Chapter 41

As she lay on the sofa, Deborah—who had been gluttonously devouring baked sweets—finally looked up when she felt her finger slide across the smooth, empty bottom of the dish.

“…Oh no, it’s empty.”

When had she finished them all?

The amount she snacked always increased in direct proportion to how much she was irritated.

Lingeringly licking the last grains of sugar from her fingers, Deborah let out a short sigh.

“Ugh, I’m so frustrated.”

That was her fourth monologue of the day.

Meeting Prince Lucas, whom she thought she would never see again, was surely an act of divine providence—fate guiding her toward a fortuitous marriage. Confident in this belief, yet too shy to barge into a gentleman’s guest room alone, she had devised a certain strategy.

Namely, waking up incredibly early to ambush Lucas as he stepped out.

She hadn’t woken up early in nearly a decade, but she fought her low blood pressure and left her bed, dressing and doing her makeup by herself before heading down the dim hallway.

It was then that she spotted a girl stepping quietly out of the room next to her target—the room of that loathsome, wanton cat.

Ducking into the shadows to observe, she saw a girl who looked a year or two younger than herself. Clad in a standard maid uniform, she was calmly carrying laundry with a stoic air.

Apparently, despite being a guest, she was attempting to help with the washing.

As a high-born lady, Deborah dismissively accepted the commoner maid’s diligence with a “Well, isn’t that admirable,” but she simultaneously felt a surge of rage toward Irene, who was likely sleeping soundly while making a mere commoner do all the work.

This was why beauties were no good.

Slothful, arrogant, and rotten to the core.

She continued to heap internal abuse on her opponent based entirely on conjecture and prejudice.

Riding that momentum, Deborah’s imagination took another leap.

Why was that woman, Irene, still sleeping?

Could she have stayed up late?

For instance—with His Highness?

The thought sent her rage peaking, her nails digging into her palms until it hurt.

It was infuriating. Utterly infuriating.

She hated beautiful people.

Just having clear skin, large eyes, and glossy hair in her field of vision made her stomach churn.

Because those things existed simply to mock her.

From the moment she saw that girl accompanied as Lucas’s lover yesterday, Deborah had instinctively felt a competitive fire burning within her.

The beautiful face, the slender limbs, the Royal Capital upbringing—every bit of it was repulsive.

Beauties like her gained affection from everyone just by being pretty, coasting through life while picking only the choice morsels for themselves.

That loathing had flared up even more intensely this morning, driving Deborah to take action.

That was the sequence of events that led her to draft the list of harassment and raid their room.

“I thought I’d crush her by pushing an impossible workload on her and then slowly tormenting her… but I’ve made a terrible miscalculation.”

In reality, the harassment that was supposed to relieve her boredom hadn’t functioned at all.

As she prowled the mansion looking for something to criticize, she was instead forced to witness perfect work everywhere she turned.

Before she could even get there, floors were polished, flowers were replaced, and the peeling, silver polishing, and closet organization were already done.

Furthermore, every single task had been completed to a standard higher than anything she had ever seen.

When she noticed that even the stagnant pond in the backyard was as clear as the blue sky, she thought she might actually faint.

‘Is this the quality of a beauty—no, the quality of the Royal Capital…?!’

No, it couldn’t be. That was beyond the realm of human wisdom.

The mansion’s servants must have helped Irene and her companion en masse.

But if that were the case, it was even more infuriating.

It meant that vixen had seduced the servants, and the servants had betrayed Deborah.

“Simply ruining her clothes to keep her here was too soft. I should have incited the footmen against her so His Highness could see her true nature.”

Since the sweets were gone, Deborah began to irritably bite her nails.

As a result of staying cooped up in the mansion to avoid miasma and sunlight, her body had become increasingly heavy lately, yet her emotions were wavering and refused to settle down.

Everything was just so incredibly irritating.

Unable to stay in one place, she paced restlessly around the room. As she happened to pass by the door, a peculiar sound caught her ear.

CRASH.

The sound of something breaking.

It seemed one of the servants had dropped a vase.

“Elma! Please, Elma, calm down!”

A girl’s pleading voice echoed, following the sound. It was Irene.

The commoner maid called Elma must have replied with something, because after a brief silence, Irene’s voice grew even more desperate.

“—Yes, I see. You’re right, you are calm. That’s exactly it! So—please, stay calm! At least put your glasses back on! Tie your hair back in that dowdy way! Hide that face of yours—it’s visual violence!”

THUD!

This time, it sounded like someone had dropped a mop.

They seemed to be gradually approaching.

“Look!”

Irene’s tragic scream rang out.

“You’re causing massive distress to the lungs and hearts of people without resistance!”

What on earth was “visual violence”?

Judging from the context, the commoner maid named Elma had brushed off Irene’s attempts to stop her and was heading this way looking hideous.

And that was causing the servants who saw her to become distraught?

While Deborah tilted her head in confusion,

“—Excuse me.”

An exceptionally beautiful voice echoed, and the door swung open at the same time.

“…!”

The moment Deborah recognized the person holding the doorknob, she felt a shock as if she had been struck with a blunt object.

Standing there was a girl of such beauty she could have been mistaken for an angel.

Her long hair, perhaps showing the faint waves from being recently tied, shimmered with a jet-black luster.

Her moist eyes looked as if the dawn sky had been dissolved within them.

Her small face was perfectly symmetrical, and while she still retained a hint of youth in her slender limbs, her bearing exuded a subtle, captivating charm.

The only pity was that her skin appeared somewhat dull overall—no, Deborah suddenly noticed that the arm glimpsed through a rolled-up sleeve was startlingly white and translucent.

“Ah…”

In contrast to her throat, which had lost all power of speech, Deborah’s mind raced frantically.

She had seen this girl somewhere before.

No, she could never forget her.

This was undoubtedly the beautiful girl who had been dancing with Lucas at the ball.

The question of why she was here flashed through her mind far too late, just as the girl before her opened her mouth to speak.

“Lady Deborah von Frenzel. Why did you commit such an act?”

Her voice was somewhat low for a girl, as cool and clear as a transparent lake.

As if utterly enchanted, Deborah blankly ruminated on the words until, a moment later, she finally realized she was being interrogated.

Apparently, the true identity of that plain commoner maid was the beauty standing before her, and she was furious about the harassment Deborah had directed at Irene.

“I… I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

Deborah scolded her spasming throat and managed to feign ignorance.

Even if she was breathtakingly beautiful, the opponent was just a maid—and a commoner at that.

It was ridiculous for Deborah to feel intimidated.

At that, her opponent—Elma—narrowed her eyes dangerously.

“Is that so? The fingerprints found on the shards and the twelve points of comparison from the fingerprints detected on the teacup you used the other day are a perfect match. Furthermore, calculating from the angle of incidence of the gouge marks left at the scene, I perceive it was swung down by a human approximately 5.4 feet tall, weighing 170 pounds, with average physical strength, from a height of 5.3 feet at a speed of 32.78 miles per hour—and yet, you claim to have no recollection?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about!?”

She truly didn’t understand a word of it.

Was this beautiful girl making fun of her?

If so, how insolent for a mere commoner—

Deborah forcibly converted the swirling fear inside her into rage and glared at the girl.

“Wh… What is wrong with you! Accusing me of breaking a vase, how incredibly rude!”

“I never said a single word about a ‘vase,’ however.”

“Hau!”

She had fallen for a textbook trap.

Deborah clutched her mouth, her plump frame trembling violently.

This was bad.

She couldn’t think straight.

From the moment she looked into those mysterious, dawn-colored eyes, her ability to make excuses or lie—which should have been somewhat better than this—stopped functioning entirely.

“I have not received an answer.”

Elma leaned in so close their eyelashes almost brushed, sending Deborah into a further panic.

“Why did you set a trap for us and attempt to prevent us from attending the festival?”

“That’s because…”

Because she was jealous, obviously.

Paralyzed and unable to even avert her gaze, Deborah spoke the very first words that surfaced from her scrambled thoughts.

“Because looking at beauties like you makes me feel so suffocated that I want to accidentally ruin someone…!”

Deborah was shocked at the severity of her own words as they spilled out.

However, once she said them, she realized they were the absolute truth, and she continued as if possessed by a fever.

“Must be nice being a beauty. You’re loved, blessed, and people flock to you just for that. All because of a single layer of skin—the difference between beauty and ugliness. There’s no such thing as ‘fairness’ in this world.”

Yes, exactly.

Deborah had been dissatisfied with that forever.

Noticing the maids who had finally rushed to the room after hearing the commotion, she thought to herself.

Those maids would have competed to be by my side, too, if only I were as beautiful as this girl.

“It’s cruel. What did I do wrong? Is it my fault I’m ugly? I can’t help it, I’m Miasma-Weak! My body being swollen, my skin and hair being coarse, my sickly complexion—it’s all because of my constitution! It’s the fault of the miasma drifting through this territory! And yet, you would blame poor, pitiful me?”

When Deborah was a child, she had actually been quite a lovely girl, resembling her mother who was called the “Sun of Frenzel.”

However, one day in the vineyard, she happened to touch a Demon Moth that emitted miasma. She was bedridden for three days and nights, and her entire body swelled up like a balloon.

Since then, her skin, her hair, and her physique had gradually, steadily drifted further away from her ideal.

Oh, how miserable.

Truly, truly miserable.

“Besides, it’s your fault for being so inconsiderate! Poor me, I’m terrified of the miasma and can only walk through town on days when the wind is still—and yet you have the nerve to go out on a fun outing with a gentleman the moment you arrive! How insensitive!”

Seeing her opponent listening intently to her story, Deborah became convinced of her own righteousness and grew even more impassioned.

“That’s right, you’re the ones at fault! Compared to your arrogant, insensitive behavior, what does my little prank matter? At most, I soaked a Baron’s daughter’s clothes, and oh yes, I suppose I broke a shabby flower crown too—”

“Shut your mouth, you piece of meat.”

The sudden, shocking insult made Deborah literally freeze.

“…Piece of… meat…?”

Behind the girl, the maids gasped! They covered their mouths, desperately trying to stifle their laughter.

“—Pffft…! Wait, E-Elma, you shouldn’t say it like that…!”

“Yes. While attempting to verbalize my annoyance, I considered using foul language, but since I am remaining calm, I opted for a more euphemistic expression to denounce my opponent.”

“That resulted in the most ‘critical hit’ choice of words possible!”

Irene seemed to be scolding the girl, but Deborah couldn’t even hear her.

As Deborah stood there dazed, the beautiful girl leaned in close to her face and whispered.

“To summarize your argument: you are plain because of your ‘Miasma-Weak’ constitution, and therefore it is natural for a plain person to harass a beauty, is that correct?”

“A… u…”

She wanted to say something back.

But in the face of that violent insult and that violent beauty, her body felt completely paralyzed.

Staring into the girl’s mysterious dawn-colored eyes, her mind felt numb, as if her words were melting into a sludge.

“Very well. Then I shall overturn that argument from its very foundation.”

The beautiful girl declared with finality.

Then, she raised her slender arms, interlaced her fingers, and began to crack her knuckles.

Crack! Snap-pop-crack!

“Hiee…!”

Was she actually going to raise a hand against her?

Deborah instinctively shielded her face with her arms, but her prediction was wrong.

Because the girl said:

“Starting now, I shall begin Lady Deborah von Frenzel’s ‘Total Detox Treatment.’”

She said this while, for some reason, beginning to put her glasses back on.