The Male Protagonist is Broke - Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Chapter 1 – Born to a Broken Golden Spoon with Debt

Tilong.

[SYSTEM | There is only one week left to repay the debt.]

The system kindly notified me of the last remaining 1 juran I owed.

I repeatedly pressed my fingertips against that cute little button and then pulled it away.

Of course, considering the debt I have repaid over the past five years.

Only six ‘0’s.

I paid it all off.

If I just paid off 1 juran, I could say goodbye to that huge debt forever.

I held out my hand to my younger brother, who had dark eyes under his eyes.

“Why?”

“Just give me 1 juran.”

He wordlessly rummaged through his pockets, laid out the coins on several tables, and barely managed to cough up 1 juran before handing them out to me.

When I rolled the jingling money into my hand and called up the system, the ‘Pay Debt’ button started to light up.

‘Pay off debt.’

Now that I was tired of pressing the button, the money I was holding disappeared and a jingling sound of money was heard. Afterwards, a fanfare sounded, and the system text appeared.

[SYSTEM sends congratulations! ‘Irina Sheik’s debt of ‘5,000,000’ was fully repaid on November 10, 891, Imperial Calendar.]

“Aaaah! At last!”

I sold all my belongings and sat in the empty parlour of the Count Sheikh while screaming. My younger brother, Ijin (like ee-jin), who had worked hard to pay off the debt along with me, also screamed in joy.

My teeth chattered when I thought about how hard I worked to repay the huge sum of 5 million juran.

[SYSTEM | Clap clap clap! Everyone at our system supports ‘Irina Sheik’ and cheers for her happy new start!]

[SYSTEM | Now, let’s not go into debt again!]

I shouted ‘shut up’ at the obnoxious system window and fell back down.

Yes. I was possessed in the game.

As someone who has played all kinds of games, possession itself is actually not a big problem.

However, the genre of this game was a serious problem.

Just before I died, I played a game with a rather intuitive name, ‘Lady, please pay my debt.’

‘Lady, please pay back my debt’, also known as ‘Lady’s Debt’, is a game where players have to pay off the debt of a fallen family.

However, the worldview is just a typical romantic fantasy.

However, if you ask me if there is romance, I will say that ‘This is a scam.”

There is no such thing. There is no romance for the player.

The overall story line of this game is a typical story where the female and male protagonists meet, the war breaks out, they save the empire, and eventually fall in love with each other.

However, the problem was that the player had to work hard to repay his family’s debt from start to finish.

The romance between the female lead and the male lead was just an event that occurred for the player to repay a debt.

I was possessed by this debt romance game.

‘F**k you.’

At first, I didn’t even know it was possession.

When I died and opened my eyes, I was about five years old, and the entire Count Sheik family was in an uproar when the eldest girl, who was an idiot, came to her senses.

And at that time, I wasn’t this deep in debt.

Although they were not wealthy, they were a family of imperial counts who lived well.

Am I a gold spoon? I am going to play, laugh and eat.

I was planning on enjoying life.

However, it was when I was fifteen that I recognized that something was wrong, and it was when I was seventeen that I realized that my life was in shambles.

The family gradually declined and became completely bankrupt when I was seventeen and my younger brother was only fifteen.

“Sister, what should we do now?”

“… … I know.”

My parents passed away early due to an accident and illness. At first, my relatives and adults seemed to help me, but later on, they seemed like complete strangers.

When I came to my senses and looked closely, my family’s situation was even more serious.

All the businesses we had were going bankrupt, and thanks to this, my debt was higher than when I checked before.

What appeared then was a system window.

[SYSTEM | Please enter your name: []

When the window asked me to enter my name without any explanation, I thought I had an awakening.

Why, if you read the novel, the system window appears and you awaken and become a hero of the empire, right?

I thought I was.

[SYSTEM | Please enter your name: Irina Sheik]

I urgently entered my name.

[SYSTEM | Is this really Irina Sheik?]

However, what appeared in front of me after I clicked the ‘Yes’ option was not a window-like
‘Awakening’.

[SYSTEM | The time was January 888, Imperial Calendar…]

When you first start the game, the system displays text as if explaining the situation or background. Even in this chaotic situation, I was nervous, wondering if there was a way to overcome the situation.

And what followed… …

[SYSTEM | The Count Sheikh family went bankrupt.]

!……

[SYSTEM | ‘Irina Sheik’, who has been appointed as the next head of the family, must pay off the debts of the Countess Sheik’s family and rehabilitate her bankruptcy.]

!……!

“Sister?”

“… … no way.”

There was one game that came to mind the moment I saw that phrase. I was proud that I could still remember it even after almost 10 years had passed.

[SYSTEM | Then, player, ‘Irina Sheik’. Please pay off your debt from now on!]

[SYSTEM | ‘5,000,000’ remains until debt repayment.]

“You’re crazy…”

[SYSTEM | It starts now!]

[SYSTEM | Lady, please pay my debt!]

That’s how I ended up paying back the huge sum of 5 million juran.

Sh1t.

 Translator’s Notes: 

It will eventually be revealed by the next chapter that there are two consciousness/people sometimes talking within the system. So the system talks within themselves sometimes, but they don’t have names so I cannot separately identify which system speaker is speaking. It should generally not be too confusing. Also, whenever there is a dialogue like this with a single apostrophe ‘hello this is irina’ – it means that Irina is conversing with the system. There is her usual narration towards the reader without any punctuation, and her usual spoken dialogue with double quotation marks “” when she is speaking aloud.

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