BONG.
A deep, metallic clang rolled through the chamber, driving into her skull with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer.
Mina bolted upright in bed in a fraction of a second. Her heart hammered erratically, her breath trapped in her throat, hands shooting forward reflexively to shield her face from the blinding crimson glare of tearing reality.
For several agonizing heartbeats, she was utterly convinced she was back on her living room couch, about to watch the television swallow her apartment whole.
Only the icy draft washing over her bare shoulders, the unfamiliar timber rafters beneath the sloped ceiling, and the midnight-blue habit draped across the back of a chair dragged her back down to earth.
There was no television, nor her little rented apartment.
Mina exhaled a shuddering breath and sank back onto the mattress. She was chilled to the bone and aching all over.
Sleep had claimed her only after hours of weeping self-pity and an obsessive, agonizing dig through the unresponsive system interface, which had mechanically deflected every desperate attempt to find an exit.
For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to purge the memory of yesterday's nightmare in the Ashcroft estate, but reality refused to budge.
Rolling heavily onto her other side, she stared at a solitary, pale sliver of moonlight creeping along the yellowed plaster of the wall. The silvery gleam was gradually waning, signaling that dawn was barely an hour away.
Suddenly, a persistent, uncomfortable warmth flared in Mina’s lower belly, just below her navel.
With a muffled groan of frustration, she peeled back the coarse wool blanket and hitched up her thin nightgown. In the chilly twilight of the attic, her smooth skin gleamed pale, and resting dead center was the shameless, throbbing crimson tattoo - a stylized heart flanked by succubus wings and demonic horns.
The instant the cold air brushed the heated seal, an involuntary, deep tremor rippled through her loins and pelvis. The nerves concentrated there flared in response, delivering a humiliating jolt of scalding hypersensitivity.
Gritting her teeth, Mina hastily smoothed down the nightgown and stared up at the ceiling.
“As a transmigrator, I'm just... pathetic,” she whispered into the emptiness of the room, a heavy sigh tearing from her chest.
No overpowered mentor, no divine artifact handed to her. Instead, she had been saddled with a crippling debt and a bizarre magical brand.
Worse still, even the host body's memories were a shattered mess. Throughout the night, slipping in and out of shallow, fitful sleep, foreign images had drifted into her mind - chaotic, fragmented shards, like frames from a warped reel of film.
Fortunately, she had managed to piece together at least a rough outline of the mess she had stumbled into.
Most of them centered on the harsh realities of life in the capital and the rigid hierarchy of the Church of the Holy Sun.
Mina furrowed her brow, retracing the chain of events that had landed her in this godforsaken ruin on the fringes of Veyrsend in the first place.
It all boiled down to the evaluation system for the Daughters of Light.
The Church of the Holy Sun selected over a hundred young candidates endowed with magical talent from across the Empire and threw them into the deep end.
Each was assigned stewardship over a small, dilapidated chapel scattered across the realm, their future standing entirely contingent on how well they managed the parish, shepherded the faithful, and maintained the sanctuary.
The stakes were astronomical - the select few who demonstrated peak efficacy and unblemished purity of faith would receive the legendary Blessing of the Holy Sun.
According to the fragments of memory, this blessing was far more profound than a simple clerical promotion.
It drastically extended one's lifespan, elevated magical talent to heights unattainable by ordinary mortals, and above all... granted absolute purification and a permanent transformation of the recipient.
Still lying flat on her back, Mina let out a wry, cynical smirk.
“A Daughter of Light... Sure. A candidate for divine grace drowning in debt who let herself get dragged into the aristocracy’s dirty intrigues. Joke of the century.”
And yet, that Blessing was her only logical lifeline. If the rumors regarding absolute purification held true, there was a chance - even the faintest sliver of hope - that divine power could burn the Scarlet Brand from her flesh.
“And then there’s this cursed wonder...” she muttered, summoning the panel in her mind.
For a split second, the azure interface flared before her eyes, crowned with that glaring pink header: [System of Indecent Piety].
Mina waved her hand dismissively, banishing the window before she could catch another glimpse of the Shameless Allure offer on sale for a single point.
With a heavy sigh, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, determined to measure her memories against reality once and for all.
She was on the top attic floor of the small church - a room that served as both her private bedroom and modest living quarters. It held only a narrow cot, a plain wardrobe, a worktable, and a drafty, sticking window through which the cool morning wind slipped inside.
Padding down the narrow, mercilessly creaking wooden stairs, she reached the second floor.
The layout of the structure was slowly coming into focus.
The second floor functioned as utility quarters: a small storage nook stacked with empty grain sacks, a cluttered writing desk piled with yellowed bills, and... an alchemy workshop.
Pushing open the workshop door, Mina drew a breath. The room smelled of dried sage, distilled alcohol, and powdered minerals. Upon the stone workbench, everything sat primed for work.
The body’s previous occupant had been desperate, yet remarkably organized - wooden shelves held neat rows of labeled jars filled with dried herbs, a scrubbed copper cauldron gleamed nearby, and clean glass vials rested in a woven wicker basket. Beside the hearth lay a thick, leather-bound notebook weighted down with a lead ingot.
Stepping up to the table, Mina flipped the ledger open. Inside were neat, methodical entries: batch logs, ingredient expenditures, and dates.
“So she really was trying to keep this place afloat...” she murmured with reluctant respect. “To even secure a nomination as a Daughter of Light, she must have had a solid foundation in magic and a knack for brewing. Without that, she would’ve been booted from the cathedral on day one.”
Bracing her hands against the tabletop, Mina focused her thoughts:
“System, display my skills.”
A translucent menu unfurled instantly before her:
[SKILLS:]
[Alchemy Basics]
[Mana Control]
[Lesser Heal]
[Purification Elixir]
[Holy Rhetoric]
Mina lingered on the final entry.
Holy Rhetoric - a relic of rigorous cathedral training designed to hold a congregation's rapt attention throughout divine liturgy.
Yet it was the recipe for the Purification Elixir that captured her full attention.
“Well, since I'm stuck here anyway... time to see what this magic is actually worth,” she murmured, a flicker of excitement stirring.
As a gamer, the prospect of brewing a genuine magical potion sparked a childlike thrill. Stepping toward the hearth, she rolled up her sleeves. Rather than risking stains on her solitary, priceless ceremonial habit, she peeled off the outer vestments, leaving herself in just a simple white linen chemise and a plain home skirt.
She soon discovered, however, that system knowledge didn't translate into an automated one-click crafting button.
The skill provided intuitive instincts - she knew which dried silvermint leaves to crush in the mortar and how to measure the alchemical salt crystals - yet the physical graft had to be carried out with her own two hands.
She stoked the hearth beneath the cauldron, poured in a measured amount of spring water, and began gradually introducing the reagents.
At one point, she slipped up.
She stoked the flames with mana too aggressively. The water in the cauldron roiled violently, the solution shifting from a pristine pale blue to a murky, ominous copper.
“Shit, too hot!” she gasped, grabbing a wooden ladle.
The sweltering heat radiating from the hearth turned the small workshop stifling in seconds. Between the steam and rising humidity, the thin linen chemise clung tightly to her skin, beads of sweat tracing down her chest to slip between the unbuttoned collar at her throat.
Mina immediately throttled back her mana flow, steadying her breath as she stirred the decoction counter-clockwise with measured, patient strokes.
Channeling Mana Control, she infused a narrow, cooling thread of her own mana into the roiling broth.
After several tense minutes, the turbulent boiling subsided. The liquid cleared, shimmering with crystalline brilliance, and a crisp, mint-and-ozone fragrance filled the air.
It was a success.
Mina beamed - a broad, downright goofy grin born of sheer self-satisfaction. Reaching for a glass funnel, she began carefully decanting the finished potion into small, prepared vials. She filled exactly fifteen glass bottles, sealing each with a waxed cork.
A golden notification flickered in the air:
[Successfully Crafted: 15x Purification Elixir]
“Ha! It works! I'm a genius,” she purred, tapping her fingernail against the cool glass.
Her satisfaction lasted right up until she reached for the old ledger to calculate her margins.
Pulling up a chair, Mina picked up a piece of charcoal and began to run the numbers. Her accountant's mind kicked into overdrive, tabulating costs against revenue. And with every line she scrawled, her smile withered, twisting into a mask of pure, homicidal fury.
A single vial of Purification Elixir went for roughly fifty copper coins in this district. At first glance, that didn't sound terrible - fifty coppers was more than a laborer's full day of grueling toil at the Asterion docks. Fifteen vials yielded a gross revenue of seven hundred and fifty coppers.
The fatal catch lay in the expenses, which her predecessor had meticulously itemized down to the grain: raw herbs, imported alchemical salt, replacement glassware, and above all else... the cordwood necessary to keep the furnace blazing.
Her net margin per potion boiled down to a pathetic handful of coppers.
Mina slammed the charcoal down and hurled the ledger paper furiously to the floorboards. She glared with murder in her eyes at the row of bottles.
“What is the fucking point of brewing this garbage?!” she snarled aloud. “Even if I stood over this cursed cauldron twenty-four hours a day without a wink of sleep or a bite of food, after expenses I'd scrape together... what?! Barely two gold coins a week! TWO!”
Clutching her head, her breath came ragged:
“I need three hundred gold coins a week! Three hundred, for fuck's sake, not two!”
To make matters worse, somebody actually had to buy the potions. Fifty coppers was a small fortune for the paupers of Veyrsend - nobody in their right mind bought medicine like fresh morning pastries.
Commoners only turned to the church for elixirs when a relative was practically on their deathbed with no options left. Meanwhile, nobles and wealthy merchants bought premium draughts, sneering at low-grade wares turned out by a backwater chapel.
“Damn it all... Why do I always end up knee-deep in shit?” she groaned, resting her forehead against the cold stone.
BONG!
The toll of the bell directly overhead ripped through the silence with such force that Mina practically jumped out of her skin. A vial of elixir wobbled precariously on the table edge and plunged toward the floor.
Operating on pure, panicked reflex, Mina dove sideways, scooping the glass from the air barely an inch above the stone flags.
She hissed a breath through clenched teeth, cold sweat trickling down her spine.
“Why the hell did I develop a goddamn phobia of church bells?!” she snapped, setting the vial back in place.
The bell didn't relent. It boomed a second time, then a third, solemnly and rhythmically rousing the neighboring tenements.
Mina glared at the ceiling, balling her fists.
“Why won't it shut up?! Who's even pulling the damn rope-- ”
Her eyes went wide. The scattered memories from the night collided with the impact of a battering ram.
“Oh, shit... That's the bell for the first mass!”
The Liturgy of the First Dawn.
The mandatory morning service every Daughter of Light was required to conduct the exact moment the sun's first rays touched the altar. If the parishioners found locked portals, a formal reprimand for dereliction of duty would hit the curia before noon.
“No, no, no!” Mina shrieked, bolting for the stairs.
Scrambling into the attic, she snatched the habit from the chair. She jammed her arms into the sleeves in a mad scramble, fumbling with the buttons and cursing up a storm:
“These damn memories are so full of holes I should demand a tax refund!”
Racing down to the ground floor, she fastened the broad ceremonial sash with its solar buckle. Only when she arrived before the doors to the sanctuary did she skid to a halt.
Bracing her hands against her knees, she drew three slow, deep breaths.
Calm down, Mina.
Take it easy.
You have Holy Rhetoric.
You have this body's muscle memory.
You've got this. It's just a short speech for a handful of retirees.
Smoothing down her blonde locks, she straightened the folds of her midnight-blue habit, lifted her chin, and stepped inside with slow, stately poise.
A cool, solemn twilight hung inside the sanctuary.
Rows of aged larchwood pews filled slowly and in hushed silence. In the front pews sat several hunched elders clutching rosaries carved from solar amber, followed by a sprinkling of artisans and merchants in working doublets who had dropped in to pray before heading out to workshops and docks.
Towering above the fractured marble altar stood a monumental golden disc ringed by twelve radiant rays - the emblem of the Holy Sun. Behind it stretched a soaring lancet window facing due east, where the horizon was slowly blushing with the pink hues of the waking day.
Mina glided over to the side altar. Lacking the budget for young acolytes, she had to take up the silver censer herself. Igniting the charcoal briquette with a faint spark of mana, she stepped before the high altar as wisps of fragrant, pale blue smoke curled from the perforated vessel.
Setting the censer down, she stood before the marble altar, bowed her head piously, and pressed her right palm over the golden brooch upon her chest.
With a soft rustle, the congregation in the pews mirrored the gesture.
“May the Holy Sun look with favor upon those gathered within His house,” Mina spoke.
Her voice, carried by the passive effect of Holy Rhetoric, rang out remarkably clear, melodious, and resonant, echoing under the stone vaulting.
“May His light guide our steps,” the congregation answered in unison, bowing their heads.
Mina drew herself up. For an instant, a tight knot of nerves seized her throat, but the sight of tired, trusting eyes gazing up at her anchored her to the role:
“Brothers and sisters. Another day has been entrusted to our care. We know not what trials it shall bring, yet we know we need not face them without hope.”
Stepping to the lectern, she opened the heavy, leather-bound liturgical tome.
“From the Book of the First Dawn, Chapter Three.”
In that exact fraction of a second, something extraordinary occurred.
The first piercing beam of the rising sun broke through the high eastern window. A shaft of golden light struck dead center against the great disc above the altar. The polished metal flared with a warm, mesmerizing radiance, bathing the young priestess in celestial glow.
Several elderly worshippers drew sharp, reverent gasps, bowing their heads even lower.
Framed by the morning beam, with her blonde hair gleaming like spun gold and her delicate features serene in contemplation of the sacred verses, Mina looked like the very embodiment of purity and innocence. The younger artisans in the rear pews stared at her spellbound, hanging on her every word.
Not a single soul among them could have guessed that beneath that pristine layer of sacred cloth, branded upon her bare lower belly, lay a demonic succubus slave crest.
Mina began to read, her sweet, if slightly tentative voice bathing the sanctuary in calm:
“‘And it was said unto those who wandered in darkness: Fear not the path you cannot see. For the light was not created to choose for you, but so that you might choose for yourselves.’”
As she read, she glanced up at the nave from time to time.
Even in a fantasy world, church attendance is tanking, she thought at first with dry amusement. But she immediately checked herself:
No, wait.
The Church of the Sun commands millions of fanatical worshippers across the Empire.
It’s just that my chapel is a forgotten, miserable dump...
With that sobering realization, she closed the tome and raised her hands:
“Rise for prayer.”
Timber creaked as the congregation rose to their feet.
“Holy Sun, who illuminates the path of the righteous...” Mina intoned.
“Guide us in Your light,” the faithful answered.
“Who beholds the suffering of the weak...”
“Grant them Your grace.”
“Who knows the truth harbored within the hearts of men...”
“Let us not stray.”
To conclude, she raised her open palms high toward the glowing disc:
“May the light of the Holy Sun walk with you throughout this day.”
“In His radiance. Forevermore.”
A solitary final chime of the bell heralded the end of the service.
Slowly, reverently, the folk began to file out of the chapel. A few stepped up to the side altar to light penny tallow candles, and with a dull clink, barely a handful of worn copper coins dropped into the wooden alms box.
Mina remained rooted by the altar until the heavy portals swung shut behind the last parishioner.
Only then did her shoulders slump, a long sigh of relief escaping her lips.
She did it!
She had survived her very first mass without setting the church on fire or flubbing the liturgy.
“All right... Morning down,” she muttered under her breath, dabbing sweat from her temple. “Now to set out those miserable potions for sale and handle the confessions...”
She froze mid-step. Her brow twisted in sheer, unadulterated terror, her eyes going wide with shock.
“Wait...” she choked out, clamping both hands to her cheeks. “CONFESSIONS?!”