, from basic ones like strength, agility, and stamina to charm, speechcraft, and luck. The orthodox structure would be to gain experience through specific actions, level up, and have the protagonist get that sweet power-trip high off the snowball effect.
My status window had only two things: “Health” and “Knowledge.” Other than that, there was only this completely unfamiliar category called “Clone” sitting there boldly.
Just in case, and at the cost of some serious embarrassment, I tried blurting out all sorts of words. But aside from the status window, no other system responded.
Forget settings, logout, or taking screenshots—there was no trait shop, no observation system, not even the common confirmation window for observation. A skill shop? It was silent, as if telling me not to even dream of such a thing. This shabby text window really was everything.
‘At the very least, shouldn’t it explain things as a tutorial, or give me a quest or something? Or wouldn’t it be nice if a status-window AI showed up and at least talked to me?’
My life had been blessed beyond measure, but human greed knew no end. Even as I grumbled on the outside, my mind began spinning rapidly. Since there wasn’t so much as a single-page manual, from here on out I’d have to crash into things myself and figure out the strategy.
Still, the fortunate thing was that the experience I’d built up in my previous life as a web novel maniac and a game gold-farming grinder hadn’t gone anywhere.
‘Looks like there’s no RPG-style experience grinding. Is leveling up done only with points? Let’s see, if I press the level...’
[100 points are required to raise your current LV from “1” to “2.” Would you like to proceed?]
‘Whew, so confirmation windows do pop up. Cancel for now!’
I stroked my chest in relief. I had no way of knowing whether leveling up would grant separate stat points, or whether it would unlock entirely new functions. But since a level-up confirmation window appeared, it seemed I could also manually adjust stats directly.
I tapped the “Health” stat.
[10 points are required to raise your current Health from “4” to “5.” Would you like to proceed?]
[10 points are required to raise your current Knowledge from “4” to “5.” Would you like to proceed?]
So stats were raised with points too. If that was the case, there was a high chance that levels weren’t simply for raising stats. If I had to spend precious points to touch the level, then there was a 100% chance there would be some hidden reward after leveling up.
Anyway, what exactly were these points? Even when I pressed them, not a single line of tutorial appeared.
‘125 points, huh... It’s not even a round number. Why an awkward 125?’
I tapped the table for a long while, sinking into thought. If it was 100, then it was 100; if it was 150, then it was 150. Why 125, of all numbers?
‘It’s probably the basic points granted plus additional points from some specific action I don’t know about. Otherwise, there’s no way the number would be this messy.’
It had been 125 when I first opened my eyes, and it hadn’t changed in the two days since. Then again, all I’d done during that time was hole up in my room, eat, sleep, and shit, so of course my points hadn’t gone up.
‘There must be a way to earn them, but I have no way of finding it out right now. Seeing as doing push-ups didn’t change anything, it probably isn’t a simple grinding method either. I want to raise a stat right now and feel the difference, but...’
A rash investment was the shortcut to ruin. Life was the real deal, and points whose source I didn’t even know were more precious than gold.
‘For now, let’s check “Clone” first and decide afterward. That seems to be the only variable in this system.’
[Would you like to create a clone?]
[Yes] / [No]
‘Shit. I’ll be able to cancel this later too, right? I’m fucking nervous. For now, press “Yes”!’
[Please select the gender of the clone to be created.]
[Male] / [Female]
‘Hmm... Let’s go with male, the safe option.’
Since it was my first attempt, I chose the option that seemed the lowest risk and easiest to handle.
[Please select the race (background) of the clone to be created.]
[North America], [South America], [Oceania], [Asia], [Europe], [Africa]
The choices were excessively subdivided. As if possessed, I proceeded through the steps.
‘Why is this so detailed? Let’s try it first. North America!’
[North America], [Central America]
—Selected North America
[Canada], [United States], [Mexico]
—Selected United States
[White], [Hispanic/Latino], [Black], [Asian], [Indigenous]
—Selected White
[Anglo-Saxon], [Germanic], [Scandinavian], [Irish], [Scottish]...
—Selected Anglo-Saxon
[You have selected a race. Please enter detailed information.]
‘This is totally a wiki, isn’t it!?’
The window that appeared before my eyes was, no matter how you looked at it, the familiar layout of an internet encyclopedia—a Wiki. If there was one difference, it was that five empty stars were floating at the top of the page. Other than that, it was exactly the same document format, filled with blank fields by category.
Since I’d come this far, I carefully pressed each information field one by one. Name, age, education, career, and then...
‘Don’t tell me I have to create this entire profile myself. And what about the portrait section... Ah! I’m supposed to sculpt it myself with customization? This is insane, seriously.’
It was a function that wouldn’t lose out to the sophisticated character creators of modern games. I snapped myself fully awake.
Even after coming to my senses, I remained cooped up in my room for quite some time, comparing the memories of this life etched into my mind with information from my previous life, and spending an entire additional day learning this bizarre yet wondrous system.