Volume 1 - CH 1

Nearly an entire year has passed since waking… No, since I had become Mylene.

In that time, I’ve been able to sort out what I knew and think more about the present.

First: the girl whose body I had taken belonged to is Mylene Petyul de Laelier, the same evil Mylene I remembered. She was not yet ‘Mylene Iltania’, probably because it only changed after she married into royalty.

Her original name, the entire title, meant ‘Mylene of House Petyul from the Laelier Duchy.’

For a time, I had a slight hope that I only happened to become someone with a similar name and face, but it was for nothing after I learned this was the Kingdom of Iltania, and that this Mylene was also called ‘God’s Blessed’ since she had the Hair of Sulberia. There were also plans in motion to have her engaged to the crown prince.

Which meant not only was I reliving the past, but I was also now doing so as someone else — in the body of a younger Mylene Iltania. It was bad enough I had to deal with her a second time, but it was far more humiliating for me to have actually become her.

Second: even as a child, Mylene had been the same tyrannical scum of the earth I remembered.

When I first found myself in this body one year ago, the servants would react to me in terror, acting like I was a powder keg ready to explode at any moment.

From what I learned since then, it seemed the young Mylene had done as she pleased, calling her actions ‘a privilege of God’s Blessed’. When I had first woken, the look of fear on the attending maid’s face made it obvious exactly how whimsically tyrannical Mylene could be.

At the time, that maid truly believed her life was over the moment she woke Mylene up. It seemed like an exaggeration, but…

And third: Mylene’s parents were just as rotten.

It wasn’t because they abused her. Rather, it was the opposite: they gave her anything and everything she asked for, all because of this Hair of Sulberia.

They granted her every wish and spared her from any discipline. To them, nothing was more important than the ‘honor’ and ‘prestige’ the Hair of Sulberia granted them.

They did nothing to curb their daughter’s tyranny. Instead, they encouraged it and praised her for showing ‘the qualities of a wise ruler’ — Mylene’s parents were those kinds of people.

To them, Mylene was more like a trophy or idol to worship than their child. It was laughable they believed giving her anything she asked for was what it meant to raise a child.

Well, it’s also thanks to their indulgence that I’ve been able to do what I want, to an extent at least…

“Haaa..!”

As if to cut away my distracting thoughts, I drew and swung my weapon in one fluid motion. Considering how large this thing was compared to me, it was more like a greatsword than a regular blade.

After having become Mylene, I had begun thoroughly training with this body.

It had been a lot of work at the start; I could still remember how weak I was, so weak that I had to build up strength first by helping the servants carry things around the house.

My steady efforts eventually paid off. I was currently strong enough to lift large barrels and even carry furnitures around — that was the bare minimum strength I needed before I could begin training with swords.

But even with this much training, there were very little changes to my appearance, and I assumed this was because of the magical power in this body.

It was starting to make sense why Mylene was always showing off; being born with the Hair of Sulberia had blessed her with extraordinary magical power, so of course this cruel girl would want to demonstrate her superiority at every opportunity.

…Burning down the orphanage was just another part of that.

Bringing back that memory put a bitter taste in my mouth, so instead I focused on looking forward to the fresh and new experience of magic training.

I was the same then as I was now: powerless and unable to do a thing… The idea hadn’t changed, and it still didn’t matter for whom; those with power decided everything. I would need power if I wanted to live this new life.

As part of that, I would need to get used to my magical power, something I’d never had to do in my previous life. After all, I didn’t intend on following the path Mylene’s parents had laid out that led to marrying into the royal family.

What I needed was more power. I needed more strength, to become able to stand on my own. The best thing I could do now was train and train until I had it.

I gave my sword another enthusiastic swing as I focused on controlling the magical power flowing through my body.

It had been distressing, being unable to lift even an empty barrel when I first found myself in this body, but I have gained a lot of strength since then.

And while I did suspect it was this’body’s magical power that suppressed significant muscle development, I also had to consider the growth differences between males and females, to say nothing of how privileged my current life now was.

…It’s kind of sad to admit it, but I’m probably stronger now than I had ever been in my previous life.

“Ugh, there has to be a limit to how unfairly powerful I can become, with this magic and the Hair of Sulberia…”

The name had come from how its color was the same as that of the Sulberia flower. Stories spoke of how the God Iltania, this country’s namesake, loved that flower, and it came to be known that those born with the Hair of Sulberia were ‘God’s Blessed’ or some such.

Considering how I had watched Mylene’s pitiful end in my previous life, I held nothing but doubt when it came to the existence of God. Even so, it was true that those with the Hair of Sulberia were somehow blessed with immense magical power.

And Mylene had taken every opportunity to show off that power. She would burn down churches and set mountains alight, like a misbehaving child that learned to play with fire.

This power had been wasted on her, pearls before swine in every sense of the phrase, and that reminded me of the last thing the empress of Colhoun had said to me.

If it had been you, rather than that worthless woman over there, who possessed great magical power, the balance of power across this land may have been completely different… Her words sounded like exaggerated praise at the time, but now that I really did have the power, it seemed more than possible I would be able to leave my name in history.

I felt the trickle of sweat on my cheeks, and I stopped swinging, stabbing my sword into the ground as I turned up to face the sky.

After a moment, I looked back down to stare at my hands, small ones that belonged to a young girl.

…In my previous life, I had no magical power. It was pretty common for people to call me “lowborn” or “magicless” when they learned I couldn’t use magic.

But instead, what I learned was a different sort of skill: how to kill my enemies on the battlefield. Every foe I faced underestimated my full power and fell before me, and those I defeated, after learning I was magicless, called me cowardly and my tactics barbaric. I became known as Savage Fang, but though it was a nickname given to me by sore losers I had defeated, it wasn’t one I disliked.

…And so I continued taking down these enemies with their upturned noses, until a greater force finally caught up to me, and then killed me.

So my life had ended, but then I’d found myself waking up in the body of the worst and most hated woman…

I angrily clenched a tight fist.

“I’ll never, ever lose again. Not in this life, not to anyone. Not even God will stand in my way!”

Not to any authority, or some nation, or even to history itself. I will resist the flow of destiny; no longer will it have the power to sweep me away.

But I wasn’t planning on becoming a ruler, nor would I be taking revenge. No, what I would do is live freely for myself and as myself, as Mylene.

So I swore I would never lose to anything ever again. That was the one rule I’d follow in this new life of mine.

I would cut down any that stood in my way, and I would walk a path of my own.

In order to do that, I needed to train, to build up this body, and to be able to use this power I had.

I yanked my sword free and raised it high in the air before swinging it down, imagining myself cutting away my hesitation.

“Oraaaaaa!”

A wave of magical power surged forth from my swing, tearing a massive rift across the garden.

Damn… I hate to admit it, but magic was actually pretty amazing.

Magical power was the source from which the soul drew strength… or so I’d once read in a book. I didn’t really get it then, but now that I could use magic myself, I finally understood what the book had meant.

Basically, a user used magical power as a resource, converting it a number of ways. For example, it was possible to manifest attributes like fire, water, earth, or lightning, or do something like physically strengthening yourself. Magical power was all-powerful in that its only limitation was its user’s imagination.

On the other hand, every person also had varying affinities for each attribute of magic. For me, my favored attribute was apparently ‘light’.

How ironic it was, since neither the past me, Envil, nor the present me, Mylene, seemed like good examples of what people with good affinity for light attribute magic would be like.

Regardless, if an affinity for light magic was the card life dealt me, then it was necessary for me to find a way to use it. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be many people like me in this regard, and I wasn’t sure of how to use light attribute magic in the first place; I would have to take time learning how to use it.

But in order to do that, I needed to start with the basics, and that meant I would be studying magic and familiarizing my body with it.

What most people called magic was ‘spellcraft’, that is, the act of manifesting converted magical power, such as through shooting fire or releasing cold air. The most basic magic was an enhancement spell to boost the user’s physical strength and sturdiness.

It apparently shouldn’t have much of an effect, but the boost was incredible, probably thanks to the tremendous magical power I had.

Even when I used only a little bit of my magic, I could feel this small body of mine suddenly filling with great strength.

And just like that, despite my size, I could swing around this sword like it was a dead branch.

I couldn’t help but click my tongue at how ridiculous this power was. It was especially jarring having been magicless in my previous life. In short, magic was just too unreasonably convenient, and this was an opinion only someone like me, who acquired magical power after a lifetime without, could have.

And there was another benefit to doing this: as I continued to use my magical power, the amount I had in me also began to increase. Whenever I used up a lot of my magical power, my body would respond by becoming able to hold even more after recovering… or so I thought anyway.

It seemed to me that this was like muscle training but for magical power; however, unlike muscles, which everyone had, it was possible, though rare, to be born without magical power — to be lowborns.

The me of the past was one of those lowborns: Envil the magicless mercenary.

So if the only way to increase magical power was through continual use… then anyone born without it would never be able to develop magical power for themselves.

Though I knew it was pointless to consider what-ifs, I found myself thinking about what the empress… what Colette had said back then. If I had this power at that time, then…

Currently I’m still a novice in magic, but if I could have used it back then, to support my physical abilities, would my sword have reached the empress? It’s not that I held a grudge against her, but if that had happened, what would the future of the world be like after that?

“…I guess that’s enough for today.”

I clicked my tongue again as I grabbed my scabbard.

I’d worked up quite a sweat. My skin felt smooth to the touch despite training, probably because this was a woman’s body, but it was still uncomfortable to be in clothes that were damp with sweat.

I was in the middle of sheating my sword and thinking about finishing training for the day when…

“Here you go, Lady Mylene!”

…the maid I’d met first in this body had appeared before me, presenting a towel with a bright smile.

“Ah… thanks, Rhea.”

Her name was Rhea it seemed. Her face became more cheerful after I thanked her.

“It is nothing you need to thank me for, Lady Mylene, after all, I am your personal maid! A change of clothes has also been prepared, so please come this way!”

When we first met, her terror and the expression on her face — like the world was coming to an end — was quite impressive. It had taken time, but over the past year, Rhea had overcome her fear of me, or rather, of Mylene.

In fact, she took personal pride in being my personal maid.

And she wasn’t shy about it either. She was bragging about it to ‘the others’.

Speaking of ‘the others’…

“Ahhh! Lady Mylene looked absolutely stunning today as well…”

“She was so amazing..! How was she able to swing such a giant sword when her body is so small…”

“Even the beads of sweat on her body seemed just as dazzling..!”

These were ‘the others’: the other maids.

…When I first woke up as Mylene, they had all been just as scared of me as Rhea was.

But then, seeing the gaping difference between how Mylene used to be and how I was now had changed their opinions.

It would’ve been annoying if every encounter with me ended with them cowering in terror, so I acted as kindly as possible whenever I had to call out to any of the servants.

But as a result, an audience of cheering maids would gather whenever I went training like this. It was a little annoying to have a crowd like that, but it was preferable to having them react like they’d encountered a monster whenever I passed by.

Well, I suppose I could report this to my parents, and that would drive away the maids, but there wasn’t any benefit to antagonizing them like that.

So instead, I raised my arm and gave a little wave like I would have to fellow mercenaries, which caused the cheering to grow even louder.

…Man, both back then and now, Mylene was quite troublesome.

◆

“Why, if it isn’t Mylene! Your hair is looking wonderful today as well! Have you finished training?”

This had happened as I was walking around the estate, after cleaning myself from training.

It was actually a rare moment for me; since waking up in this body, I’d hardly been out of the mansion. That aside, as I heard the voice casually call out to me without using honorifics, I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

“…Yeah, whatever, I guess.”

“Hm, I see, you are once again speaking in that manner. I have been receiving reports from the maids saying you have changed not only your speech habits but also your behavior… Is this because of some strange novel you have been reading? Your behavior is acceptable for now, but it would be quite scandalous if you were to continue speaking as you have once you have married into the Iltanian royal family.”

…This was exactly why. I know he didn’t mean to offend, but what he said was still irritating to hear.

It should be obvious from the way he spoke to me, but this man was Mylene’s father.

He, Balzac Petyul de Laelier, only cared about his own wealth and influence — a typical noble, in the eyes of us commonfolks.

It wasn’t unusual for nobles to correct their child’s speaking habits, especially when it concerned a daughter that would be marrying into royalty, but…

“Yeah, yeah, I get it already; I’ll speak properly when I go out, and If that’s the hand I’m dealt, then that’s what I’ll play with.

“How crass. But I suppose if you say so, then there is nothing more I need to say.”

…This again.

Was this supposed to be a scolding? ‘There is nothing more I need to say’… that wasn’t what he should be saying. Why was he even speaking so passively to Mylene, his own daughter? Was it because he didn’t want to say something that could ruin my mood?

…If this was how her parents always treated her, then I could understand just a bit why Mylene was so twisted and self-serving. But that didn’t mean I could sympathize with the woman who sat back and watched as her country destroyed itself.

I don’t know what ordinary aristocratic parents are actually supposed to be like, but if their daughter were to go out into noble society talking like I did, shouldn’t they be disciplining her with a slap to the face?

Well, I didn’t plan on staying in this household for too long anyway.

That being said, the criticisms I had did say a lot about the kind of parents they were.

“I do not mean to be harsh about this, but I would like to ask for you to be on your best behavior when you meet with Prince Albert next month for the marriage interview.”

Basically, as long as their personal image was safe, then it was fine for me to act however I wanted.

It’s a very easy-to-understand reason… if I were look at it from a mercenary’s perspective. But these guys shouldn’t be handling their daughter this way.

“Tch… Of course, I understand, dear father. When that day comes, I shall be on my very best behavior… That right with you?”

For good measure, I held the edges of my dress and curtsied like a doll.

To be honest, it was kind of scary to hear myself talk like that, but this was what ‘being polite and proper’ meant to those upper-class society guys.

“Very good, very good! Then, I shall see you later, Mylene.”

“Uh-huh…”

With my demonstration seemingly having satisfied him, Balzac left with a happy mood.

I suppose he must have been busy doing things other nobles did, like making more money. But thanks to that, House Petyul provided almost anything I wanted. I could at least be grateful for that much, now that I thought about it.

But still, having to meet with the prince next month with the intention of formalizing an engagement… Ugh, just thinking about it is depressing.

I might be in a woman’s body now, but my mind was still that of a man’s. It was eerily chilling to think about getting close to a man…

On the other hand, the people of this country were faithful believers of God, so I don’t think any man would be foolish enough to even think about laying their hands on the girl called God’s Blessed.

The people of Iltania — that is, this country — put blind faith into the God that is their home’s namesake. But if this God of theirs really did exist, then Mylene shouldn’t have met such a pathetic end in my past life; rather, this God of theirs should’ve been more careful about choosing who to bless with the Hair of Sulberia.

Well, in the first place, the people now probably knew nothing about any of this, and most of them simply just pray to Iltania on a daily basis. Right now, I’m the only one who was aware that it was the fault of a certain woman, who also happened to be ‘blessed by God’, that the country was destroyed.

So I guess that meant I, the one with the Hair of Sulberia, understood God best. Still…

“Ugh… So it’ll be next month, huh…”

I tiredly slumped my shoulders over; just thinking about how soon that day would come was filling me with dread.

Going to the castle meant I would have to be careful with how I spoke; I couldn’t talk like I usually did. I could only hope I could get the engagement canceled later on, though I might be disowned if that were to happen.

It wouldn’t be hard for me to live on my own if that were to happen… but it would be annoying to have to give up this current life, where I could train as much as I want every day without worrying about my next meal or a place to sleep.

I just needed more time in this convenient environment to solidify my strength and establish a foundation for my skills.

My hair would stand out wherever I went, but the bigger issue was the rest of my appearance. I’d be made fun of and underestimated for being a kid, making it harder for me to find work. It seemed regardless of whether it was as a mercenary or as a noble lady, the importance of a good image didn’t change.

So for now, I needed to be the perfect young lady they wanted me to be.

“Damn… It ain’t easy, being a noble lady.”

My low grumbling went unheard across the long, empty corridor.