After my utterly unremarkable life came to an end.
I was reincarnated in a fantasy world.
It would have been nice if I’d been born a noble.
Unfortunately, nothing like that happened.
I was born the son of a serf.
Days of hunger were common.
The food was awful, too.
Thin oat gruel was our staple,
and except on feast days, we never even saw meat.
Even so, I was one of the lucky ones.
At least I survived until adulthood.
My eldest brother was dragged off to the battlefield and never heard from again.
My second brother starved to death.
Today, too, I eat oat gruel.
My father sat across from me.
His face was as blunt and expressionless as ever.
Where was my mother, you ask?
She died giving birth to me.
Slurp.
I drank a spoonful of oat gruel.
It was disgustingly bland.
There was salted cabbage on the side,
but that didn’t make it taste good.
Thomas next door sometimes eats chicken soup.
At our house, it’s nothing but oat gruel and pickled vegetables every day.
Why?
Because my father drinks away every coin the moment he gets his hands on it.
My father is a terrible drunk.
Smashing up the household goods is nothing out of the ordinary.
He often lashes out at me for no reason, too.
That’s why my body is always covered in bruises.
I wanted to escape.
But there was no way.
No, strictly speaking, there is one.
I could distinguish myself in war.
But that’s impossible.
I’m already skin and bones from not eating enough.
If I went to the battlefield, I’d obviously be shoved to the front as arrow fodder.
In the end, I’ll probably spend my whole life trapped in this pathetic rural estate.
But not everything was hopeless.
At least I was born with a good face.
I was tall, too, with decent proportions.
So every now and then, the village girls would hand me boiled eggs and such.
There was no shortage of temptation, either.
Thomas’s younger sister openly threw herself at me, and Abigail kept pestering me to marry her.
I didn’t feel like it.
For one thing, there were no pretty women.
Since everyone worked under the sun all day, their skin was rough and dry.
So my heart didn’t stir.
I’m a man, too.
If possible, I’d like to be with a pretty woman.
There was a pretty woman in our estate.
Just one.
But if I touched her, I’d be finished.
Because she was the lord’s only daughter.
She was the same age as me, a beautiful maiden with fair skin and blond hair.
Even her figure was good.
A voluptuous chest.
Long, graceful limbs.
If she’d been born on Earth, she would have become a famous model.
Her name was Anna.
I’d run into her once while delivering an errand to the lord’s manor, and my heart had nearly stopped.
That was how beautiful she was.
If only I could marry Anna.
Then I might be happy even eating this oat gruel every day...
I shook my head and cast off the idle thoughts.
One shouldn’t even look at a tree too high to climb.
***
My gaze turned toward empty air.
The upper right corner.
Something hazy, like a hologram, shimmered there.
0/1
Two numbers.
What on earth did they mean?
They had been fixed in my vision ever since I was young.
Maybe they were some kind of special perk for being reincarnated in another world.
But since I couldn’t understand their meaning, they only frustrated me.
If I’d at least had something like a status window or a shop window,
this damned medieval world might have been a little more bearable...
All at once, I heard footsteps.
I looked beyond the window.
Someone was walking out of the darkness.
The silhouette was jagged and uneven.
I could hear a clanking sound as well.
It was probably the sound of armor.
I thought I knew who it was.
It must be Yanik, the old knight of the estate.
Yanik’s footsteps stopped in front of our house.
He didn’t bother knocking.
Yanik flung the door open.
Then he barged in without permission.
“Come out.”
“Yes.”
I obediently followed Yanik outside.
“Where did James go?”
Yanik asked.
James was my father’s name.
“He’s probably drinking at the tavern.”
Most likely, he would drink himself senseless until late into the night.
Then he would return home and start beating me again.
“What brings you here, sir?”
Yanik did not answer.
He merely looked me up and down with his fierce, bulging eyes.
“Follow me. You’ll know when we get there.”
“Understood.”
I acted meekly.
If I talked back for no reason,
I wouldn’t even be left with my bones intact.
Yanik was a knight stuck away in the countryside.
On top of that, he was old.
But he wasn’t to be underestimated.
A knight was a professional soldier.
They honed their killing techniques every single day without fail.
On top of that, they could even handle aura.
In other words, they could tear a person to pieces with their bare hands.
There were cases where a single knight cut down dozens of conscripts.
They might look human,
but they were beings outside the norm.
Yanik’s footsteps headed toward the lord’s manor.
“Has the lord summoned me?”
“Shut up. Did I not say you would know when we got there?”
“I apologize.”
I immediately lowered my head.
Yanik, who had stopped walking, looked back.
His expression was terribly irritated.
It seemed he was furious that a lowborn bastard kept asking questions.
Fuck, I should have been born a noble too...
Inwardly, I cursed a god I didn’t even believe in.
Somehow, I felt uneasy.
The ruler of this place was Baron Kargon.
He held the power of life and death over the serfs.
Perhaps he was the one who wanted me.
I’d heard there were many sodomites in this damned medieval world.
Maybe Baron Kargon was one of that sort.
He might have seen my handsome face and wanted to spend a night with me.
That, at least, could not happen.
As if it weren’t bad enough that I’d been reincarnated as a serf,
I had to have my back door violated too?
If it came to that, I’d rather kill the baron.
Walking with a face like a man headed to his death, I arrived before the lord’s manor.
The lord’s manor was not very large.
It was nothing more than a plain two-story building.
Proof that the Barony of Kargon was not particularly wealthy.
The outer walls were merely slathered in plaster.
Because of that, the lord’s manor looked desolate.
It even looked like a government office building.
Light was leaking out from a window on the second floor.
“Enter.”
Yanik went inside first.
I followed after him with quick, short steps.
The two soldiers guarding the entrance looked at me and snickered.
It seemed like mockery,
but I couldn’t say anything about it.
Yanik went up to the second floor.
Then he stopped in front of a certain door.
Was this the lord’s office?
Knock, knock.
Yanik knocked.
His manner was extremely respectful.
Clearing his throat, he spoke to the door.
“My lady, I have brought Hans as you instructed.”
Hans was my name.
But wait.
My lady?
Could it be that the baron’s daughter had summoned me?
Soon after, the door opened.
A pretty woman appeared.
What she wore was a dizzying dress.
It was practically lingerie.
The fabric was already thin to begin with,
and the only areas it covered were roughly her breasts and groin.
Without realizing it, I took a step back.
Desire did not stir.
I was simply bewildered.
What on earth was this situation?
Anna, the young lady of the baron’s house.
She was staring straight at me with half-lidded eyes.
Someone was standing beside her.
A beautiful middle-aged woman.
She was probably Anna’s maid.
“How insolent! To stare at the young lady with your eyes wide open like that!”
The maid pointed a finger at me and shouted.
I hurriedly lowered my head.
This was a world where the class system was firmly entrenched.
If I got on the bad side of someone above me for no reason, it would be a serious problem.
“I apologize...”
“Hmm...”
Anna took a step closer.
Then she bent at the waist.
Her head nearly touched my chest.
“You smell rather strong... Clara. Would you wash him for me?”
My face burned.
I had never imagined my body odor would be pointed out.
If I were to make an excuse,
the smell couldn’t be helped.
When you do hard labor all day, you’re bound to sweat buckets.
On top of that, bathing wasn’t easy.
Water was precious.
Unless it was one of the occasional feast days, I couldn’t even soak my body in water.
“Understood, my lady.”
The beautiful middle-aged woman.
The woman Anna had called Clara grabbed my wrist and pulled me along.
“Follow me. A beast-smelling wretch like you doesn’t even have the right to enter the young lady’s room.”
Her nagging didn’t stop.
Even so, I didn’t talk back.
I simply followed behind Clara obediently.
I went back down to the first floor.
Because the bath was there.
It was a space finished with pure white tiles.
A mana lamp hung from the ceiling, making it bright even at this late hour.
The exterior had been somewhat shabby.
But the interior was luxurious.
Perhaps they were conscious of the estate’s people.
If they indulged in too much extravagance, public sentiment would turn against them.
When she pulled a lever, water poured out.
Since being reincarnated into this world,
I had never seen anything like it.
My mouth fell open without my realizing it.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and take off your clothes.”
“Ah, yes.”
I hastily stripped off the clothes that were no different from rags.
Soon, I was completely naked.
Clara stared at me.
There was a smile at the corners of her mouth.
Her gaze slowly lowered,
and soon reached my groin.
Yes, my thing is a little big.
No, it isn’t just a little big.
With only a bit of exaggeration, it’s about the size of a forearm.
“You’ve got quite the fine goods.”
“Haha...”
I scratched my head and laughed awkwardly.
Before I was reincarnated,
back when I was Korean,
my thing had been below average.
But not anymore.
With this, I wouldn’t lose to anyone in size no matter where I went.
“Hmm...”
Clara stroked her chin and let out a thoughtful sound.
“Is something wrong?”
“At this size, the young lady might get hurt...”
Wait, don’t tell me...
Only then did I realize what was about to happen.
Clara came closer.
Her face must have been quite pretty when she was young.
A pleasant scent came from her face.
Was it the smell of powder?
“Listen. Pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you.”
“Yes.”
Clara seized my shoulders.
Her grip was stronger than it looked.
“You must never speak of what happens in the lord’s manor tonight. Understood?”
“Of course.”
Naturally, I had to keep my mouth shut.
If I ran my mouth for no reason,
I might be torn limb from limb.
“Good. Now then, let’s get your body clean. There’s a lot to be done. That bushy beard needs to be neatly cut, too.”
Clara worked the soap into a lather.
Bubbles swelled up from the towel.
The faint scent of flowers lifted my mood.
Clara began rubbing my body with the towel full of foam.
The white foam soon turned yellow.
It was because I hadn’t washed in so long.
After she poured water over me and rinsed off the foam,
she soaped me up again.
Clara was around her mid-thirties.
She was a mature, alluring beauty.
And such a woman was rubbing my naked body with her hands and a towel.
I tried to endure it as much as possible,
but I couldn’t control a physiological reaction with reason alone.
My thing slowly rose.
Filled with blood, it hardened like a club.
Gulp.
I heard Clara swallow.
Proof that she was nervous.
She forced her gaze elsewhere.
She also trimmed my beard.
The shaggy hair that had grown out was neatly cut as well.
There was a mirror in the bathroom.
I looked at my face reflected in it.
As expected, I was handsome.
My appearance had already been sculpted,
and once I was clean, with my hair and beard tidied up, I looked like an actor.
My body was fairly presentable as well.
Though I was too thin for my height.
Still, it was a hundred times better than being flabby and fat.
“Change into this.”
Clara handed me a white gown.
As soon as I put it on, I was guided back to the second floor.
My heart pounded like mad.
Was I really going to spend the night with Anna?