Chapter 1: A Reader’s Punishment
Romance Fantasy.
Whether it was movies or dramas, it wasn’t a genre I usually enjoyed.
Especially not novels.
Because the overall tone and the direction of the story development were full of things I couldn’t understand.
Some might say.
Isn’t it quite nice to switch things up with this kind of content sometimes, when you want to soak in a sweet atmosphere instead of a harsh reality?
………..That’s the problem.
I don’t know what a ‘sweet atmosphere you want to soak in sometimes’ is.
Thinking about it, I guess the trajectory of my life so far didn’t allow for such things.
My life, which after attending an all-boys middle school, an all-boys high school, and then quickly finishing military service right after graduation, was teeming with nothing but rugged men.
So, is the problem with me, for having walked a life far from sweetness?
No.
When you get down to it, my older brother is the bigger problem.
That crazy bastard who was obsessed with working out, whose very standard for judging the taste of food was completely different from a normal person’s.
‘Ah! Today’s creatine is so dmn sweet.’
‘Hyung, what’s creatine?’
‘It’s a magic drink that can unlock your potential. The human body is so weak that it doesn’t easily allow you to reach its limits, let alone surpass them.’
‘Limits? Why surpass them?’
‘Because the god of martial arts is a cheapskate.’
‘????’
‘I heard it somewhere, isn’t that a fcking cool thing to say? The lonely path of a natural. Shall I offer my sweat and tears again today, huhuhuhuhuhu.’
The image of my brother in middle school, muttering to himself as he shook a strange liquid in a portable water bottle with one arm, is still vivid.
Yes.
Perhaps the standard of my life had changed a long time ago.
Sweet things are creatine, holidays are for splitting between upper and lower body, crying causes muscle loss…..
When I came to my senses, the unbelievable fact that everyone I hung out with was obsessed with working out was probably not without my brother’s influence.
‘Leg day today?’
‘Yeong-cheol is going to try for a new squat 1RM later, let’s go watch.’
‘But aren’t you competing?’
‘Ah, I’m bored, maybe I should start jiu-jitsu.’
‘Do you know about plyometrics? It’s the ultimate functional workout…’
‘Wanna learn martial arts? The director at our gym had a really good impression of you last time.’
‘You know the saying Kendo Sanbaidan, right? How about a round of kendo?’
From the neighborhood guys I got to know thanks to my brother, to the seniors and juniors I was close with in middle school, high school, and even the military, they were all a similar type of people.
If we watched a movie, it was comedy, action, or thriller.
If we ate, it was gukbap, jeyuk-bokkeum, or donkatsu.
Friday nights were unconditionally for the health club…
It must have been during one of those periods.
My body sent an unconscious rescue signal, to escape from the shackles of this life reeking of testosterone.
You fcker, try watching something else for a change-
Is that what it meant?
When a web novel platform I sometimes used when reading martial arts novels had a massive promotion for one particular novel, my finger unconsciously clicked on its first chapter.
‘Oh?’
And, I literally fell for a sweet story completely different from the life I had lived so far.
[The Young Lady Monopolizes All the Interest]
This work, called “Yeong-gwan-dok” for short, was the number one novel in the romance fantasy genre on the platform at the time.
A romance fantasy where all types of male leads, from princes to knight commanders, would not hesitate to destroy mountains and part rivers just to look good for the protagonist.
It wasn’t a story that targeted the tastes of a man obsessed with working out, but honestly, I didn’t care about the narrative.
Honestly, I liked the atmosphere of this work.
The sweetness.
The pink atmosphere where not only the female and male leads but also key supporting characters and even occasionally appearing characters each find a partner and start flirting.
Holy sht, a world like this existed!
Addicted to this strange feeling of my whole body tingling, I even started paying to read the novel.
But the happiness this immersion gave me ended not long after.
‘Ah.. this isn’t right…’
Things started to feel off.
‘Wait a minute. Is this supposed to be a description of an armbar?’
The author’s knowledge of exercise was not just clumsy, but completely different from reality!
‘Even if it’s a world with mana, it has to make sense ergonomically. If you do it like this, the elbow goes up, so no matter how much you bend it, it won’t break! In the first place, if it doesn’t break, why write that it’s breaking! It doesn’t make sense physically, it just doesn’t!’
For a fitness enthusiast, there were more than one or two frustrating facts.
From the general movement of muscles used when training the body, to the sequence and combination of movements of the human body in a brawl.
The description was so terrible and pathetic that it broke my immersion.
If you don’t know, then just describe it vaguely and move on!
Or better yet, don’t write it at all!
Why do you have to touch on a field you don’t know well!
When my frustration grew to the point that it shattered all the sweetness the work gave, I finally let my itching fingers move.
Tap…tak…tap…tak…
I started leaving comments for the first time in my life.
“Phew.”
The past me, who wiped the sweat from my forehead with a sense of relief only after posting a comment that was nearly 5,000 characters long.
“I wonder if they get it now? Maybe I should have explained it in more detail for a workout novice… It would be good to add links too, but that would be overkill, right?”
It was already plenty overkill.
No, maybe it was fine up to this point.
┗ Thank you for your valuable comment, reader-nim I haven’t worked out myself. I’ll refer to it in my future writing.
When the author’s comment was posted, thinking it was the right thing to do, I packed in all the remaining content I hadn’t explained earlier with links and all, completing a comment totaling 10,000 characters.
┗ It would be great if you could show me in person ^^
I should have felt a sense of unease from the author’s second comment.
Show me? In person? How?
That’s what I was thinking at the time.
┗ You should be able to return once you ascend. I’ll wish you good luck until then ^^
With those words, the sky went dark.
“…………………Huh?”
And that’s the story of how I was possessed by this dmn world.
The world where the story of The Young Lady Monopolizes All the Interest, or ‘Yeong-gwan-dok’, unfolds is a very sweet world.
A world where various types of human characters, besides the male and female leads, are in relationships or flirting in their respective positions.
Just as there’s a saying that if there are a hundred people, there are a hundred kinds of love, various forms of romantic relationships appear even in brief descriptions.
The thrilling romance between the head of the thieves’ guild and the knight commander, the fresh romance between a rookie of the mercenary guild and a rookie scholar, the strange romance between a magic tower assistant and their master, the secret romance between seniors and juniors at the Imperial Academy, the fiery romance between a swordsman and a mage, etc…,
Perhaps because of that, there are almost no characters who are portrayed unhappily.
It’s a world where even while the female lead is receiving attention from the male leads, most people are cheerful and happy.
At least, that was the case up to the part I read.
Fierce wars? Horrible battles? Cruel back-alley fights?
Or power struggles within the royal court? Desperate battles between mercenaries?
Bizarre and cruel bloody battles waged by assassins, cultists, and other criminals?
Most of these things are only described in reports, and are only mentioned occasionally during military training or training at a martial family’s home, almost never appearing as ‘direct descriptions’.
And that’s why it fcking sucks.
Thump.
At a time when I know for a fact that someone is receiving a heart-fluttering love letter and looking forward to a sweet date.
“Aaaargh! I’ll kill you!”
Because someone else is living in a living hell that isn’t even properly mentioned in the story.
“When I get back, I’m really going to kill that author bastard, aaaargh!”
Tap, tap, tap!
Yes.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap!
I have been possessed.
By this dmn, horrible island that was mentioned only in passing in the novel.
[Monster Island]
A huge island located to the east of the continent, in what is called the Dead Sea in this world, teeming with beasts and monsters.
This needlessly vast island is mentioned like this in the early part of the ‘Yeong-gwan-dok’ novel.
Haha, this is embarrassing. Yes, that’s right! The fool who blew up Monster Island for the safety of the ladies present here is none other than me.
That’s right.
A sub-male lead whose hobby is to subjugate monsters on the frontier just to get attention from women he meets at a ball.
The island that dmn bstard will soon blow up to utter that line in the early part of the novel is where I am.
In other words, most of the living beings where I am now will disappear without a trace.
And that means I must get off this island before then.
So.
I must survive, no matter what.
“Kirrrk! Kerik! Kerrreuk!”
“Kweeeee!”
“Kikikik! Kik-kek-kek-keeeek!”
“Guooooh!”
“Kwoong! Kwoooong!”
In this dmn place where monsters like gnolls, goblins, orcs, and even ogres all gather to form a strange ecosystem.
“D-Don’t follow me, you fcking bstards!”
In the body of a test subject, who has just awoken.