In Search of Dramatic Salvation
If you were a guy in his twenties living in South Korea, you’d probably encounter at least one of those classic phenomena in your lifetime: isekai transport, regression, possession, reincarnation, power awakening, gender-bender corruption, yuri corruption, and all the rest. There were plenty of variations, but I never once imagined I’d end up starring in one of them.
“Fuck, why the hell would you drop a dateless virgin loser into a romance fantasy?”
And of all things, a romance fantasy. I hadn’t even been that impressed by it. I’d only picked it up because the heroine on the cover looked like she’d be my type, binged it to the end, and then let most of the details evaporate from my brain. That was the novel I’d been possessed by—The Hero Who Saves You, a romance fantasy I’d read sometime in the past whose plot I could barely remember anymore.
Right after being thrust into a story I barely recalled, the first judgment I made after frantically assessing my situation was simple.
“Our territory has jack shit.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. We really had nothing. For a barony we earned decent money and held a fairly large fief, but demi-human raids kept killing off the population, tanking our density. Poor security made the density worse, and the money kept bleeding out in a vicious cycle.
“Those fucking green-skinned bastards.”
It was so bad that even before the Arnold baronial family appeared in history, the previous barony in the exact same location had been harassed by goblins and orcs until it collapsed. About a hundred and ten years ago, the last baron running the territory had his skull caved in by an orc warchief and used as decoration on the handle of a double-bladed axe. There was no need to elaborate on how thoroughly broken the security was around here.
Honestly, a hundred and ten years should have been enough time for things to settle. By the time I inherited the title it had been a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty years—more than enough time for the cycle to reset. If I was unlucky, I could end up as the new orc warchief’s skull ornament.
“Terrifying.”
Back in Korea, paranoia meant worrying about slipping in the shower or getting hit by a car. Here I was in a goddamn romance fantasy world, seriously contemplating the odds of having my head bashed in by an orc.
And demi-humans weren’t the only threat. If our house fell, neighboring nobles were ready to carve up our rights, and rich merchants were lined up to buy the vacant barony title. They might even seal the border routes so we couldn’t flee. This situation was unsustainable.
“We need to usher in the era of self-reliant defense.”
I had to strengthen the family’s military power to guarantee my absolute safety. Even if I couldn’t live to a hundred, I at least wanted to close my eyes peacefully in a soft bed. Setting aside the demi-humans, getting dragged into the empire’s noble power struggles would be exhausting, so I needed something like a taser for personal protection.
‘But how?’
The real problem was that there wasn’t an obvious method. Mercenaries could solve the immediate issue, but they had no loyalty. During peaceful times they’d take fat salaries and slack off; the moment an unmanageable threat appeared, they’d bolt. The annual salary negotiations during contract renewals would be a headache too.
For true defense, I needed talent that actually felt attached to our land.
“An orphanage…”
It didn’t take long to reach a conclusion.
“I need to establish an orphanage.”
Frequent demi-human raids had left our territory overflowing with orphans. There was even a mocking rumor that the Arnold Barony’s local specialty was orphans. If I massively expanded the orphanage within the territory, secured subsidies from the church under the pretext of adoption programs, and gathered as many orphans as possible from our lands and the surrounding territories—
“If just one in a hundred—no, one in a thousand—hits the jackpot…”
My retirement would be secured, and after completely wiping out the demi-humans around our borders I could even launch an aggressive tourism campaign.
“All right. I see the path.”
I was twelve years old. It had been exactly one month since I’d gained the new identity of Fabian Arnold. Convincing my parents to let me start an orphan project at this age wouldn’t be easy, but since my survival was on the line, it was something I absolutely had to accomplish.
Ten years had passed.
It had been roughly seven years since the orphan project I’d proposed was accepted and put into practice, and the fifth year since I’d seized full authority over it.
“We’re fucked, Alfred.”
“No particularly notable issues have been discovered recently, Young Master.”
“The fact that there are no particularly notable issues is the problem, Alfred.”
The orphan farm of the Arnold Barony had been completely drained by the aggressive recruitment policy I’d unleashed after taking full control. The well had run dry, yet we still hadn’t found a single first-string prospect worth cultivating.
There was no Messi of the magic world, no Ronaldo of the knightly path, no Ohtani-level magic swordsman in sight. All we’d unearthed were talents on the level of Kim Min-seok or Park Hyun-min—the one-two punch of a high-school soccer club in Seoul. At the very least we needed prospects who could compete in the K-League, but relying on only those two boys left us with no answer.
At this rate we were spending money with nothing to show for it. Cost-effectiveness wasn’t even the issue anymore.
“This won’t do. This absolutely will not do.”
“I believe you’re worrying excessively. I’ve never understood why you’ve been so wary of demi-humans since childhood…”
“You don’t know, Alfred. You don’t know.”
The ironclad cliché that protagonists of regression, possession, and reincarnation stories always get screwed over. You, who occupy the position of the protagonist’s first helper, wouldn’t understand.
I had always lived with the belief that I was the main character of my own life, but after being dragged into another world I had truly become one in both name and reality. Therefore, I needed to be even more pathologically obsessed with my survival.
Because the genre of my life wasn’t going to be healing, harem, or satisfying revenge.
“I need to change the direction of the project, Alfred.”
“How do you wish to proceed?”
This was a romance fantasy world. The people here possessed “rom-fan brains.” In other words, they were weak to salvation narratives.
“You mean…?”
“If there are no useful talents in our territory, we simply recruit talented orphans from other territories. Guarantee them basic necessities and higher education so they develop an attachment to our land.”
“I will prepare it at once.”
“Good. I’m counting on you.”
After leaving the basic investigation to Alfred, I contemplated various scenarios on my own.
The Arnold Barony sat at the entrance to a remote forested region in the northeastern part of the empire—a geographic condition vulnerable to homesickness or regional patriotism. Even if we brought orphans from far away, they might never truly feel attached. But what if we succeeded in writing an extreme salvation narrative?
We would marinate their “rom-fan brains” in the highly addictive drug called affection, strong enough that they would never consider leaving our territory.
“Hmm…”
However, simply bringing distant orphans here wouldn’t be enough to create that kind of story. We needed something more stimulating. A more dramatic salvation.
We needed to rescue orphans who stood on the brink of hell itself.
In that case, the perfect stage for offering such salvation to children in dire crisis would be…
“The slave auction…?”
What if I closed my eyes and visited a slave auction house?
When I thought about it, over the past five years I had cared for the victims of large and small raids, sending the orphans who lost their parents to nearby orphanages. That number alone easily reached several hundred. If you included those who later married and had children, it might even hit four digits.
Yet if not a single one of them possessed useful talent…
“It’s clear there simply wasn’t that kind of talent in our territory to begin with.”
Beautiful, strong, sturdy elf orphans? They were probably all being traded in secret through the underworld. The same went for fluffy-tailed beastkin orphans who wagged their tails adorably. Beastkin enthusiasts existed across the continent, yet in ten years of living here I had never once heard a credible sighting.
Those so-called “pedigree orphans”—pretty, strong, sturdy, and quick to mature—were not the kind of children you could simply pick up off the street.
If that was the case…
“Alfred!”
“Yes, Young Master. You called?”
“Immediately look up any slave auctions taking place in nearby regions within the near future.”
“Slave auctions…?”
“Strong orphans are born from strong salvation. As expected, our territory alone was never going to be enough to provide that level of salvation.”
“Pardon…?”
The answer had finally come. Alfred was looking at me like I was some kind of dangerous lunatic, but there could be no clearer solution than this.
Just as countless novelists drew inspiration from suffering, the emotion of attachment was born from deeper hardship and adversity. Talented prospects would surely reach higher peaks the more trials they overcame.
“We’re going to the gutter.”
There, I would write a true salvation narrative.