The trite cliché of getting drunk, falling asleep, and waking up to an unfamiliar ceiling.
That was exactly what had happened to me.
“Ah, did I hit the straight soju too hard after finishing my deadline yesterday?”
I was a man who serialized about ten erotic webtoons on adult platforms and, in that corner of the industry at least, was worshiped as someone who knew what made things hot.
I’d had the webtoon I was preparing for serialization on a major platform brutally rejected, passed out cold, and when I opened my eyes—where was this? Who was I?
“Like hell I’m ever drinking straight soju again.”
If only that editor from the major platform hadn’t torn me apart like a dog!
— Your characters are too sexy, so it’s hard to empathize with them.
— How are even your passing extras drawn this lewdly?
— I’ll recommend you one wholesome romance fantasy. Read this and try drawing again.
The problem was, even the romance fantasy they recommended had a heroine who seemed way too hot to me.
I guess I was destined to live my whole life as a lewd artist.
With that thought, I had no idea how many bottles of straight soju I’d cracked open.
And as a result.
“Young Master Ian. How long do you intend to sleep? The creditors are moments away from tearing off the drawing room door.”
Standing before me was a maid with a cold expression, and reflected in the mirror was the face of some unfamiliar handsome man. Black hair and gray eyes. A cold, sharp impression, but if he lifted the corner of his mouth just a little, he looked unexpectedly warm—a pretty-boy face like some kept man.
I grasped the situation with astonishing speed.
A medieval Western European fantasy world where maids existed!
Could it be that I’d possessed a character in one of the fantasy-setting adult works I’d drawn before?
‘Then what I have to do is obvious.’
Find a reasonably safe place and coast along using modern knowledge.
Mm-hmm.
For an intellectual who had devoured all kinds of web novels and webtoons, reaching that conclusion should be quick.
But there was a problem.
◆
My name was Ian Ash.
I was the second son of the Viscount Ash family.
The problem was that this damned viscount family was suffering from such severe financial difficulties that it wouldn’t have been strange if we ended up on the streets tomorrow.
“Young Master, if we cannot procure any gold immediately, there will be no money for this month’s mansion upkeep, let alone my wages.”
“I know, I know. I’ll earn money somehow, so just try to defend the door.”
“Is the door more important than my wages? Somehow……”
“…Somehow?”
“You do close your room every day and spend your time scratching away at something. You are a grown man, Young Master, so I will respect your choices, but you’ll wear your bones away.”
“No. That’s a misunderstanding!”
Leaving the maid’s misunderstanding behind.
In any case, I understood that I had possessed someone in an ordinary fantasy world.
The problem was that the family was short on money.
And how on earth was a modern webtoon artist who knew neither magic nor swordsmanship supposed to make money in another world?
“Ah.”
The answer was already decided.
If you’re a lewd artist, you draw and sell lewd stuff. What else could I do?
In the end, I was destined to draw erotic manga even here.
‘Let’s see. What level is the culture in this neighborhood at?’
I immediately scoured the bookstores of the capital, Caliora.
But what was this? The entertainment here was utterly miserable. I flipped through the so-called erotic novels being sold secretly in the back alleys, and all they contained were wholesome descriptions on the level of “her voluptuous figure was beautiful.”
And erotic comics with illustrations?
There wasn’t a single one.
“Nice.”
No matter how sexy the webtoons I drew were, my ranking had been falling day by day amid fierce competition!
But here, I could monopolize the erotic comic market all by myself with no competition?
I immediately threw a victorious uppercut celebration.
“…My apologies.”
There was the tragic incident of Estelle, the maid who had opened the door and entered, turning back with an awkward expression, but who cared?
This was a revolution that would shake the sexual values of the Empire—no, of the entire other world.
“Good. I’ll sell erotic manga and stop the family’s financial crisis!”
Once the goal was set, nothing could stand in my way.
◆
Ian, it turned out, seemed to have quite an impressive talent for art.
When his talent combined with my webtoon illustration skills from my previous life, a truly inspired art style flowed from the tip of the hand holding the pen.
But no matter how good the art was, the subject matter was what mattered most.
What kind of character should I draw to empty the wallets of the guys in this unfamiliar fantasy world?
‘Right, that’s it!’
That damned editor had recommended the romance fantasy webtoon “Golden Chains”!
They’d recommended it, saying it was wholesome, but……
The heroine who appeared in that novel, Saintess Arina Saint.
Pure white silver hair, blue eyes, an ascetic saintess’s robe buttoned up to her throat.
On the outside, she was a calm, elegant, and utterly devout saintess.
But from the perspective of an erotic manga artist, that kind of character was the perfect subject for corruption.
A noble and abstinent saintess, secretly harboring hidden desires within and slowly falling into depravity. Wasn’t it thrilling just to think about?
“Good. I’ve chosen you as the protagonist. As for the name… let’s just go with Marina.”
I moved my pen like a madman.
After staying up for several days and nights, I completed my first otherworldly doujinshi, .
To draw multiple copies, I completed it with as few pen strokes as possible, but of course, I preserved every single arousing point.
Naturally, to avoid being caught, I used the pen name “Extra” thoroughly as an alias.
The result? It was an absolute smash hit.
In this perfect blue ocean where the very concept of an erotic comic with illustrations did not exist, my work was released through a secret bookseller in the capital’s back alleys.
“Y-Young Master, what on earth is this money?! D-Don’t tell me you sold your body?”
Estelle lost her usual composure and was horrified as she checked the money pouch.
My erotic manga, which sold like hotcakes through the capital’s back alleys to the nobles’ secret errand runners, earned enough money in just a few days to make the creditors waiting in front of the Viscount Ash family’s door back off for the time being.
“An investment of mine hit it big. First, use this to repay the entire debt to the merchant company coming tomorrow.”
“…Understood. However, Young Master, money of unclear origin may become a problem in the future.”
“I didn’t sell my body. What kind of eyes are you looking at your master with?”
“Hmm.”
Estelle looked at me with suspicious eyes, but without another word, she gathered up the sack of money.
The next day, the head of the creditor merchant company saw the sack of gold coins we threw at him, gaped, and withdrew while bowing obsequiously.
We had averted the crisis of the family going bankrupt.
I sank deep into the drawing room sofa, sipping freshly brewed black tea and basking in a sense of victory.
‘Haha, there’s nothing much to this other world. At this rate, I’ll just churn out a few more erotic comics, rake in money, and laze around for the rest of my life.’
Whether this world was the erotic manga universe I used to draw or some common fantasy setting, what did I care?
As long as I lived well, that was enough. But then, Estelle entered the drawing room holding the morning newspaper from the imperial capital.
“Our house subscribed to a newspaper?”
“The subscription was cut off because the fee was overdue, but since it was paid today, delivery resumed.”
“We really are desperately poor.”
Why did I have to possess someone in a beggar family like this?
No.
It was better than getting tangled up in some dynamic story and having my life threatened for no reason.
Estelle’s voice cut into those idle thoughts.
“There is major news from the capital.”
“News? By the way, why are you reading the newspaper? Shouldn’t I, the master, be reading it?”
“Why would you suddenly read the newspaper, Young Master?”
…Ian. Just what kind of life did you live?
“Anyway, news? Is the emperor lowering taxes or something?”
“No. There has been an official announcement from the imperial family and the Order. His Highness Crown Prince Leonhart Bell, the next emperor, and Lady Arina Saint, the Grand Saintess of the Order, have officially entered into a political engagement.”
Pffffft!
I magnificently sprayed the black tea I’d been holding in my mouth.
“Cough! Wh-what?! Who’s engaged to who?!”
“His Highness Crown Prince Leonhart Bell and Lady Arina Saint.”
Estelle calmly wiped the tea-splattered table while answering indifferently. (Her eyes were looking at me like I was a bug.)
Alarms began blaring madly through my brain, which had come to a complete halt.
The Ascania Empire. Leonhart Bell. Arina Saint.
“Wait a second. The crown prince… does he have blond hair and red eyes?”
“…Isn’t it common knowledge among imperial citizens that blond hair and red eyes are the symbols of the imperial family?” “And the saintess? Silver hair and blue eyes?!”
“I do not know why you are asking such obvious things today. Did you perhaps sell part of your brain and turn it into money?”
At Estelle’s reply, my vision went white.
I had been mistaken.
This world was not the ordinary fantasy erotic manga universe I had arbitrarily imagined.
It was that novel the editor had recommended to me as wholesome!
It was the world of “Golden Chains,” a wholesome romance fantasy about an imperial political marriage and a romance of salvation!
“Damn it!”
Memories came flooding in like a tide.
The character I had possessed, Ian Ash… was an extra supporting character in the original who exited quietly without any importance, to the point that even whether he lived or died was unclear.
And the most serious problem of all was what I had just done.
‘Shit, the character I used as the model for Marina… is the real heroine who actually exists in this world, Grand Saintess Arina Saint?!’
I had even drawn an explicit erotic doujinshi about that heroine, adding all kinds of sticky and decadent fantasies.
And that manga was now selling like wildfire among the nobles of the capital.
“Ha, hahaha……”
An even more dreadful fact flashed through my mind. The male lead of the original, engaged to Saintess Arina, Leonhart Bell.
On the surface, he was a benevolent, rational, perfect crown prince, but within him lay madness—in other words, the “seed of a tyrant.” He was a true lunatic.
When enraged, his reason collapsed and his magic ran wild—the Empire’s worst tyrant!
The core storyline of the novel was that the saintess he married for political reasons was able to soothe that seed of a tyrant…!
‘I drew and distributed an erotic manga… using the fiancée of that mad tyrant crown prince as the model?’
If the imperial family—no, if word of this reached the ears of that lunatic crown prince?
‘I’m dead. I’ll die painfully, without even my bones left intact.’
“Young Master? You look terribly pale.”
“Estelle…… If our family is destroyed down to the last member, what will you do?”
“Pardon? What do you mean…… If you have committed some kind of treason, Young Master, I intend to quickly pack my things and flee in the night.”
“Right. Very reasonable.”
I flopped down onto the sofa as if collapsing.
I had gravely misunderstood the genre.
Thinking this was an ordinary erotic manga world, I’d gleefully made money—only to find out it was a blood-soaked romance fantasy world with a merciless tyrant as the male lead.
In an instant, I had become the madman who drew erotic manga of the tyrant’s fiancée.