CHAPTER 1 – HAPPY SLAVERY

It was a beggar-like life and a beggar-like world.

A life where you have to work hard every morning with a body tired to death.

It’s a routine where people get cursed at for ridiculous reasons and come back late at night, falling asleep as if they were dead.

Having a sense of shame that you can’t tell whether you’re a person or livestock, because you don’t even have time to spend your hard-earned money.

Could you ever imagine that you’d miss that kind of life?

Arsene crouched in a filthy barn, overwhelmed by delusions. ‘I want to go back, please bring me back.’

He missed even the overtime work and the nagging from his boss.

The feel of an insect crawling somewhere on the back, or the straw used as a blanket, that pierced through the hole in the fabric and pricked his skin.

All of these were things that he had become accustomed to over the past ten years of being reborn in this world.

“Arsene-!”

Arsene was startled and ran out, stomping his feet at the ranting from afar.

As he was running, his toe kicked a stone and started bleeding, but he ran without even showing a sign of pain.

Calling him outside the barn was a huge man nearly 2 meters tall.

The man, who was looking at the boy run, slapped Arsene on the cheek with the back of his hand.

Thanks to the slap with all his might, Arsene’s body swung around and fell to the ground.

It would have been a pretty funny slapstick comedy if it wasn’t for the real hit.

“Yes, Master Philus… Ah!”

“You son of a bitch, haven’t I told you to bathe Philia? You want to play with me?”

The name of the giant who summoned Arsene was Philus.

He was the eldest son of Lenock, the lord of Krata Castle.

Philia was Philus’s favorite riding beast, a bladed leopard famous for being one of the most ferocious among them.

In the first place, Arsene had never even been told to bathe Philia, apart from the fact that bathing a blade leopard is not something that a child should do.

“I-I’m sorry, young master… I forgot to give Philia a bath. I’ll do it right away.”

He was slapped in the face for a nonsensical reason, but Arsene immediately slammed his head into the ground and apologized.

It was absurd that he had become more accustomed to that than to the stench of barn bugs and toilets in this world he was reborn.

The order to bathe the mount that is no different than a carnivorous beast is just one of them.

He was in a position where he had nothing to say even if he was beaten to death, saying, “I’ve never heard of you.”

When he just joined the army, he thought he would commit suicide due to all sorts of absurdities, but if there was someone to send him back to the Korean army now, he would be able to give his soul to him.

“Get out of my way, I’m going hunting with my father in a little while anyway. Make sure you wash her up when we come from hunting this time. If you don’t, you’re going to die!”

Philus, who had kicked Arsene once more with a throbbing cry, turned around and disappeared.

Arsene, who was kicked exactly in the stomach with the front heel, groaned and puked, but only gastric juices came out.

It’s only natural since the only thing he’s eaten since yesterday was porridge, which has been cooked by collecting the discarded food.

‘Fuck, fuck… Dog-like bastard…’

In the first place, the name “Philia” means “Philus’s companion” in the local language.

What a perverted bastard to give a female leopard a name like that, ride it, and use it as a stepping stone.

Arsene got up from the ground, swearing only inwardly, covered the traces of his vomit with dirt, and looked at the rising sun.

It was time to get to work.

Very hard, dirty, dangerous work.

An office worker who has been constantly working overtime on Earth dies and goes on an adventure in the fantasy world.

It was a story that appeared frequently in the novels that Arsene enjoyed reading while on Earth.

He can’t remember exactly how he died, but what happened to Arsene, who was reincarnated in a fantasy world, was more or less like a beggar’s fate.

This world was a little different from the fantasy worlds that were often mentioned.

Should we call it a post-apocalyptic fantasy?

Perhaps because of something wrong with the wizards in the distant past, the roughly ruined world is a land of death where dangerous creatures run amok, and if it was not for the ‘territory’ or ‘fortress’ containing the essence of ancient magic, it would be impossible to survive. Even then, there were many restrictions.

In this world where knights with magical powers and more than humane strength build fortresses and occupy territories, Arsene’s position was unfortunately close to a slave.

Even though Sir Lenock, the owner of the fortress, was Arsene’s father.

“Hey, Arsene. I heard you got hit by the young master this morning.”

“Where else did you hear that?”

“There can be no story in this citadel that your brother does not know. Because I’m Lapram, the ear of the fortress!”

“You’re a good speaker.”

It was his half-brother, Lapram, who was sweeping the yard with Arsene.

Lapram, who is two years older than him, was a sneaky and mean man, but he’s also the least bad of his half-brothers.

He doesn’t necessarily show kindness, but when asked for help, he listens if there’s no harm done.

That’s enough to say he’s the best friend in this citadel.

“When Master Philus gets back in the evening, I have to wash the leopard, can you help me?”

“Oh… goodbye. It was fun, brother.”

“You motherfucker.”

Arsene swept the yard with all his might, hurling abuse at Lapram, insulting each other’s father at the same time.

In fact, he had nothing to say, because if Lapram had asked him to wash the leopard, he would have refused right away.

Lapram lamentably started speaking.

“I wish we had been born to a knight family’s mother, like the young masters.”

“We would have been better off than now if our mothers were still alive. How can they treat motherless bastards like this?”

Why Arsene and Lapram are treated like slaves even though they are of knighthood on their father’s side is because they do not have a mother.

It wasn’t in the sense of insults, it was the truth.

There were six children Lenock had from other knights and more than sixteen bastards.

The children whose mothers are still alive are being taken care of by them. The children whose mothers died, however, were left unattended and had to listen to their every command.

It’s like being treated as slaves, and the people of the fort can do whatever they want to them.

Even Arsene’s mother was an outsider that Lenock had kidnapped from somewhere.

All Arsene knew about his mother was that she was “a woman with unlucky purple eyes.”

It was also meant to sarcastically criticize Arsene, who has the same eye color as his mother.

The fact that closed societies are cruel to outsiders also played a part in Arsene’s poor treatment.

“But you’re far better than me.”

Lapram was treated much better by the people around him than Arsene.

Lapram’s mother was once a favorite maid of the lord, even though she died of illness.

Thanks to her close friends and family taking care of him, Lapram was in a much better position than Arsene.

At least he doesn’t have to sleep in the barn and eat leftovers from the servants.

Just looking at their clothes now, Lapram was dressed up in a shirt and pants without holes and even wore shoes, whereas Arsene was dressed in rags full of holes and his feet bare.

In the cold winter, to survive, he had to cover with several layers of rags.

“Well, my brother lives on top of the castle compared to me.”

“That’s a wrong thing to say.”

“That’s not wrong.”

When he was a young boy, he was raised by maids of the Seongju lineage, but from the age of five or six, he had to sleep in a barn.

If it were a child who had no memory of his previous life, he would not have survived to this age.

He somehow managed to secretly use well water to wash, and because there might be parasites, he made sure to boil the water before drinking it.

He didn’t do anything stupid, such as drinking the blood of a death row prisoner or applying rotten urine to the wound, but just wrapped the wound with a well-boiled cloth.

He was confident that just this could help a child survive there, where everyone was extremely vulnerable because of the bad hygiene.

About three of his “brothers” who were in a similar situation had their lives taken by all kinds of diseases.

‘Of course, I might die today.’

Among the shallow knowledge of modern people, there is no way to safely protect yourself from a ferocious bladed leopard and bathe it. Because there were no such creatures on Earth in the first place!

He had no idea how such a nonsensical task had been pushed onto him.

‘I pray to the Almighty, Leha, please let Philus die while hunting.’

Arsene swung the broom, praying only inside, fearing that someone might hear him.

After sweeping the front of the barracks, the public restroom of the barracks should also be emptied. Of course, the toilet was rural.

The first time he did it, he felt like vomiting, even after doing it a few times, he still didn’t get used to it, and every time it was like a new shit.

At that moment, he heard a voice calling for a universal worker from somewhere.

“Arsene, Arsene!”

“I’m coming!”

As Arsene tried to run, lamenting what else he was going to do, the bell rang.

In the distance, he could see the servant pulling the string frantically.

Sometimes, when a group of monsters or small looters appeared around, they rang the bell, but he had never seen them hit the bell while being that frightened.

Maybe that’s why the people around were also looking up at the bell tower, wondering what was going on.

“The enemy has invaded! Soldiers go immediately to the wall! The rest of you go home!”

At that time, Lenock’s chief servant wearing a beast skin armor appeared and shouted loudly.

At his voice, soldiers rushed out of the barracks while the others went home in confusion.

Looking to the side, Lapram was already running somewhere.

Arsene also quickly ran into the barn.

“Listen! The enemy has invaded! All personnel except soldiers are prohibited from outside activities until the battle is over! Enter the room immediately! Listen! The enemy…”

Feeling the chief servant’s voice receding, Arsene plunged his body into the pile of straw.

The end of the straws stung his body, but his head couldn’t think of a safer place than there at the moment.

The main hall in the center of the citadel was a place where he, a mere stranger-born bastard, could not enter, and there was no one who’d let a dirty slave into the house.

Crouched in a pile of straw, Arsene was holding tightly a rock the size of a fist he picked up recently, begging again and again.

‘The Almighty Leha, I beg you. I beg you…’

He was an atheist in his previous life, so he laughed at the religion of this world that believed in Leha, but his hard life and fear had magically made the unbeliever a religious man.

Maybe because it was a life that cannot be endured unless you lean on something.

His throat was dry as he listened to the shrieks and screams from afar, and the sound of swords hitting each other incessantly.

[Search everywhere!]

[Now this castle belongs to us!]

After several minutes or hours, unfortunately, the sound from the surroundings was suggesting a very negative outcome.

The first voices were heard here and there, and screams, shattering, and breaking sounds were constantly heard.

It was clear that outsiders had succeeded in invading the castle and are now tasting the fruits of the plunder.

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As he was praying that they could not find this barn, or left, disappointed that it was just a pile of straw, he heard the door open.

“What’s this place?”

“I guess it’s just a barn.”

Two outsiders loudly entered the barn.