Chapter 2.7

Lucia was summoned to the palace for three consecutive days.  

This indicated how satisfied His Majesty was with her abilities, and Lucia felt a sense of pride blooming in her heart.  

When she entered the study, Aristide was waiting with an even brighter expression than the day before.  

He pointed to a wooden bird model placed in the center of the room.  

He explained that it was ‘an invention that flaps its wings and hovers in the air for a few seconds when you wind the spring and pull the lever.’  

Currently, it was unable to fly.  

Lucia’s eyes sparkled with admiration.  

“I’ve heard that no one has succeeded in creating something that flies. To achieve the impossible, this inventor must be truly remarkable. It’s such a shame that I can’t see this wonderful invention in action because it’s broken.”  

“Well…”  

“I’ll learn a lot from fixing it. Thank you for entrusting it to me.”  

Lucia knelt and began examining the fascinating machine.  

She pressed the spring and wound the coil but got no response.  

Eventually, she donned a magnifying glass and started disassembling it.  

Although Aristide occasionally interrupted with questions, she answered with simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ while trying to identify the issue.  

However, she couldn’t even figure out the principle by which the device operated.  

But the more challenging it became, the greater her determination and curiosity grew.  

***

“…Miss Bianchi?”  

Aristide called out to her, but she didn’t respond.  

“Miss Bianchi.”  

Only silence answered him.  

“Lucia.”  

She didn’t even lift her head.  

Aristide sighed.  

Lucia should have realized it was a bad sign when her answers became sporadic. She was deeply immersed in the swamp of concentration.  

Even this reminded Aristide of Cynthia.  

“You can stop now, Miss Bianchi. This is an unfixable object. If you manage to fix it, you’re not an inventor but a mage.”  

She didn’t even hear this remark as she continued tapping the wings with a hammer no bigger than a fingernail.  

A little while ago, Lucia had been so captivated by this extraordinary invention that she answered all of Aristide’s questions.  

Her first impression of Aristide had been, ‘An empty-headed noble,’ and when asked how she thought of him now, her answer was, ‘I don’t know.’  

Since it was better than dislike, Aristide gladly accepted her response.  

Now it was time to send her away.  

Aristide approached Lucia.  

He tried to tap her shoulder but stopped when her face looked different from usual.  

Her eyes sparkled like stars on a winter solstice night. Her lips, bitten gently, created dimples on one cheek. Her curly hair fell to one side, covering half her face.  

She exuded peace yet also passion and strength.  

Aristide withdrew his outstretched hand.  

He decided to watch her just a little longer.  

***

Aristide woke up with his mouth open. His body was stiff from sleeping in an awkward position, and he stretched backward to try and sleep again—  

“Ah!”  

He opened his eyes.  

The sky outside was a hazy gray, and the clock pointed to 5 a.m., just as dawn was breaking.  

In the middle of the room, Lucia was still fixing that bird model. Aristide jumped up and shouted.  

“Miss Bianchi!”  

She dropped her tools.  

“Ah, scarted me.”

“‘Ah, scarted me’?”

(This is a slurred, playful mispronunciation of “아, 깜짝이야” (“Ah, you startled me!”).)

“No, I mean… why did you call me?”  

Her bright red face revealed that she was hiding something, and Aristide knew digging further would be entertaining, but that wasn’t the priority now.  

“Surely you weren’t working all this time? You went to the Moonlight Palace and came back, didn’t you?”  

“I didn’t go to the research lab, but… oh, how did time pass like this?”  

She looked at the clock with annoyance, as if blaming it for not notifying her sooner.  

“I deeply apologize, Your Majesty. If I were a skilled inventor, I wouldn’t have wasted your precious day like this.”  

“No, that’s—”  

“And I regret to inform you of even worse news.”  

She took a deep breath.  

“I believe you’ve been scammed.”  

“…What?”  

“Leaving aside engineering principles, even basic carpentry—no, even common sense—this object is nothing but a mess of wood and metal slapped together into the shape of a bird and sold to the Imperial Palace. Initially, I thought it might have been crafted using some ingenious idea I didn’t understand, but upon dismantling and inspecting every component and connection, I can confidently say this thing is nothing but crude junk. It seems someone took advantage of your fondness for fascinating inventions, Your Majesty. My apologies.”  

“That—”  

“This is clearly fraud. And against the Imperial Palace, no less. The perpetrator should be arrested and thrown into prison immediately. There’s a limit to how much one can insult the field of invention. I consider this an affront to invention itself.”  

“Wait… I…”  

Lucia froze.  

“…Yes?”  

“I… made it myself.”  

The awkward silence was broken only by the distant crowing of a rooster.  

Aristide averted his gaze and muttered.  

“After seeing you fix unfixable things in an instant, I wondered if perhaps I threw something together haphazardly, you might make it work.”  

“…I apologize for calling you a scammer.”  

However, since the other remarks, such as ‘lacking common sense,’ were entirely true, Lucia refrained from further apologies.  

“Well then, I’ll take my leave.”  

Lucia bowed to Aristide and packed up her tools.  

Before leaving, she fiddled with the bird model.  

“I got so caught up in the idea of it flying that I lost track of time. My childhood dream was to become a bird.”  

“Just a bird? I was a bar-headed goose—”  

Aristide abruptly shut his mouth.  

While Lucia had been absorbed in fixing the model, he had asked her countless questions, knowing she wouldn’t remember them later.  

Momentarily, he forgot that she was no longer under that trance.  

“I was a Ruppell’s vulture. If I were to become a bird, I wanted to be the one that flies the highest.”  

That was so typical of her.  

“Your Majesty, you must have chosen the bar-headed goose, the second-highest flying bird.”  

“You know about bar-headed geese?”  

“Yes, painfully well, thanks to someone.”  

It was a moment when the random trivia Mr. Saper had bombarded her with proved useful.  

“Why did you want to be a bar-headed goose, Your Majesty?”  

For a moment, an unreadable expression crossed his face, but it quickly vanished.  

In its place was a face lit with excitement at meeting someone who knew about bar-headed geese.  

“I wanted to fly high, but the thought of burying my head in corpses for food like a vulture…”  

Aristide shuddered.  

“I can’t stand the idea of dirtying my head.”  

‘Of course. Naturally. Why wouldn’t you?’  

Lucia thought to herself.  

“Ah-ha!”  

Suddenly, Aristide slapped his knee with one hand.  

“‘Ah, scarted me’ was ‘Ah, you startled me,’ wasn’t it?”  

Aristide interpreted her earlier words.  

“No, it wasn’t!”  

Lucia’s face turned tomato-red even in the faint dawn light.  

Aristide laughed heartily.  

Lucia’s breathing grew ragged.  

Through gritted teeth, she managed to say, 

“Well then, I’ll return to the lab now.”  

“Alright, farewell, Miss Scarted.”  

Lucia clenched her fists as she left but turned back at the door.  

“Goodbye, Your Majesty the Scammer.”  

“W-What did you say?!”  

Without a reply, the door closed.  

***

Thea sat in front of a flower that resembled a lobster claw, painting it.  

She dipped her brush into dark green paint, pinched the tip to make it sharp like a needle, and drew thin lines.  

Shadows formed along the veins on the paper.  

She ran out of paint.  

Thea handed the brush to Lucia, who was watching nearby.  

Lucia opened the lid and squeezed paint onto the palette.  

Having entered the harem as a child and always been the youngest, Thea still unhesitatingly asked her older sisters for small favors.  

Tying her sleeve ribbons, removing thorns and applying bandages, or sharing snacks before bed.  

Even Lucia, who was the same age as Thea, came to think of her as a younger sibling.  

Thea, who thought the world was beautiful, never lied or spoke harshly, and still chased after hummingbirds because they were pretty, was someone Lucia considered the embodiment of goodness in this harsh world.  

As Thea finished painting the leaf, she said, 

“It’s boring, isn’t it? I’ll play with you once I finish this leaf.”  

Lucia still hadn’t received her research funding. The settlement and living expenses had been provided immediately upon entering the harem, but she had heard it would take time for the first research funding to be released.  

Lucia grumbled with a flushed face.  

“What do you mean, play with me? I’m not a kid or anything…”  

Thea smiled faintly.  

When she first met Lucia, she had seemed cold, but Thea soon realized that Lucia was only wearing a mask of indifference.  

In truth, the problem was that her emotions showed too easily once the mask was removed.  

Lucia either displayed her feelings completely or was as expressionless as a statue—there was no in-between.