In the grand history of humanity, few men have been as unappreciated as I was. Or so I liked to tell myself.
By "unappreciated," I mean "unemployed." And by "unemployed," I mean "I quit before they could fire me."
I'm Kim Minjae, 29 years old. A civil engineering graduate who never quite lived up to his "bright future" label. In university, I was the guy who could pull an all-nighter before a big project, bang out a blueprint in CAD, then sleep through the presentation and still somehow get an A. Professors called me "resourceful." My classmates called me "lazy."
Both were right.
The problem was… real life isn't a group project you can BS your way through.
Two months ago, I was working for a mid-tier construction firm. You know the type — overworked employees, unpaid overtime, a boss who thought "safety budget" was just a suggestion. I lasted eight months before I decided enough was enough. My resignation letter was a masterpiece of passive aggression. I even signed it with a smiley face.
Since then, my life had been a glamorous cycle of instant noodles, cheap beer, and binge-watching old K-dramas while pretending I was "taking time to find myself."
That night was no different. I was sprawled on the floor of my apartment, laptop balanced on my stomach, scrolling through listings for freelance gigs I had no intention of accepting. My bank account was hovering dangerously close to zero, but I had convinced myself that some "amazing opportunity" would just fall into my lap.
It was then I saw it — a webnovel.
The Rise of the Noble Cross.
The synopsis was… something else. "A ruined noble family. A wastrel heir. A crumbling estate. Will he rise or perish?"
It sounded cheap. Trashy. Predictable. My kind of thing.
I clicked it.
Three hours later, I was still reading. It was terrible in all the best ways — overdramatic villains, damsels who fainted every other chapter, and a protagonist named Damien Cross who was so useless it was almost performance art. The man was the poster child for "born with a silver spoon and decided to use it to dig his own grave."
I laughed, rolled my eyes, and kept reading.
At some point, my vision started to blur. I thought it was from staring at the screen too long. Then came the pounding in my head — a sharp, rhythmic thud that drowned out everything else.
I reached for my phone to call… someone. Anyone. But the apartment tilted sideways, my laptop slid off my stomach, and the last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was Damien Cross's stupid, smug face on the screen.
"...Sir Damien. Sir Damien, please, you must wake up!"
The voice was too loud. Too formal. And way too close.
I groaned, cracking one eye open.
Instead of my dingy apartment ceiling, I was greeted by carved wooden beams. Sunlight streamed through a half-broken window. And hovering over me was a middle-aged man with the kind of mustache that screamed "trust me, I'm incompetent."
"Ugh… where am I?" I croaked. My throat felt like sandpaper.
"You're in your chambers, Sir Damien," the man said, as if that explained anything. "You drank quite a lot last night. The servants were most distressed when you fell asleep in the stables."
Wait. Sir Damien?
I sat up.
The bed beneath me was too soft. My hands were not my hands — the fingers were long and pale, nails perfectly clean. My reflection in a cracked mirror across the room showed a sharp jawline, wavy blond hair, and eyes the color of gold coins.
Oh no.
Oh no.
I knew that face.
This was Damien Cross.
I had transmigrated… into the wastrel heir from the novel I'd been reading.
"Sir Damien, the steward wishes to speak with you about the… ah… estate matters."
The mustached man bowed awkwardly.
In the novel, Damien's estate was a legendary disaster. Fields that yielded nothing but rocks, buildings on the verge of collapse, staff who were as loyal as they were useless. Which is to say — very loyal, very useless.
Still in a daze, I let Mustache Guy lead me outside.
The hallway smelled faintly of mold. Plaster peeled from the walls in curling sheets. Every few steps, the floorboards groaned like they were reconsidering their life choices.
The main courtyard was… worse.
The "garden" was an overgrown mess of weeds taller than I was. A once-elegant fountain stood cracked and dry, home to a family of frogs who eyed me suspiciously. Beyond the crumbling walls, I saw the farmland — brown, barren, and patchy, as if someone had tried to plant crops and then forgotten about them halfway through.
And the people…
Ah yes, the legendary Cross estate staff.
First was the steward — a thin man in his sixties with permanent worry lines etched into his forehead. He introduced himself as Gerard and immediately began wringing his hands about "the dire state of affairs" without offering a single solution.
Next came the head maid, Martha — a stout woman with arms like tree trunks and a habit of glaring at me as though I'd personally offended her ancestors. She clearly ran the household… poorly.
Then there was Edgar, the head of the guards, who had exactly two guards under him and carried a sword so rusty it might give tetanus just by looking at it.
Last was the stable boy, Finn, who couldn't have been older than twelve and had hay in his hair.
A dream team, really.
Gerard cleared his throat. "Sir Damien, we've had… unfortunate news. The barley crop failed entirely this year. The tenants are restless. And the merchants have refused to extend any more credit until the outstanding debts are—"
"How much?" I asked.
He looked at the ground. "...More than the estate is worth, I fear."
I forced a laugh. "Well, it can't be that—"
He handed me a ledger. I flipped it open.
My smile died.
The numbers stared back at me like a death sentence.
I closed the book slowly.
Yep. This was bad.
Really bad.
If I was going to survive in this body, I needed to turn this dump into a functioning estate. Fast.
And as much as I wanted to panic, a tiny part of me — the engineer part — was already thinking about drainage systems, crop rotation, and rebuilding schedules.
Still, I couldn't let the staff see that yet.
I handed the ledger back to Gerard. "Right. Well… I'll think of something."
"Of course, Sir Damien," he said, clearly not believing me.
I plastered on my best wastrel smile. "After all… how hard can it be to fix a little farmland?"
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.
And that's how I, Kim Minjae — formerly unemployed, currently the most useless noble in the kingdom — became responsible for saving the most ruined estate in existence.
No pressure.