I'll Save This Damn Family! - Chapter 1

My life was a mess.

“Not like that, milady. If you hold the ax too close to the blade, your center of gravity will shift forward too far, so your shoulders will be too tense when you swing. Now, look at me. You’ll stumble if you do it like that. Hold the ax a little lower on the handle.”

“Oh, I know, I know. B, but what can I do, it’s heavy.” 

“Ha. Woah. Woah! You’ll end up hurting yourself if you keep this up.”

“B, be quiet. My head aches… uh! AUGHH!

In the end, I fell over.

Damn it. It’s really heavy. 

Excruciating pain shot into my body through my butt. This damn body. This damn mouth. This damn world.

The sky that I saw from the ground was clear and blue, regardless of my mood.

“We can’t go on like this. Let’s try again after improving our stamina a little more first. Now! Five laps of fast walking.”

I stood up laboriously from the floor.

“Haah, damn it.”

I walked. Very quickly. However, it only felt fast to me, for everyone else, it probably looked as if I was walking slowly.

But what can I do? I’m doing my best.

92kg. My weight.

Incredibly, I had transmigrated into the book written by a fellow writer, and it just had to be into the body of an 18-year-old aristocratic lady, the fifth daughter of the soon-to-be-annihilated Elias Family.

Annihilation? It was a serious problem. But putting aside that… 

I truly had no luck. In all the romance fantasy novels that I had read, every single one of them would transmigrate into beauties that could swallow the world whole.

But why me? Why me? Why me?!

Sweat poured out from my body as if it was raining. My panting breaths signaled that I had reached my lungs’ capacity, but I continued to walk quickly.

Bernard Smith, who received a salary from the family as one of the lower-ranked knights of the household’s guard, was a 23-year-old Sword Learner who had been knighted just a year ago.

On the surface, this bear-like man looked to be about 30. Should I say, he was kind of like Jang-bi from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

A month ago, I received what I had requested from the family doctor, Sir Oliver, and straightforwardly went up to him. “Y-You. Become my knight.”

This girl always stutters the first words of her sentences when she gets nervous.

Prior to when I transmigrated into her body, she had fallen from a tree and laid in bed for 2 months. When I woke up, my first utterance was a shriek.

Even after I had calmed down, whenever I spoke, my first word in every sentence was like that. But the people around me looked surprised and said I was speaking incredibly well. It turns out that even before I had fallen from the tree, I had stuttered terribly. Additionally, I was a hikikomori who was always stuck in the corner of my room all day.

It had been such a long time since I had read the book that it was not easy for me to remember the identity of the girl I had just transmigrated into.

It was to be expected since [The Chronicles of Ossyria] had stopped releasing at Chapter 60, and the character I had transmigrated into, Tara Elias, was merely an extra who had only appeared for just about 2 chapters.

As such, it took me an entire week to remember what kind of person I was.

I had christened her with a name, and it had also been my idea to make her a fat, stammering lady.

I must have been crazy. Seriously.

Once I realized that the character I had transmigrated into was ‘Tara Elias’, I ran away.

I did not want to live in this body in this soon-to-be-damned family. Stupidly, I hitchhiked my way out of the Capital on a cheap carriage.

Within 3 days, I encountered a robber and became penniless, and I almost ended up begging on the streets to maintain this rather huge body.

Be it a relief or not, I soon collapsed due to fatigue while I was wandering around a street. No one helped me.

A few hours after I laid there unconscious, I woke up and the first thing I felt was hunger. Tears blurred my vision.

In the end, I returned to the Capital as a beggar, and the people of the household whispered among themselves that I had gone crazy after hurting my head.

It took me two months to finally accept my situation. The first person I looked for when I came to my senses was Bernard.

Whatever the case, I was still alive. And I should try to stay that way.

For that to happen, I made up my mind to get rid of all this weight that made it a struggle to even walk properly.

“What? No. What are you talking about, milady?”

“I-It’s just as I said. Become my knight. I want to learn how to fight.”

His mouth made an ‘o’ shape. After blatantly scanning me from top to bottom, Bernard frowned, though he quickly smoothed his expression as if to demonstrate the fact that he, too, was a knight. “Why me?”

What do you mean why? It’s clearly because you’ll one day become a famous general, that’s why. If I intend to save the family and sustain my life, I need people like you.

“Y-You’re not busy. So, help me train every single day.”

He did not bother to even hide his annoyance as he rubbed his face repeatedly.

The knights hired by the Elias Family had all mastered their personal strengths. Since they received pay according to the jobs they did, even if they were knights hired by a household, they often flattered the captain of the guard for better jobs.

However, Bernard had no such connections. What use was it even if he had the skills?

His personality was so proper that he did not know to bow his head when it came to social settings. And there was one striking detriment to him as a knight. As a result, he currently had a lot of free time.

“Hm. Milady. I’m asking you this question because I don’t really understand what you just said. Are you saying you want to receive the same training as what soldiers receive?”

It was obvious that the words ‘with such a body?’ had been omitted.

“Yup. That kind of training. Of course, you’ll be given your pay for the training as well. It’s not an offer that you would lose from.”

“Even so, I refuse. You weren’t even born a man who can go out onto the battlefield… This isn’t right.”

“Is that so? You’ll regret it, you know.”

“I will not regret it.”

“Even after seeing this?” I pulled out the small cloth pouch that I had brought with me and threw it to him.

“What is it?”

“Something that you need more than anything else.”

He opened the cloth pouch with a questioning gaze, but even after looking at it, it seemed as if he still had no idea what it was.

“I wonder why you left the tax collection team two months ago.”

He must have hated just the mere thought of it because his face immediately crumpled.

“Would you like me to say it for you? Headaches and backaches. Stomach distension. You have alternating phases of constipation and diarrhea, unable to feel refreshed no matter how many times you go to the bathroom. Your stomach often starts aching slowly and suddenly, right? Your damned intestines. How can a knight be in such a state? I mean, just why does it act up each time there’s some big, imminent event? Isn’t your nickname ‘10 Times A Day’?”

“Ah, seriously! Even if it’s milady, isn’t this going too far?”

“What’s with the agitation? That’s the best medicine for it right now! Do you know how much money I spent trying to get a hold of it? It’s impossible to get it with your salary as a knight! According to Sir Oliver, as long as you eat this regularly for an entire year, your health will improve. They refined elm tree sap to make it.”

“Ah…” He looked as if he had been gifted the world. 

That’s right. Bernard suffered from irritable bowel syndrome. However, his reaction was momentary. His pride must have reared its head and made him hesitate..

“Even so, this… Hm. Let me think it over…”

I had to hammer in the truth. So I pelted him with more biting facts.

“Are you going to relieve yourself little by little on the battlefield? I’m asking if you want to fart every time you wield your sword! It might be a mere 10 times per month right now, but who knows if it’ll increase to 10 times per knife strike? It won’t do for the general to smell more of shit than blood, right?”

“Ah, seriously! Have you finished? This is insulting!”

“What do you mean by insults? It’s the truth. If you don’t want to accept my offer, don’t! What, did you think you were the only knight around here?”

Even after threatening him, I snuck a few glances at him anxiously and found Bernard furrowing his eyebrows in deep thought.

At times like this, it was better to stop pushing and hope the pressure was enough to elicit a favorable response. 

I turned away. “Fine. I don’t want to beg either!”

One step. Two steps.

“…Alright. I’ll do it.”

I thought I’d have to take a third step. Great!

I pursed my lips to prevent my smile of victory from slipping and met his gaze with the most charitable expression possible. “While I’m training, I’ll provide you with medicine so you’ll never be short of it. Of course, I’ll also give you your pay as well.”

That was how my harsh exercise routine started.

The only problem was that I did not know that he was a knight who used an ax as his main weapon.

As such, I trained with him for two hours every day. After fifteen minutes of stretching, there were fifteen minutes of strength exercises, and the rest of the time was spent on aerobic exercise.

Afterward, I learned the basics of ax-wielding from him. To be honest, I had thought 2 hours would be too little, but even with just this much, I was no different from a good-for-nothing.

There couldn’t be another person with as low of a stamina as this.

Every day after my exercise, I would go to the back of the estate, where, in one corner, there was a barn equipped with a giant scale meant for livestock. There, I would weigh myself.

Within a month, I had lost 10 kilograms. Though my cheeks seemed to be a bit hollow, otherwise, there was little difference.

My current mass was 92 kilograms.

When I had finished my fifth lap, a servant, who had been waiting for me to finish my exercise, approached me.

“The Lord is looking for you.”

“Me? Hah… Hah…”

“Yes. He has ordered for all his children to gather in the sitting room.”

“A-Alright.” I swallowed my saliva and caught my breath, wiping my sweat before sinking onto the ground and bowing my head to think.

What’s his reason?

Up till now, there had been no incident of Tara’s father looking for me. He was far too busy for me, an existence far out of his sight and mind.

Why then, had he called for all of us?

Five minutes passed before I caught my breath. I poured water on myself and changed my clothes.

In a separate room just in front of the sitting area, the madames were having tea. There, I saw my mother as well.

“Fighting,” Tara’s mother mouthed soundlessly to me. 

She astounded me every time I saw her. How could one be so naive and happy?

At 36 years of age, Isabel Elias was just 3 years older than me when I was in Seoul, but she was this body’s mother, and Father’s third wife. Though she must have received lots of harsh criticism after giving birth to a daughter, who had then been labeled crazy and idiotic for all of her 18 years, she remained a very pure person. Perhaps she was more astute than all the others.

The moment I entered the sitting room, the gazes of the other family members immediately turned to me. They looked to be wondering why I was present in the first place.

His head full of snow-white hair, Father sat in the chair at the center, waiting for the room to grow quiet.

Even just by sitting there, he emitted an intimidating aura and charisma.

“…You all probably know that an official letter has been sent to each family from the Royal Palace, right?”

Letter? What official letter?

“Yes,” my other siblings answered decisively. The only person who was not informed was me.

“You probably also know that even if it says that they’re looking for new bureaucrats for the administration, in reality, they’re looking for people of different families to lend strength to each of the candidates for the throne.”

Ah. So it has started. This was the start of the Elias Family’s road to destruction.