When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a cracked wooden ceiling.
The second thing I saw was a man in a powdered wig calling me "Lord Damien."
And the third thing I saw… was the estate's roof caving in.
A chunk of rotten timber landed on my stomach with a dull thud.
I groaned. Not from pain, but from sheer disbelief.
"…Great," I muttered, brushing sawdust from my face. "I've been dead for exactly five minutes and I'm already homeless."
Let's rewind to twenty-four hours ago.
In my world — the modern, noisy, concrete jungle of Seoul — I was a civil engineer. A "professional problem solver" in the construction industry. Translation: I made other people's bad ideas structurally possible.
Here's how it worked.Step 1: Developer wants to build something impossible.Step 2: I tell them it's unsafe.Step 3: They say, "Make it work."Step 4: I make it work — usually by risking my sanity and occasionally my life.
Eight years of this had turned me into a coffee-dependent cynic with permanent dark circles under my eyes.
Yesterday, I was inspecting a half-finished overpass. The kind of inspection where you walk in thinking, Don't touch anything, and inevitably end up touching something.
In my case, a railing was loose on the scaffolding. Without thinking, I grabbed it to keep it from falling.
Unfortunately, someone had run a temporary electric cable right across it.
BZZZZT.
Bright flash. Smell of burning hair. The sharp, gut-deep certainty that this is how I die.
My last words?
"Oh, that's not grounded."
And then… nothing.
The next thing I knew, I was lying in a bed that smelled faintly of goats. The sheets were rough linen, my clothes were a scratchy, loose shirt, and the pillow felt like it was stuffed with hay.
Hovering over me was a man with neatly combed grey hair and, yes, a powdered wig. His posture was perfect, his face dignified, but his eyes were watery with worry.
"Lord Damien," he said urgently, "you're awake! Praise the ancestors."
I stared at him. "You've… got the wrong guy."
He blinked. "My lord?"
"I'm not a lord. I'm an engineer."
His eyes widened in horror. "Engineer? Is that some kind of foreign illness? Quick, I must fetch the physician—"
"Wait!" I grabbed his sleeve. "Where… am I?"
"You are in the Cross Estate, my lord. Your family's ancestral lands."
And then the headache hit.
Not just a headache — a flood of memories.
They weren't mine, but they were in my head.
Damien Cross. Twenty years old. Third son of Baron Cross. Known for drinking, gambling, and being spectacularly bad at both. Disowned last month after losing a horse in a bet (don't ask). Sent to live in the crumbling outskirts of the estate so the baron wouldn't have to see him.
So here I was. From overworked civil engineer… to medieval deadbeat noble.
The man in the wig — Mr. Avery, apparently the estate's butler — helped me sit up.
"Would you like to see the town square, my lord?" he asked.
I almost said no. The idea of moving made my legs ache already. But the hole in the ceiling above my bed convinced me otherwise.
We stepped outside.
Calling it a "town square" was an act of generosity.
It was a dirt patch with a broken fountain in the middle. Surrounding it were leaning wooden houses, sagging under years of neglect. The thatched roofs looked like they'd collapse if someone sneezed too hard.
Children ran barefoot through puddles. Chickens wandered freely. An old man was arguing with a goat — and losing.
The air smelled faintly of mud, manure, and hopelessness.
And in the distance, I saw what might have once been a main road… now just a muddy trench dotted with puddles the size of bathtubs.
"This place is falling apart," I said flatly.
Mr. Avery nodded solemnly. "Yes, my lord. But you have always said that repairs were someone else's problem."
"Did I now?" I muttered. "Well, past me was an idiot."
Mr. Avery led me around the estate. It was less of a tour and more of a horror show.
First stop: the barn.Half the roof had collapsed, and the support beams looked like they'd been chewed by termites the size of terriers.
Second stop: the granary.It had flooded last week, and half the stored grain was sprouting. The smell was… memorable.
Third stop: the watchtower.The guard was asleep, a bottle of something strong in his lap. The ladder up was missing three rungs.
By the time we returned to the square, I was convinced that the only thing holding this place together was stubbornness — and maybe some goat hair.
We hadn't gone far before a group of villagers approached. Leading them was a short, stout woman in her fifties with arms like she could bench-press a cow. Her expression was the kind of no-nonsense glare that makes grown men confess to crimes they didn't commit.
"Lord Damien," she said, crossing her arms. "The bridge to Eastfield's collapsed again. Half our farmers can't bring in their harvest."
"Collapsed?" I repeated.
"Yes. And unless it's fixed, the grain will rot before winter."
Behind her, two farmers nodded grimly. One of them muttered, "Happened last year too. And the year before that."
I looked at Mr. Avery. He looked at me.
In any other story, the noble would wave a hand and say, "See to it at once," and a team of workers would magically appear to fix it.
But judging by the fact that Damien Cross had apparently never fixed anything in his life, there was no "someone else."
Just me.
I turned to look toward the east. In the distance, past the rolling fields, a narrow river glinted in the afternoon light. Carts were backed up at its banks, horses stamping impatiently. Farmers leaned against their wagons, looking like they were debating whether to pray or curse.
You didn't need an engineering degree to know the problem. No bridge meant no grain. No grain meant no food. No food meant very angry villagers.
And very angry villagers… tended to reach for pitchforks.
In my old life, I'd fixed bridges because my boss told me to.In this life, I'd fix this one because I liked being alive.
"Alright," I said finally. "Show me the bridge."
The stout woman blinked. "You'll… fix it?"
"Let's just say…" I gave a thin smile, "it's about time someone started working around here."
I didn't tell them my real motivation: I wanted decent roads, warm houses, and a bed that didn't smell like livestock. If that meant accidentally becoming the responsible one, so be it.
As we started toward the river, Mr. Avery gave me a curious look.
"You seem… different, my lord."
"Different?" I said.
"Yes. Normally, you'd tell Mrs. Potts"—he nodded toward the stout woman—"to 'deal with it' and then retire for your afternoon nap."
"Afternoon nap? It's barely noon."
"Indeed. Your dedication to sleeping has always been… admirable."
I sighed. Clearly, my predecessor had set the bar so low that simply walking toward the problem was an improvement.
The funny thing was… I could already see solutions in my head. Timber reinforcement. Better foundation stones. Even a suspension design, if I could get the right rope.
And that was dangerous. Because I knew how these things went.
One bridge leads to a new road.A new road leads to better trade.Better trade leads to more people moving in.
And before you know it… you're running the whole damn county.