***
“Ugh, my stomach hurts…”
I managed to soothe my upset stomach and get out of bed. My body felt stiff, and my head was pounding. It was far too early in the morning to be feeling this miserable.
“What a ridiculous dream…”
Apparently, what I’d drunk in my dream hadn’t been tea but alcohol.
Otherwise, it made no sense for my breath to reek of alcohol and for me to be suffering from a hangover when I hadn’t touched a drop myself.
On top of that, I’d woken up in a luxurious young lady’s bedroom that wasn’t even mine.
‘I need to wash up and change clothes quickly. If anyone finds out I spent the night here, there might be a huge commotion.’
Just as I was reaching for the doorknob, the door opened, and Bessie, the maid who shared a room with me, walked in.
Oh, no. It was already past six!
The servants of the Nezer estate had to get up at five to sweep and dust the house and prepare breakfast for the master and his family.
Judging by Bessie’s arrival, it was already time to wake the young lady, which meant I’d been neglecting my duties with absolutely no excuse.
“Oh my, my lady. You’re up early today!”
I felt a little irritated, wondering if she was being sarcastic, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of reproach on her face.
Bessie smiled brightly as she brought a basin of washing water and a towel over to me.
“Since Aida quit, I’ll be attending to you starting today.”
“What are you talking about? Why would I—”
I instinctively lowered my gaze toward the washbasin and froze.
Reflected in the clear water wasn’t my face, but the young lady’s.
Wait a minute! So it hadn’t been a dream?!
“My lady, where are you going?”
Leaving Bessie behind as she stared at me in confusion, I dashed out into the corridor.
I nearly collided with several startled servants, but I didn’t care.
“Master!”
I burst into the viscount’s bedroom, shouting at the top of my lungs. The viscount and his wife frowned and sat up in bed.
“Ulpina, you’re old enough to know better than to—”
“That isn’t the problem! I drank the tea you gave me last night, and when I woke up, I’d become you!”
“…”
The viscount looked at me as though he were thinking, What ridiculous nonsense has that girl come up with this time?
“…Have you been drinking?”
“I did drink, but it wasn’t me! It was the young lady!”
“You little…!”
“Dear, calm down. Let’s wait until she’s sober before scolding her.”
Frustrated by the way they were treating this as nothing more than their immature daughter’s drunken rambling, I ignored all considerations of social status and shouted again.
“I’m Aida! Aida Silenen, Lady Ulpina’s personal maid! I drank the tea you gave me yesterday, and afterward, my body switched with the young lady’s!”
“What nonsense are you talking about…? D-Don’t tell me!”
At my shocking confession, the viscount’s face suddenly turned deathly pale. He leaped out of bed and rushed away.
When he shoved a wardrobe aside, a hidden safe was revealed in the wall.
The viscount hurriedly unlocked it, then let out a shrill scream when he looked inside.
“It’s gone! It’s gone!”
“What is it, dear?”
Curious, I leaned over the viscount’s shoulder to peek inside the safe.
‘A bottle?’
All that remained inside was a single, empty, transparent bottle.
“The sacred artifact is gone!”
“What?!”
The viscountess was horrified. She pushed her husband aside and took the bottle out of the safe.
She shook it up and down and even turned it upside down, but no matter what she did, the empty bottle wasn’t suddenly going to fill itself.
“How could this happen…?”
The viscountess sank to the floor, her legs trembling uncontrollably.
“Um… I’d really appreciate it if someone explained what’s going on to me, too.”
The moment I cautiously spoke up, the two of them turned piercing glares on me.
“You!”
The furious viscount turned toward me.
His lips twitched as though he wanted to hurl all sorts of harsh words at me, but he managed to suppress his anger and explain.
“What was inside that safe was a sacred artifact known as the Spring of Wisdom.”
The Spring of Wisdom.
According to the viscount, it was a sacred artifact passed down through generations of the Nezer family. Legend had it that if two people drank from it, their souls would switch bodies.
The only way to reverse the effect was for those same two people to drink from the spring water together again.
There was even a legend that Emperor Rokan, the founding emperor of the Rodinia Empire, had used this sacred artifact to save his own life.
‘She used such a precious sacred artifact to brew tea? Just to switch bodies with a mere maid?’
I was dumbfounded by the young lady’s outrageous behavior, but I didn’t have time to sit around blaming her.
“We might still have a chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t drink all the tea brewed with the sacred water! We just need to find the young lady and make her drink the rest!”
In my words, the viscount urgently ordered the servants waiting outside.
“Bring Aida here at once! And bring me the remaining tea from Ulpina’s room!”
Unfortunately, fate was not on our side.
“I’m afraid the tea has already been thrown away…”
When he heard that the sacred water had gone down the drain, the viscount collapsed to the floor and sobbed like the tragic heroine of a melodrama.
I couldn’t help shooting him a disapproving glance.
‘I’m the one who wants to cry, so why is he bawling his eyes out?’
The viscount was the one who’d failed miserably at raising his child, so why was I the one suffering the consequences?
“And Aida received her severance pay last night and immediately boarded a ship leaving the empire.”
“KYAAAAH!”
My severance pay! My hard-earned money!
I’m the one who worked until my hands were raw, so why did the young lady get to take my severance pay?!
“Both of you, stop it and get up. What’s done is done.”
The viscountess dismissed the servant and tried to calm us down as we wallowed in despair, but it was no use.
“Ulpina, you little…”
“Waaaaah! My money! My body! Take responsibility! Take responsibility!”
Watching the viscount and me refuse to listen to reason, the viscountess slammed her fist against the wall.
“Get. Up.”
Her fierce gaze felt as though it could pierce our skin, and we reluctantly stood.
The viscountess spoke in a commanding tone.
“Unfortunately, we must give up on the sacred artifact and Ulpina. Rather than wasting our efforts on something impossible, we must deal with the situation right in front of us.”
“But, dear…”
“Have you forgotten that the Count of Rosetti is holding a banquet in a week?”
At her reminder, the viscount’s face changed as he suddenly remembered.
“And you.”
The viscountess turned her stern gaze toward me.
“From now on, you are Ulpina Nezer.”
“…Pardon?”
Me?
“But…”
“If you don’t become Ulpina, what do you intend to do? With that face, are you planning to work as a maid? Or would you prefer to announce to the entire empire that the Nezer family possessed a sacred artifact?”
I was frustrated and furious, but she was right.
Having unilaterally decided my future for me, the viscountess immediately took me in hand that very day and began an intensive crash course in becoming a noblewoman.
***
Becoming a noble young lady was no easy task.
The most grueling part was memorizing the Nezer family tree.
“Who is this person?”
The viscountess pointed at a young man and asked me.
“Um… my older cousin?”
“That’s your great-grandaunt’s husband!”
“Whoa!”
Great-grandaunt, exactly how much younger was the man you married?
“Sigh… All right, then who is this person?”
“My third aunt by marriage?”
“I told you he’s your maternal nephew!”
“Why?!”
What kind of insane family was this?!
A man in his twenties was the husband of my great-grandaunt, while a woman in her fifties was my maternal nephew.
Fortunately, the older generations had a lot of marriages between cousins, which made the family tree relatively simple and easier to memorize.
The real problem was keeping track of the living relatives I needed to recognize right away.
And once I’d memorized the family tree, I had to learn the names of all the famous people listed in the social register!
I was huffing and puffing as I went back to memorizing the family tree when a warm, salty liquid began trickling from my nose.
‘I don’t have a cold. Did the young lady have allergies?’
As I sniffled and continued memorizing the family tree, the viscountess pressed a lace handkerchief against my nose.
“Keep it plugged like this. That’s not a runny nose. It’s a nosebleed.”
While I held the handkerchief against my nose and tried to cool my feverish head, the viscountess quietly spoke.
“Ulpina, do you know why I’m pushing you this hard?”
“Nggh.”
“The Count of Rosetti is my maternal great-uncle. And his banquets are famous for bringing together most of the important figures in high society.”
In other words, the guests invited to an event hosted by such an influential family would be people of considerable standing. If I behaved inappropriately there, it would tarnish the Nezer family’s reputation as well.
“I refuse to let that little brat, Mirinda, find fault with us and look down on our family!”
“…Huh?”
If I’d studied correctly, Mirinda was the viscountess’s cousin.
“So what if her daughter is engaged to a marquis? Does she have to flaunt it at every opportunity?!”
Oh, so that’s what this is about!
“Do you understand? Work hard and put that arrogant girl in her place!”
After delivering her passionate speech, the viscountess gripped my shoulders tightly, her expression terrifying.
“Has your nose stopped bleeding? Good. Then let’s get back to studying.”
Somebody save me.
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