The Status Effect Count - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Abnormal Status Count 001
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Oh, we’re fully staffed, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps you might try elsewhere.”
Despite the polite words, the door slammed shut with a decisive bang, and a gust of wind swept past.
The small girl standing before the closed door felt her hair whip around her face in the cold breeze.
“Again…… again.”
Rejected. Rejected. Rejected!
Every single application had been turned down.
This time, she was sure—
“I really thought I’d get hired this time!”
Ana cried out, gripping her head in frustration.
Passersby stopped to stare, whispering among themselves in alarm, but she didn’t hear a word.
There was no point hiding it: Ana had just been rejected for the fiftieth time applying as a servant.
She couldn’t even register the murmurs and sideways glances of the crowd.
They said there was a labor shortage…….
They said they’d hire anyone who could lift a finger!
* * *
The long continental war had ended at last.
The Crown Prince, who had performed deeds of great valor, led vast cavalry columns in a triumphal march into the Capital.
His appearance was disheveled from the campaign, yet his face bloomed with victory.
It was a triumph worthy of celebration.
The Capital filled overnight with tribute and sacks of grain brought in by cart and carriage, transforming the city into a place of sudden plenty.
Gone were the days when those without a copper coin to their name crawled through the streets—now the thoroughfares blazed with flowers as parades and ceremonies filled every night.
It was the golden age.
Nobles who had fled to their country estates the moment they heard of the war crept back into the Capital.
Many rose in rank, newly granted titles and positions earned through their service.
Empty townhouses were restored one by one, and repair work bloomed across the city.
The markets thrived with the labor of refurbishing places that had sat abandoned for years.
Naturally, there was a desperate need for hands. It was time to fill the empty slots with people.
‘Seeking nimble-fingered workers. Unskilled labor.’
‘No experience necessary. No letters of recommendation required.’
‘Looking for loyal household servants. We’ll treat you well.’
Broadsides like these scattered across the streets, and word spread to every corner of the empire.
‘There’s plenty of work in the Capital, they say.’
Those struggling to make ends meet heard the rumor and naturally set out for the Capital.
Ana was one of them.
There had been work back home, but no one would hire a girl as young as her for anything more than pittance wages—pocket money, at best.
‘That won’t do for me.’
Ana needed real money. The kind that could change her life entirely.
‘But what’s the use? Nobody’s hiring.’
She let out a heavy sigh.
“Ana. How’d it go this time? Did you get in?”
“Get in? Look at that gloomy face.”
The tavern where Ana worked, the Quiet Night, came alive in the evenings—unlike the slow mornings when flies were the only patrons.
It was cheap and offered lodging.
As a result, most of the Quiet Night’s clientele were transients.
Men who had lived rough lives, born who knew where, had a remarkable talent for finding amusement in the smallest things.
Such as, for instance, Ana’s endless string of rejections.
“Yes, yes. Got turned down again.”
Ana set a plate of peanuts down on the table with a thunk.
Her expression was visibly deflated, though her audience seemed thoroughly entertained.
“She got rejected! I told you!”
“Ah…… I really thought she’d make it this time!”
“Come on, one Copper Coin each~ one Copper Coin each!”
‘These men have been betting on me this whole time?’
Her eyes flew wide open just as the hunters clutched their wooden cups filled with coins to their chests.
‘Look how heavy that cup is. They’ve been doing this for more than just a day or two.’
“Ugh. Why do you keep teasing the girl? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Ana, the tavern keeper, cut in. She rapped the men on their shoulders and snatched the wooden cup from the hunters’ hands.
“Teasing me! All because I’m worried about Ana……”
“She’s doing her job just fine. Worry about yourselves instead, you drunken fools!”
At Ana’s words, the hunters shuffled back to their seats with sheepish expressions.
Leaving the grumbling hunters behind, Ana smiled gently.
“Ana. It’s already nearly midnight. Aren’t you going out tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow……”
There were no more places left to apply.
Fifty. She’d been turned down from fifty mansions already—could there possibly be anywhere left?
For a moment, her vision darkened and she blinked hard.
“I heard the Anemone Manor hires anyone who walks through the door. Are you sure you were rejected?”
“They wouldn’t even look at me……”
“Oh dear……”
Ana’s face fell with sympathy.
“Ana. If things don’t work out, why not try applying elsewhere?”
Elsewhere?
“Theaters and shops need plenty of hands too, I’ve heard. I know people—want me to put in a word?”
Why did Ana Marita keep insisting on becoming a maid, after being rejected fifty times?
Because—
‘A maid is a “lifetime profession.”‘
For someone like Ana with no connections and no letters of recommendation, maid work was the most stable career available.
Work long enough at one estate and you earned credibility; even if you moved to another household later, a recommendation letter from your previous employers made rehiring simple—it was a solid, dependable career.
Though staying at one mansion longer was certainly preferable.
Above all.
‘The pay is good.’
That was the most important thing.
“Thank you, Ana. I’ll keep trying a bit longer. There have to be more places still……”
Ana spoke cheerfully, unconsciously twisting her hair around her finger in a familiar habit.
She needed to get an interview, at least.
Once they saw her dazzling floor-cleaning ability in person, they might change their minds!
She was certain there wasn’t another talent in the Capital who could cling to a huge window frame and work like she had wings.
“……If you’re really set on it.”
Ana sighed deeply, then began speaking with some hesitation.
“Would a place like this work?”
* * *
If you were to pick the grandest, most magnificent mansion in the Capital, it would undoubtedly be the Preneta Count’s Mansion.
An estate of vast grounds, and despite its age, still splendid.
‘I thought she was introducing me to some minor noble house or other.’
It was a colossal mansion Ana had never set foot in once during her fifty failed attempts at maid positions.
And a count’s residence, no less!
According to Ana, the ownership here had recently changed and new servants were needed urgently.
‘Even so, would they really hire someone like me?’
It seemed unlikely that even someone beyond Ana—the miracle girl of fifty rejections—would easily get in……
“You’re hired.”
“Really?”
It happened.
She leaped to her feet and cried out, and the stern-faced head maid with her hair pinned up twitched one eyebrow.
Oops.
Ana quickly smoothed her skirt and sat down properly. From the head maid Belence’s expression, it seemed she’d already made a bad impression.
“Are you withdrawing your application? If so, say so now.”
“No! Absolutely not! That could never happen!”
“Then we’ll need to draw up a contract.”
Was this a dream or reality?
It didn’t seem to be a joke—it really looked like she’d been hired.
Really? Me? At a count’s house?
Ana averted her eyes from the head maid and pulled at her cheek.
Ow! The pain rushed through her and tears pricked her eyes.
‘Heavens, thank you, thank you, Ana!’
No more jobless days from here on.
Before this luck could slip away, Ana quickly accepted the contract.
My goodness—an actual formal contract.
She clamped her teeth together. She nearly cried out again.
It was rare for a place to draw up a formal contract when hiring a maid. Usually it was just a verbal agreement.
There were plenty of places where she didn’t dare even ask, for fear the master would snap, “What? A contract? Don’t bother coming in tomorrow,” and throw her out on the spot.
‘Is it because this is the Capital?’
Ana kept running her fingers over the contract. The paper was stiff and even carried a faint fragrance—the material itself looked expensive.
‘Wait.’
But something very strange caught her eye on the contract.
Ana turned the paper toward the head maid and pointed to one spot.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I think there’s a mistake here. The wages, I mean.”
The head maid pushed up her spectacles and scanned the contract.
“There’s no mistake. That’s the correct amount.”
Really?
She took the contract back and read the line again carefully. Something was definitely off.
Not 150 Copper Coins, not 1 Silver Coin—15 Silver Coins.
That was far too much.
A single Silver Coin could buy so much: two or three decent dresses, a month’s worth of groceries, ten days’ rent at a shabby inn.
They were offering fifteen of them?
“Do you have an objection?”
“No, no objection at all! It’s just—it’s more than other places…….”
Suddenly the room fell silent.
When Ana looked up from the contract, the head maid Belence was staring down at her with a dumbfounded expression.
“You…… you did know something about the Count before coming here, didn’t you?”
Abnormal Status
Count
A serialized novel by Dotang
Author
: Dotang
Publisher
: Kwon Tae-wan, Woo Cheon-je
E-book Release Date
: 2026-08-13
Retail Price
: 100 Won (Episodes 1-20 provided free)
Provided by
: CL production
Address
: Room 203, Ace Artis Forum, 62 Digital-ro 31-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
UCI
G720:N+A014-20260803076
This book has been published as an e-book by KWBOOKS in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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