PROLOGUE

"What do you have to say for yourself, Saintess-in-Training Lidia?" The High Priest's voice boomed across the temple hall like a thunderstorm on a busy day, rattling every decorative moon sigil within earshot. His robes billowed behind him in a way that might have been intimidating if Lidia cared even the tiniest bit. "We have received countless complaints about your behavior. But to go as far as to attempt to poison Saintess-in-Training Pinopu—" here, he paused for dramatic effect, his wrinkled hands trembling as if he were on the verge of tears— "is beyond unforgivable! Even the Goddess of the Moon won't be able to save your soul from this!"

Lidia, standing in the center of the grand temple, surrounded by a sea of judgmental eyes, shrugged. She tilted her head lazily, like she was being forced to endure a lecture on candle wax quality instead of an accusation of attempted murder. "I don't give a fuck," she mumbled under her breath, loud enough for a few nearby listeners to choke on their collective holiness.

The High Priest froze mid-rant. "I'm sorry—what?"

"I said," Lidia sighed, louder this time, her voice dripping with exhaustion, "I don't give a fuck. Are you deaf, old man?"

A collective gasp swept through the congregation like a particularly dramatic breeze. The phrase "fuck" had never been uttered in the sacred halls of the Moon Temple before, and now here it was, not once but twice!

"May the Goddess of the Moon forgive our ears!" someone wailed, clutching their pearl-encrusted prayer beads as if that would save them from eternal damnation.

The High Priest threw his arms wide in a gesture of pure, melodramatic despair. "She is lost! She has rejected the light of the Goddess of the Moon! We must purge this evil!"

Lidia groaned. "Oh, shut up. You're embarrassing yourself. If your goddess is so powerful, she can deal with me herself, can't she? Or is she just as useless as the rest of you?"

Gasps.

Cries of horror.

Somewhere, a priest dropped their staff.

"This is sacrilege!"

"She must be punished!"

"That's blasphemy! Condemning your own goddess?!" The High Priest shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Lidia. "You deserve to be hanged!"

Lidia snorted, crossing her arms and leaning on one leg like she was waiting for a particularly slow carriage to pass. "Then I guess you'll be hanging right next to me, Gramps," she spat back, her voice sweetly mocking. "Go ahead and keep blaming a poor, innocent maiden. Without proof, you're all just talking out of your asses."

Her words hung in the air, followed by the loudest, most scandalized gasp yet. The crowd swayed on their feet, teetering between moral outrage and the sheer disbelief of what they had just heard.

"Innocent?" someone shouted from the back. "Your past behavior is all the proof we need! You've—"

"Well, then you can eat my ass!" Lidia interrupted, spinning on her heel to face the speaker.

The room fell into chaos.

The High Priest staggered backward as if struck by an invisible force, clutching his chest. A young priestess fainted dramatically onto a bench, moaning, "The Goddess of the Moon has abandoned us!" Another priest rushed to her side, gripping her hand like they were auditioning for a tragic romance play.

"You can't say that here!"

"She said—she said ass! IN THE TEMPLE!"

Lidia, utterly unimpressed, rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Like the moon goddess hasn't heard worse. You people pray to her about your bunions and bad breath, and you think she cares about my vocabulary?"

"Blasphemy!" someone screeched.

"She is possessed!" another priest declared, leaping onto the nearest pew as if preparing to exorcise her on the spot. "We cannot allow this monstrosity to dwell within the holy walls of the Moon Temple!"

The crowd erupted into frenzied agreement, shouting over each other about demons, curses, and whatever other nonsense they could come up with. Lidia sighed heavily, brushing a lock of hair out of her face.

"Possessed, huh?" she muttered. "Not the worst excuse I've heard for being a pain in the ass."

But here's the thing. They weren't entirely wrong.

Lidia was possessed. Just not by a demon or some grand embodiment of evil. Nothing fancy like that.

No, Lidia was possessed by the spirit of an

overworked civil servant who had died after thirty-seven years of kissing the asses of incompetent managers and dealing with the endless stupidity of bureaucratic systems.

And frankly? The spirit had had enough.

If there was one thing our dearly departed civil servant spirit hated more than anything, it was self-righteous assholes with too much power.

And oh, did the Moon Temple have plenty of those.

How much of a disaster is about to unfold?

I can't help but wonder how our dear Lidia plans to navigate this strange new world she's found herself in.

And, more importantly, how this new world plans to survive her.