Chapter 1 - Bloodline-Ending Curse

Oh, hello there. It’s a pleasure to meet you all. First of all, allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Emilio Stadford. One of the younger generations of the Earl Stadford house, a noble family that lords over the Gold Ridge area.

I have a little secret in which I actually remember my past life on modern Earth. A transmigrator or maybe a reincarnator? Or even perhaps a body snatcher? Well, who cares about those details. In short, if my life became a story, it would have the ‘isekai’ tag listed first, that’s for sure.

And what I want to say is that my 2nd life here with the Stadford can’t be expressed with words other than perfect.

Why? Well, let me tell you then.

First of all, I am, or at least the body that my soul resided is in the line of nobles. And it is not just any noble’s rank but an Earl. In the peerage hierarchy, Earl is straight in the middle. Just the perfect line. Not that high to be too important or not too low to be ignored. And I’m also not Earl Stadford’s direct descendant, I am the son of the earl’s brother which is even more perfect.

Why? Because I won’t have to deal with too many responsibilities from being a successor of course. Added to the wealth of the Earl Stadford family, I am basically a free man with no immediate responsibilities. The perfect start to a new life in isekai if you are someone like me who just wants to lead a slow, easy life.

Of course that doesn’t mean I can just slack all day every day. I still help around the family’s business and I also need to at least learn about noble etiquette. But I got all the time in my childhood to get used to those and children are fast learners by nature.

The second reason is that my past life memories awakened when I was 5. I don’t need to experience being a powerless baby with my memories as an adult intact and I can immediately start working my body out so I could get the best foundation to become a decent combatant. 5 years old is the perfect time to reincarnate.

Eh? You are asking me why I bother training my body because my ultimate goal is to have a slow life? Are you stupid? This is THE Isekai world. This place is not as safe as it was on Earth. There are threats everywhere ready to devour you whole so I need to have at least a decent enough power so those troubles won’t come my way. It is better to be a general amongst the farmers rather than the opposite. And I absolutely agree with that.

I have read a lot of isekai-themed web novels in my previous life so I am a bit scared of the possibility of a sudden twist in the plot. Who knows whether a mass teleportation accident won’t happen here? I need to at least get myself ready so I can survive most plot twists that could happen.

Of course, my identity as the young generation from Earl’s house also helps a lot in this regard. I can get a better education, equipment, nutrition, and protection than most people in the area, maybe except for the earl’s direct son.

And the result? I am already a tier 1 knight before reaching adulthood which is 15 years old in this world. Just FYI, tier 1 knight means that I can strengthen my body with mana so I can do feats that no normal human back on Earth could do. Well, just like what those superheroes could do in movies minus flying but you get the idea.

Yup, this world is an isekai fantasy one if you haven’t noticed. There are magicians and mana-enhanced knights in this world. There are also demi-human races like the beastmen and elves. I can finally fulfill my dream of having a beautiful elf wife here. Yes, I am very excited about that premise.

Anyway, I’m getting a little bit out of topic here. The third reason why I say this is a perfect life is because of the name of this area bestowed upon the Earl’s family, Gold Ridge. Just like its name, Gold Ridge consists of a mountainous area that is rich with mineable minerals, especially gold. And of course, it brings tremendous wealth to our family. There is no trap like I got born into a noble family but the noble family is actually dirt poor or such.

Those are all the reasons why my life here in this new world is considered perfect. Although there is no internet and electricity here, I can adapt to most of life's inconveniences as I have my personal servant to help me in my everyday life and the absence of the internet might actually be a good thing to help me focus on my training and study here… Okay, I missed browsing the internet and playing video games but Earl Stadford house owns quite a collection of books in our private library so I can just read some books when I am free. Reading about the legend of heroes and the diary of a famous adventurer is basically like reading an isekai novel…

“Milo? Milo! Get a grip son, I know this sounds hopeless but you must know the truth” A middle-aged man with a face similar to mine is holding my shoulder tightly while screaming something.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, my life is perfect…

“Milo! Our family is cursed okay! We are cursed with a bloodline-ending curse!”

I don’t want to hear that. Stop speaking, please.

“Listen, if you are wondering where your mother is, you don’t have one, okay? I pay a woman to accept my seed and to give birth to you so our family line could endure even for another generation. With the curse in our family, we are unlikely to have a wife”

The man, my father in this world, continues on with his info-dumping.

Ah, so that’s why there are only 3 children in this big family. I always wondered why there are only the 3 of us and why there are no women in the family.

“After all, the bloodline-ending curse has stolen our pride as men that there’s no way any woman would agree to be our wife. The effect is not life-threatening yet still disastrous for our family”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Because the curse effect makes the men of the family have tiny penises, right?”

“That’s right. With the size of our penises, it is hard for us to have a wife, much less to have a descendant. Since the time grandma cheated on grandpa, the late earl of Stadford, we brothers have resorted to paying women to help us have descendants. The process is also very humiliating for me and your 2 uncles so we could only force ourselves to have at least 1 descendant”

Today is the coming of age day for me. Today, I officially became 15 years old and became an adult. But what awaits me on my celebration day is the sad truth about our family’s secret. To put it simply, we are cursed with tiny penises. It sounds like a silly curse but it is unbelievably effective, especially to a prideful noble family like ours, and cruel for our manly ego.

Men are said to be similar to insects when it comes to instinct which says that the bigger, the better. Men want to dominate and large penis size is the source of confidence for men.

Now make a prideful male noble have a pencil-sized penis. Heck, even I, a normal person from the future civilization would receive critical damage in my psyche. No wonder my mind started to enter ‘rejecting reality’ mode for a moment there until my father called me back, telling me that this was all real.

“Can’t we just lift the curse?” With the last bit of hope, I ask my dad while also aware of the real answer.

“No. Your grandpa had tried many things but it all ended up in failure. The only one who claims they can cure the curse wants the right to our gold mine as a payment”

“I see. Someone is jealous of our gold mine and wants to wipe our family out to get them. Is that it?”

“That is one of the conclusions that we get from our investigation but there is just not enough proof to confront them with kingdom’s law”

“Yeah, it is indeed weird. If the enemy’s motive is to snatch out our gold mine then the curse is killing us too slowly for that. The curse already spans three generations after all”

“Yes. And now that you are already an adult, you are also responsible to make sure the bloodline curse won’t be successful in ending our family line”

“I hear you Dad, but please give me a bit of time to think about it first. This news is just too shocking to hear when I am expecting to have a happy coming-of-age celebration”

“No problem son, get some rest. We will talk again tomorrow about your partner”

“I… sigh, okay. Good night then Father”

I just swallowed my protest back. It won’t help my situation after all. So I just go with the flow for now.

I immediately go back to my room after I hear my father wishing me a good night. This is a troublesome problem indeed. So much for my dream of having an elf as my wife, I might stay a virgin all my life at this rate.

Well, no, I would technically become a non-virgin because of that duty to have a descendant no matter what. But I bet the women hired to conceive children with my dad's generation scorn their tiny sizes so much that it traumatizes them. Not the kind of emotional scar that I would willingly let myself experience.

Actually, I have already realized the problem with my dong quite a while back when I was still 12/13 years old. But back then, I thought the pencil size might still be a normal size and it will grow bigger in no time. Although that worry is also the fuel for my motivation to train hard and make me end up breaking the rank 1 knight level before I turned 15, knowing the truth still throws me into the pit of despair.

I reach my room while brooding about my fate. So much for a perfect isekai life. Even if I can become a famous adventurer trained in both the way of sword and the way of magic, I still can’t enjoy the pleasure of sex. Goodbye, cat women, dog women, rabbit women, fox women. Goodbye, elven, dragon women, succubus……

Wait… this is a fantasy isekai world, right?

There should be pigmen and incubus here too right? Maybe I can learn the secret of virility from them and enlarge my cursed dong size. Or maybe I just need to get strong enough to kill a dragon to drink its blood which is described in many isekai novels as a miracle cure-all and give immortality to the drinker. It might help cure the curse. Other than that, there are elves here so the tree of life might also exist. The water of life is also one of the staples in fantasy stories.

I can also learn alchemy and make panacea on my own, or maybe find out whether ambrosia exists. If this tiny dong problem is indeed because of a curse like what Father said, then I might need to get into a close relationship with the church too as they might be able to cure my family curse. Isn’t this also a popular plot in fantasy stories? Having romance stories with a girl from the sisterhood? Better yet, with the saintess.

I feel like my vision is starting to expand. I have always been a lazy ass in my previous life because life was comfortable back then and I always wished for a whip-like situation to motivate me to move forward, isn’t this curse the whip I wished for? My body is young and strong, my family is rich and influential, I have a strong driving reason, and this is a god effing dammit fantasy world. With my knowledge from Earth, what could stop me?

Well, many things actually. So let’s calm down for a moment. The plan is good. To search for magical articles to help me deal with the curse. But I will need a lot of power in order to achieve that. Be it the power of wealth, the power of authority, and also, the most important one, my own personal power.

Collecting wealth, doing service to the kingdom, and strengthening myself. There is only one way to get them all going at the same time. And that is, to become a mage!

Yes, that should be my best short-term goal. My long-term goal is of course to become famous in the kingdom, become famous with the elves and the church. Maybe also with the dragons if possible. And reach the higher tier of strength. That should be enough for now. I need to rest now so I can negotiate with my father tomorrow.

Calming myself down after getting excited from a sudden inspiration that I just thought of, I force myself to sleep.

And so, the following day.

“So you want to try breaking the family’s curse by becoming a mage?”

“Yes, I have talent in casting magic, right? So why don’t I delve deeper there? Who knows what I might find”

“And you want to postpone the time to do your duty until 5 years later”

“Yes. If I am not successful in removing the curse in 5 years then I will be back to do my baby-making duty”

“I know that you always have your own way to do things. I should have expected this”

Father said that with a given-up expression. He seems to approve of my request. That’s good. Let’s push further. I can’t let this chance go.

“I think it would be better for me to do my duty later when I am older. From what you told me yesterday, Father, it seems to be very demoralizing. I want to at least grow up some more so I can take that horrifying experience with a stronger heart”

“I see, I never think of it that way”

“Yes. Father and uncles have been terrorized by the curse for a lifetime after all. So you guys might get blindsided by it. But I think we should improve our way of handling the curse so our bloodline won’t be suddenly cut because all of us got broken down by the curse. So I also think that it is better that my cousins don’t rush fulfilling their duty either. Let’s make it the same as mine. 5 years later. At least at that time, we could man up and won’t get scarred for life”

“Are you saying that I, your father, are scarred for life?”

“Well, at least Uncle Roberto did”

“Roberto… sigh”

“So, do you agree with me, father?”

“If you become a mage then who will take on my duty as the mining manager of the earldom?”

“Won’t there be many people willing to work under a mage? Or I’ll just cure our family’s curse and sire many babies to fill that position”

“Will it be that easy? Hmph. I don’t see a reason to stop you. Just do what you want then”

“Yes! I love you, Dad!”

“Call me father!”

Geez my dad is such a tsundere. What's wrong with calling you dad when in a private situation? Anyway, I can’t wait to start my journey. Capital city, here I go!