Chapter 1: I Became the Illegitimate Son of the Northern Grand Duke's Family.
Cover View
The Astoria Empire, a nation where the brilliant dawn shines upon all.
Of the five pillars that had supported it since before that dawn first broke, the one who guarded the north.
The incarnation of a colossal wolf, ruling the vast and frigid northern territories with solemn pride.
The Logres family, the Northern Grand Duke’s house, standing alone against the barbarians and demonic beasts pouring down from the north.
And then—
Ding!
[Welcome to Dawnstar Academia.]
[You are now Ian de Logres, the illegitimate son of the Logres family, the Northern Grand Duke’s house.]
Ian de Logres, the illegitimate son and second son of that family.
That person was me.
One morning.
When I woke up after getting blasted in the eyes by an unpleasant flash, I realized that I had somehow entered a game.
What kind of bullshit is this?
#
Dawnstar Academia.
A female-oriented game that followed every conventional romance-fantasy cliché to the letter.
There had been nothing special about why I started playing it.
I had simply been browsing a gaming platform in search of a new hit of dopamine when it caught my eye.
Apparently, it had crammed four romance-fantasy novels by the same author into a single game.
The fact that it was a female-oriented game did give me pause, but I had never intended to play it seriously anyway, so I hit Start without much expectation.
But then.
It was unexpectedly, subtly fun.
It hadn’t been lying about containing four separate works; there were a total of four playable female protagonists.
Iris Floria, a young country noblewoman who starred in the healing story.
Isabella von Eterna, a regressed duchess who starred in the regret story.
Angelica de Olivier, an absurdly overpowered lady knight.
Dolnesia de Logres, the youngest young lady at the center of an adoption story.
It was an absolute hodgepodge.
Like they had thrown in every genre because they couldn’t decide which one was best.
And as an added bonus, every single heroine was beautiful, so it was a feast for the eyes.
The art style was charming and cozy, the setting and characters compelling, and the combat system addictive.
I also liked that you could advance the story without necessarily pursuing romance.
After collecting every ending and CG and completing every challenge, I kept playing with self-imposed restrictions as usual, and before I knew it, I had gone through twenty-nine playthroughs.
Just as the ending credits of my twenty-ninth run began to roll and I was about to turn off my computer for work the next day—
I got flash-banged by some mysterious white screen that burst out of my monitor, and when I came to, I was inside the game.
Fuck.
It wasn’t like I’d left a 5,700-character review.
And it wasn’t even my thousandth playthrough, or my hundredth. Getting transmigrated after just twenty-nine runs was already absurd enough.
But what sort of business ethics were these, kidnapping someone without consent out of nowhere?
I looked at the status window floating before my eyes and covered my face as though I had a splitting headache.
This is giving me a headache.
Ian de Logres.
Even taking into account that I had finished twenty-nine playthroughs and looked up the setting on the wiki a few times, I barely knew anything about this guy.
The Northern Grand Duke, a frequent fixture in romance fantasy.
All I knew was that he was the younger brother of Cassian de Logres—the legitimate eldest son of the Logres family, one of the male leads, and the character occupying the Northern Grand Duke position in the game.
Because although this guy existed in the setting, he had never appeared in the game.
Even the setting guide released later in the art book had only one line on him: ‘Logres’s illegitimate son, younger brother of Cassian de Logres.’ That was it.
Even extras got at least one illustration, but he didn’t even have that.
In other words, he wasn’t even a MacGuffin—just a character whose very existence made you wonder why he was there.
...Wait a second.
Why the hell are this guy’s arms so thick?
I stopped thinking for a moment and looked down at my arms.
They were not the arms of a modern man who had never exercised, but bulky muscles that would make even gym rats bow their heads.
Though I clearly wasn’t flexing, my biceps were throbbing so prominently that there was no concealing them.
Now that I looked again, I seemed a lot taller too.
I picked up the hand mirror beside me and raised it.
"That’s one terrifying mug."
A very rough-looking man stared back at me from inside the mirror.
As I remembered it, the face of my eldest brother practically looked as though it had been lifted straight from the cover of a romance-fantasy novel.
Jet-black hair and sapphire-blue eyes.
The kind of looks that would be stamped on a romance-fantasy cover beneath the words, ‘I’m the Northern Grand Duke with a fucking tragic backstory.’
In contrast, I had the face of someone who looked burdened with a very different sort of backstory.
Thick brows, dark black eyes and hair inherited from my father.
Unlike my eldest brother, who was handsomely rugged enough that if you bumped into him by mistake, you would be the one to bow first—
I had the kind of vicious impression that made you think he would fold your waist in half first if you bumped into him, even by accident.
And the roughly 190-centimeter height and massive muscular build created a crazily disastrous synergy with that already intimidating face.
Put nicely, I was a muscular, macho man. Put badly, I looked like a thug.
The art style itself was utterly different.
If my brother looked like he belonged in a classic romance fantasy, then I looked like I had escaped from some fighting manga.
What was worse, this bastard had only just become an adult.
No, how could this face possibly belong to a twenty-year-old?
I would have believed it even if you added fifteen more years.
They had clearly injected the same stuff into two brothers from the same family, so how could the results be this different?
Forget an illegitimate son of the Northern Grand Duke’s family—I’d believe he was the chieftain of some northern great tribe.
I briefly wondered whether my father had had a forbidden love affair with a northern barbarian, but my mother was a perfectly respectable noblewoman.
And a beauty, at that.
Apparently, one of my ancestors on either my father’s or mother’s side had possessed a face this vicious, and an atavistic trait had suddenly kicked in—leaving me, of all people, to inherit that terrifying mug.
In short, I had lost the gacha roll.
Apparently, not everyone in a romance-fantasy protagonist’s family was blessed with good looks.
Still, if there was one fortunate thing, it was that unlike his vicious appearance, the Ian from my memories had not been a wastrel.
There was no fiancée being driven to the brink of breaking off their engagement, as in the usual wastrel cliché, nor was there a maid who could accuse him of sexual harassment and have every right to do so.
His reputation was fairly ordinary, and his relationships were unremarkable.
Though it did seem as if people misunderstood him often because of his face.
He was not in some position of opposing his eldest brother in order to monopolize the title of family head.
Nor was he treated as a discarded child within the family.
He did not have some tragic setting where, because he was illegitimate, he couldn’t even call his father and brother by their proper titles, nor was he hated by the official wife.
To the point that the only thing he could write on a résumé was one line: ‘Illegitimate son of the Northern Grand Duke’s family.’
A character who was not even a MacGuffin, but someone who seemed as though he could disappear without anyone caring.
I was the illegitimate son of the Northern Grand Duke’s family, a character with the absurd setting of looking incredibly loud while leaving behind a quiet trail.
#
Status window.
The moment I shouted that in my mind like a web novel protagonist, the bluish notification window slid away and a familiar UI appeared.
【Ian de Logres】
◈ Level: 1
◈ Title: None
◈ Traits: [Dragon’s Might], [Insightful Eye], [Oath of Chivalry]
◈ Stats
Physique: 50 | Mana: 15
Luck: 10 | Mental Strength: 30
(SP Held: 0)
▶ [Skills]
It was the same.
The UI was exactly identical to the status window I had seen in Dawnstar Academia.
Except that the name in the slot was not one of the heroines’.
And there were no HP or MP values displayed.
There were four starting stats in total.
Physique covered combat-related abilities, such as strength, agility, HP, and defense.
Mana was for MP and magic.
Mental Strength governed magic resistance and mana recovery.
Luck, if I remembered correctly, was literally the stat related to luck: the chance of receiving bonuses when crafting items, critical hits, successful bargaining, and so on.
Though I had no idea how those would apply now that this was reality.
Each heroine had one exclusive stat, but since I was not a heroine, it seemed I had none of those exclusive stats.
Even so, this was jackpot-level luck.
Normally, without any special perks, every starting stat began at 10.
Yet Ian’s Physique was a whopping 50, befitting his muscular body.
On top of that, his Mental Strength was 30 and his Mana was 15.
You received five SP every time you leveled up, so although he looked like Level 1, it was practically like getting thirteen levels for free at the start.
It was probably the effect of his traits.
I pressed the Traits section, and three notification windows popped up.
[Dragon’s Might]
You were born with Dragon’s Might, one of the abilities of House Logres.
Your innate body shall tolerate no injury and grant you the strength to overcome any obstacle.
◈ Starting Physique +40
◈ Starting Mental Strength +20
◈ Increased Regeneration
◈ Status Ailment Resistance
◈ Physique +3 upon Level Up
[Insightful Eye]
You are someone who has observed and experienced twenty-nine lives.
Your eyes can examine the stories of others, perceive the stories they write, and learn from them.
◈ View target’s name and level
◈ View the danger level of hostile targets
◈ Appraise items
◈ Greatly increased skill acquisition rate
The reason my body was this bulky was probably thanks to this [Dragon’s Might] trait.
"Still, this is incredible."
The starting stats alone were impressive, but it also granted increased regeneration and resistance to status ailments. On top of that, it gave three extra Physique points whenever I leveled up.
Leveling up twice was practically the same as getting a third level-up for free.
And judging by its description, [Insightful Eye] was probably my transmigration perk. True to the name, it was no joke either.
I could see people’s names and levels, appraise items, and gain skills at a greatly accelerated rate.
I had rarely seen traits this good over twenty-nine playthroughs.
Traits on this level were abilities you could only acquire through your one starting exclusive trait, or much later in the endgame.
Yet I had gotten two of them from the very beginning.
Looks like the world hasn’t condemned me to die after all.
With traits like these, I would have more than enough to prepare for the events that would unfold from here on out.
Excited, I checked the third and final trait.
[Oath of Chivalry]
You must advance toward a star beyond your reach.
The stars of knights shall watch your words and deeds, becoming judges who evaluate your chivalry.
◈ A penalty shall be imposed should you commit an act contrary to chivalry.
◈ A reward shall be granted should you commit an act befitting chivalry.
◈ The stars of knights are watching you.
....?
...No, what the hell is this now?
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