Chapter 03
Aymon still had both hands intact. That meant there was still a chance to change his fate.
Didn’t they just say he beat up Count Venner’s retainer?
I rolled my eyes while staring at the watery grain porridge in front of me.
Judging from both the novel’s timeline and this world’s current period, my guess was probably right:
Aymon would soon clash with the Venner family.
The novel never explained the exact cause, but it did describe the result.
A trial by duel.
That was the judgment handed down between the two houses—justice not decided by laws but by combat.
Supposedly the gods themselves would reveal who was right.
To someone like me, Lee Jin-su of South Korea, that kind of ruling was absurd.
But in Ranked World Conquest, that was just another Tuesday.
“Strength is law,” they said, only dressing it up as divine will.
Normally, the heads of the two families were supposed to fight each other.
But if you were rich, you could hire a champion to duel in your place.
And that’s where Aymon lost.
The outcome was obvious.
The Impera family was poor; the Venner family, wealthy.
Aymon was strong for a noble—Magic Rank 4—but only for a noble.
The Venners calmly brought in a Rank 5 swordsman like a monster as their champion.
Aymon struggled desperately, but the result never changed.
He lost, and the champion mercilessly sliced off Aymon’s left hand.
Only the left hand, huh…
They could have taken his life, yet stopped at his hand.
It might sound merciful, but in a world ruled by ranks, it was ruinous.
Rank was measured by the rune etched on one’s left hand.
Losing that hand didn’t just mean you couldn’t display your rank.
It meant you instantly lost every drop of mana in your body, as if your energy core had been destroyed.
That’s what they called a Blank—one forsaken by the gods.
In the world of Ranked World Conquest, rank defined strength and reputation.
Lose your left hand and you weren’t merely unranked—you were beneath livestock.
Aymon, after becoming a Blank, would lose his magic and everything else, wither in despair, and die.
Then Ian would inherit the countship… straight down the path of ruin.
I might be stuck in Ian’s body now, but I had to stop Aymon from becoming a Blank.
Otherwise the fragile Impera house would collapse for sure.
Ian beating up Venner’s retainer?
Almost certainly a trap, bait to provoke a duel trial.
The official challenge hadn’t arrived yet, so there was still time—time to raise my rank and fight in Aymon’s stead, or to find someone who could match a Rank 5.
Slurp.
Aymon left the room, and I took a solitary spoonful of the porridge.
As expected, it tasted awful—dry grains pricking my tongue, a faint fishy odor stabbing my nose, only the barest hint of salt.
After nearly starving to death, my first meal was this? Unfair.
If things stayed this way, we’d keep choking down this slop until the family collapsed, and eventually the novel’s protagonist would show up to kill me.
A starving noble… what a joke.
This wasn’t the aristocratic life I’d imagined.
I’d expected gourmet feasts, not this.
Clack.
“Y-young master, will you stop eating as well?”
Ilene looked worried, afraid something was wrong with the meal she’d prepared.
Her bright eyes turned downcast, stirring an unexpected sympathy.
Running this huge mansion alone must be tough.
She probably ate worse than I did.
All the other servants had left, yet Ilene remained—staying faithful even when the mansion was later offered as a sacrifice to dark magic.
A lifetime of service with no reward.
With a maid like this, even a scoundrel should have repented.
“…I don’t have much appetite,” I said.
“Ah…”
“Clear it away. I’ll eat again if I get hungry later.”
“Yes, please tell me anytime if you’re hungry!”
Relief softened her face.
Clack.
After that pitiful excuse for a meal, I shut myself in my room.
I’d grasped the situation:
a wretched reputation, debts piled high, and a duel trial scheduled a month from now.
There was only one way out.
“Rank.”
Even if the notorious delinquent suddenly behaved, people would just whisper he’d gone mad.
But I had only a month.
The only meaningful change I could show was my rank.
[Name: Ian Impera]
Rank: 1 (Magic)
“Sigh…”
Rank 1 magic—the kind of thing a seven-year-old could manage.
Ian had earned it at that age with a short visit to the Mage Tower and never trained again.
Me, Lee Jin-su, who once maxed out levels in the Valhalla System, stuck at Rank 1!
Even a child swinging a toy sword a few times could get Rank 1.
I needed to climb, fast—at least to Rank 3.
In this world, Rank 3 was the bare minimum for a functioning mercenary.
Rank 1 was a joke; Rank 2 barely counted as a rookie.
Fortunately, according to the novel, most people could reach Rank 3 with a bit of effort.
Even Ilene, who spent her life cleaning, could probably reach Sword Rank 3 after four or five years of training.
Ian hadn’t even managed that.
The real challenge came next: the first wall, between Rank 3 and Rank 4—the realm of innate talent.
Many spent a lifetime stuck there.
Those who crossed that wall became knights, people who could hold their heads high.
No wonder people said, “Hit Rank 4 and life is made.”
But beyond that, the gap only widened:
only a tenth of Rank 4s ever reached Rank 5, a tenth of those to Rank 6, and so on.
Rank 7s were royal knight-captains or masters of the Mage Tower.
Rank 8s were the legendary heroes who slew dragons and demon kings.
Rank 9? Only one ever existed in the whole novel.
Compared to those monsters, Rank 1 was less than an ant’s toenail—and that was me.
“Whew.”
I checked the door’s latch and sat cross-legged on the bed, recalling memories from my life as Lee Jin-su.
A cool yet warm energy surrounded me: mana.
I’d feared the mana of this world might differ from Earth’s after the Cataclysm, but it was strikingly similar.
Still, there was one critical difference:
no dantian, the energy core beneath the navel that Earth’s people used to circulate mana.
Here, the flow bypassed the lower abdomen and exited through the left hand.
How strange.
Aside from the missing dantian, everything else felt the same.
I focused on the current of mana flowing into my left hand.
“Hhh…”
I gathered it there.
Bang.
A tiny spark of light glimmered… then winked out like a dying bulb.
“Gah!”
Pain crushed my chest—the backlash of forcing mana together.
All I’d done was collect and focus it, yet Ian’s body overloaded.
“Damn… what a useless body.”
Sweat poured down as I steadied my breath and tried again, again and again, until my clothes were soaked.
Eventually, I became somewhat accustomed to channeling mana.
[Name: Ian Impera]
Rank: 1 (Magic)
“Haah…”
Still Rank 1. No progress.
Growl.
“…Ugh.”
My stomach roared.
I thought of the grain porridge and grimaced.
Even starving, I didn’t want that again.
“A count who can’t train because he’s hungry—ridiculous.”
I’d imagined nobles feasting daily on delicacies.
At this rate, even raising my rank would be a problem.
I planned to train in swordsmanship— the most basic and widely used rank discipline.
But I’d need physical strength first.
And this frail body, ruined by drink and idleness, was hopeless.
My fingers were skin and bone, ready to snap at a touch.
I needed muscle. But with only thin gruel to eat, that was impossible.
Meat—at least fish—was essential to build strength.
“Another mountain to climb…”
The problems with this wretched body just kept piling up.
