Chapter 1

You Mean There Are No Benefits for Being a Transmigrator?

Ten years of experience as a transmigrator into novels—Aieri Belgiast had a thought.

Wasn’t ten years of experience usually enough to get you somewhere? A manager, perhaps. Or at least a team leader.

Of course, she didn’t actually want either position. She knew all too well how miserable a middle-management position could make a person when it came with nothing but responsibility.

It was simply the emptiness she felt after all those unrewarded years.

She kept feeling as though she had been unfairly struck from somewhere, and the sense of injustice was so persistent that she couldn’t properly focus on her work all day.

Lost in thought, Aieri—now Airy Ast—set down the laundry she had been holding and looked around.

Once she confirmed no one was watching, she muttered quietly.

“Clean.”

Mana was sucked out of the circle near her heart like the tide rushing out to sea.

In an instant, the laundry turned dazzlingly clean.

Feeling exhausted from the mana circle that had been emptied in a flash, Airy leaned against the wall and sank down.

It was a day when she wasn’t getting much efficiency out of herself, so she wanted to rest as much as her body and brain demanded.

She was currently working at the Salisbury Grand Duke’s residence.

Her official assignment was as the personal maid of the youngest young master of the household, who was nine years old.

Her position was essentially that of a nanny.

Her main duties consisted of chasing after the nine-year-old young master whenever he ran away, pushing him on the swings, happily accepting whatever strange gifts he gave her, tidying up his toys, and so on.

The one thing she hated was doing laundry.

Fortunately, for quite some time now, the higher-ups had stopped making her do laundry, allowing her to get by through exhausting herself with other physical work.

Surprisingly, being a nanny suited her quite well, so she had no real complaints.

There were times when a deep sense of futility would wash over her.

What am I even doing after getting transmigrated into a novel of all things?

But that was a thing of the past.

When Airy had first transmigrated into the book, she had never doubted that she was the protagonist.

When she came to her senses, she had found herself as the only daughter of a fairly respectable Viscount family.

The name was unfamiliar, but the moment she grasped the situation, she slapped her knee.

This is it! A childcare story!

At the time, Airy had thought:

So, all I have to do now is be doted on by my father or grandfather and show off my talents throughout high society!

She had no idea what kind of novel it was, but she assumed it would be something along those lines.

She was wrong.

The Viscount family of Belgiast was suffering from extreme financial difficulties.

Her father, Coelo Belgiast, could not afford to hire professional assistants such as clerks or secretaries, so he was worked day and night handling all sorts of insignificant but exhausting tasks.

Her mother, Nonuamor Lala Belgiast, had married into the family from another country. She took care of the entire household herself, doing the work that would normally have been handled by a butler and head maid.

The maids who initially helped with the shabby household chores soon quit.

There was no magnificent mansion in the capital.

Instead, in a gloomy old castle on an estate so far from the capital that it felt like the middle of nowhere, they kept most of the countless rooms locked and made do with only three or four rooms that they maintained and repaired.

They rarely even saw the faces of their servants.

The estate’s poor harvests had caused its residents to keep leaving, and the servants were dispatched to deal with the abandoned fields.

In other words, Airy’s mother did the work of a lady’s maid.

The maids did the work of servants.

And the servants did the work that serfs were supposed to do.

It was a complete mess.

And in the middle of all that, eleven-year-old Airy awakened her magical powers.

Airy thought:

Ah. So this is an estate-development story.

The kind where the protagonist rebuilds their fallen family.

Ohhh. Okay, okay.

As the ending would later prove, that was the wrong answer too.

The family borrowed money to invite a magic tutor, who began teaching Airy basic magical theory.

The usual course of events was to study until one’s foundation was solid enough, then enroll in the National Academy of Magic.

But she never made it that far.

When Airy was fourteen, the magic tutor summoned her and her parents and spoke with an extremely apologetic expression.

“I apologize for saying this, Lady Airy, but there is really no need for you to continue studying magic.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Young Lady, you are exceptionally intelligent, but… unfortunately, your mana vessel is no larger than a handful. With that amount of mana, the only magic you can perform is something like drying your hands or putting spilled water back into its container.”

The tutor’s expression appeared sincere.

But Airy understood immediately.

He had known from the beginning.

He had known that Airy’s talent had a clearly defined limit.

And yet, in a poor Viscount family desperate for even a sliver of hope, they had borrowed money—including funds that would not have been available until years later—to pay for Airy’s magical education.

Even so, he had dragged the lessons out for three years, only now speaking as though he had just discovered her limitations.

He lowered his wrinkled eyes.

He apologized.

As he did so, he subtly glanced between the Viscount and his wife.

Airy noticed it.

She caught the fleeting pleasure in his eyes—the pleasure of watching a noble family being pushed toward ruin and trampled beneath it.

That bastard.

Somehow, I’m going to destroy him.

By then, Airy had begun to wonder whether this book might actually be a revenge story.

She was about eighty percent joking.

If she didn’t resort to self-deprecation, the absurdity of the situation would have driven her insane.

In the end, the poor but long-established House of Belgiast was dismantled.

Her father died after becoming ill from the various problems that had accumulated over the years.

Her mother surrendered the title, sold the estate to pay off their debts, and went somewhere to work as a maid.

She was too old and had no experience with miscellaneous household work, so no one in the capital was willing to hire her.

Airy, having changed both her first and last names, went up to the capital.

Whatever happened, she needed to get to the capital and see how things were unfolding.

Airy simply could not forgive herself for spending three years learning something as useless as a spell to dry her hands, all while going into debt for it.

She wanted to figure out what kind of novel this was and somehow tear it apart.

She had considered the possibility that it might not be a novel at all…

But she gave up on that thought.

How else could she explain this world?

It was strangely reasonable in some ways, impossibly feudal in others, and yet somehow mixed with aspects of a modern era.

If this wasn’t a transmigration into a book, then what was it?

And what else could explain the fact that she had awakened at the age of eleven with all the memories of her previous life intact?

Everything had simply been unavoidable.

If there was one blessing, it was that she had no siblings.

Her thoughts did not last long.

Hearing movement outside, Airy came to her senses, went outside, and hung up the laundry.

Her mother had cried terribly when Airy told her she would work as a maid.

But Airy herself wasn’t particularly ashamed of it.

It wasn’t as though she had sold one of her organs or been married off to some old man.

What was there to be ashamed of about doing laundry and cleaning?

She had already done plenty of that sort of work before.

Although… this is pretty damn shitty.

Thinking an extremely unladylike thought, Airy sprinted down the corridor.

The endurance of a nine-year-old boy seemed nearly infinite, so at this hour, Airy was almost always running.

“Young Master! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“Catch me if you can!”

“Young Master!”

She had almost called him a little bastard.

Fortunately, after three years of training herself to watch her mouth, she had learned how to control her speech.

Thanks to that, she managed to avoid the unfortunate fate of having her head chopped off because of one momentary mistake.

With the urge to tear off her suffocating maid’s uniform right then and there, Airy grabbed the fluttering hem of her skirt.

To catch the little bastard who had climbed onto the stair railing, she had no choice but to give it her all—even if her calves ended up showing.

The last time, she had followed him onto the railing and nearly had her head half chopped off by the terrifying head maid.

After that, Airy had learned how to leap down four stairs at a time.

A maid bouncing down the stairs with her skirt hiked up to her calves was practically begging to be fired.

But the higher-ups tended to turn a blind eye because she was the one responsible for the young master inside the Grand Duke’s residence.

It really was a good workplace.

Fortunately, none of the adults were around today.

Even the head maid, whose eyes seemed permanently narrowed to ten minutes past ten, was nowhere to be seen.

Airy muttered, “What am I supposed to do with that…?”

She pushed past the surrounding maids, who had no intention of stepping forward, leaned her body against the stair railing, and slid down.

It wasn’t a good decision.

Because Airy had managed to keep up with him unusually well for once, the young master’s excitement level skyrocketed.

His high-pitched voice, still untouched by the deepening tones of adolescence, rang shrilly through the hall.

The young master raced down the corridor at the back of the hall and, just when Airy thought she had almost caught him, he darted into a separate wing where servants were strictly forbidden to enter.

For a brief moment, Airy wondered:

Is this within the acceptable range of what I’m allowed to do?

But then—

Was there another maid in this mansion capable of catching an overexcited nine-year-old boy and calming him down?

Absolutely not.

If she caught him quickly, pretended to cry a few times, and brought him back, the young master would undoubtedly become apologetic and then go beg the kitchen for snacks.

Airy tightened her quadriceps and shot forward.

She raced through the corridor of the separate wing, which was clearly different from the rest of the estate in its design.

By then, she couldn’t even see the boy’s ponytail.

She followed the sound of his voice and turned the corner.

“Young Master! That way is dangerous! If His Grace finds out, we’ll both be in serious trouble!”

“Heeheehee!”

He wasn’t normally this incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

He was simply far too excited today.

Airy realized that if things continued like this, she might end up being punished along with him, and her expression hardened.

Unfortunately, it seemed the young master had finally crawled into the Grand Duke’s private laboratory hidden at the end of the separate wing.

Airy stopped in front of the half-open laboratory door and caught her breath.

If I go in there and something goes wrong, getting my head chopped off might be the least of my problems.

I should turn back right now and bring whoever is in charge.

Unfortunately, that rational thought did not last long.

The moment she heard the muffled giggling of the nine-year-old boy hiding inside, Airy’s already thoroughly irritated temper snapped.

She swallowed hard and lowered her voice.

“Young Master. You’re going to regret this.”

Did that sound a little like a mastermind?

She was slightly worried that she had made herself sound too frightening.

That concern lasted approximately one second.

Airy cautiously entered the laboratory and looked around.

Then she noticed a door leading down to the basement standing open.

She carefully descended two steps.

She had no information whatsoever about this place.

No matter how cautious she was, it still wasn’t enough.

There were twelve stairs in total.

She had just descended two more when—

Thud.

She hadn’t heard a single sound.

And yet, an inhuman force suddenly shoved Airy with tremendous strength.

Completely helpless, Airy tumbled down the remaining stairs.

Using the last shred of judgment she possessed, she struggled desperately not to fall through the open doorway.

But—

“Aaaah! Young Master!!!”

The door, decorated with elaborate inscriptions, forcibly pushed Airy inside before slamming shut.

It was an intangible force she had absolutely no way of resisting.

Bang…!

For an instant, Airy wondered what the force that had shoved her inside could possibly have been.

But then the echo of her own scream reverberated through the dark chamber, frightening her so badly that she forgot the thought entirely.

She didn’t even feel any pain in her body.

She knew what it was.

But it was not a kind of power she could say she was familiar with.

A tremendous force began to surge toward her menacingly.