Chapter 2: The Disgraced Heir

Groaning, Lee Han forced open his heavy eyelids.

After a moment, his vision returned, revealing a large, unfamiliar room.

The wallpaper was adorned with extravagant paintings.

Golden armor and ornate decorations surrounded him.

The entire room was styled in a lavish European aesthetic.

As he looked around, Lee Han slowly began to piece together the situation.

‘…Did I cross over to another world?’

Compared to the worst-case scenario he had feared, this wasn’t so bad.

Lee Han tried to sit up to take a better look around.

But suddenly, a flurry of message windows popped up in front of his eyes.

[New body synchronization complete: 100%]

[Your body has changed.]

[Please check the details of your updated status window.]

[Achievement unlocked: First to acquire a second body.]

The messages confirmed what Lee Han had suspected—he had entered a new body.

But he didn’t have the luxury to leisurely read through them.

As his soul began adjusting to the new body, sensation returned to his limbs.

At the same time, an intense pain surged through every inch of him.

“Urgh… What the hell…?”

His entire body felt as heavy as iron and burned like fire.

His breathing became ragged, and his vision started to blur.

He had fallen into a state of unknown physical distress.

Gritting his teeth, Lee Han endured the pain.

There was something more urgent he needed to do first.

‘Check the body’s condition.’

Just as he tried to pull up the status window, a warning popped up before he could even act.

[Warning! You have been poisoned by Arkas Toxin.]

[Failure to detoxify will result in death.]

‘Arkas Toxin…?’

The cause of his symptoms turned out to be surprisingly simple.

The body he had taken over was already poisoned—fatally so.

‘Of all things, it had to be Arkas… No wonder this body was destined to die.’

Lee Han was well-acquainted with Arkas.

Arkas was a C-rank monster—a carnivorous plant with venomous properties.

He remembered it well.

One day, a gate had opened in the city, and those creatures had poured out, claiming many lives.

He quickly opened his inventory.

As expected, it was completely empty—except for one lone soul stone.

Since this was a different body, it made sense that his inventory had been reset.

This confirmed it—he had truly changed bodies.

Without hesitation, Lee Han used the soul stone.

[Warning! You cannot use the soul stone in your current condition.]

[Would you like to enter Simplified Shop Mode? (Y/N)]

‘Yes.’

Lee Han accepted without hesitation.

While under a status effect or during combat, you couldn’t meet with a Moderator.

In those cases, you could only access the shop in this simplified form.

A message window appeared before Lee Han, displaying the shop item list.

[The shop is currently at Stage 1.]

‘So I really do have to start from scratch, huh?’

Stage 1.

This was the lowest tier of the shop, offering items for levels 1 to 20.

The shop was divided into stages, and higher stages would unlock as one reached higher levels.

Lee Han scrolled through the item list.

‘I’d rather not use the shop this early, if possible…’

The early-stage shop was notoriously inefficient.

It offered the fewest items, the worst quality, and the highest prices.

For example, a single lowest-grade potion cost a staggering 5,000 contribution points.

That was the reward for completing around ten low-level quests.

But Lee Han had no choice.

He was poisoned, and time was running out.

Now wasn’t the time to nitpick.

He quickly selected the items he needed.

[Purchased: 20x Lowest-Grade Healing Potions.]

[100,000 contribution points consumed.]

[Purchased: 5x Lowest-Grade Antidote Potions.]

[200,000 contribution points consumed.]

The purchased potions appeared instantly in his inventory.

But before he could feel relief, another warning popped up.

[Warning! HP is below 10%.]

His health was critically low.

Still, Lee Han remained calm.

He steadily uncorked an antidote potion and brought it to his lips.

Gulp.

The moment he downed the first potion, the pain began to subside slightly.

But—

[Arkas Toxin detoxification progress: 21% (Time remaining: 05:20:42)]

One bottle wasn’t enough.

A lowest-grade antidote wasn’t strong enough to completely neutralize the toxin.

He would need several more.

‘This body requires a lot more than my old one…’

Lee Han frowned.

‘Guess detox efficiency varies depending on the body.’

He gulped down the rest of the antidotes all at once.

[Arkas Toxin detoxification progress: 100% (Time remaining: 01:05:34)]

Finally, after drinking all five bottles, he fully neutralized the poison.

His breath stabilized.

The worst was over.

‘Finally… I can breathe again.’

Now, he just needed to wait until the toxin fully left his system.

Lee Han pulled out a healing potion from his inventory.

Although the poison was neutralized, it would take time to completely dissipate.

His HP would continue to drop until then.

He needed to keep replenishing it.

That’s why he had bought twenty healing potions.

‘If I can just keep my HP hovering at 5%…’

There was one more thing he was aiming for.

If he could maintain his health at 5% for one hour, he could unlock a hidden achievement.

That achievement would grant him a special power.

Only Lee Han knew this.

No one else had ever survived in such a critical state for a full hour.

Most people either died or tried to keep their health fully restored.

Recalling his near-death experiences from the past, Lee Han quietly sipped the healing potion.

Then—

***

Clatter.

He heard something drop onto the floor.

Lee Han slowly turned his head toward the sound.

The open door.

“Y-Young Master? H-How did you…?”

The voice came from a brown-haired girl dressed in a maid uniform.

The sound seemed to have come from the towel she was holding.

“Oh my goodness! The Young Master has opened his eyes!”

Panicking, the girl darted back out through the door.

Everything had happened so fast that Lee Han didn’t have time to grasp what was going on.

Only now did he fully register his current reality.

‘Is she someone related to this body?’

At that moment, a message popped up in front of Lee Han’s eyes.

[Retrieving the memories stored in the body.]

[Would you like to use 1,000,000 contribution points to purchase the memories of Evan Kerthen, the eldest son of Count Kerthen? (Y/N)]

“Memories…?”

Lee Han looked at the message with curiosity.

They appeared to be the original owner’s memories.

It looked like a tool to help him adapt—but the price was steep.

‘Still, I can’t afford to be stingy early on.’

To live in this body, he needed the memories.

Without hesitation, Lee Han tapped the confirm button.

[You have purchased Evan Kerthen’s memories.]

[1,000,000 contribution points have been deducted.]

In that instant, a flood of memories swept through Lee Han’s mind like a panorama.

From Evan’s infancy to the present moment.

All the memories of the man named Evan Kerthen poured into Lee Han’s head.

And then—

Lee Han’s expression twisted.

“This… is worse than I thought.”

The original owner of this body, Evan Kerthen, was a complete disgrace.

Filled to the brim with inferiority complexes.

As Lee Han sifted through Evan’s memories, he began to understand his current circumstances.

‘The original owner of this body was poisoned.’

At first, he thought Arkas had done it.

But that wasn’t the full story.

It was after Evan drank black tea laced with Arkas’s poison that he collapsed.

He lingered on the verge of death before finally succumbing, his soul drifting away from his body.

Just as the last embers of life in that empty vessel were about to fade, Lee Han arrived and entered the body at precisely the right moment.

‘Honestly, it’s not a bad environment.’

Lee Han evaluated the situation positively.

His main goal had been to find a starting point anyway.

‘So this world runs on a monarchy? The civilization feels a bit underdeveloped, but…’

In contrast, mana usage and monster management were highly advanced and systematized.

Compared to the standards of the world he came from, this one might actually be more developed in certain aspects.

Of course, this world didn’t have Awakeners.

No status windows, skills, or item systems.

‘No… that might actually be a good thing. It means no competition.’

All things considered, this wasn’t a bad setup.

All he had to do was deal with the poison and get rid of whoever had tried to kill him.

More importantly, this family wasn’t just wealthy—it was overflowing with resources.

The Kerthen family, which Evan belonged to, was a noble household founded alongside the kingdom itself—a prestigious family of knights.

They commanded one of the kingdom’s four knight orders and were in charge of the northern region.

Within the kingdom, their influence was substantial.

‘And to think a family like this produced a good-for-nothing like him…’

Lee Han mulled over the situation as he organized the information he had just absorbed.

Evan Kerthen.

The eldest son of Count Kerthen.

The next heir to the family.

But due to various factors, he was considered the worst among the noble house.

Disgraced heir Evan Kerthen.

Yet the path that led Evan to become a disgrace wasn’t entirely his fault.

In fact, some might even pity his past.

‘He had everything anyone could ever want, and yet…’

Surrounded by abundance, Evan fell into envy and jealousy, ultimately succumbing to his own inferiority complex.

His tragedy began the moment he was born.

‘A body that couldn’t manipulate mana…’

The Kerthen family had a unique trait passed down through its bloodline.

You could call it a special constitution—exceptional sensitivity and control over mana.

But Evan, strangely, lacked that ability.

In fact, he couldn’t even sense mana at all.

And in a prestigious knight family like the Kerthens, that was fatal.

A knight’s prowess was determined by their ability to harness aura through mana.

Naturally, Evan, who lacked mana, couldn’t become a knight.

He ended up bearing the dishonor of being the first eldest son in the family who failed to walk the knight’s path.

It wasn’t just his personal shame it threatened to lower the standing of the entire Kerthen family.

And worse, they would become the laughingstock of the other three knight orders in the kingdom.

In response, Evan’s father, Count Clyd Kerthen, came up with a solution.

‘Delian…’

Evan’s younger brother, Delian.

The second son of the Kerthen family.

Unlike Evan, Delian possessed exceptional talent—a promising knight-in-training with a future as bright as the sun.

Though still growing, people were already saying he might one day surpass his father and become a Sword Master.

So Delian stepped in to take Evan’s place.

All attention turned to Delian.

And Evan—

He was left to stew in jealousy, resentment, and inferiority.

A younger brother who had taken his place.

A golden boy, showered with blessings and expectations.

A position that should have rightfully been his.

Evan felt that everything had been stolen from him, and began to spiral.

The family’s rule dictated that inheritance followed the eldest son.

So it was certain that Evan would one day inherit the title, regardless.

Given how sensitive their standing was, the Kerthen household dared not provoke Evan’s temper.

Using this absolute position of untouchability, Evan let himself go off the rails.

No one could stop him.

And for Lee Han, this situation couldn’t have been better.

‘It gives me total freedom to act.’

If he played his cards right, nobody would question his actions.

There was a lot of benefit to being the troublesome but privileged eldest son of a wealthy noble house.

‘As long as I establish my position early on, I can move fast after that.’

Lee Han’s eyes gleamed as he drank several low-grade healing potions.

He continued sorting through Evan’s remaining memories.

‘First, I need to figure out who was behind the assassination attempt.’

Before building his foundation, he needed to remove any threats.

Lee Han meticulously scoured Evan’s memories for clues.

Then, a faint memory surfaced.

And a new message appeared before Lee Han’s eyes.

[Warning! Memory is damaged.]

[Attempting to restore the body’s memories.]

“Damaged memory?”

Even Evan himself hadn’t known about this memory.