1 – Episode 1
# 1
“Status Window.”
[Ian Raven]
[You are nothing.]
The status window was blatantly mocking Ian.
Ian, the Nothing. How pitiful, he’s utterly nothing.
If one had to put a title to Ian, it would be ‘Ian, the farmer’s son’.
In this medieval fantasy world, a farmer’s son is indeed, nothing. The status window was not incorrect. The status window was of the ‘honest and forthright’ kind.
Ian, the farmer’s son, was the only child in the village with black hair.
Ian’s mother had sandy blond hair and his father had bright red hair, yet Ian’s hair was as dark as ink.
When he was young, Ian’s parents endlessly fought over this issue.
[Tell me the truth! Who’s child is he?]
[Whose do YOU think he is!?]
[Stop your nonsense! You shameless woman!]
[Should you say that to your wife now?]
And so on and so forth.
The name Ian Raven was due, in large part, to his black hair.
The method of naming in this place was quite simple.
First, choose a name. Any name that the parents prefer.
If they called him “Dogsh*t”, he would be Dogsh*t, if they called him “Cowsh*t”, he would be Cowsh*t.
The simple name of Ian was also chosen according to his parents’ whims.
Then, add the father’s name to it as a patronymic, a concept widely used in Russia.
Ian’s father’s name was also Ian.
So Ian, the son of Ian, would be Ian Ian, or fully put, “Ian, the son of Ian”.
For the record, the grandfather’s name in the Ian family is Ian. Some households insist on including the grandad’s name as well, so if elongated, Ian Ian Ian would be Ian’s full name. Yet, who in their right minds would address him with such a repetitious name. People naturally wish to omit repetitive words. So, Ian’s full name is simply Ian. If one insists on specifying, perhaps Ian the third would suffice. The neighborhood folks distinguish them as Big Ian and Small Ian. Grandfather Ian? Let’s not speak of the deceased. Typically, the process of naming ends there, but peculiar individuals acquire nicknames. Ian is distinct from the neighborhood crowd, a possessor of raven-black hair. Hence, his nickname is Raven Ian. “hahahaha! Look over there! There goes the little raven!”
“Ian must wash his hair with ink every night!”
Hearing the neighborhood kids’ mockery, Ian clicked his tongue. Such insolent brats. If they were his age, he might have been angry, but Ian merely found the children’s innocent malice amusing. Ian was a reincarnated being from the tranquil country of the past Joseon dynasty.
Discussions about the afterlife are pointless. To verify the existence of the afterlife, one must die first. Obviously, once dead, one can’t talk about it. Consequently, even in the modern age where the mystique has become meaningless, death is still considered a sacrosanct realm. However, for a reincarnate like Ian, such topics do not apply. The afterlife does exist. He may not be able to confirm if it applies equally to everyone, but it certainly did for Ian. ‘Gwak Jae-han’, Ian wrote his name from his past life on the sand and then erased it. He knows it is extremely unusual to be born again with the memories of a past life intact.
When you think about it, the concept of reincarnation, or previous lives, is quite foreign. It’s no wonder it feels strange. Ian tugged at his own black hair. The same color as when he was a Korean in his past life. Perhaps, along with memories of a former life, even his hair had undergone reincarnation. So, does that mean my human form is not head, but hair? If we follow that logic, what about bald people… Hm. Let’s stop there. Teasing bald people for being ‘soulless’ is cruel. They’re just people lacking a bit of hair.
In any case, Ian the Raven was born the son of a farmer in a region called Kolbrun. Like other farmers in the empire, Ian’s family was poor. Being poor meant that even working hard every day, they would occasionally skip meals. Ian, the third of the couple’s four children, often suffered from hunger and malnutrition.
Unlike Korea, where parents lavishly provide for their children, here it was understood that adults have to fend for the food first.
Problem: Two adults and four children in the house are starving, and there’s only food for four. Who needs to eat? If we follow the logic that Ian’s empire follows, it’s the two adults, the eldest, and the second oldest child. They are the ones who need the calories as they are the ones working. You can’t work on an empty stomach. If they can’t work? The entire family will starve to death.
The eldest is quite old, fifteen to be precise, an age modern people would categorize as ‘teenager.’ But like modern teens, the eldest was a well-built man boasting strength comparable to an adult, and together with the second eldest, they could do the work of one adult.
However, the third and fourth children were different. They were clearly young children. They didn’t work, and they also ate less. Therefore, it was okay to starve them. If they were really hungry, they could catch grasshoppers to eat in the grass, what’s the big deal? And so, this was Ian’s daily life.
Waking up early in the morning, they have breakfast with their family. The parents eat the most food, while Ian and the youngest split a small loaf of bread. It’s a precious ration that needs to last until lunch.
The parents and older brothers go out to work in the fields, while Ian takes care of his younger sister and heads to the forest. There, they spend the whole day looking for food. They eat fruit, bugs, bird eggs, and wild greens. When it gets dark, they return home. If they’re lucky, they’ll eat dinner together, if not, they just go to sleep. When the sun rises the next day, the cycle repeats.
Despite his youth, Ian is acutely aware of how dreadful his situation is. From the moment he opens his eyes until he closes them, he’s foraging for food. Is he a child or a wild animal?
Education? The forest is his school and the beasts are his teachers. He lives like a savage.
Growing older without learning anything.
Of course, when he gets older, he will follow in his parents’ footsteps, sweating in the wheat fields.
He doesn’t mind hardship. What in the world can be achieved without any? Even investing in supposedly easy cryptocurrencies comes with its share of suffering.
The problem is that despite the hardships, there is nothing to gain.
There’s no income. It is a common problem among farmers of this era.
In fact, Ian’s parents are not farmers but serfs.
Both farmers and serfs work in the fields, but serfs are dependent on their landlords.
The upside is that they’re protected by knights within sturdy boundary walls.
A sense of security far beyond that of free citizens who might be robbed by thieves or devoured by monsters at any moment.
But the downsides are significant, primarily being bound by a lease agreement to the lord.
In exchange for protection from the lord, they are under his rule.
Without permission, one could not leave the territory, had to offer a portion of the produce, and provide labor and military force as necessary.
Ian’s parents were peasants and so, Ian was a peasant too. Not all farmers are created equal.
Among farmers, prosperous ones had carefully stashed away money to bring weapons and armor into their homes. They were treated well due to their potential usefulness as equipped militia in times of conflict.
However, Ian’s parents were as poor as poor could be even among the lower class.
They were tenant farmers who leased the lord’s land to work on, and they were deeply in debt from borrowing grain during bad harvests.
They labored hard every day, yet nothing much fell into their hands but a mounting debt.
If they fell sick amidst such a life punctuated by labor, they were simply buried into the ground.
A tragically common tale of the lower classes. This had been the life of Ian’s parents. And it was also the life set aside for Ian.
He was unable to leave the territory because of his parents’ debt, which he, as the child, was expected to repay.
Any career other than farming was out of reach.
Without education, how could he learn anything else?
“What sins must I have committed in my previous life…”
Ian heaved a deep sigh, as though his heart was sinking into the ground. This young man must have been a sinner in his previous life simply for having died young.
Seeing his younger sister wolfing down her roasted fish with blackened lips only aggravated his distress. She was blissful in her ignorance.
“Brother, aren’t you going to eat this?”
“I will, so don’t touch it.”
His sister, who devoured her share as though she had been starving, eyed Ian’s portion.
She was acting like a beggar who hadn’t eaten in days. Apart from the fact they had a roof over their heads, their lives were no different from beggars.
As Ian gnawed on the fish down to its bones (which was smaller than his palm), he pondered.
“Character window.”
[Ian Raven]
[You are nothing.]
The semi-transparent window appeared before his eyes.
It was exactly the status window found in games or novels, definitively proving that Ian was a reborn modern man in another world.
The existence of the status window that had become a prominent mainstream in subculture was no different for Ian than claiming to possess some special ability. He has a status window in front of him, but no cheat powers from another world? That’s an obvious grammatical contradiction. Ian was confident in his latent abilities. He would surely have the overpowered cheat abilities gained from being reincarnated into another world. It was a psychological victory, but without this belief, he couldn’t withstand the fear of a miserable future. He must have cheat abilities. The problem was, he had never confirmed them with his own eyes.
“If only I could awaken my abilities…
”
Awaken, Ian! Awaken, one who awakens! The lord will be surprised and the knight might become a stammering genius! Then he would stack up piles of food and eat until he burst. “Oppa, if you’re not going to eat this…”
“I told you not to touch it.”
From Noble mtl dot com
Lost in his delusions, Ian finished his meal. The small fishes they caught from the stream served as their lunch. It was barely enough to quench their hunger, but they were grateful nonetheless.
“Oppa, let’s go get some dessert.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
It’s a fact that many people overlook, but the quality of life for modern people is actually better than that of medieval nobles. Tasty food, clean environment, convenient tools, stable housing, and so on. No matter how good a noble’s pricey and extremely high-quality silver mirror is, can it be better than a smartphone? Ian, who had been steeped in the mundane excesses of modern life, passed on to his younger sister the luxurious knowledge that a meal should typically have courses. His innocent younger sister naturally fell into Ian’s ideology. Of course, they should have dessert after a meal. The siblings naturally went into the wild to look for strawberry bushes. And there, they encountered a strange traveler.
“Oh my.”
Surprisingly, the traveler was a woman.
A woman traveling alone in the Middle Ages? It would be surprising even in the modern world.
“Hello? Little one?”
The woman greeted first to shake off any awkwardness.
Ian instinctively became cautious.
In an already severe medieval fantasy world, a woman traveling alone could not be ordinary.
Ian assumed the most polite attitude possible.
But his younger sister was one step ahead of him.
“Who are you, lady?”
“… Lady?”
Ian was appalled.
To call a woman ‘lady’ was almost a declaration of war…!
As expected, the woman, unable to manage her expressions.
Ian saw darkness in front of him!