REVIEW: Lout of the Count's Family, Vol. 1 (book) by Yu Ryeo-Han, translated by Henry Shin (MiracleRifle Translations) and Lauren Na

Lout of the Count's Family is an isekai fantasy light novel (or whatever the terminology is for the Korean equivalent). I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Kim Roksu, an ordinary Korean guy who grew up as an orphan, wakes up one day to discover that he is Cale Henituse, the loutish son of Count Henituse in the novel series Birth of a Hero. He's only read up to volume 5 of the series, but it's enough to know that Cale is a very minor character, and he's about to get thoroughly beaten up by the actual hero of the story, Choi Han, a 17-year-old Korean guy who was transported into this fantasy world.

Kim Roksu, as Cale, becomes focused on a single goal: living a peaceful life. As Count Henituse's beloved but loutish son, he should be able to live a life of leisure with all the money he could ever want at his disposal. First, however, he has to avoid getting beaten up by the story's hero, prod the hero and a bunch of other dangerous characters into going elsewhere, and ensure that the Henituse family lands stay as safe as possible.

Getting all those dangerous characters to leave him alone is more difficult than he realizes, however - for some reason, he not only finds himself surrounded by Choi Han and his original entourage, but several additional dangerous characters as well. It's not ideal, but Cale figures that he can at least put all these people to good use, further preparing for his eventual peaceful life while putting himself in as little danger as possible.

In this volume, and probably a lot of the next one as well, Kim Roksu is able to rely quite a bit on his knowledge of the original novels. As a result, he ends up looking like some kind of brilliant spy master, nudging his game pieces (aka the members of his growing entourage) into position and throwing wads of Count Henituse's money at any potential holes in his plans. I can't help but wonder how he'll manage once he runs out of useful bits of knowledge gleaned from the first five volumes of the books. Considering that the dragon is already feeding him new information, I imagine he'll accidentally have set up his own spy network by then.

The writing/translation wasn't great and made this feel longer than it actually was, with lots of repetitive phrasing and clunky attempts at communicating characters' emotions. Still, I enjoyed watching Cale's plans unfold, and his growing entourage (which included a dragon, a couple of cat beastfolk, nearly a dozen young wolf beastfolk, a couple assassins, and more) showed lots of potential for future chaos. I plan on reading the next volume.