I Became a Childhood Friend
THWACK!!
"...Hrk—!!"
With a death-rattle of a scream, I shot up into the empty air—launched skyward by a single blow taken in a sparring match with that golden-haired girl.
The instant I went airborne, the footage in my head spun into reverse like a video on rewind, flashing back through everything to show me exactly why I was getting smacked into the sky.
A few years ago, I had been so hopelessly obsessed with the Three Kingdoms—devouring the official histories and the Romance alike—that I proudly considered myself something of a Three Kingdoms otaku. Then one day, out of nowhere, I found myself inhabiting the body of Han Sui's son, Han Sui being one of the warlords of Liang Province.
Neither the histories nor the Romance had ever so much as mentioned Han Sui having a child, so I grew up enjoying the life of a pampered young lord without the faintest clue as to why.
What was more, this era saw the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the revolt of the Ten Attendants erupt, dragging the tide of history toward the Central Plains—and that only deepened my puzzlement over why, of all people, I'd been dropped into the son of Han Sui.
Still, for the time being, I threw everything I had into surviving in that barren, ravaged frontier.
He was supposed to be a local magnate, one of the region's great warlords—and yet Liang Province at that moment was a lawless no-man's-land.
The various warlords of Liang Province—a frontier of the frontier, wielding precious little influence at the imperial court—were stirring up revolts one after another, raising their banners against the dynasty itself.
History had taught me all too well that there was almost nothing to gain from turning against the Han. So I put a stop to the Bian Zhang–Han Sui Rebellion before Han Sui could ever set it in motion.
Fortunately, Han Sui—a doting fool of a father, and a tender-hearted man besides—gladly took my advice. He swore brotherhood with Ma Teng, and together we succeeded in consolidating our forces far earlier than the original history had ever allowed.
And then—
I met her.
"Hey!!"
"...?"
She was a peerless beauty, utterly out of place in Liang Province—a backwater so remote that the only sight worth seeing was herds of horses galloping across the plains. Spellbound, if only for a moment, by that face, I answered.
"You're General Han Sui's son, aren't you?"
"...That's right, I'm Han Yeong. And you are?"
"I'm Ma Chao."
One of the Five Tiger Generals of Shu Han—a name that no one who knew the first thing about the Three Kingdoms could possibly fail to recognize.
I had no way of knowing why she was a woman rather than the man of the original history, but she was every bit as beautiful as the dashing hero of the official records—more than worthy of her epithet, the Splendid Ma Chao.
"From what I hear, you and I are the same age. So, what do you say? Wanna be friends?"
Beaming like sunshine, she held out her hand. Caught between my daze at her beauty and the fanboy heart of a lifelong Three Kingdoms devotee, I clasped it without a second's hesitation and smiled right back.
"Sure."
And so I came to occupy the position one might call her childhood friend, and yet...
THUD!!
The rewind cut off as my body slammed into the ground.
"...Huh? A-are you okay?"
The Splendid Ma Chao herself—the very culprit who had sent me flying and knocked me cold—looked utterly flustered as she watched me sprawl there, dropped with a single blow in the middle of our spar.
And just like that, I found myself demoted to a curious dual role: Ma Chao's childhood friend, and her personal sparring sandbag.