Chapter 7

After the night shift, which only occurred around once every two weeks, Elma was finally released from her duties before noon. She proceeded to make preparations as nonchalantly as possible to lie down on her bunk.

She removed her brim and apron and undid her hair, which had been gathered in a bun.

She takes off her maid’s uniform and changes into her nightgown, brushing out her glossy black hair as it cascaded down her shoulders with her thin fingers.

She took off her shoes and climbed up on the bed, and with the lower half of her body under the thin quilt, she finally took off her glasses, but when she looked up, she put them back on in a flash.

As soon as she did, she…

“Elma!”

Without a knock, the door to the dormitory room opens, and her blonde colleague, Irene, appears in a rush.

She stares at Elma innocently with her cat-like green eyes. When she realizes she’s still wearing her glasses, Irene gives a little tongue-twisted look.

“… Looks like you were ten seconds faster… I thought you would take your glasses off before you went to bed.”

“With footsteps echoing like that, I could not help but notice their presence and put my glasses back on while I’m asleep.”

“I’ve silenced footsteps as much as I could!”

Irene puffed out her cheeks in dismay.

She was completely respectful of Elma since the first day and has been clinging to her since then, just like a dog loyal to someone she recognized as her boss.

Especially in the past few days, she seems to be eager to see Erma’s true face.

“We are… friends, right! There’s no way you can hide your true face from your friends either.”

“I was forbidden by the head maid from showing it.”

Elma replied nonchalantly to Irene, who was embarrassed by the word, friend.

Yes, on the first day, after serving tea to the former queen Juliana, she was summoned to another room by the Baroness Gelda of Graz, who admonished her in a pleading manner.

As they say, ordinary families don’t teach you to read people’s facial expressions in minute detail.

It is a virtue for a maid to guess her master’s mind. Still, she would frighten the people around her by detecting not just their emotions but their thoughts and explaining it to them in a straight forward manner.

That was not “normal.”

As she listened to Gelda’s sermon, Elma recalled a scene from one of her days in prison.

“–Listen, Elma. My sweet little girl. Now you’re playing the role of “a mother who is tired of life and suspects her husband of being unfaithful, but smiles at her children. The muscles in your cheeks are more awkward, your eyelids occasionally twitch slightly, and your smile is asymmetrical. With that in mind, yes, let’s try again.”

“–Yes, the dad of [Laziness].”

Morgan, the father of [Laziness], used to patiently play along with her young self and give her careful acting lessons. Still, a father of the Unbound world does not do that.

Or rather, having more than one father was also “not normal.” That’s what I’m talking about.

Elma prided herself on having pretty straight forward nerves and common sense in that jail, ‘I see, my mother was right, society has society rules. It would be better to consider the common sense of the jail as the insanity of the world.’

For starters, Erma was willing to fully believe Gelda, who was trusted both professionally and humanely, to do what she said.

Gelda seemed to be bothered by the fact that she couldn’t see her opponent’s true face during the sermon and ordered Elma to remove her glasses.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to make it work for you,” she said. “It was a good idea to make sure that you were not going to have to worry about the fact that you were not going to be able to get your hands on any of these things.”

There was no reason to disobey, so Elma had been obeying that order ever since.

“’You’re not flexible at all, you know. Well, it’s okay, I saw you let your hair down for the first time today, so I’ll let you off the hook. Your hair is beautiful. How do you take care of it?”

“We have formulated a honey-based treatment. I can give you the recipe later if you’re interested.”

“Well, I’d love to have it!”

Irene climbed up on the bunk and scooped up her hair, and inhales her scent as she was busy studying her.

Besides, she did not seem to be willing to let Elma sleep.

“Um. I’m off duty as it is the day, and I’d like to sleep for about eight hours if possible.”

“No.”

When she answered poorly, Irene dismissed it with a smile.

“I’m about to have lunch. Why don’t you come to eat with me? You can’t go to bed until you’ve filled your stomach.”

A charming smile that a young man would have fallen over.

But Elma had no intention of doing so, so she pulled up the quilt, rather warily.

“… That’s how you’re going to make me cook again, by accident. I won’t play into your hands.”

“My God, I’m so embarrassed.”

The little devil flicked her tongue out. This made her quite a powerful schemer.

She seemed to have fallen in love with Erma’s cooking skills after the tea party, and after realizing that there’s a high probability that Elma would cook for her if she flirts with the word “normal.”

I can at least tell if it’s a lie if I read the micro-expressions on your face, but I want to eat the food you make! The way Irene pleaded with her always seemed genuine, so that’s what Elma, who was quite the good-natured person, would do if she was forced to go along with it.

‘But as you might expect, putting on a bear dismantling show and building a reverberator in the backyard to cast a giant pot seemed to be overkill. Because of this, the head maid scolded me for it. It was Irene’s fault.’

“…… Honestly, that was just beyond my wildest imagination.”

Unable to distinguish between the common and the insane, Elma’s over-skilled skills lead her to do things that “inadvertently” sent a shudder through cultural standards and values.

Remembering the turmoil of that time and how Lucas and the head maid were busy putting out fires each time, Irene became a little more distant.

But that was it.

She has a reputation for changing quickly, and she took Elma’s hand and asked for her hand without punishment.

“Hey, please. I’d rather have a light sweet or a vegetable, or hearty meat or fish. I mean, anything. I don’t care what it is; I want to eat your food.”

“You’re an honest person…”

Elma raised her eyebrows but didn’t shake off Irene’s arms.

The exchange with Irene, who jumped in on her with all her might, was surprisingly comfortable.

This may be the friendship of young ladies.

If that’s the case, she was her first friend, and the right way to be a shabby friend was to respect her intentions as much as possible.

How about a popsicle or something like that if she wanted to do what she wanted?

However, to make it stay sweet after freezing was hard; the quality of the royal sugar was somewhat poor, so let’s secretly refine the top white sugar.

Yes, if you like vegetables, you might want to grow some genetically modified vegetables.

Elma herself thought the fruit-sweet tomatoes were a masterpiece, and she’d even sneaked some seedlings into the castle. ‘I’ll feed you those.’

Sweet making and gardening.

This is well within the realm of “normal girl” hobbies. No problem.

Elma calmly developed an absurd thought and eventually nodded.

Incidentally, ice was a precious commodity in the summer. Of course, the refinement of sugar and the sugar content of tomatoes in the royal palace was of the highest quality on the continent today.

If she carried out her “hobby,” it was bound to move the history of confectionery and agriculture in Luden without fail.

“Okay. Now–”

But that moment when she almost stepped into the realm of legend again.

“Elma! You’re there, aren’t you?”

With a flurry of knocking, the door to the dormitory room was opened once again.

The owner of the less than polite behavior was, surprisingly, the head maid, Gelda.

She looked at Elma with an unusually impatient expression on her good-natured, meek face.

“I’m sorry for calling you when you’re off-duty. Ag-a troublesome guest is waiting in front of the maidservant’s dormitory.”