Chapter 8

Having finished the night shift that rolled around once every two weeks, Elma was finally released from her duties just before noon. She proceeded with her preparations to lie down in bed with her usual detached efficiency.

She removed her brim and apron, then unfastened her hair, which had been gathered in a bun. As her glossy black hair cascaded over her shoulders, she raked it up with her slender fingers, shed her maid uniform, and changed into her nightwear.

Kicking off her shoes, she climbed into bed and buried her lower half under a thin duvet. She finally took off her glasses—but the moment she looked up, she snapped them back onto her face with practiced speed.

At that exact instant:

“Elmaaa!”

Without so much as a knock, the door to the dormitory room swung open, and the face of her blonde colleague—Irene—popped in.

Irene stared at Elma innocently with her cat-like green eyes. Upon realizing that Elma was still wearing her glasses, she made a slight gesture as if clicking her tongue in frustration.

“…I guess I was ten seconds too early. I thought for sure you’d take those glasses off before sleeping.”

“With footsteps as loud as yours, I could sense your presence and put my glasses back on even if I were already asleep.”

“I killed my footsteps as much as humanly possible!”

Irene puffed out her cheeks in a pout.

Having become utterly devoted to Elma on the very first day, Irene had spent the following days sticking to her like glue—much like a dog showing loyalty to the one it recognizes as its boss.

Lately, she seemed particularly obsessed with catching a glimpse of Elma’s true face.

“We’re… f-friends, aren’t we?! There’s no law that says you have to hide your face even from your friends.”

“I have been forbidden from doing so by the Head Maid.”

Elma answered flatly as Irene pressed her case with desperate, albeit shy, persistence at the mention of the word “friends.”

Indeed, on that first day after serving tea to the former Consort Juliana, Elma had been called into a private room by Viscountess Graz—Gerda—and given a very thorough lecture.

According to Gerda, in a “normal” household, one is not taught to read the minute details of a person’s expressions. While it is a virtue for a maid to anticipate her master’s needs, sensing not just emotions but actual thoughts and explaining them in vivid detail would only terrify those around her.

In short, it was not “normal.”

While listening to Gerda’s sermon, Elma had recalled a certain scene from her daily life back in the prison.

…Listen carefully, Elma. My sweet little girl.

In this role, you are “a mother who spreads smiles for her children even while exhausted with life and suspecting her husband of an affair.”

The cheek muscles should be more awkward, the eyelids should twitch slightly on occasion, and the smile must be asymmetrical.

Keep that in mind. Now, let’s try it one more time.

…Yes, Father of Sloth.

Back then, the Father of Sloth—Morgan—had patiently accompanied her in her childhood games of “house,” providing meticulous acting coaching. Apparently, fathers in the outside world did no such thing.

For that matter, having multiple fathers was also “not normal.” It was quite the eye-opening revelation.

Elma had prided herself on being a person of fairly sound mind and common sense within that prison, but as her mother had said, the “outside” had its own rules. It was best to assume that prison common sense was considered social insanity in the real world.

For the time being, Elma decided to place her full trust in Gerda, who was reliable both professionally and personally.

During that same lecture, Gerda had seemed bothered by the fact that she couldn’t see Elma’s true face and ordered her to remove the glasses.

Elma had complied solemnly. However—after falling silent for about five full breaths, the Head Maid’s face turned bright red. “O-On second thought, keep the glasses on. You… you really shouldn’t show that face to any gentlemen… No, or to other women either. In any case, it’s better if you don’t show it to anyone,” she had commanded, ordering the glasses back on.

Since she had no reason to disobey, Elma had followed that order ever since.

“Honestly, you’re so inflexible. Well, fine, I got to see you with your hair down for once, so I’ll let it slide today. Such beautiful hair… How do you take care of it?”

“I mix a treatment with a honey base. If you’re interested, I’ll give you the recipe later.”

“Oh, I definitely want it!”

Irene hopped onto the bed, picking up strands of hair and sniffing them, completely preoccupied with her research.

To put it another way, she clearly had no intention of letting Elma sleep.

“Excuse me. I am off-duty for the rest of the day, so I would like to sleep for about eight hours if possible.”

“No can do.”

When Elma tried to be humble, Irene dismissed her with a bright smile.

“I’m about to go have lunch. Let’s go together, shall we? You can sleep after your stomach is full.”

It was an alluring smile that would have made any young man fall for her instantly.

However, Elma was not so easily swayed. If anything, she pulled her duvet up further with a clear display of wariness.

“…I see. You intend to lead me on and make me cook for you again. I will not fall for that.”

“Oh, you caught me.”

The little devil stuck out her tongue. For all her playfulness, she was quite a shrewd tactician.

Apparently, since the tea party, Irene had become utterly enamored with Elma’s cooking. Once she realized that Elma would almost certainly comply if she dangled the word “normal” in front of her, she had taken to cornering Elma into cooking at every opportunity.

By reading micro-expressions, Elma could easily tell if a lie was being told, but Irene’s pleas of “I want to eat your cooking!” always seemed genuinely sincere. Elma, being surprisingly soft-hearted, found herself repeatedly talked into it.

“…However, showing off a bear butchering demonstration and building a reverberatory furnace in the backyard just to cast a giant pot was clearly going too far. I was scolded by the Head Maid because of it. It’s your fault, Irene.”

“…Honestly, even I have to admit that surpassed the scope of my imagination.”

Unable to distinguish between common sense and insanity, and possessed of excessive skills, Elma tended to “accidentally” do things that sent shockwaves through the local cultural standards and values.

Irene’s eyes turned distant for a moment as she recalled the commotion of that day and the sight of Prince Lucas and the Head Maid frantically running around to put out the fires.

But that was that.

Known for her quick recovery, Irene didn’t give up. She took Elma’s hand and pleaded.

“Come on, please. I want something refreshing like sweets or vegetables—or maybe some hearty meat or fish. Basically, anything! Anything is fine, I just want to eat your food.”

“You certainly are honest with yourself…”

Though Elma furrowed her brows, she didn’t pull her hand away.

Her interactions with Irene, who threw herself into things with everything she had, were unexpectedly pleasant.

Perhaps this was what “outside world friendship” felt like.

If so, Irene was Friend Number One, and the “normal” way to handle such a relationship would be to respect her wishes as much as possible.

If she were to grant the request, perhaps a sherbet?

During the furnace incident, she was scolded because an individual built a massive facility on public land, but surely there would be no problem with small-scale freezing using salt and ice.

However, to make it taste sweet even when frozen, the palace’s sugar was of somewhat poor quality; she would have to secretly refine some white granulated sugar herself.

Right—if Irene liked vegetables, it might be good to grow some genetically improved crops.

Elma herself considered her fruit-sweet tomatoes to be a masterpiece, and she had secretly brought seedlings into the castle. She would let Irene try those.

Confectionery and gardening.

These were well within the realm of a “normal girl’s” hobbies. No problem at all.

As Elma developed this calmly deranged train of thought, she finally nodded.

For context, ice in the summer was a precious luxury, and her refined sugar and the sugar content of her tomatoes were, of course, far superior to the current highest quality available on the continent.

Should she carry out her “hobby,” she was destined to rewrite the history of confectionery and agriculture in the Luten Kingdom.

“Very well. Then—”

However, at the very moment she was about to step back into the realm of legend.

“Elma! You’re in there, aren’t you?”

With a frantic knock, the dormitory door flew open once again.

The one responsible for this uncharacteristically impolite behavior was, surprisingly, the Head Maid, Gerda.

Her usually gentle and kind face was clouded with an expression of rare panic as she looked at Elma.

“I’m sorry to bother you on your day off. But—a rather troublesome guest is waiting for you in front of the maid dormitory.”