"Young Master Ergons, are we really going to apprehend bandits? With the fighting force we can currently muster? This isn't carrying out a mission—it's throwing our lives away!"
The fire was lit, driving back the darkness, and three figures gradually emerged in the dim surroundings.
"Exactly! Sir Davis Tevalin, sent by the main family, appears to be here to aid us, but he's really here to escort us. If we actually encounter a fight, we'll have to guard against him stabbing us in the back!
"If you really accept this order, I'm afraid Tevalin Manor will belong to him!"
Inside a barn, an old man and a young man were passionately trying to persuade someone. The one they were advising was a knight in armor, sitting calmly on a broken piece of wood.
The dancing flames atop the crackling firewood could not illuminate his face beneath the shadow of his helmet. A pair of eyes reflected the light from the darkness, staring intently at his hands as they warmed themselves over the fire.
He seemed completely deaf to the words of the two loyal servants, one old and one young.
"Young Master, I know you only intend to tour the knight's domain, but what will we do if we run into bandits? The lord has only just died, and it's obvious that the main family wants to take back the manor. Judging from the circumstances, these bandits who suddenly appeared may well have been arranged by the main family..."
"I know!"
The young master spoke, but there was not a trace of tension in his voice. "I know they mean us no good, and I know this won't be easy to get through. Even if we get through it, there will still be trouble afterward."
The two loyal servants tried to persuade him again, but the young master settled the matter with finality. "You may leave. Treat Sir Davis Tevalin and his retainer knights well. Sometimes, an improper response is all the excuse someone needs to make a move!"
Old Servant Adam had, after all, been through a lot. He dragged away his son Adamson, who was still complaining that even white bread had been fed to the dogs, giving Young Master Ergons some space to himself.
Once the two had truly left, Young Master Ergons let out a long breath. The inscrutable bearing and unhurried composure he had maintained collapsed in an instant.
"Damn it, how do I get out of this instant-death opening? I must have the worst luck in the world. Why did I have to transmigrate?"
Young Master Ergons was seventeen years old, an apprentice knight. His tall build, strong body, and considerable martial ability had already lifted him completely out of the commoner class.
If his father, Sir Nova Tervalin, had not died in a private war between lords half a month ago, Ergons Tervalin would have continued serving the main family as a retainer knight. After another ten years of a knight's career, he should have been able to inherit Tervain Village, which shared its name with the main family's Tevalinburg, and become a low-ranking noble with an actual fief and income.
Unfortunately, all of that had become an if. The old knight had died bizarrely in a private war between lords, where noble deaths were exceedingly rare. On his way back to the village to mourn his father, the young master had also died from "excessive grief."
It was only because the terrible road between Tevalinburg and Tervain Village was less than thirty miles long that no one noticed that Ergons's soul had already been replaced by a young man from Earth when he boarded the carriage.
"I was just playing Mount & Blade Warband at home over the weekend and turned on cheat mode. Did it really have to send me here to hack people apart?"
Ergons Tervalin had clearly been killed by someone on the road, all so that this Sir Davis Tevalin could take over Tervain Village as a knight of the main family.
"I guess Sir Davis is wondering right now too—how did I come back to life?"
What was he supposed to do now?
Although the village was technically a knight's domain, it had only seventeen households, with fewer than twenty adult men. Under the kingdom's laws and their obligations to their lord, Tervain Village should have organized a twelve-man force, provided its own equipment, and brought its own supplies to answer the lord's call-up.
In the battle where the old knight had died, all four able-bodied men had perished, while the seven elderly and infirm men had all been wounded.
Two had been crippled, and the others were incapable of forming a fighting force.
They had exhausted the entire fortune of Sir Nova Tervalin, who came from a collateral branch, and had only barely managed to distribute the compensation owed to the people of Tervain Village.
Ergons touched the hole in the coat of arms over his chest. It was the old knight's fatal wound. Redeeming this armor and the Knight's Longsword at his side had already been the final straw that broke the camel's back.
Tervain Village was truly out of money. Even if they wanted to hire people to make up the numbers, they could not afford it.
"If only I had a Cheat System like the transmigrators in novels."
Clutching the last few silver coins in his purse, Ergons felt miserable. "Playing Mount & Blade at home was fun, but it shouldn't have actually sent me here to kill people! Besides, transmigrators in novels are supposed to get a cheat system. Where's mine?"
"Vmmm—"
A dull boom made his scalp tingle. A broken, flickering phantom suddenly appeared before him, looking like the screen and keyboard of his laptop.
"System startup incomplete. Retrying..."
"Startup malfunction. Retrying..."
"..."
Every prompt was accompanied by a buzzing vibration. The trembling made Young Master Ergons Tervalin's face go numb, until the system finally seemed to resign itself and stopped trying.
"System startup failure. Restricting startup functions..."
Thus, after Young Master Ergons Tervalin stared at the damaged laptop for half an hour, it vanished and became a floating, transparent keyboard.
The laptop's original display had actually shrunk to the size of a cassette, becoming something like a "minimap."
"So it went from a laptop to a Little Overlord learning console? Or maybe a mobile phone peripheral?"
An absurd thought surfaced, along with the question of how he was supposed to use this "cheat system."
He did not need to explore it himself. Several key combinations on the keyboard lit up, and the "minimap" displayed explanations:
While in the inventory screen (press I to open it), press CTRL+X to add 1,000 gold each time.
While in the Attributes screen (press C to open it), press CTRL+X to add 1,000 experience each time.
While in the Attributes screen (press C to open it), press CTRL+W to simultaneously increase proficiency with all weapons.
In any screen, press CTRL+H to fully restore health.
On the world map, hold CTRL+X to travel to any location instantly.
On the world map, press CTRL+Space to make time pass quickly.
While in the party screen, select a party and press CTRL+X to give it experience and rapidly upgrade it into an elite party.
During battle, press CTRL+F5 to hand control of the player to the computer for automatic attacks.
During battle, press CTRL+F4 to automatically knock out enemies.
During battle, press CTRL+F6 to knock out your allies.
During battle, press CTRL+F9 to perform slow-motion executions.
During battle, press CTRL+F11 to pause the game.
During battle, press CTRL+V to instantly locate your party.
During battle, press Ctrl+Shift+F4 to inflict blunt damage on all enemies and instantly knock them all unconscious.
During battle, press Ctrl+Shift+F6 to inflict blunt damage on all allies and instantly knock them all unconscious.
"WLGDC... These are Mount & Blade Warband's cheat codes?"
Before you continue