The Deserter and the Obsessive Villainesses - Prologue
The room was empty after Guan Yu stormed out. The man standing in front of the mirror had his eyes wide open in shock. Yeah, the guy in the mirror is me, so that must be my face now. Even though I spent the last few years living like a shut-in, I haven't become so brain-dead that I can't pass the mirror test a chimp or pigeon would ace. I was just a little startled, that's all.
When I walked into the bathroom, the scruffy, bearded wreck I used to see every day was gone. Instead, a soft, youthful young man stared back at me. How could I not be surprised? Judging by his appearance, he looked like he'd only just become an adult. There wasn't a single whisker on his face; even his baby hairs hadn't fully fallen out yet. And those eyes—gone was the dead, glassy stare. Overnight they'd turned bright and clear. It was almost overwhelming.
It was definitely a face I'd never seen before, yet it felt as familiar as one I'd looked at every single day. …At this point, I have to admit it. That is the face of the guy who used to be Bang Yeol. And now it's mine. A pitiful bastard whose face isn't mine but has become mine. A pitiful bastard whose memories aren't mine but have become mine.
No. From now on, I am Bang Yeol.
…Still, I had to make sure. I checked if the mirror was real, pinched my cheeks, tried to peel off what I thought might be a human skin mask, and even searched every corner of the room for hidden cameras in case this was some elaborate prank. I wasted a ridiculous amount of time on all that pointless crap.
While I was busy with that, Liu Bei came bursting into the room, sobbing as she threw herself into my arms. I had to calm her down. Outside, Zhang Fei was slamming his head against the ground in apology, so I rushed out to stop him. After dealing with all the noisy, annoying nonsense that followed, I finally made it back to my own room. By then, it was already late at night.
Maybe too much had changed in a single day. After spending the whole day in a daze, the moment I lay down on the bed, sleep hit me like a truck. Right before drifting off on my first day of possession, I finally had a moment to organize my thoughts.
There was no longer any room for doubt. This place was unmistakably Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
When I recalled Bang Yeol's childhood memories—well, my childhood memories now—the literature tutor used to grab me during breaks and lament that it was the end of the world because the emperor was openly selling government offices. An era where the emperor ran a business selling ranks. I'm certain this can only be the final years of the Later Han.
On top of that, the three sworn siblings had spent the day sticking to each other like magnets, calling one another Hyeondeok, Yunchang, and Ikdeok. It would be harder not to think of the Three Kingdoms. Unless I'd been kidnapped by a bunch of mad scientists doing some insane cosplay while shouting "I'm Liu Bei! I'm Guan Yu! I'm Zhang Fei!" this was definitely the world of the Three Kingdoms.
What if I really had been kidnapped by crazy scientists? What if a white-haired, big-breasted madwoman scientist with top-tier cosplay skills had performed full-body plastic surgery to make a suicidal NEET who stepped on an onahole and cracked his skull look ten years younger, cracked open his brain to inject someone else's memories, and then introduced herself as Liu Bei just to trick me? If someone went through all that trouble, the polite thing to do would be to let myself be fooled out of respect for their effort.
But the decisive evidence was that I'd seen them before. Where? Two days before I died jerking off to Yuan Shu's downfall event. I had stayed up for three days straight waiting for the Elder Kings 3 180 AD East Asia expansion mod (adult mode compatible) and was watching the creator's playthrough video.
"…Kuh! Kill me!"
"Hehet. All that arrogance about being the God of War, and look at you now—tied up so obediently. You're nothing but a woman after all."
It was the first day of my 72-hour sleepless viewing marathon. I remembered it clearly because I came while watching the scene where Guan Yu, fleeing from Jing Province, gets captured by Wu generals and violated. Right after that, I came again to the scene where Zhang Fei's own subordinate kills him and Liu Bei breaks down in tears. I really went both ways that day.
The conclusion was simple. I had no idea who, when, where, how, or why had thrown me into this place. But the world I was in right now was the Three Kingdoms era from an erotic game.
…Then there was only one thing I needed to do from now on.
To part ways with Liu Bei at the appropriate time, in the appropriate manner.
If you get isekai'd into an erotic game and can't even get it up, are you even a man? Isn't it a waste to be in Liu Bei's army when both Liu Bei and Guan Yu are women now? Not at all. I feel zero arousal and zero regret. I just want to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.
Running around excitedly sticking my dick into everything just because it's an erotic game would be incredibly stupid. First of all, I don't think it's even possible with Guan Yu, let alone Liu Bei. In a normal erotic game, the protagonist would go after the women the MC discarded and try to seduce them. But even though the word "erotic game" is attached to this one, it's still the Three Kingdoms.
If they made it with any historical accuracy, this is currently a complete dumpster-fire society. And unfortunately, they did a good job replicating that accuracy. We're still in the very early stages of the absolute worst period. This is just the opening act.
Rebellions are breaking out everywhere. Bandits are sprouting like weeds all over the hills behind my house. Right in front of me, Yellow Turban uncles are cutting open people's bellies demanding rice and food. If this is the early stage, I don't even want to imagine how horrific the mid-game will be.
A little further in, during the true hell of the mid-game, it won't just be Yellow Turbans and bandits. Regular government troops will show up, take your rice, take your money, and if you have neither, they'll take your body and conscript you again. In a situation like that, who the hell could get hard just because it's an erotic game? When you're about to get robbed and forcibly reenlisted, who gets an erection? And not even as a rifle-carrying private second class, but as a spear-wielding one.
Besides, this guy Bang Yeol is someone I've never even heard of. I've read a lot about the Three Kingdoms and played plenty of games set in it, but the name Bang Yeol doesn't ring any bells. Since he's under the protagonist Liu Bei, if he'd done anything noteworthy his name should have remained, but there's no record of how he even died. Actually, he never appeared at all.
He was with the protagonist from the very beginning and doesn't even have a name? It's obvious what happened. He probably didn't accomplish anything, got hit by a stray arrow in some random battle, got stabbed by a clumsy spear thrust, or died running away in fear. He likely met a pathetic, miserable death instead of a heroic one. Or maybe, just like in the last memory of the possessed Bang Yeol, he died when the drunk Zhang Fei accidentally smashed his head with the shaft of the Serpent Spear.
The conclusion is that I've been isekai'd into a character who doesn't even exist in the records, and I have no idea when I'll find myself in a life-threatening crisis. If that's the case, I should look at the major crises Liu Bei's forces faced in real history and the novel, then be extremely careful and try to survive until then… but these bastards were in crisis pretty much every single day, weren't they?
Well, that makes sense. In such a brutal, messed-up era, why else would Liu Bei become the protagonist? If there's one common point in all novels and games, it's that the protagonist is always at the center of events. And I'm in the army with that Liu Bei? I should wake up every morning grateful just to see the sun rise.
Let's think about what happens if I stay in the army with Liu Bei. Whenever she's bored, she fights Cao Cao, loses, and runs away to live alone. She carelessly opens the gates for Lu Bu, gets stabbed in the back, and runs away to live alone again. Just when things are finally looking up, she gets betrayed by that rat bastard. (To be fair, that one was mutual fault.) And in the end, as if determined to go out in a blaze of glory, she drags a massive army with her and literally burns everyone around her to death. Yet somehow, in that very situation, Liu Bei survives all by herself again.
Notice the pattern? While other factions get to play real-time strategy simulations, Liu Bei's crew is stuck in an action-adventure survival horror game. In other words, the people in Liu Bei's family have a completely different way of moving. No, they have to move differently if they want to survive…
That said, I can't run away right this second. Why? Because I don't have any money.
After digging through this guy's memories, it turns out that before I possessed him, he called in all the neighborhood uncles and outfitted them with top-tier gear. He even bought forty horses to match the number of men. Of course there wasn't any money left. With that kind of wealth, I could've gone all the way to Pachok or Jing Province and lived comfortably…
Well, only someone who knows the future would think that way. This guy didn't know anything. On top of that, he watched his entire family get massacred at a young age, so it's only natural his mind went off the rails. Hmm. I shouldn't criticize him for trying to avenge his family. Actually, it wasn't such a bad decision.
Won Sul-ji had completely looted Bang Yeol's household. Although they had no connections and were technically commoners, their wealth rivaled that of any powerful clan. That's why they could send a whole cart full of bribes with their son to Luoyang to buy an official post. Since Won Sul-ji's gang took all that wealth, if I could just kill them and survive, I'd gain an enormous amount of resources—far more than what was spent arming the villagers. And since it was originally my family's property, I'd have a perfectly legitimate claim to it.
Yes. If I could just survive.
But Won Sul-ji had become the leader of the Yellow Turbans in the Youzhou region, commanding fifty thousand men. There was no way Bang Yeol and his forty uncles could win against that. Therefore, I shouldn't run away right now. I need to join forces with Liu Bei's group.
If I tell Liu Bei that everything here was stolen from my house by Won Sul-ji, she wouldn't just let them take it, would she? There's no way that Liu Bei would demand someone else's family fortune for herself. If so, I wouldn't even need to desert secretly. We could just say goodbye nicely. A perfect happy ending.
Next step? Head straight to Luoyang. Use the loot as bribes to buy myself an official position. Yeah. This is truly a flawless plan.