Drew, the Eccentric

Drew, the genius.

On the surface, many people call her that—though usually with a hint of mockery.

She was born the second daughter of a merchant family. It was one of the leading merchant houses in Gadeland, a port city; even I knew the family's name.

She should have been a sheltered daughter, quite literally, but her interest turned not to the sons of respectable families she had yet to meet, but to one of her family's businesses: shipbuilding.

She was especially interested in mechanical work and apparently displayed extraordinary talent from a young age, making ship models from single planks and the like.

But she gave no thought whatsoever to her role as the second daughter of a major merchant family, and after arguing with her father, she ran away from home and entered the civil service.

She had been hired for her knowledge of commerce and shipbuilding, so she was initially assigned to the navy.

But Drew gradually began to run wild. She started making one strange thing after another, setting shipbuilding aside. Her interest had not been in shipbuilding, but in the act of "creating" itself.

Even when warned to stop making strange things, she did not change at all. Eventually, her superiors in the navy gave up on her and sent her back to the palace that had assigned her.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of her career, but someone took notice of Drew after she returned to the royal capital: Rays-sama...