NOVEL NEXT Book 1: Chapter 1: Serve As The Overlord? Someone Give Me A Bicycle!
It’s been five years since I’ve arrived in this world and this is my first time feeling a sense of crisis.
As a so-called transmigrator, I’m most definitely considered the lowest of the low. In the past, the Goddess in charge of transmigrations once bestowed all transmigrators a skill called “Mind Message”. This skill allows us transmigrators to communicate with each other even if we crossed over to different worlds. Not being able to communicate would’ve been better. After interacting with other transmigrators, I discovered that their worlds were simply copies of game worlds, with each and every one of them resembling hackers. Some had already ascended the throne and became kings, some had already cultivated into True Immortals, some were just a step away from becoming a Demon King…
Every time they conversed, they would always complain about me for a while:
“Aii, younger brother, aren’t you a bit too weak? Look, you started out as the fourth son of Yunyang’s Overlord. No matter how you look at it, you should’ve been sitting on your father’s seat after these 5 years. You’re making us lose face, how in the world could there be such a salt fish like you!”
Sigh, this is just the perspective of a bigshot.
If we speak based on reason, the identity of a Overlord’s son is worthless in such a big world, but in a small region, isn’t it more than enough to ride roughshod over people?
When I had just crossed over, I discovered that whenever I would wash myself, 3 to 4 maids would come attend to me. From taking off my clothes to washing myself clean, the entire process didn’t need me to do anything. Within the dense steam, several beautiful onee-sans wearing skin-tight clothes were half-kneeling by my side, their small, soft and tender hands wandering about my body——
Beasts! I’m still a child! How could you do something like this!
Give me two more massages……
After a few years of growing up, I became fond of going out to walk my birds and dogs. Every time I left the house, the white-armored female knight captain was bound to follow by my side with a large number of guards behind us. Whenever I saw somebody that upset me, I only needed to wrinkle my brows and point for those subordinates of mine to go and beat them up until their butts burst open.
Swell! This is exactly how a noble’s son’s life should be!
You say that living this kind of life as a transmigrator is shameful and that I should be a bit more ambitious?
Ambitions are impossible to be achieved, living a life of comfort and ease is how you’re able to keep on living.
I should do something constructive? Screw doing something constructive! I dare you to go and ask any one of the commoners in Lingyun City whether or not they like their current ordinary life of being able to eat and drink their fill!
Train in martial arts? Train in what damn martial arts! I won’t say too much, just that with the female knight captain by my side, I simply don’t have any opportunity to show off.
As for unifying the land under heaven, well, the land under heaven is peaceful. Leaving a name in history and things like that shouldn’t even be my business, yeah?
I originally planned to live my entire life this way, but recently I discovered that things seem to be a bit off.
Let me say this first, I’m called Li De and I’m 17 as of this year.
I’m currently living in a country called ‘Eternal Heaven State’ and within this state are 36 big and small Overlords. Each and every Overlord is the equivalent to a small ‘king’ and can select one of his sons to become a ‘crown prince(heir)’ who will succeed the ‘throne’ after the ‘king’ dies. As for all the other children of the Overlord, they can go to the Overlord to obtain a piece of land after becoming 16, for which they will become the lord.
Does this sound familiar?
In the world I used to live in, this type of measure was called the “Pushing Order”1 in which the purpose was to split one big Overlord into many smaller lords and make them unable to have any power to rise up and rebel.
This world goes even further with that idea. The Overlord can split it up however he pleases and the more he splits it up, the better.
But the current problem arises: I turned 17 this year, but I still haven’t been given a piece of land to rule.
At first, I thought it was because my dad was really fond of me and wanted to keep me by his side so that I could fulfill my filial duties. But this year, my two little brothers were given pieces of land and left the house, so now I feel as if this matter isn’t so simple.
Because up until now, my dad still hasn’t established a ‘heir’.
And now, there are only two people who haven’t received land and are old enough to receive some. One is my older brother Li Yi and the other one is me, the fourth son Li De. In other words, if nothing unexpected happens, one of us will become the ‘heir’. It’s already blown up inside the city walls and even the neighboring town has started talking about it.
This is a huge fraud!
My older brother Li Yi is 25 as of this year and is nicknamed something like ‘Unparalleled in Martial Arts’. All the court officials and generals by my dad’s side stands by his side, so I’m basically a solo commander.2
What’s even weirder is that with my keen intuition, I think my dad fundamentally didn’t have any thoughts of handing over the position of Overlord to me.
Thus, after a few sleepless nights, a burst of inspiration hit me and I recalled a story from my former world.
The story went like this: there was once a zoo that raised a tiger that didn’t know how to hunt because it grew accustomed to the peace and security of the zoo. In order to make the tiger recover its natural instincts, a merciless zookeeper brought over a duck, stabbed its’ butt with a knife, and threw it into the tiger’s cage. Upon smelling blood, the tiger’s latent desire was kindled and it cleaned off the duck that had fallen into its cage.
That’s right. Turns out I’m the one who’s the ‘duck’! Holy crap!
After figuring this out, I understood everything. In my dad’s eyes, my older brother Li Yi is good at everything, but his behavior is just too benevolent. It was clear that my dad deliberately built this situation where I could possibly become the ‘heir’. It was all to force my older brother to personally eliminate me and make me his whetstone!
How evil!!
Other people scheme against their dads, only my dad schemes against a son like me.
And so, my older brother also came to the same conclusion that I did. In the span of a year, he sent people to assassinate me 120 times. However, the people he sent were only good at martial arts and didn’t have any smarts, so all of them failed. There was a time when I exchanged poison for wine and nearly poisoned the dispatched assassin to death. Under my threats and promises, the assassin turned traitor. My brother’s greatest achievement in this past year was placing poison in feces and poisoning my dog to death……
I really worry for this person’s future.
It’s just as the ancients say, you shouldn’t fear the thief stealing, you should fear the thief thinking. There are a thousand li where you can act as a thief, but there aren’t a thousand li to protect yourself against a thief. I’m always delaying the inevitable and I’ve gotten tired of it.
Therefore, in order for me to continue on with my corrupt and degenerate lifestyle, I’ve prepared myself to run.
All I need to do is think up a way to make my dad hand me a piece of land far far away!
- TLN: The literal Chinese is 推恩令
- TLN: Solo commander meaning he’s alone and has nobody backing him