25 — Chapter 25

After dancing through the waltz and nailing a masterful finish, Lucas let out a weary sigh of relief in his heart.

‘Good grief… look at that pale face…’

He glanced toward Caroline, who was staring at them from within the circle of onlookers, and felt a pang of pity.

She was the woman who had boasted that no one could surpass her when it came to dancing. After being shown such a flawless performance, she likely couldn’t even find the words to respond. Simply put, they were in different leagues.

Even as a Prince who had seen countless veteran performers, Lucas had never seen a girl step with such brilliance.

No, it wasn’t just the dance that was magnificent.

The moment Elma had invited the orchestra in, Lucas had felt the morale of the musicians surge and the quality of the music transform. He suspected it would be difficult to maintain this level of performance without her presence. With the finest music and the finest dance, she had embodied supreme beauty.

‘Though I feel like she didn’t need to go quite that far…’

In Lucas’s estimation, Caroline had lost her will to fight within the first five seconds. Yet, the lovely berserker in his arms showed no sign of dropping her combat stance. On the contrary, once she spotted Caroline, she spoke to her with a dead serious expression.

“Thank you for waiting, Lady Caroline von Feinen. Now, it is your turn.”

“Ah… e-eh… yes… ah…”

Dance, she was saying. In this situation.

Lucas could see the color draining from Caroline’s face; she looked ready to faint.

“Elma, stop. No ordinary noble lady can dance like that.”

Thinking that Caroline was supposed to be the aggressor here, Lucas tried to throw her a lifeline. Elma tilted her head in genuine puzzlement.

“Like that? But that was the simplest kind of waltz. Could it be that in the ‘outside’—”

“Stop. Don’t say it. Just leave it at that, please.”

Lucas quickly covered Elma’s mouth before she could deliver the finishing blow with her usual catchphrase. However, she brushed his hand away and looked up at him with dissatisfaction.

“Why? Is this strange? Borrowing the strength of one’s comrades to challenge a mighty existence—isn’t that the standard development?”

“You’ve moved past ‘challenging’ and straight into ‘pulverizing.’ Listen to me. Forget everything in those books you borrowed from Dirk.”

“But—”

It seemed Elma couldn’t quite accept having the source of what she finally thought was “common sense” rejected. Seeing her pout—an expression that was, quite frankly, devastatingly cute—Lucas sighed.

“Then think of it this way. The protagonist in a book wouldn’t strike an enemy who turned their back to flee, would they? Don’t turn away those who come to you, but at the very least, don’t chase those who leave. That is what decorum means.”

“Ah…”

Elma blinked. She finally noticed Caroline backing away inch by inch and seemed to reach a point of understanding.

“I see.”

Just as Lucas began to relax, thinking the ordeal was over, it happened.

“—O Muse.”

A young man holding a violin spoke in a voice with a distinct foreign lilt.

“My true strength, and yours. Shall we… clash them together?”

As he spoke, he struck his instrument with a resounding chord. It was a supreme sound, clearly on a different level from anything before—a soul-stirring melody spun by a musician betting his very life on his craft.

“Mr. Joran Svalbard?”

Lucas, recognizing the youth’s identity as a prince should, murmured in confusion. Why was a man rumored to be a genius—someone who could surely handle dance music with one hand tied behind his back—now playing with a look of challenge directed at Elma? He reached the answer almost immediately.

The simplest kind of waltz.

Elma’s earlier words had likely set his heart ablaze.

Just moments ago, Elma had been “controlling” the performance at will. She had used the music as a tool to enhance the dance, riding it like a master. To someone who considered music the ultimate authority, that must have been humiliating. Joran was now attempting to correct Elma’s “arrogance” by thrusting his true performance upon her.

“True music is supple, uncaptured by anyone—a wild stallion, so to speak. Can you… ride it?”

The phrase he struck next was startling and irregular. It was a raw, visceral melody, utterly unsuited for dancing.

Ignoring the bewildered crowd, Elma spoke with a flat expression.

“Prince Lucas.”

“…What?”

“A new rival has appeared. Since he approached me, it is common sense not to refuse him, right?”

“…”

How does it always end up like this? was Lucas’s blunt internal reaction.

“No, well—”

He scrambled to find an argument that wasn’t contradictory.

“Will you lend me your strength once more? Let us fight, together.”

But those few seconds of hesitation were his undoing. Elma snatched Lucas’s hand and leaped back onto the dance floor.

‘Ah… ah…! What… what brilliance…!’

Joran was in a state of ecstasy.

Music overflowed from his body. Excitement filled his every nerve. He thanked God for this fateful encounter in a foreign land.

‘Amazing… wonderful… she follows my music without a grain of deviation… no, that’s wrong, she transcends it…!’

Since childhood, his love for music had been deep, and his interpretations and expressions had deviated from the range understandable by ordinary people. He could perceive and express infinite stories and colors from a single note, yet to others, it was just a note. The difference in “granularity” between his musical sense and others’ had always been a source of frustration for him.

But now, the girl before him understood and expressed every intention he poured into the notes. The sorrow in the tone, the playful slight shifts in tempo, the tension held in the lingering echoes—she embodied them all perfectly with a single movement of her fingertips or the arch of her back.

Joran felt his musical visions being transmitted to the girl without a trace of error. He understood that the music, having gained physical motion through her, was being painted as a vast epic.

‘Ah… I can see it…! Beyond where my music and her dance melt together… an infinite world…!’

Joran had intended to weave the birth and downfall of a nation into the piece he was playing.

Under a clear sky, animals peacefully grazing and kind-hearted people tending to them. A settlement becomes a village, eventually merging with its surroundings to form one great nation. Great stone buildings. Seasons of harvest.

But suddenly, the enemy arrives.

One-sided slaughter, people fleeing in terror. Flying sparks of war, voices full of resentment and despair…

It was a scene of violent emotional shifts that could never be expressed by a mundane waltz.

But the girl vividly portrayed the fate of a country burdened by a tragic destiny, sometimes carving out figures with airy lightness and other times executing bold, decisive turns.

‘Heh, I see. By letting her extended fingers go limp, she’s hinting at an ominous future… But how about this? Oh… what a daring jump! She leaves her partner’s hand, spinning like a leaf caught in a gale… is this an expression of a fate beyond one’s control?! An interpretation that steps even further than the music itself… Damn it, it’s magnificent! Then, next…!’

There was no need for a full orchestra.

To represent the world, all that was required was one player and one dancer.

But—who would seize the initiative?

Joran and Elma continued to aim for the farthest heights, their gazes occasionally interlocking in the heat of the performance.

‘Hey! How much longer are you going to keep this up, Joran Svalbard?!’

Meanwhile, there was one person who was in no position to appreciate the art.

Clemens was desperately rubbing his nose, his skin nearly chafed raw. He felt a powerful sense of crisis as Joran had failed to look his way for quite some time.

“It’s… incredible! What a vivid Chassé!”

“Hey, look at that… such a high-speed Windmill! The wind is… it’s amazing! Look at that wind speed!”

“Ah! There’s smoke rising from the floor from the friction!”

The audience’s commentary sounded more like they were watching a martial arts tournament than a ball, but Clemens was beyond caring.

‘What are you doing, playing with such an ecstatic face?! You fool! All you have to do is play the trill!’

The arrangements—his perfectly prepared plan—were crumbling.

Just then, Joran, a defiant smirk playing on his lips, took a unique stance. Clemens’s eyes bulged in shock.

No.

“Oh. I think that’s Joran Svalbard’s famous ‘Supreme Trill’ pose,” Felix murmured idly, swirling his wine glass.

At that exact moment—a high-pitched trill rang out, so intense it seemed to vibrate the very air!

‘Not now, you uttttter foooooooooooool!’

Clemens nearly collapsed on the spot.

Turning his gaze through a cold sweat, he saw a young man near where Prince Lucas was dancing, desperately trying to track his movements. It was undoubtedly the servant whose weakness Clemens held—the one ordered to step on Lucas’s foot with the poisoned needle shoe.

However, the Prince’s steps were so fast that the man apparently couldn’t find the timing to thrust his foot forward. He was stuck jutting his chin and one leg out in awkward, jerky half-motions.

‘He looks like a kid who can’t find the timing to jump into a game of double dutch!’

His behavior was incredibly suspicious.

In fact, Clemens didn’t want him to use the poison needle right now. The goal was to make it look like Lucas collapsed because of the wine Felix had handed him. If he were poisoned independently of the wine, it would only cause unnecessary complications.

‘Curse it, I’m calling off the plan for now. Before he can open his mouth, I’ll handle him personally—’

It was a bitter mistake not to have established a signal for aborting the mission. Because he had viewed the man as a disposable pawn from the start, he hadn’t considered the need for a “stop” command.

Clemens approached the servant, lifting his arm to “dispose” of him with the poison needle hidden in his own ring. But before he could, Joran, swept up in excitement, played the “Supreme Trill” once more.

“…!”

The servant, who had been programmed only to “stab when the trill sounds,” seemingly panicked. Casting all pretense of natural movement aside, he lunged toward the high-speed rotating couple with all his might.

Clemens’s reaching hand missed the man in the crowd. Instead, the servant’s foot swung down toward Lucas’s ankle—!

“Olé!”

Clap!

In the next instant, accompanied by the shout, a sharp handclap split the air.

Clemens couldn’t believe his eyes. A strange silence followed, as if the trill itself had been sealed away by that clap.

The girl, hands pressed together high above her head, stood with her spine perfectly straight. Simultaneously, she had kicked one leg out to the side with pinpoint precision. Her leg, stretched supplely to the tip of her toe, was firmly propping up the servant’s leg.

Yes.

The girl had kicked the assassin’s leg upward, poisoned shoe and all.

Whatever physics were at play, the servant, his leg held aloft by the girl, remained frozen in a bizarre pose, trembling uncontrollably.

“Ugh… a-ah…”

“It is boorish to interrupt a dance. The only person allowed to step on a gentleman’s foot is his partner,” the girl chided with a solemn expression. However, as she caught sight of the man’s shoe sole, she tilted her head in wonder. “Oh?”

She spent about three seconds staring intently at the waiter’s face, then at the direction of his previous gaze.

“Um. Could it be—”

『That was magnificent.』

But before she could say anything more, the foreign musician stood up and began to applaud. As the girl turned around, the waiter tumbled onto his backside in the confusion and scrambled away in a panic.

Joran didn’t give the man a second glance. He approached the beautiful girl, knelt on the spot, and looked up at her feverishly.

『Such sensitivity to sound, depth of interpretation, and richness of expression… truly a match for my own. Today, for the first time, I understand that an art exists that can stand alongside music. A dance so masterful it steals the soul… Especially that corkscrew spin you performed in time with the trill—I felt the breath of God physically.』

He spoke in a rapid-fire Jaderood dialect. In his excitement, his mother tongue had come pouring out. Even Clemens, who had experience with various nations, could only catch fragments, but strangely, the girl seemed to understand him without difficulty.

『No. A dance only exists because of the music and the partner’s lead. If it was wonderful, it is entirely thanks to the music and His Highness.』

She even replied in fluent Jaderood.

She appeared to be trying to be humble, but Joran shook his head violently to cut her off.

『What are you saying?! Your dance technique is more transcendent than anyone I have ever seen. No, to be blunt, it is beyond the realm of human knowledge!』

『Eh? No, not really. This much is… relatively normal—』

『O God! If you call this normal, what am I to believe in? Or is that it? Are you the Muse herself? Is it because you are a god that you can handle such extraordinary, abnormal—no, miraculous—feats so casually!』

『Abnormal… No, um—』

Lucas, catching his breath, raised an eyebrow as he watched Elma, who was being uncharacteristically overwhelmed.

‘Is she actually not going to drop the “this is just normal” bomb for once?’

Usually, she would use those heartless words to gouge out the heart of an opponent who had already admitted defeat. He thought perhaps she wouldn’t do it after being praised so passionately—even if he couldn’t understand the words perfectly, the sheer heat of Joran’s energy got the point across—but something was still off.

She seemed restless.

“What’s wrong, Elma? You’re being praised quite earnestly. Have you finally decided to accept the fact that you are not normal?”

“The fact that I am not normal? No such thing.”

Lucas had said it lightly, intending to play along with the praise for her brilliant dance, but her reaction was unexpected. Like someone whose secret had been found out, she awkwardly averted her gaze.

Then, she protested while looking down.

“That’s too much, Your Highness. It is precisely because I realize I am supposedly ‘outside of common sense’ that I am desperately searching for ‘normal’ based on the values of the Head Maid and the Vice-Commander. Even when I have doubts about whether something is truly ‘normal,’ I suppress my suspicions, believing that this must be the correct way in the ‘outside,’ and I try to follow ‘normal’ with dogged honesty.”

“If that’s the case, you’re being too dogged. If you’ve realized deep down that romance novels and martial arts novels can’t serve as textbooks, please, I beg you, turn back at that point.”

When Lucas reflexively retorted, Elma flinched slightly. She cast one more glance toward the crowd, let out a small sigh, and looked up as if she had made up her mind.

“—m, Your Highness.”

“What?”

“I was hesitating because I thought saying something like this might not be ‘normal,’ but in light of my personal values—though I cannot deny the possibility that those values themselves are not normal—I humbly thought I should have a word…”

Perhaps because she was about to violate her own code, she was being uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Up until now, it was one thing to display my personal abilities, but for a mere maid to expose a conspiracy feels like a development that is a bit too much—not ‘normal’ at all. And since Your Highness just said ‘don’t chase those who leave,’ I feel bad for acting outside of decorum by speaking up to pursue someone so tenaciously, but—”

“Just get to the point. Say it clearly.”

“It seems someone was attempting to poison Your Highness.”

Lucas froze as Elma stated it with brutal clarity.

“What?”

“The culprit was the waiter whose leg I just kicked up. The weapon was a poison needle hidden in his shoe. And the mastermind is currently chasing that waiter, about to bring down a ring equipped with a poison needle—”

Elma swiftly pulled off her shoe and whipped it toward her diagonal rear!

Thud!

“Guh!”

Immediately, the dull sound of the shoe hitting a human body and a cry of agony rang out. Pointing at the figure crouching on the ground, Elma continued.

“It is His Excellency, Marquis Clemens von Rottner.”

The air in the ballroom turned to ice.

As if shrinking back from the deathly silent space, Elma averted her eyes.

“Exposing a conspiracy in three seconds… is indeed… not normal, is it…?”

Her voice was barely a whisper.