I Became the Second Young Master
I had never believed in an afterlife for as long as I lived.
If an afterlife existed, that meant a previous life had to exist too. And if that were true, what the hell kind of shitty things had I done in my past life to be born in a backwater like Cheorwon and spend my entire existence there?
Yet, to my astonishment, the afterlife was real.
"Young Master? Young Master?!"
"Are you conscious?!"
"The Second Young Master has awakened!! Contact the Duke at once!!!"
I clawed my way out of a foggy haze. When my senses finally returned, the world around me was pure chaos.
Shrill voices. Urgent footsteps.
My mind was still swimming, but the thick medicinal reek pouring into my nostrils made me wonder for a split second if I was still alive.
Hold on. I'm alive?
That was impossible.
My memories were broken like Braille dots, but I still remembered the choice I had agonized over for nights on end.
I had gathered every detonator I could get my hands on, wrapped them around my body, and set them in an abandoned outpost. Then I went out in a blazing finale alongside the bastards who had chased me down just to pin a few stars on their chests.
I had prepared multiple high-explosive charges, any one of which could shred a fragile human body into confetti. There should not have been a single intact limb left of me—not even a corpse.
No matter how advanced modern medicine got, it could not drag a dead man back by the scruff from the underworld. That was simply how it worked.
So why the hell was I still breathing?
Curiosity won out. I tried to open my mouth.
"…Ah…"
Nothing came out.
My lips moved, but my throat was a desert. Not a single syllable of actual language escaped.
Only then did I realize how wrecked my body was. Voices crashed over me again.
"Young Master!! You must not strain yourself!"
"You have been unconscious for a full two months!"
"If you try to speak now, your vocal cords will not hold!"
Unconscious for two months?
What kind of absurd nonsense was that? Then the repeated form of address finally struck me as alien.
Young Master? Me?
Heo Yi-geon.
Nickname: Cheorwon Mutt.
A country boy from the sticks of Cheorwon. Not even a pure-blood academy graduate—just ROTC. I had been run into the ground like a dog, and the nickname stuck because I had barked my head off under the 3-star "Octopus" general who had been my mentor in the old days. That history and the lofty title of "Young Master" were about two million light-years apart.
So why did the word feel strangely familiar?
In the middle of that contradiction—strange yet intimate—
"Ghk?!"
A flood of memories slammed into my skull like a tidal wave.
I am…
It was the life of one man.
The memories of a sickly son born into the barren frozen soil of the North.
Logwell Wintershield.
Second Young Master of the Northern Grand Duke's House of Wintershield.
Heir to the great family that would one day guard the entire northern continent… yeah, right.
This guy is basically a living corpse.
Unlike the hardy northerners, Logwell Wintershield's mother had not been from the North. He had been plagued by illness since childhood. Dry coughs had been as constant as breathing from the moment he opened his eyes until he fell asleep. In a North filled with superhumans who lived by the law of the strong, he was too frail to even swing a single sword.
If these incoming memories were not pure delusion, this world was an entirely different one from the Earth I had known—a place where people regularly carved through monsters with nothing but a blade.
Wait, monsters? What the hell is that?
The torrent of memories was far too alien.
Monsters.
The only monsters I knew were the pocket monsters from the Gold Version I had played as a kid.
I floundered through the flood of memories that were both utterly foreign and somehow familiar. Somehow the chaos eventually passed.
I had not absorbed everything cleanly. The memories had entered me more like a rough plot summary, though I sensed I would be able to dredge up the finer details later—like drilling for oil in some corner of the subconscious.
It left me thoroughly confused.
Was I Heo Yi-geon inhabiting Logwell Wintershield's body, or was I Logwell Wintershield who had simply dreamed of being a man named Heo Yi-geon?
I could not be sure of either. I gave up on deciding for now and tried my voice again.
"Ah… ah."
My throat still cracked like a desert, but enough air got through that the sounds finally knitted themselves into something resembling a voice.
The process was painfully slow, yet the people around me waited with remarkable patience—whether out of respect for my status or because of the sheer novelty of someone who had been out cold for three weeks.
To those waiting faces I finally managed to move my lips.
"Where… am I?"
"The recovery ward, Young Master. It is normally reserved for knights who suffer serious injuries on duty, but your condition was especially critical, so you have remained here for the past three weeks. Do you remember anything from before you collapsed?"
"My last memory…"
My face must have said everything, because the man answered as if he had expected it.
"You were found unconscious in your private chambers. You had shut yourself away all day, so the servants grew worried and came looking. When there was no answer, the knights forced the door and discovered you collapsed inside."
Is that so.
Unfortunately I could not recall that moment, but it sounded plausible enough.
According to the memories, the original owner of this body had gone through exactly this sort of thing with depressing frequency.
What kind of pathetic body is this?
Heo Yi-geon's physique had never measured up to the special forces guys who ran the snowfields of Cheorwon, but this one was worse. People were relieved he had woken after two months of being out cold; they were not even surprised that he had collapsed in the first place.
Only then did the face of the man who had been explaining everything come into focus.
I had been too dazed to notice, but the guy was massive.
Nearly two meters tall and built like two men side by side.
I dug through the memories.
"…Sir Bearwolf?"
"I am relieved you remember my name this time."
"This time?"
"You do not recall? The last time you collapsed, you could not remember my name at all."
What the hell.
I could only blink in pure disbelief. Behind him stood more men—every one of them built like a fortress. Northern knights.
While I stared at them blankly, the man called Bearwolf spoke again.
"Ah. If you are looking for His Grace, he is currently on a northern patrol. We sent a messenger the moment you awoke, but it will take some time for him to return."
This man looked far too used to the whole situation.
According to the memories that surfaced a beat later, he was the vice commander of the knight order that protected the entire duchy—and, for all practical purposes, the nanny who had carried me on his back since childhood.
It left me feeling strangely awkward.
The emotion flickering in that bear of a man's eyes was unmistakable affection. Yet my true self might not be the original owner of this body at all.
I was still wondering how to handle the distance when a commotion erupted outside.
"Ah!! You cannot—!"
"The Second Young Master must have absolute rest!!"
"Out of my way!!!"
BOOM!!
A thunderous crash. The recovery ward door did not merely look like it would break—it actually shattered.
"Logwell!!!"
The iron door exploded inward as an unknown intruder stormed in.
His presence was overwhelming.
Bearwolf and the knights standing behind him were all impressive specimens, yet the newcomer made every one of them look petite. The sheer bulk and force of him defied belief.
Don't tell me this is a monster?
The giant who could not possibly be human strode forward. Knights tried to block him; a single gesture from his hand sent them flying like dry reeds—cosmic horror made flesh.
When he finally reached the bedside—
"Logwell!!! You're awake!!!!"
The roar shook the room and yanked a fragment of forgotten memory straight to the surface.
"Yes. I am awake."
The giant's name was Darius Wintershield.
"Brother Darius."
The blood brother of this body—
"Eldest Young Master. If you barge in so suddenly, Young Master Logwell will be in great distress."
"Hmph! What nonsense is that! Sharing the deep bond of brothers is distress?!"
"Last time you did this, Young Master Logwell woke after two days only to collapse again for an entire week."
"Ah, damn it!"
—and the First Young Master of House Wintershield.
I opened my eyes and found I had become the Second Young Master of the Northern Grand Duke's House.
It felt exactly like the web novels I used to read out of boredom at the GOP outpost—except it was actually happening.
Still, reality differed from those novels in a few key ways. First—
"Eat your fill. A sickly brat like you cannot afford to be a picky eater!"
"…Brother, patients who have just woken from a long collapse are not supposed to eat large amounts at once."
"Huh? What kind of talk is that? When you wake up after fainting, you fill your belly with everything you missed. That's just common sense!"
In most web novels, noble brothers hated each other with a passion. My relationship with this monster of a brother, however, was painfully close—close enough to be genuinely burdensome.
"Eat this too! An Iron Wolf core I hunted just for you!"
And second—
"No thank you. I can barely handle mana. What use would something like this be to me?"
"Exactly why you need to eat more. A Diamond Wolf core is a treasure even for knights, but ordinary people can take it as a tonic! Eat well and get back on your feet."
Every transmigrator, regressor, or reincarnator was supposed to receive some kind of special privilege.
I had none of that "Ahh, this otherworlder is amazing!" talent whatsoever.
The "mana" Darius had just mentioned was a physical force unique to this world. Through special cultivation methods, people could accumulate and refine it inside their bodies until they reached superhuman heights. That was common knowledge here.
Yet the original owner of this body—despite being born into one of the continent's most prestigious bloodlines—possessed talent so pathetic it fell short of even ordinary people. Elixirs that could raise others' realms were, to him, nothing more than expensive tonics.
And third—this one mattered most.
"Eldest Young Master!! A request for support from Asbil Village! A pack of White Goblins has attacked!"
"What? Wait—I'll go myself!"
At a knight's sudden shout, Darius shot to his feet. Seeing him about to charge out, I hurriedly reached out.
"Wait, Brother?"
"Hm? What is it?"
"What about me?"
"What about you? You stay here, rest properly, and recover."
"…I do not need to go?"
"Uhahahahaha."
Darius burst into laughter as if I had just told the funniest joke in the world.
"You resting well and getting healthy again is the greatest help you can give this brother of yours."
"Eldest Young Master. The knight order is ready to deploy."
Bearwolf and the others appeared fully armed. With practiced ease they handed Darius his gear. He accepted it, turned back to me, and gave a solid thumbs-up.
"I'll be back. We'll finish our brotherly reunion when I return."
Then they all thundered out.
After the noisy crowd drained away like a receding tide, the recovery ward felt empty. I let out a hollow laugh.
"What the hell. This free-ride life…"
Neither the knights nor my eldest brother Darius demanded anything of me. It was as if they were simply grateful I was still breathing.
This is seriously awkward.
Cheorwon Mutt.
A man who had lived his whole life being worked like a dog had suddenly become a pampered house pet.