Chapter 29

What exactly is “normal”? This had been the question haunting Elma lately.

Is normal doing the same thing as everyone else? Or is it simply being average? If so, then “normal” was like a cloud—impossible to grasp. After all, Elma was merely doing the same things her “family” did, things that were perfectly natural within the prison, and yet the people of the outside world were constantly shocked by her.

Once, Elma herself had asked her family, in the face of their grueling training, “Is this really normal?”

They had responded with such utter confidence—“What good are you if you can’t even do this much?”—that she had firmly believed they were right.

From her father Morgan, the avatar of [Sloth], she learned to read people’s expressions and how to brew a delicious cup of tea.

From her father Isaac, [Gluttony], she learned cooking and hunting.

From her elder brother Horst, [Greed], she learned the mysteries of the human body, and from her sister Liesel—who insisted on being called her mother—the avatar of [Envy], she learned the refinements of being a woman.

From her favorite father, Gilbert, she hadn’t actually inherited any specific special technique. However, he always watched over her gently, smiled at her, and praised her while stroking her head. Perhaps it was from him that she learned the most about what it meant to be a “father.” That was why Elma called him simply “Father.”

And then there was the woman she called simply “Mother”—her biological mother, Heidemarie. Even Elma didn’t quite understand what that beautiful woman was thinking, even when reading her micro-expressions.

Whenever Elma skillfully performed the tasks taught by her “family,” Heidemarie would wear a terribly complex expression. It looked like surprise, or anxiety, or perhaps relief, or amusement. Yet, Elma understood instinctively that while she could seem fickle and cold, her mother was actually incredibly affectionate. That was why Elma wanted to obey her words if at all possible.

Go see the world until you understand what a “normal girl” is like.

Until you figure that out, you aren’t allowed to come home.

When her “release” from prison was declared, that is what Heidemarie had told her. At the time, Elma thought it would be easy.

But when the lid was opened, the task proved far more difficult than anticipated.

She had been a bit too enthusiastic about brewing tea on her first day of work and shocked everyone. She had tried to serve “rough” food to avoid being too elaborate—and even let her opponent win!—only to have them recoil in horror at her cooking methods. Thinking it would be strange to do everything alone, she asked the Holy Doctor for the finishing touches while she performed “first aid,” but even that seemed to cause a shock.

By that point, she had reflected deeply on her own lack of common sense and even borrowed textbooks from Dirk, who was reputed to be a man of sense. Yet, when she challenged her rival following the “standard protoganist’s journey” of those stories, Prince Lucas had scolded her, telling her not to push people any further.

That was the second time he had scolded her.

On top of that, it would have been one thing if she had just danced at the ball, but she had ended up exposing a conspiracy in the heat of the moment. She had made the accusation based on her own sense of justice and didn’t regret it—but in the nearly one hundred “textbooks” she had read, there wasn’t a single protagonist who correctly identified a culprit within three seconds of meeting them.

Clearly, she was a human being severely lacking in the capacity to be a “normal girl.”

‘Normal is so difficult…’

It felt as though she could taste bitterness on her tongue. No matter how many times she tried, it didn’t go well. The more she put in effort or thought for herself, the more she spun her wheels.

While she maintained a calm exterior, she felt as if her face were on fire every time those around her were put off by her actions. She wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it. It was the first setback she had ever tasted in her life.

“I beg of you. Please, send me to prison.”

She solemnly offered her hands in the “ready for the rope” pose. She had decided it was time to go home.

‘I’m sorry, Mother…’

Normally, she would have wanted to return to the prison triumphantly after understanding what a normal girl was, but the flag she was raising wasn’t a banner of victory—it was a white flag of surrender.

But—even so, “that person” was waiting for her at the prison. Even if she was a loser, he would surely welcome her back warmly. That was why she had to return. Having realized she couldn’t become normal, she would ignore even her mother’s orders and use whatever means necessary…

Words that were not her own began to mix into Elma’s mind. However, without noticing them, she continued to hold out her hands.

“…Well,” Felix began, wearing a complicated expression. “Let me just confirm your claims.”

“Yes.”

“You say you were born in prison to a courtesan—ah, right. Yeah. There was indeed a courtesan who could topple nations sent to prison about fifteen years ago. So, if we assume the background part of your claim is a fact… wow. That means you grew up in that Walzer Prison? For real?”

“For real. I have been saying so for some time.”

As Elma nodded with a straight face, Felix tapped his chin thoughtfully.

“When I glanced over your background before, you were supposed to be a distant relative of the Head Maid—haha, I see. Oh, I get it. So Lucas… hmmm. To protect her without even letting my information network get a sniff—not bad.”

He seemed to be cross-referencing information at an incredible speed while muttering to himself. The way he fixed his gaze on a point in space while his thoughts raced reminded Elma of Horst, the avatar of [Greed]. She thought to herself that, much like Horst, this prince likely had an incredibly high information-processing capacity.

“So,” he said, unfolding his hand from his chin and waving it in a bewildered gesture. “I’ll believe the part about you being raised in prison, but I don’t understand your subsequent claims at all—”

It happened just as Felix and Elma were about to proceed with their conversation, leaving Clemens completely sidelined.

“What happened here?!”

With a sharp shout, the door was kicked open.

The person who had sent the door flying off its hinges with a powerful thrust of a long leg was a lean, formidable young man in knight’s attire. It was Lucas, accompanied by his page, Marc.

The knight-prince, sword at the ready, widened his eyes slightly as he took in the sight of his half-brother and the maid lingering in the room. Then, he knit his brows. If his expression could be dubbed over, it would be a weary, fed-up look that said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

“How violent, Lucas. Opening the door so suddenly without knocking—you gave me quite a start.”

“However, since he blew the hinges off, the door itself doesn’t seem to have sustained much damage. Repairs should be easy. Impressive as always,” Elma added.

“…Brother, Elma. Just as a matter of common sense, I feel compelled to ask: What on earth are you doing in the quarters of a suspect who plotted to assassinate royalty—especially after knocking out the guards?”

Lucas asked in a low voice, clearly sensing that nothing good was coming of this.

Felix’s response, by contrast, was nonchalant.

“Oh, well. I thought I’d break his spirit and brainwash him ahead of time so the inquiry could be settled swiftly before the coronation.”

Lucas looked at him with half-lidded eyes at this shameless declaration of brainwashing. “Resorting to such wicked methods again…” he muttered in quiet condemnation.

“Oh? You’re surprisingly calm. I was half-expecting a reaction like, ‘Could this truly be the brother rumored to be a fool?!’”

“…Having seen those whose interests conflicted with yours—like the Third and Fourth Princes or certain malicious vassals—simply ‘exit the stage’ so naturally, I had my suspicions.”

“Well, well. I thought so.”

It seemed Felix understood that his true nature had been seen through to some extent.

“Besides, Brother, you always carried a sweet scent that made me strangely uneasy—some kind of suggestive incense, I assume? You always smelled of it.”

“Listen to you. You’re one to talk, always trailing that cloying perfume of a woman.”

Lucas gave a light, wry smile at the follow-up.

“Well, if you’ve figured it out that far, it makes things simple. I’m merely aiming for a prosperous reign in my own way, and I don’t intend to treat you poorly—as long as you don’t get in my way.”

“And the matter of the riding gear?”

“That was this man running wild. Therefore, I will punish him.”

“Then that is fine by me.”

In that brief exchange, the two seemed to reach a mutual understanding. Shrugging his shoulders, Lucas then turned his attention back to Elma.

“—And you, Elma. What are you doing?”

“Yes. I was informing His Excellency the Marquis that I am the mastermind behind the attempted assassination of Prince Lucas, and I was in the process of ‘ensuring his understanding’.”

“Wait… what?”

“She says she wants to be sent to prison by making it look that way,” Felix summarized for him. “It seems she thought that if she brainwashed both the defendant and the witness, there’d be no defense counsel, and she could do as she pleased. She’s claiming to be a culprit who tried to throw the country into chaos as revenge for her mother’s imprisonment.”

As Felix summarized Elma’s argument, Lucas knit his brows slightly and cast a fleeting glance at Clemens.

“…I see. And so, the two of you—Brother and Elma—both placed contradictory suggestions on him at the same time, and this is the result?”

The Marquis hadn’t interrupted the conversation for some time. As for what he was doing…

“Alright everyone, watch closely. To jump into a long rope, you see… an acute angle… you must step in vigorously from an acute angle… For me, known as ‘Side-Swing Clemens’… nothing is impossible…”

He was huddled in a space between his mind and time, muttering to an internal audience. Apparently, being subjected to powerful suggestions one after another had loosened a few screws in his head. He would occasionally let out a “hehe” laugh, which was more than a little eerie.

Lucas let out a sigh, gave some instructions to the waiting Marc, and sent him away. He was clearing the room. Then, he looked Elma straight in the eye.

“Elma.”

“Yes.”

“I no longer have any intention of asking the foolish question of whether you can even perform brainwashing. Whether you have the skill to knock out elite knights, whether you suddenly appear in a defendant’s room, or whether you’ve nonchalantly seen through the true nature of the nation’s prince—I’ll just assume it’s because it’s you.”

“…Yes.”

Underneath her expressionless mask, Elma felt a bit dejected by the unspoken subtext: I no longer expect common sense or “normal” behavior from you. Was “normal” truly an unreachable goal for her?

As she chewed on her internal regret, Lucas continued with a serious expression.

“However, I want to ask you just two things.”

“Yes.”

“First. To you… was being released from prison a nuisance? Was this world merely something to be loathed?”

At that question, Elma looked up and stared at him. A slight lift of his left corner of the mouth, eyes cast down. According to the teachings of her father Morgan—the con artist and avatar of [Sloth]—that was a micro-expression indicating guilt.

“…No.”

After thinking for a moment, Elma shook her head. To be sure, Walzer Prison was comfortable. She had an affectionate family and a luxurious, convenient environment. It was a space as gentle and warm as the amniotic fluid surrounding a fetus. She hadn’t wanted to leave if possible, and it was true that for a while after coming to the castle, she had constantly wanted to go back.

‘But life here was fun, too.’

She had made friends her own age for the first time. She had met people outside her “family” who guided her. She had done nothing but “fail,” and her first taste of setback was bitter, but the days spent groping for “normal” and taking on challenges were worth the effort. Or so she thought.

As she reached that thought, she felt a strange sensation in her chest.

—Then why was she working so frantically to return to prison?

‘That’s… because I realized I could never be “normal”.’

That was it. “If you realize you can’t be normal,” she had to “ignore Mother’s orders” and “use any means necessary” to return to prison.

Elma instinctively pressed her hand to her forehead, telling herself:

“It’s just… yes. I must return. Because I couldn’t become ‘normal.’ Because I’ve realized I lack the talent of a ‘normal girl’.”

She would return home with her tail between her legs. And then she would have her gentle sister-mother Liesel, the avatar of [Envy], comfort her and tell her it’s okay. Elma began to feel incredibly pathetic and miserable.

“…I am a failure after all… An outcast who cannot do the same as everyone else… No matter how much I try, I cannot understand ‘normal’ at all. If anything, I only drift further away. Whether I brew tea, cook, provide medical aid, or dance, I am a painful woman who only brings chills and cold sweats to people…”

“Wait a moment.”

As she slid her hand from her forehead to her cheek with a gloomy expression, Lucas cut her off with a dead-serious face.

“What do you mean by that? How can you reach that interpretation when you can read even micro-expressions?!”

“Ah, that is a micro-expression of exasperation… Did I do something wrong again?”

“Understand it through the context, you idiot!”

Lucas barked at her, but he realized that because Elma could read expressions so sensitively, she ironically had the tendency not to try and interpret the true intent behind them. He also realized that beneath the glasses that hid her true thoughts, she had been agonizing this much.

“Idiot… that’s the first time anyone has called me that…”

Having removed her glasses and revealed her face, Elma looked far more expressive than usual. Her slumped shoulders looked small, and her lowered eyelids looked sorrowful. Because of her flat voice and her glasses, she had always maintained a detached atmosphere, but inside, her emotions must have been wavering like this—just like a girl her age.

Reaching out his hand instinctively to the downward-looking Elma, Lucas found himself saying:

“…What? You’re actually quite cute when you’re like that.”

“…Eh?”

“Setting aside your self-perception, the way you worry about being ‘inadequate’ or ‘unable to have your way’ makes you look like a perfectly proper and normal girl.”

When he gently tilted her chin to make her look up, her dawn-colored eyes widened.

“…Is that true…?”

Her lapis-lazuli-like eyes took on a slight reddish tint, turning into a jewel-like violet. Her eyes were moist, her cheeks flushed, and her faintly colored lips were parted just slightly. To Lucas, who had seen many beauties, she appeared truly lovely.

“Yes. Right now, you… have a certain charm.”

It was a bit irritating to honestly say he found her “likable,” so he phrased it that way. Elma broke into a melting smile.

“…! Your Highness…!”

To an onlooker, this exchange looked like a man wooing a girl and the girl rejoicing in it. Felix, who had been keeping a polite silence, watched the interaction with interest. But the sweet atmosphere that had uncharacteristically begun to form between them was shattered by Elma’s next words.

“In that case, I can return to prison with my head held high!”

“…What?”

Lucas was aghast, but Elma didn’t mind. She was genuinely overjoyed that she had received a “stamp of approval” for being normal from the very man who had branded her as “abnormal.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I am so happy. I haven’t felt this much of a sense of achievement since I defeated a dragon with my bare hands.”

Her mood soared at an incredible rate. The fog-like thoughts that had occupied her mind just a moment ago cleared at once, and the dejected feelings and the obsession that she had to flee home as soon as possible melted away.

“Hey, what did you say? A dragon…?”

“In that case, since it seems I can successfully fulfill my promise, I shall return to prison. Since His Excellency the Marquis has broken down quite nicely anyway, we’ll just stick to the script where I, the true culprit, am sent to prison.”

“Hey, wait.”

Her heart leaped. The urgent feeling that she had to flee back had vanished, but in its place, she was filled with a desire to hurry back and brag to her “family.” Life in the outside world was more fun than she expected. She cherished the new encounters and the challenging life. But—it still couldn’t compare to the comfort of home.

Though she hadn’t realized it, Elma was a shut-in by nature. Liesel’s suggestion had been a powerful nudge to return, but even without it, Elma was fully intent on going back to prison.

Felix also spoke up with a smirk and a sarcastic tone.

“Say, Lucas. Your power to make a woman stay isn’t all that much, is it?”

“…”

Veins popped on Lucas’s forehead in silence, but then, the situation took a sudden turn.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp!

“Elma!”

With a clatter of noisy footsteps, Irene came bursting in.