Became The Sultan Of The Ottoman Empire [EN]: Chapter 1

#Episode 1. I Must Become the Sultan.

A spacious room, easily large enough to accommodate dozens of people.

The walls and floor were adorned with marble and gold, and the furniture and bed showcased the exquisite craftsmanship of artisans.

A boy, rising from a duvet embroidered with gold thread, clutched his throbbing head.

“This is insane.”

For a modern man who had been sitting in front of a computer just yesterday, the current scene was utterly surreal.

Waking up in the body of a small boy who hadn’t even reached puberty, inside a palace he’d only ever seen in pictures from European trips.

But the biggest shock was that this scenery wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.

It was a scene he had witnessed hundreds of times on his monitor until yesterday.

“…Why did it have to be inside this game?”

「Sultan, Dominate the World.」 was the game’s title.

As the name suggested, it was a game where you became the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and strived to become a conquering monarch, ruling the world.

That is, *if* you could even ascend to the Sultan’s throne.

Because this ridiculously difficult game made it nearly impossible to even become the Sultan, which was only the beginning.

The protagonist, regardless of the era, always had the weakest claim to the throne and had to survive countless assassination attempts and treacherous schemes.

Even if he died, his father, the Sultan, would simply brush it off, saying, ‘Hmm, he died sooner than I thought.’ He was as insignificant as a fly.

Consequently, the difficulty was absurdly high.

‘How bad must it be that even the top gamers in the world tried and failed, and no one has ever managed to become the Sultan?’

Even YouTubers and streamers from all over the world tried to capitalize on it, hoping to gain fame, but it was still a complete disaster.

He himself was a dedicated gamer who had attempted the challenge over 400 times.

“I’d prefer this to be just a daydream brought on by game addiction.”

But the memories of the body’s original owner, implanted with searing pain, were too vivid to ignore.

There’s a limit to what imagination can conjure; the possibility of it being a daydream vanished the moment Arabic letters, like crawling worms, were etched into his mind.

As he clutched his head, overwhelmed by the jumbled memories, he heard a knock on the door.

-Prince Yusuf, are you alright? Did you cough?

“Come in.”

His voice, not yet broken by puberty, sounded somewhat awkward, but a dignified tone came out naturally.

This place might be home to the body’s original owner, but to him, it was a viper’s nest. He couldn’t show even the slightest weakness, not even to a maid.

The maid carefully opened the door and entered, holding a small tray in her hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s medicine, Your Highness.”

“Medicine?”

Yusuf, tilting his head in confusion, frowned as a memory suddenly surfaced.

It hadn’t been long ago, so it wasn’t difficult to find it among the crammed memories.

‘Damn it, the circumcision.’

It was a circumcision performed for religious reasons.

No wonder it hurt.

It wasn’t like he was tricked with candy to get circumcised; they held a grand festival and then circumcised him without anesthesia.

Let’s think positively; at least he avoided a second circumcision.

“Your Highness?”

Perhaps his thoughts had wandered for too long; the maid called him again.

Yusuf, who had been staring at the pseudo-herbal medicine on the tray, said firmly.

“I don’t need the medicine.”

“It may be bitter, but you must take it for your health.”

Even if the body is different, the soul within has seen enough; he wouldn’t act up just because the medicine was bitter.

If this was indeed inside the game, as the small, annoying icon below his vision indicated when he closed his eyes, he had to be careful even with water.

There’s even a statistic that 95% of beginners die in the early stages, and 60% quit the game altogether.

Of course, he had no intention of taking that suspicious medicine.

“I know my body best. I said I don’t need it.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

A semi-transparent window appeared in his vision as he watched the maid retreat.

[Poisoning Avoidance, Score +2]

So, they’re already resorting to tricks from the start?

He couldn’t even be happy that his choice was right.

If he had taken that medicine just now, he would have become Boy 1, who died from complications due to an unsanitary circumcision, and not even a single letter of his name would have remained in the history books.

Even if he made a fuss right now to find the culprit of the poisoning, his own lifespan, which he barely possessed, would only be shortened.

Yusuf lightly slapped both cheeks.

“This is no time to be spacing out.”

There was no time to deny reality while whining about why he was in this situation, like in novels.

Those characters are all unrealistic when you think about it.

They only have those worries because they have the luxury; from the perspective of someone who just barely survived death, going into the coffin would be faster than adapting to reality.

He had to do something productive instead of racking his brain about how he got into the game or how to return.

“If I don’t want to die right away, I need to figure out what era it is right now.”

The Ottoman Empire can be largely divided into two periods in terms of Sultan succession:

The era of survival of the fittest and the era of seniority-based succession.

The Turks, the root of the Sultan, were a nomadic people originating from the Gokturks [an ancient Turkic people], and survival of the fittest was a natural part of their culture.

At this time, the prince had to either succeed or die.

Later, the fratricide law was codified with the kanunname [Ottoman law], allowing the Sultan to kill even his cousins.

Then, was it peaceful during the seniority-based succession? No, that’s not the case either. Where would their roots go?

Fortunately, male royals who did not become Sultan could at least save their lives at this time.

However, they had to live like fools, locked in Kafes, which means “cage” in Turkish.

As the nickname “golden cage” suggests, they could sleep with women and eat as long as they didn’t have children, but being forced to live in a room for the rest of their lives could hardly be considered happy.

“Damn it, but a cage is better.”

Being a fly is the same, so the Sultan can send them to meet Allah immediately if he wants, but the latter has a higher chance of saving their lives.

If they’re lucky, they might become like Mustafa I, who ascended to the Sultan’s throne thanks to his mental illness.

As a result of racking his brain and rummaging through his memories, he realized he was terribly unlucky.

“Why does the current Sultan have to be Bayezid II?”

You might not know if I just say the name, but the previous Sultan was Mehmed II.

He was the one who ransacked Constantinople and destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire, and he was the one who created the fratricide law, saying, ‘It is right to kill brothers for the sake of the order of the world.’

So what? The fratricide law is still fresh and active.

‘I got caught in the worst possible way.’

But surprisingly, the real worst part is not this.

Bayezid II was born in 1447, and Yusuf, who could not be found in the original history, was born in 1489, a late child.

Even among the princes who survived until 1509, when the Sultan began to suffer from the great earthquake in the original history, there were only 4, and currently, 7 out of 8 sons were alive.

Including himself, who suddenly appeared in the middle, it meant that there were as many as 8, and he had to fight a bloody battle with his brothers who were old enough to be his father.

“How can an 11-year-old kid become the Sultan in this situation? No. Let’s think positively.”

A positive mindset is essential to playing a dreamless and hopeless game over 400 times.

The current period is not only East Asia but also West Asia uses the age-counting method, that is, the year of birth is the first year (1 year old).

Since he is 11 years old now, it was 1499, with not much left until the end of the 15th century, and Bayezid II died in 1512.

There were still 13 years left, and there was enough time to stand out before the current Sultan started to suffer.

‘It’s going to be the biggest challenge to hold on to my life until then, but still, there’s plenty of time.’

To push out the brothers who have already established themselves and become the Sultan, he had to achieve overwhelming results, but there would be enough room to try.

Yusuf first got out of bed.

He touched his arms and legs with his small hands and moved his body lightly.

Except for the pain caused by the circumcision, his limbs were fine as he remembered, and it wasn’t a problem even though his vision was lowered because he became an 11-year-old kid, but it was still annoying.

“Then next is this…”

The blinking icon visible when he closed his eyes. It was an interface he was familiar with from the game.

Fortunately, pressing the icon was enough just by thinking, and three windows popped up.

[Talent] [Trait] [Shop]

All three were systems in the game.

Traits can only be obtained by collecting points in the store, but with only 2 points, he couldn’t even buy the first trait.

Furthermore, even if it’s a trait, it’s a history game, not a fantasy game, so the limitations were clear.

In the end, what gamers value most was talent.

Name: Şehzade Yusuf

Physique- 3

Intelligence- 3

Charm- 3

Luck- 3

Bonus Stats- 10

Regardless of East or West, the easiest and most accurate way to know the other person’s identity is to distinguish them by the name they say when introducing themselves.

If there is a surname, you can tell which family they are from just by hearing the name, but the Ottoman Empire was a country without surnames.

The bigger problem is that the names used in the Islamic world are very limited.

There is an Arabic proverb that says, ‘If you call Abdullah in Baghdad, a thousand Abdullahs will answer,’ and to exaggerate a little more, about half of them are Muhammad.

In the end, the method that the high-ranking officials thought of was to attach titles to the name, and Şehzade [Ottoman Prince] is a similar context, meaning prince.

Anyway, distributing the stats below the name was very important.

‘Talent stats don’t change easily.’

The fate of the character varied greatly depending on which abilities were raised and how much.

You can raise it from 3, which is the level of an ordinary person, to a maximum of 10, and each talent has clear advantages and disadvantages.

First, physique was seen as a Lu Bu-level [renowned warrior from the Three Kingdoms period of China] talent if the stat was around 10.

Since his martial arts skills were so outstanding, it was easy to gain the favor of the Janissaries [elite infantry corps of the Ottoman Empire], the empire’s elite infantry corps, or the Sipahi [cavalry corps of the Ottoman Empire], the main cavalry corps.

Since the Sultan’s throne is not obtained by playing Ddakji [a Korean game similar to Pogs].

‘Lu Bu is from when?’

The time when Lu Bu was revered as a god of war was 1300 years ago.

They have been using guns as standard Janissary equipment for half a century already.

To be exact, it’s a hand cannon, a small cannon rather than a gun, but even if Lu Bu, not Lu Bu’s grandfather, came, the era of soloing is gone.

Still, gaining the favor of a military group alone was a good ability.

Next is intelligence, and intelligence 10 is a Zhuge Liang level [famous strategist from the Three Kingdoms period of China] in the Ottoman Empire.

Honestly, I’ve never lived smartly, so I don’t know how it will actually be applied, but in the game, he was good at internal affairs and tactics on his own.

If you have high intelligence, it is easy to gain the favor of officials, including the Grand Vizier (Sadrazam) [chief minister of the Ottoman Empire].

‘Charm is… He can’t do it.’

Charm, of course, is a good stat. If you reach 10, you are Liu Bei [benevolent ruler from the Three Kingdoms period of China] to men and Casanova to women.

It’s an ability to drag people along like the Pied Piper and reproduce fascism hundreds of years ahead.

‘It’s just right to get stabbed to death while walking down the street.’

His abdomen is stabbed by a woman shouting, ‘If it’s an impossible love, I’ll destroy it!’ or a man saying, ‘Give me back my wife!’

This is not a possibility; it was confirmed.

Because even if you avoid it a hundred times, you die if you get stabbed once, so players all over the world met similar endings.

The last is luck, which makes the lifeline of a character who is so unlucky that they break their nose even when they fall backward tenacious.

Arrows go astray while bowing their heads to cough, or they accidentally spill a bowl of poison.

There were many cases where they survived by luck.

‘Now I have to choose an ability among these four…’

If you distribute it haphazardly, you’ll end up with a jack-of-all-trades, so the answer is all-in, and fortunately, there was a conclusion made by the collective intelligence of players around the world.

Yusuf boldly raised his ability.

All-in on luck.

There was something you had to do after you had all the stats.

“Luck, please let me live even one more day.”

Yusuf, who had earnestly prayed, steeled his heart.

Now, all that’s left is to become the Sultan from a mayfly-like prince.