I Will Make You a King as a Possessor

As soon as Yoo Tae-ha woke up, the ceiling he saw was golden.

‘I’m dead.’

He had fallen straight to the ground and lost consciousness due to a hunter hired by his client. Even if he was lucky enough to wake up, the sight before his eyes couldn’t possibly be a dazzling golden ceiling, at best it would have been a polluted violet sky. Even the scent was pleasant. The scent too.

Then what were these dreamlike golden waves before his eyes?

A golden ceiling. Ornate relief decorations. A luxurious bed with four pillars and a twenty pyeong (1 pyeong = 3.33 meter squared) with a red carpet. The clothes he was wearing were not the torn short-sleeves he was wearing when he fell, but navy silk pajamas.

‘Am I not actually dead?’

He had no idea what had happened. If someone had saved him, wouldn’t they stay by his side to ensure that he woke up?

Yoo Tae-ha, slowly descending from the bed to grasp the situation, suddenly lost his balance and fell.

The problem happened from hereon. 

When he strained to get up, his eye level was 10cm lower than usual. The hand that came into his view was also smaller than he remembered. Almost as if… he had the body of a child.

‘Why is my body… like this?’

Unless his ankles and fingers had been sharply cut off, he shouldn’t have such a body.

It briefly occurred to him whether it was a dream or a hallucination, but everything from the smell tickling his nose to the vivid pain was certain. At least one thing was sure—the current situation was not a hallucination from before his death.

‘Damn it, what the hell happened…’

That’s when it happened. Amid the confusion in his head, he heard the sound of footsteps.

The unfamiliar footsteps lightly stepping on the marble floor stopped in front of the door.

The next thing he heard was,

“Did you cough, Master Raymond?”

“….”

An unfamiliar voice.

Yoo Tae-ha remained silent. If his hunch was correct, the ‘Raymond’ that person was looking for was definitely this person’s master. And the only person in this room was him.

‘So, am I Raymond?’

“He seems to still be asleep.”

When silence lingered, the sound of footsteps slowly receded. The faint footsteps. As soon as Yoo Tae-ha confirmed that the presence had completely disappeared, the first thing he did was to thoroughly search the room.

He was looking for information about this body.

Yoo Tae-ha had once worked as an information broker in the back alleys during his Hunter days. For him, extracting information from a room where traces of life still remained was as easy as eating rice noodles with chopsticks.

First, the picture. The portrait hanging on the wall depicted people who looked like a family. A middle-aged man with impressive goat whiskers, a woman who looked younger but had a gentle impression, a cute child in between with chubby cheeks.

And the boy standing next to this seemingly peaceful family.

Red hair, slightly upturned blue eyes, a high nose that drops straight without any curvature, and drooping corners of his mouth that looked gloomy when he wasn’t smiling. His pale skin and slender physique that almost looked like a corpse.

He recognized this face.

‘Isn’t this… me?’

The face and body of the boy in the painting was definitely his from childhood.

But at the same time, it wasn’t him. Because Yoo Tae-ha didn’t have such memories. Besides, who in modern society would live in a room like this and hang such a portrait?

Yoo Tae-ha looked at his reflection in the full-length mirror hung under the portrait. The reflection of himself in the mirror was at best a teenager in his mid-teens.

‘If you say that it’s the same face but a younger body… Could this be something like a parallel world that you only read in books?’

Expanding on various possibilities, Raymond began to look through the letters on the desk. Most of them were letters from a person called Grand Uncle.

‘The name is Raymond Van Spurling.’

Fortunately, there was no one with such a name in the novels he read or the games he played. Even the surname Spurling was unfamiliar. He also had no recollection of the name, the Stun Kingdom.

‘It’s more reasonable to think of it as a parallel world rather than a novel or game.’

Reading more of this Grand Uncle’s letter, it seemed that his father’s title was a duke.

And looking at the state of the mansion, the quality of the letters, and the quality of the furniture, this ducal family seemed quite wealthy.

‘There are cases where there is only honor without money… But that doesn’t seem to be the case for this family.’

Good. No, this was more than good. He sternly pressed down the corners of his mouth that were curling into a smile, and continued reading the letter.

The content of the letter was roughly like this. ‘You are the disgrace of our family, the talentless fool of a firstborn, so don’t even dream of following in your father’s footsteps. Instead, stay still and enjoy the comforts of life.‘ This sentiment was stretched over about ten lines.

‘Indeed. Although I’ve never met them, this person understands the true value of life.’

Money comes and goes, but it’s better to have it. That way, one can live doing what they want.

Sadly, the now-deceased Hunter Yoo Tae-Ha was so poor that he couldn’t even afford to sit still lest he starve. He had no choice but to risk his life gathering and selling high-level information. However, there was no need for that anymore. Enjoy the comforts and keep still… Wasn’t that the life he had always desired?

‘Just calm down.’

Should I look for other clues?

‘It seems this is all the letter contains.’

Next, the condition of the room.

The bookshelves crammed to full capacity with books were largely about magic. In other words, this was a world where magic existed.

‘So, the eldest son, who is terribly untalented in magic, has put in a tremendous amount of effort.’

One could tell just by looking at the state of the books. Every book he pulled out was in a mess, signs of diligent study were visible all over.

*Thud—*

The portrait, the letter in the room, the clothes and shoes in the wardrobe, the books packed into the bookshelf. The information he had gathered so far was as follows:

– The owner of this body is Raymond Van Spurling, the eldest son of the distinguished magical Spurling family. He is intelligent but seems to lack a circle to contain magic. However, his younger brother, who is two years younger, was born with immense magical talent.– The fact that the Duke of Spurling, ashamed of his eldest son’s lack of talent in magic, had given up on the eldest son and kept him confined at home.– According to the schedule of the original owner of this body, it’s morning, and he should be getting out of bed to study alone.

With this amount of information, it was sufficient to understand the situation. Experiencing all sorts of things since the Great Awakening era, to Hunter, parallel worlds and trnasmigrations weren’t anything new. He was the kind of person who, if it was for survival, would believe and adapt even if a skeleton in front of him rose and said, ‘I am your father.’

‘First, discard the identity of Yoo Tae-Ha. And adapt.’

It was then. A familiar window flickered in front of his eyes.

[ Name: Raymond Van Spurling (Yoo Tae-Ha) ]

The system window.

‘The system status window that only appeared to the Hunter was visible here too. Following me even here, it’s pretty obsessive at this point.’

[ The soul of the deceased Yoo Tae-Ha has possessed Raymond Van Spurling in a parallel world ]

[ The soul of Raymond Van Spurling has summoned you here. ]

[ Providing an adaptation period to the weary soul: Approximately one month ]

An adaptation period?

It’s unexpectedly generous. This is a system that would even annihilate the world just to eliminate one person.

But why would they provide an ‘adaptation period’? The system gives such a time? Was the system ever so kind and friendly to him?

‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

After pondering for a while, Yoo Tae-Ha… no, now Raymond Van Spurling, shook his head once and for the first time in this world, he opened his mouth properly.

“Ah, whatever.”

Soon, he swung the door wide open and called out to the servants in the hallway.

“Is there anyone there? I’m awake now? I’m hungry?”

He was hungry and wanted to enjoy a luxurious feast. No, it’s still daytime so it should be a luncheon.

“First, eat and think, huh.”

Regardless of how it happened, it was better to enjoy what one could and think later.

The start of his ‘luxurious life.’

※※※※※※※

Two weeks had passed since he had awakened. In the meantime, Raymond had been leisurely enjoying his new life. The father in the portrait didn’t seek him out, and his mother would occasionally visit Raymond’s room to ask about the content of the book she read today.

The first time he confronted her, Raymond was afraid his identity might be discovered. As a parent, he thought, she would have every right to suspect. Surprisingly, she didn’t notice that her son was no longer her son. Perhaps Raymond had put on an impressive performance.

“The book you read today seems difficult.”

“Yes.”

“…I see. How are you feeling today? Don’t you want to go for a walk outside?”

“Yes.”

“Just like always, my son. Don’t just stay inside because you’re down. Not being able to use magic doesn’t make you useless. You understand, right?:

“Yes, I understand.”

It was a moment that gave insight into how much…how gloomily the previous Raymond had lived.

Anyway, Raymond was adjusting quite well to this place. As he adapted to his body, basic knowledge of this place naturally flowed into his mind, and he was able to perfectly understand the magic knowledge accumulated in his body.

And so, after two weeks, Raymond had his first meal with his family. He passed the central hallway towards the dining room where breakfast would be held. At the end of the rectangular table covered with a white tablecloth, sat his father Terian, and next to him were his mother Sasha and his younger brother Adrian. They were exactly like the family members in the portrait, simple but appropriate.

His mother chatted away in her canary-like voice, and the duke listened silently to her words. He occasionally glanced at Raymond, but didn’t speak to him. Raymond didn’t mind the man’s gaze.

After living in this body for nearly two weeks, he had realized that Duke Spurling didn’t care at all for his eldest son who couldn’t use magic.

At this dining table, only his mother Sasha spoke kindly to Raymond.

“It’s nice to have a meal together after such a long time, Raymond. You never used to come out, thank you for joining us this time.”

“…You’re welcome.”

So the original Raymond didn’t usually dine with his family? To refuse these kinds of foods, he must have been spoiled.

Raymond, who brushed off the situation with a short answer, plunged his head back into the soup on the table. He lowered his gaze and sneaked a glance at his younger brother, Adrian.

‘Come to think of it, he’s the magical prodigy.’

That’s impressive. To be recognized as a genius in such a small body.

‘Huh. I just realized.’

Taking a spoonful of soup, Raymond suddenly remembered that he too needed to learn magic.

In the kingdom of Stun, only the child with the most talent in magic could inherit the title of a magical family, and you needed to know magic to inherit even a part of the family’s property. It would have been much better if there were an unjust law that allowed only the eldest son to inherit all the property.

Stirring the soup, Raymond seriously pondered about what he should do next.

”I originally couldn’t use magic at all……but that might have changed. Maybe I should call a magic tutor first?’