I Enlisted as a Man, and Ended Up Creating a Reverse Harem Chapter 1

“Erian!”

“Young Master!”

Heartbreaking cries burst out from all around the room.

On the bed lay a handsome young man with red hair, his eyes closed and his face peaceful.

“Erian! Sob, sob… Open your eyes! Please!”

The baroness hugged her dead son and wept bitterly, but it was no use.

Erian Tringen, the eldest son and heir of the Tringen Barony, had suddenly caught the flu. Unable to overcome the illness, he had died at the young age of eighteen.

Beside the weeping baroness stood a red-haired woman who looked exactly like Erian, her face frozen in shock.

She was Elia, Erian’s twin sister.

Elia stared blankly at her dead twin brother.

More than the grief of losing a family member, she was overwhelmed by confusion.

Looking at her dead brother, she screamed inwardly.

‘This can’t be happening! If Erian dies now, what am I supposed to do from here on out?’

 

 

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“Shouldn’t we inform the Grand Duke? We should tell him that Erian has died and can no longer enlist.”

The baroness spoke, her eyes swollen from crying.

Elia, the baron, and the baroness were sitting in the living room of their mansion.

They had just returned from the funeral, and all three were dressed in mourning clothes.

The living room was so shabby and empty that it hardly looked like part of a noble’s mansion. The only piece of furniture was an old sofa with badly worn fabric.

The baron replied in a hopeless voice.

“We’ll have to. Now our territory and the Tringen family are truly finished. Still, the compensation Erian would have received for joining the Anti-Demon Army could have been enough for us to get back on our feet…”

At his words, the baroness burst into tears.

“Sob, sob! Dear, what are we going to do now? We don’t even have anything to eat today. We sent all the servants away as soon as the funeral ended. At this rate, we’ll be hounded by our creditors and starve to death. Sob, sob!”

Elia stared blankly at the desperate baron and baroness and lamented inwardly.

‘So even after getting hit by the reincarnation truck and ending up here, I’m still stuck on the miserable life route!’

The novel she had been reincarnated into, The Grand Duke’s Daughter Who Saves the World Wants Nothing to Do with Obsession, shortened to GDD, was one she had loved reading in her previous life, before she was reincarnated.

It was a romantic fantasy novel about Lavinia, an overpowered heroine and the only daughter of Grand Duke Vonberg, the empire’s leader and absolute ruler. Raised with an abundance of her father’s love, she fought demons alongside the male leads, who were both her personal guards and potential husbands.

The novel was popular among readers for its refreshing, satisfying plot featuring the powerful, girl-crush heroine Lavinia, as well as its reverse harem of handsome male leads who struggled desperately to win her heart.

But there was another reason she had fallen in love with the novel.

It was the absolutely insane scale of its reverse harem!

Under the pretext of needing to organize an army to fight the demons, Grand Duke Vonberg, the empire’s guardian, established the Anti-Demon Army.

He then selected fifty handsome and highly skilled men from across the empire and made them live together in military barracks.

However, fighting demons was merely an excuse. In reality, he wanted to create a personal guard unit to protect his precious, beloved daughter.

He even planned to choose a son-in-law from among them.

After all, becoming the son-in-law of the Grand Duke, the strongest person in the world, and inheriting his family was practically the same as inheriting the entire empire.

The fifty ambitious, strong, and handsome candidates for his daughter’s hand did everything they could to win the favor of both the Grand Duke and Lavinia.

‘It was just like watching one of those idol audition shows I used to watch in my previous life.’

Naturally, the most skilled and charming men among them became the main male leads. Lavinia began fighting demons alongside them while gradually developing sweet romantic feelings for each of them.

And Erian, the older brother of Elia, who had been reincarnated into this world, was one of the fifty personal guards and potential husbands.

Of course, until now, she had lived without knowing that the world she inhabited was the setting of a novel she had read in her previous life.

As the daughter of a rural noble family that wasn’t particularly wealthy, she had enjoyed a peaceful life with the baron and baroness and her older brother, Erian.

But two months ago, that peaceful life had come crashing down!

Monsters that had been quiet for years suddenly invaded and devastated their territory, causing damage so severe that it seemed impossible to repair.

Even after spending every last coin the baron family had, they couldn’t restore what had been destroyed. In the end, they had no choice but to borrow money from all sorts of people.

But that was only a temporary solution. The creditors’ demands grew more and more relentless, and the baron’s family fell into an increasingly desperate situation.

Then, just at that moment, Grand Duke Vonberg sent Erian a draft notice, ordering him to join the newly established Anti-Demon Army.

The baron and baroness were reluctant to send their only promising young son into the military, but Erian stubbornly insisted on going.

That was because the Grand Duke had offered an enormous sum of compensation in exchange for his enlistment.

Once Erian’s enlistment was decided, it seemed as though their problems had finally been solved.

‘More importantly, why did the story change like this?’

According to the original story, Erian was supposed to join the Anti-Demon Army and compete with the other forty-nine men for the position of Lavinia’s husband.

But one week before his enlistment, Erian suddenly died. At that very moment, all of Elia’s memories from her previous life came flooding back.

‘What good is it to regain my memories of my previous life now?! The situation is already this bad.’

Elia let out a despairing sigh.

In the original novel, it had only briefly mentioned that Erian enlisted to help his poor family. She had never known that things were this bad.

As the baron and baroness had just said, there was absolutely no way for a rural baron’s family buried in debt to make a miraculous comeback.

Even if they fled in the middle of the night to escape their creditors, she had no idea how they would survive afterward.

On top of that, the baron and baroness were getting old and had trouble moving around.

If things continued like this, it was obvious that they would be crushed by their debts and starve to death.

‘Is there really no way…?’

She wanted to survive, of course, but more than that, she wanted to protect this place and the baron and baroness by any means necessary.

This territory and the baron and baroness were precious to her.

Until the monster attack, her life here had been so happy that it felt almost too good to be true compared to her previous life.

Unlike her family in her previous life, who had constantly used their blood ties as an excuse to take advantage of her, the baron and baroness truly cherished both their children, Erian and her.

They were the ideal family she had dreamed of having in her previous life.

‘But how?’

She sighed once more and picked up a chipped teacup resting on a cracked, old silver tray.

They couldn’t even afford to buy tea leaves, so the tea had already been brewed several times. Its flavor was so weak that it only added to her despair.

Just then, she saw her worried face reflected on the surface of the cracked silver tray.

Her face, which looked exactly like Erian’s.

With only long hair and a dress to distinguish her, she was basically the female version of Erian.

Suddenly, an idea flashed through her mind.

‘What if I enlisted in Erian’s place?’

After all, in GDD, there were already other candidates for the position of the Grand Duke’s son-in-law who would catch the attention of both him and Lavinia and rise to great heights. They were the main male leads.

In the original story, Erian enlisted but eventually faded into an insignificant extra while surrounded by formidable rivals.

He was fairly intelligent, but he had neither exceptional strength nor any other outstanding abilities. He was also introverted, so he never managed to catch Lavinia’s attention.

Erian wasn’t the only one. The other unremarkable men also became extras, training in the barracks without ever making much of an impression.

After all, readers were more interested in the romantic tension and love stories between Lavinia and the main male leads than in the fate of those insignificant men.

Naturally, their actions were barely mentioned.

‘They were only used as material for niche fanfiction written by readers with obscure tastes.’

Anyway, they quietly went about their lives until the end, when they appeared at Lavinia’s wedding to the male lead and congratulated the couple together.

Then, in what she thought was a brief mention in the side story, it was said that they all returned to their hometowns afterward.

‘So all I have to do is keep my head down, survive as an extra in this reverse harem, and then go home, right?’

Besides, she and Erian looked so alike that no one could tell them apart at a glance.

When they were children, even the baron and baroness used to get them confused.

If she cut her hair and dressed as a man, anyone would mistake her for Erian.

‘The Grand Duke and Lavinia won’t pay any attention to me anyway, so there’s no way they’ll figure it out.’

Then her family and their territory could be saved. Everything would be peaceful.

And Erian could finally rest in peace, too.

“Mother, Father.”

Having made up her mind, Elia turned to the baron and baroness.

“I’ll enlist in Erian’s place.”