22 — Chapter 22

Depending on the shift, a palace maid’s workday usually ends around the time the night bell tolls eight times.

After a late dinner, the rest of the time is theirs. Since they have to be up by dawn, most crawl into bed early, but younger maids with energy to spare and gossip to trade often drift between dormitory rooms to enjoy a chat.

Elma was strictly the type to go to sleep early, so her room was normally silent save for the sound of breathing once the night grew late. Today, however, was an exception.

“Now, Elma, answer me! Which dress are you wearing to the ball? Tell me which you prioritize: our friendship, or the hierarchy between you and Head Maid Graz!”

“Stop that, Irene. That is no way to speak to her. This isn’t a matter of human relationships; it’s simply a matter of good or bad taste. Don’t you agree, Elma?”

In the cramped dormitory room, Irene and, for some reason, even Gerda were crowding Elma, pressing her for an answer. Both women were clutching dresses in their hands.

“Sigh…”

Elma, for her part, seemed rather perplexed—though it was hard to tell, hidden as she was behind those thick glasses. Having been ambushed by the two women just as she finished preparing for bed, she tilted her head in confusion.

“If I may ask… why exactly am I expected to attend the ball on the eve of the coronation in the first place?”

At that question, Irene and Gerda raised their voices in unison.

“What are you playing dumb for?! Thanks to the whim of the Foolish Prince—I mean, the kind-hearted Prince Felix—every servant in the palace gets to participate in the ball! Surely you aren’t suggesting you didn’t know!?”

“She’s right! Not to mention the young girls and the single young men, even people like me who have long since left social circles are a little—no, quite a bit—restless with excitement!”

And so it was.

Ever since the arrangements made by Felix and Clemens von Rottner allowed them to attend the ball, everyone had spent the last few weeks agonized over dresses, hairstyles, and the timing of their grand entrance.

Many of the palace maids were daughters of lower-tier nobility. For them, this ball was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to land a “big catch” out in the open, and to say they were fired up would be an understatement.

“No, well… I was thinking of helping Head Chef Georg in the kitchen that day—”

“Of course, the most popular choice is the friendly Prince Lucas, who has neither a fiancé nor the burden of being the next King. But I hear the veteran husband-hunters have started diversifying their targets toward mid-tier nobles and knights because the competition for him is too fierce… Handsome rankings and directories of noble sons are already circulating! There are secret late-night dance practices and information wars! Listen well, Elma. This is a battle between women. I want you to taste victory as a woman.”

“No, like I was saying—”

“Landing a gentleman on the spot isn’t the only goal. Displaying remarkable beauty or poise at a ball not only helps with future marriage proposals, but it also improves your standing within the palace and might even lead to a pay raise.”

As Elma calmly tried to interject, the two of them cut her off again from both sides. She understood perfectly well that both Irene and Gerda were encouraging her out of the goodness of their hearts.

“Um, but attendance at the ball isn’t mandatory. And personally, I’m not particularly aiming for marriage proposals or a salary increase, so—”

“That’s exactly it!”

When she tried to offer a polite refusal, a finger was thrust sharply toward her. Elma looked up to find Irene staring at her with a serious expression in her cat-like green eyes.

“Why does someone as capable—and as unbelievably beautiful—as you have to give up on your dreams like that? There is no law that says someone blessed with such god-given talent shouldn’t aim for the top of womanhood!”

Her fundamental values were surprisingly militant.

It seemed Irene had seen Elma’s true face the other day. Since then, she had been relentlessly inviting her with the logic of: “Why hide it? Don’t you want to overwhelm others as a woman? No, let us aim for the pinnacle of womanhood!”

“No, as I was explaining…” Elma tried again, only to have her hands squeezed tightly.

“You don’t have to say another word, Elma. I… I actually understand.”

“Huh?”

“You… you were raised as a sheltered girl in a terribly strict convent, weren’t you?”

“…What?”

Elma had no idea why such a backstory was being fabricated for her origins. As she stood there momentarily speechless, Irene nodded with a straight face.

“That word you use sometimes, ‘Outside’.¹ I hear it refers to the secular world. In other words, you were in an environment isolated from society. An environment with high educational standards and several ‘Fathers’ (Priests/Mentors), right?”

Then, with a look of total conviction, she declared:

“Excessive beauty leads to lust. It makes sense that you were educated to hide it. Your strangely sheltered attitude. The way you are sometimes overly reserved. I’ve heard there are convents in the borderlands that were shut down for discipline that bordered on abuse of nuns and orphans. There’s no doubt about it—you’re a product of one of those convents, aren’t you?”

“Ah… sure…”

She was completely off the mark, but Elma thought “convent” was a more natural guess for a commoner than “prison.”

Seeing her reaction, Gerda frantically signaled her with her eyes, as if to say, “Just go with that for now!”

So, she gave a vague nod.

Well, if being “sheltered” meant living behind bars—the “piggy bank”,² then she wasn’t technically wrong.

“…Right. It was something like that.”

“I knew it!”

Irene immediately clapped her hands together in triumph. Then, she gripped the dresses again with renewed vigor.

“Then, Elma, I’ll say it as many times as it takes! Those teachings of modesty and humility they crammed into you were excessive! It is the way of the world to make use of the beauty and wit you were born with. Your beauty and talent are finally ready to bloom…!”

“I won’t force you, but I agree, Elma,” Gerda added. “If your abilities and presence are recognized, it will act as a shield to deflect anything people might say about your ‘origins’ later on.”

Gerda had previously told Elma not to show her face recklessly, but apparently, she saw no problem with playing a trump card when the situation called for it.

Personally, Elma didn’t feel particularly ashamed of being from a prison, but if Gerda was reacting this way, she figured a prison upbringing was something that ought to be hidden in polite society.

Taking Elma’s silence as consent, Irene and Gerda began their dress presentation with even more intensity.

“—Now, regarding the dress to overwhelm everyone at the ‘Universal Ball,’ I personally think this crimson mermaid-line gown is the best. It’ll look perfect against your pale skin, and since Prince Lucas generally prefers glamorous women, it’s a total match.”

“You’re so young, Irene. Listen well, Elma. Gentlemen are creatures that seek the faint scent of elegance wafting from a modest outfit. Therefore, my recommendation is this ivory empire-line dress. At first glance, it’s a style of unadorned innocence, yet the back is daringly low—the ‘gap’ is what counts. We shall use it to snipe Prince Lucas’s heart.”

“Um… why are we aiming for His Highness…?”

Elma’s glasses glinted with bewilderment.

She understood that they viewed her attitude as mere reserve and were trying to make her stand out. However, why was a mere maid expected to aim for the heart of the nation’s prince?

When Elma voiced her doubt, Irene let out an exasperated sigh.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re the favorite of the former Consort, you’re an all-rounder who can do anything, you catch tuna when you go to sea, you heal knights’ wounds, and your true face is a total mystery—‘Elma the Walking Enigma’ is a minor celebrity now! They say even Prince Lucas has started taking notice.”

“What?”

“The daughters of the high nobility are way more jealous than we are, so I’ve been trying my best to keep the rumors from reaching them… but didn’t the Prince carry you back to the dormitory the other day? Apparently, a Count’s daughter saw it. She’s a great dancer and is betting everything on this ball, so she might even mobilize her followers to harass you.”

Perhaps overlapping Elma’s situation with her own past, Irene made a sour, complicated face.

“…I’m worried about you. I do want you to aim for the top, but more than that, I want you to intimidate them—to blow them away. Make them realize they aren’t even in your league. Well… since I’m the one who used to bully you, you might not believe me.”

“Eh? Did you bully me?”

“…Can we start our discussion from there?”

Irene visibly deflated.

A certain concern suddenly crossed Elma’s mind, so she decided to ask just to be sure.

“Forgive the sudden question, but is hiding needles in someone’s shoes or floor not an encouraging gesture meant to say, ‘Good luck with your needlework (heart)’?”

“What?! That’s the textbook definition of harassment!”

“Then, is water suddenly falling on my head whenever I go somewhere not a heartwarming act of kindness meant to say, ‘It’s hot today, so I’m sprinkling some cooling water for you’?”

“That’s an act meant to break your spirit! Where is all this positivity coming from?!”

Hearing Irene’s shocked shout, Elma nodded with a solemn expression.

“…I see. It seems I have already been subjected to harassment.”

She had been collecting the needles and putting them to good use, and she’d been catching the water in nearby pots or buckets to use for gardening, so it never occurred to her that those were attacks.

Now realizing that their concerns weren’t entirely baseless, Elma shifted the direction of her questions.

“I understand your worries. But if the goal is just to show a dignified front, there’s no need to make me the Prince’s partner, is there? In fact, the Head Maid often advises the Prince to cut back on his womanizing. And Irene, aren’t you a fan of the Prince yourself?”

When she asked, they both gave answers mixed with wry smiles.

“I’ve watched the Prince wrap women around his finger since he was a boy. As his former wet nurse, I’m worried about him. I want him to experience being on the receiving end for once so he can grow into a proper gentleman.”

“I used to be a huge fan of his ‘slightly-playboy-alpha’ persona, but lately, he’s gained the ‘hard-worker’ tag and has developed more of a ‘mother-figure’ vibe… or maybe a ‘slight-bottom’ energy? Look, I’m just not someone who can handle a ‘switch,’ you know?”

“…I didn’t quite follow Irene’s argument. Is there something wrong with my reading comprehension?”

Elma wanted to press Gerda on what she meant by “experiencing the reverse,” but that thought was blown away by Irene’s wild pitch.

As she asked while chewing on her complicated feelings, both women nodded with knowing looks.

“Just ignore this girl’s delusions.”

“Don’t think you can understand the abyss of this world so easily.”

It seemed Irene was getting impatient that the dress selection wasn’t progressing. She abruptly closed the distance toward Elma.

“So,” she said. “I’ll ask one more time. Which dress are you wearing? Just so you know, since you have the qualifications and the dresses are right here, ‘not attending’ isn’t an option.”

“Ugh…”

“Elma, let me say this too,” Gerda added. “Going to a ball and being noticed by someone is the ‘standard path’ to the future that every normal girl dreams of. There were many episodes like that in the novels I lent you, right?”

Normal. Everyone. The standard path.

Faced with those most effective of “magic words,” Elma fell silent for a moment. Sensing they had her, the two leaned in further.

“—Is that so?”

However, she calmly pushed up the bridge of her glasses.

“Eh?”

“I apologize to the Head Maid, but someone pointed out to me that the romance novels you lent me were not appropriate as textbooks for social common sense or emotional education. I have secured a different set of textbooks from a new source.”

As Elma spoke, she pulled “something” out of her cloth bag. The two of them stared at it, their eyes wide.