Chapter 24

After a full waltz and a satisfying finish, Lucas sighed inwardly with a sigh of relief.

“Oh, you look so pale.”

He looked at Caroline, who was staring at them in a circle of people, and felt sympathy for her.

She has always said that she is the best in the world of dance.

‘After such a perfect performance, I don’t think I can even think of words.’

Frankly speaking, they were in a different class.

As a prince, he had never seen such a skilled dancer in his life.

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

The moment she had invited him to join her, Lucas had seen firsthand the morale of the orchestra lifting and how the quality of the music changed.

Perhaps, but it would be challenging to maintain the quality of this performance without Elma.

She embodied supreme beauty with the best music and the best dancing.

There was no need to go that far, though.

As Lucas saw it, Caroline had already lost her will to fight in the first five seconds.

And yet, the dainty madwoman in his arms still hadn’t lost her fighting stance.

On the contrary, she spotted Caroline and spoke to her with a straight face.

“Sorry for the delay, Miss Caroline von Finen. It’s your turn now.”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to dance. In this situation.”

I can see that Caroline has quickly lost the color of her face.

“Elma, stop it. How could an ordinary lady dance so well?”

When he offered her a helping hand, Elma tilted her head questioningly, thinking that the assailant was supposed to be Caroline.

“Only this much? But that was the easiest part of the waltz, wasn’t it? If you’re shabby—“

“Stop it. Don’t do it. Just cut it out, for God’s sake.”

Elma’s mouth is hurriedly closed as she tries to catch her breath.

But she paid off her hand and looked up at him reluctantly.

Why? Is this crazy? With the help of her friends, she goes to take on the mighty beings. Isn’t this what you call a common development?

“I’ve already beaten you past the challenge. I’ll tell you what. Forget all that stuff you borrowed from Dirk and read.”

“But…”

In Elma’s way, it didn’t feel right to be denied the content of what she thought was finally going to be the basis of common sense this time.

Lucas sighed when he saw the sultry expression – useless and soooo cute – on her face.

“Then look at it this way. Didn’t the protagonist in the books never lay a hand on an enemy who fled? Don’t reject those who come, but at least don’t chase those who leave. That’s what common sense is all about.”

“Yeah.”

Elma blinks her eyes.

Then she noticed now that Caroline was inching back and finally showed her approval.

“Yes.”

This is finally settled, and just as Lucas was about to relax, however, it happened.

“My muse.”

A young man with a violin at the ready spoke in a language that had an exotic nuance.

“My seriousness and your seriousness. Let’s see if we can clash.”

He wandered over and gave the instrument in his hand a high-pitched thud.

It’s a supreme sound that is different from what they’ve heard before.

The musician risked his life to create the best possible sound.

“Goran Svaldo?

As a prince, Lucas had an idea of the young man’s identity, murmured in confusion.

He tilted his head and quickly arrived at the answer, wondering why a man with a reputation for genius – that is, a man who could probably do this kind of butoh music with a single hand – had just started playing the violin with an expression that seemed to challenge Elma.

–the easiest part of the waltz.

Perhaps it was Elma’s words earlier that had ignited his passion.

Earlier, Elma had “manipulated” the performance at will.

She used the music as a tool to enhance the dance, and she could ride it. It must have been humiliating for him, who thought music was the foremost thing.

Goran is trying to justify Elma’s arrogance by confronting her performance.

“The music is a supple, unpredictable, wild, unruly horse. Do you think you can handle it?”

He told her that, and then he stirred up a melody that struck my heart, and that’s just as odd.

It’s a very unsuitable, raw melody to dance to.

Despite the bewildering surroundings, Elma announced with a straight face.

“His Royal Highness Prince Lucas.”

“Yeah.”

“We have a new competitor. He came from the other side, so it would be good sense not to refuse him.”

“How so.”

That was Lucas’s honest opinion.

“No, that’s not—“

How could he convince them without contradiction? A quick thought goes through his brain.

“Can you help me again? Let’s fight together.”

Elma quickly took Lucas’s hand and ran off into the dance hall again.

“Alright!”

Goran was delighted.

Music that overflows from within the body.

Excitement filling the whole body.

Goran thanked God that he was able to meet his destiny in a foreign land.

It’s amazing. It accompanies my music without a single deviation of the wheat. No, no, no, it transcends me!

From an early age, his love of music ran deep, and his interpretation and expression of it deviated from what the average person could understand.

From a single note, he can sense and express an infinite number of stories and colors, while for others, it’s just a single note.

His musical sensibilities and those of others are too different in granularity.

That had always been a complaint to Goran.

However, the girl in front of him understood and expressed, without a moment’s hesitation, the intentions that Goran had put into the sound.

The melancholy in the tones, the playfulness of a very slight shift in tempo, the tension in the reverberations – all of these are beautifully embodied in a single movement of the fingertips and the way the back is deflected.

Goran felt the scene he had put into the music transferred to the girl without an inch of it.

Then again, he understood the music, which had been given physical action by her, to be portrayed as a vast narrative.

“Yeah, I can see infinite possibilities!”

Goran intended to depict the budding and destruction of a country in that piece he was playing.

Animals were grazing peacefully under a clear sky, and kind-hearted people are taking care of them.

Villages become villages, which eventually merge slowly with their surroundings to form one large country.

A large stone building. The season of harvest.

But suddenly, the enemy comes.

One-sided overrunning, people on the run.

A flurry of fires, filled with resentment and despair.

It is a scene of intense back and forth emotions that cannot be expressed in a traditional waltz.

But the girl, sometimes lightly turning her figure and occasionally boldly turning, gave a vivid picture of what is to come for the doomed country.

(Huh, I see, you’ve tried to hint at a disturbing future by slackening your outstretched fingers. But what about this? Oh, what a bold jump! Leaves are dancing in the wind as they leave their partner’s hand and turn in the air! An expression of destiny! One step further than music. Damn, that’s brilliant! Then move on!)

We don’t need a full orchestra.

It only takes one player and one dancer to represent the world.

But – who will take the lead?

Yoran and Erma continued to aim for far greater heights, occasionally intertwining their gazes.

(Hey! How long are you going to do this, Goran Svaldo!)

On the other hand, there is one person who is not that much of a challenge.

It is Clemens, scrubbing his nose frantically as if his skin is fraying.

He had a strong sense of urgency about Goran not looking at him at all from earlier.

“Oh, my God! What a brilliant chasse!”

“Hey, check it out, that’s a fast Windmill! That’s a hell of a wind! “

“Oh, God, there’s smoke coming from the floor from friction!”

There was a flurry of comments from the audience as if they were watching a martial arts event rather than a ball, but Clemens was having none of it.

(You play your music with ecstasy! All you have to do is play the trills!)

The arrangements. A perfectly prepared plan was falling apart.

And then Clemens’ eyes widened a little as Goran, with a wry smile on his mouth, showed his unique stance.

“No way.”

“Oh. I wonder if this is Goran Svaldo’s famous ‘supreme trill’ pose.”

Felix muttered lazily as he twirled his wine glass.

At the same time – a high-pitched trill, so intense that it made the air shake!

(Not now, tsk!)

Clemens almost collapsed on the spot.

Turning his gaze in a cold sweat, I see a young man near Prince Lucas dance, desperately trying to catch his movements.

Undoubtedly it was the servant whom Clemens had ordered to step on Lucas’ feet with a shoe planted with a poisonous needle, in a moment of weakness.

But the prince was stepping too quickly, and they don’t seem to be able to find the right moment to step out at all, and they’ve been sticking out their chins and one leg halfway through the game since a while ago, humping and humping.

(You’re acting like a kid who can’t get into a long rope!)

He’s acting too suspiciously.

I mean, we can’t have them planting poison needles now.

It’s only intended to “look like Lucas was knocked down by the wine Felix handed to him.”

It would be more trouble if they were poisoned away from the wine.

Damn it, I’m scrapping this plan for now. I’ll take care of him myself and make sure he doesn’t ruin anything.

It was a painful mistake not to decide on a signal to abort the operation.

It was a disposable piece anyway, and they didn’t expect to reuse it from the beginning.

Clemens approached the servant and lifted his arm as if to “dispose” of him with the poisoned needle he had planted in his ring. Still, sooner than that, an excited Goran played the 'supreme trill” again.

………

The manservant, who has only been trained to stab when the trill goes off, seems to have finally become impatient with that, so he threw off his naturalness and rushed at Lucas and Elma. They were spinning at high speed, with great vigor.

Clemens’ outstretched arm from the crowd flailed out, and instead, the servant’s leg swung down at Lucas’ leg–!

“Ore!”

–Pan!

The next moment, with a shout, there was a sharp clap that tore the air.

Clemens couldn’t believe his eyes as the scene unfolded in front of him.

A strange silence, as if it’s clapping, contained the trill.

The girl, with her hands laced together above her head, straightened up and straightened her back, while at the same time, only one of her legs jumped tautly outward.

Those legs stretched, supple to the toes, lifted the servant’s feet tightly.

Yes.

The girl kicked the assassin in the shoe that had been planted with the poisonous needle.

Whatever dynamics were at work, the servant, with one leg lifted by the girl, stood still in a strange pose, shivering and trembling.

“Uh-uh”

“It’s disrespectful of you to interrupt the dance. Only your partner is allowed to step on your feet.”

The girl was admonishing him with a divine expression, but when she suddenly looked at the soles of the servant’s shoes, she tilted her head in wonderment,

“Oh.”

Then, for three seconds or so, she stared long and hard at the face of the waiter and the tip of his gaze.

“Hey. If you could—“

It was brilliant.

But before she can say anything, the exotic musician stands up on the spot and begins to applaud.

The girl turned around, and the waiter fell on his ass and then wandered off.

Goran didn’t give it a second glance, and as he approached the beautiful girl, he knelt on the spot and looked up at her feverishly.

“The sensitivity to sound, the depth of interpretation, and the richness of expression that can be used on an equal footing with me. This is the first time I realized that there is an art form that can stand alongside music. A soul-stirring, soul-destroying dance, especially with the trills and the steps that she performed at the same time, I felt the breath of God on a physical level.”

The wound-up Yadeludian language.

The excitement must have been too much, so he switched to his mother tongue.

Even Clemens, who had interacted with the nations, could only understand bits and pieces. Still, oddly enough, the girl seemed to be able to understand him without difficulty.

“No. No, it was the music and the partner’s lead that made the dance so successful. If it was a great show, it was only because of the music and your skill.”

Ah, she even returned it fluently.

Humbled, but Goran shook his head violently to interrupt him.

“What are you talking about? Your dancing skills were more outstanding than anyone I’ve ever seen. No, quite frankly, it’s beyond even human knowledge!”

“Yes, no, it’s nothing out of the ordinary…”

“God! What am I supposed to believe if you say this is normal? Or is it? Are you a god? Because you’re a god, you can’t just treat these kinds of anomalies and miracles like this without a second thought!”

“Abnormal. No, I mean…”

Lucas raised one eyebrow at Elma, who was unusually pressurized, as he caught his unruly breath and looked at her.

(Unusually, it’s “That’s about as normal as it gets, right?”)

With that thoughtless remark, she usually gouged out the hearts of those who had already admitted defeat.

As you’d expect from such fervent praise – she couldn’t hear it entirely, but it’s still hot enough to convey the intent – she almost thought it wouldn’t even occur to her. Something is wrong.

She seems somewhat fidgety.

“What’s up, Elma? You’ve received a rare and auspicious compliment. Are you finally ready to accept the fact that you’re not normal?”

“The fact that I’m not normal? No way.”

As for Lucas, he tried to say that lightly, intending to lift Elma, who had performed an outstanding dance, but her reaction was not what he had expected.

She looked away awkwardly, like someone who had been pointed at a figurehead.

Besides, she protested, looking down.

“That’s not very nice, Your Highness. I am aware that I am apparently out of the ordinary, which is why I am trying so hard to be normal’. I’m following the values of the head maid and deputy company commander. Even when I wonder if this is ‘normal’, I try to push aside my doubts and foolishly follow the ‘normal’, thinking that this is probably the right thing to do.”

“If so, then you’re too foolish. If you’ve realized too thinly that neither romance novels nor martial arts novels can be instructional, then turn back at that point, for God’s sake.”

Elma pulled her chin back as if she was a bit frightened when Lucas plunged in.

Then he glanced at the wave of people again, then dropped a small sigh and looked up as if he was ready to go.

“Uh, Your Highness.”

“What?”

“I was hesitant to start saying this because it seemed ‘normal’, but after all, in light of my values – and I can’t deny the possibility that those values are not normal. — but I suppose I should still offer a few words of advice.”

She’s trying to violate the norm in her way, but it’s not quite as crisp as it sounds.

“If it were just a matter of showing off your abilities, that would be fine, but a maidservant uncovering a conspiracy is a bit much, and it’s not at all unusual, and His Highness said earlier that you should not pursue those who leave you, so it’s unconscionable for you to insist on following them. It pains me to feel like I’m behaving—“

“Just say it.”

“His Royal Highness appears to have been nearly poisoned.”

Lucas stiffened at Elma, who said it straightforwardly.

“What–?”

“The lowly waiter I kicked in the foot earlier. The murder weapon is a poisoned needle planted in his shoe. And the mastermind is now chasing after the waiter, brandishing a ring with a poisoned needle—“

Elma quickly took off her shoes and woosh, threw the projectile diagonally backward.

–Boom!

“Uggh!”

There was a dull sound of shoes hitting the human body and a cry of anguish.

Elma continued, pointing to the figure cowering in place.

His Excellency, Marquis Clemens von Rotner.

The air in the ballroom froze.

Newly, as if surrendered to the stillness of the space, Elma averted her gaze.

Uncovering a conspiracy in three seconds isn’t exactly standard practice.

It was a voice that seemed to disappear.