<Chapter 1>
Prologue
‘Qualitas’
Pheromones, earth, trees, and other natural forces manifesting as formless, intangible energy. Every human on the Sodir continent is born innately possessing Qualitas.
Continental researchers divide Qualitas into three categories for convenience: the earth Qualitas ‘Terra,’ the water Qualitas ‘Aqua,’ and the fire Qualitas ‘Ignis.’
More precisely, these encompass microscopic Qualitas like lakes, trees, or rocks, but since classification would otherwise be endless, they are attributed to one of the three main types. Occasionally, individuals are born with rare Qualitas, but such cases occur in only one out of ten thousand people. Moreover, since they are difficult to classify, they are typically treated as ‘mutations.’
Humans possess only a single Qualitas—that is, only one attribute such as water or fire—and folklore holds that anyone bearing two or more Qualitas is afflicted with a ‘curse.’
Excerpt from “Qualitas Theory”
The training yard looked as if it had been ambushed in a raid. The head maid’s sigh deepened as she gazed upon the scene. The young mistress of the ducal estate, the duke’s daughter, had recently thrown herself into accelerating experiments with fire-handling magic.
That meant the number of times she destroyed the mansion would soon multiply exponentially. A headache throbbed from the sight of the ruined training yard, and the head maid murmured softly.
“Biya, where has the young lady gone off to?”
“She’s already fled.”
“I distinctly assigned Radiel to keep watch over her.”
“Radiel’s weak to bribes, isn’t she? She was probably persuaded somehow.”
The lively reply came from the maid Biya, who stood nearby. In the end, it seemed the maid tasked with surveillance had accepted a bribe from the young lady and aided in her escape. Tap-tap—the head maid drummed her abacus with a resounding clack, turning a bleak gaze toward Biya.
“How many times has the young lady destroyed the mansion now?”
“Exactly the ninety-eighth time today.”
Biya, accustomed to the young lady’s eccentricities, had reached the point of keeping count.
Experiments with fire-handling magic. This was merely a tiny prelude, igniting the fuse for the events to come.
* * *
The Mercantia Ducal Family
With a deafening boom, flames surged upward, and the duchess took a sip of her herbal tea as she witnessed the spectacle. Of course, the explosion didn’t end with just one. Twice, three times—the roaring blasts whipped through the air, and thick smoke billowed from the third-floor window of the ducal mansion.
“It must be Laren.”
“You instructed that no one should enter her bedroom.”
“Ah, Biya. My headache… it feels like my headache is about to relapse.”
The maid Biya, attending closely at her side, glanced toward the mansion at the duchess’s murmur that wasn’t quite a murmur. She’d thought the period of calm had stretched a bit longer this time, but sure enough, it had culminated in an even larger explosion.
Following Biya’s dismal gaze, the duchess let out a hollow chuckle. Today’s blast felt like the largest in scale so far this year. Perhaps they ought to erect a monument to commemorate it.
“An explosion like that would be more than enough to blow the entire bedroom to smithereens.”
“…Absolutely. What sort of experiment do you think she’s conducting this time?”
“If we’d anticipated it, we could have stopped her before we had to witness a scene like this.”
“Your words are most wise.”
The duchess drew another faint laugh at Biya’s expression of resigned enlightenment. In the Mercantia ducal garden, where rapeseed flowers bloomed in profusion, the maids carried on with their duties without a care, even as smoke rose from the mansion. The fragrant floral scent that had tickled the nose moments ago was no longer detectable, replaced by the pervasive acrid stench of char.
“What mischief is she plotting this time?”
The duchess exhaled a sigh through gritted teeth and looked up at the cloudless, impeccably clear sky.
Her beloved daughter, who could trigger a relapse of even a cured headache—the sole young lady of the Mercantia ducal family, Laren Mercantia.
Today, she had achieved the remarkable feat of causing the ducal mansion to explode for the ninety-ninth time.
* * *
In the instant the flames engulfed her, Laren had assumed a defensive posture and thrown herself flat on the ground; now, she cautiously lifted her head. It wasn’t just ash— the ashen smoke made even breathing a struggle.
As her vision cleared and she blinked repeatedly, Laren’s expression darkened. Walls blackened with soot, a chandelier swaying precariously, fragments that could barely be identified as former furniture.
“It exploded again…. What on earth is the problem?”
Gazing at the space that had been her bedroom mere moments ago, worry surged within Laren. The bedroom was now a useless ruin, no longer fit for purpose.
“No, more than that—what am I going to do about this?”
Her body trembled involuntarily at the inevitable scolding from the maids that came to mind. Especially the head maid Cesir, who would twist every muscle in her face into a grimace.
‘This is big trouble.’
A chill ran down Laren’s spine as she pushed herself up from the floor. This time, she might harangue her for hours on end. If only they’d allow her to conduct experiments outside the mansion, but no—they opposed that too, so what was she supposed to do?
‘Should I just make a run for it first?’
Pale-faced and biting her lip, Laren shook her head. It was already inevitable; this wasn’t the time to get lost in thought.
“Hoo, hoo.”
She steadied her breathing, then slowly drew mana—the source of magical power—upward from the tips of her toes.
‘…What?’
Her expression twisted strangely at the unfamiliar flow of mana filling her body. It wasn’t the usual circulation of energy; instead, an utterly alien strand had formed.
This was the first reaction of its kind since she’d begun her experiments, and her heart began to pound fiercely. Barely suppressing the surging anticipation, Laren concentrated the mana onto her palm.
“Fire ball!”
Whoosh—with the incantation, a spherical flame erupted from her hand. Alternating her gaze between the flickering small blaze and her hand, Laren’s mouth fell open in shock.
Could this be a hallucination? She blinked repeatedly, then focused mana on her opposite hand. True to her hopes, the flame whooshed up once more from the other side.
“This is… Oh my god…! O Gatmier, the divine one!”
Crying out to the god Gatmier, whom she never sought otherwise, Laren rolled across the ash-strewn floor. For her to succeed in summoning a fireball without any blockage in her mana was nothing short of a revolution for the empire—or, to put it grandly, a miracle for the entire continent. Though the phrasing is elaborate, acquiring a new Qualitas is essentially akin to a miracle in itself.
“Keheung.”
Unable to contain her joy, Laren’s cheeks puffed out prominently. With one hand clamped over her mouth and the other pounding the wall with resounding thuds, a full-blown frenzy of chaos ensued.
After rolling on the floor for a while, expressing her elation, Laren’s movements suddenly froze.
‘The mana…?’
She hadn’t noticed it before, but it wasn’t just the mana—an odd sense of foreignness was coursing through her entire body.
‘There’s no issue with the newly acquired Qualitas, though?’
With abundant mana and something gained through her experiments, there shouldn’t be any particular problem. Yet the eerie foreign sensation continued to blare warning signals in her mind.
‘What is it? What could it be?’
Laren jolted upright, her eyes darting around as her pupils trembled. Something was off. The height of her gaze as she looked at the bedroom was different, and the hands she glanced down at felt foreign, as if they weren’t her own.
‘The height… it’s different?’
The dress that once fluttered around her ankles now swished at her shins, and the shape of her fingers, which she’d never paid much attention to, struck her as oddly unfamiliar. More than anything, the sensation of her hair brushing against her exposed shoulders and arms, tickling her skin… it was gone.
‘My hair?’
She reached out, fumbling to touch her hair, only to find it abruptly ended at her ears. Her movements quickened as she ran her hands over her body, its contours feeling alien, not like her own.
Something that should have been there was missing.
A wave of panic surged through her, and Laren bolted toward the nearest mirror.
“Wha…?”
Her trembling fingers brushed the mirror’s surface. The delicate, pale fingers grazed a shard of glass, beads of blood welling up, but she had no time to register the pain.
Her body shook uncontrollably as she stared at the reflection between the fragments, her mind reeling.
Her reckless, arrogant ambition had summoned a curse.
“Aaaah!”
Every human on the Sodir continent is born innately imbued with an enigmatic energy drawn from nature’s forces: Qualitas.
As classifying microscopic Qualitas would be an endless task, continental researchers categorize them into three types for simplicity:
The earth Qualitas, ‘Terra.’
The water Qualitas, ‘Aqua.’
The fire Qualitas, ‘Ignis.’
Humans can wield only the power of a single Qualitas. Those with Ignis Qualitas cannot use the powers of Aqua Qualitas.
In simple terms, someone who wields fire magic cannot wield ice magic. It’s all flames, all the time.
Rarely, some are born with an uncommon Qualitas—perhaps one in ten thousand. These are so difficult to classify that they’re labeled as ‘mutations.’
Laren Mercantia, the protagonist responsible for blowing up the Mercantia ducal estate, is the legitimate heir of a family that dominates the trade industry. Yet her true talent lies not in commerce but in magic. On the Sodir continent, magical artifacts hold immense value.
From a young age, Laren, with her keen eye for magic and money, nurtured a burgeoning ambition to become a magical artifact craftsman. But a few years ago, that ambition slammed into a devastating wall.
Laren’s Qualitas is a mutation known as ‘Holy Qualitas.’
As the name suggests, it’s an exceptionally rare Qualitas that governs divine power among countless attributes.
The problem? Holy Qualitas cannot be used to craft magical artifacts. Its offensive capabilities also rank among the lowest of all magical types.
While temples would welcome such a Qualitas with open arms, to Laren, it was utterly useless magic.
Perhaps because divine power lacks a tangible form, every attempt to apply it to crafting artifacts resulted in the magic dissipating. Not only did she fail to create artifacts, but she also destroyed several precious rings and items in the process.
The day she realized she couldn’t craft artifacts with her Qualitas, Laren turned to excessive drinking for the first time. Why not just abandon everything and join a temple as a priestess? With Holy Qualitas, she could probably rise to high priestess in record time.
But for Laren, who reveled in wealth and indulgence, a life of asceticism was utterly unbearable. So, clutching a bottle, she began to immerse herself in experiments to acquire a new Qualitas.
Could she, born with Holy Qualitas, somehow gain another? Most of the explosions that rocked the Mercantia ducal estate stemmed from these experiments. And at long last, the experiment she’d wagered her life on had borne fruit.
Along with a curse.
A figure cloaked in a dark robe was reflected in the mirror. Laren tugged down the hood, which obstructed her vision to an almost stifling degree. As the robe slipped off, a stranger’s form blinked back at her from the glass.
Snow-white hair and blue eyes.
A boy, slightly smaller than others his age.
His appearance was strikingly beautiful. Though she hadn’t tested it yet, he could likely draw every eye on the street. His pale skin was flawless, without a single blemish, and his strikingly clear blue eyes evoked the depths of the sea.
A soft voice emerged from the boy as he steadied himself against the mirror. It was a small relief that her voice remained unchanged, if nothing else.
“Ahem, hem, hem!”
The voice of a woman coming from the boy’s face was jarringly awkward.
“Ahh.”
Lowering her tone slightly made it feel much better. Her natural voice was already somewhat low, and paired with the androgynous appearance, the faint hint of softness blended well.
But this boy bore one glaring flaw.
‘This is supposed to be me.’
Neither fully male nor female, she had become some third entity… a loss of identity.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, her physique hadn’t changed drastically, so the robe concealed it well enough. Still, she couldn’t adjust to this altered appearance. Though the changes seemed minor, the lines of her body and the contours of her face had taken on a subtly sharper edge.
‘…A curse.’
As a breeze slipped through the open window, her snow-white hair fluttered in its wake.
At the same time, Laren’s sea-blue eyes shimmered with a ripple of emotion.
“Well, at least I’m really good-looking.”
