5
“Emilia-tan has come to terms with her faults and has committed to taking lessons to get a voice that matches how wonderful she is! Her first step is gaining the ability to recognize pitch! Okay, team?!”
“O-okay!”
At first, Emilia bid a hasty retreat. But she had committed herself to Subaru’s lessons ever since her tearful return. The revelation of her own tone-deafness had greatly affected her. One couldn’t exactly call her cheerful, but her fiery zeal for learning was burning strong.
“There are two ways to learn to recognize pitch. First, listen to the same song over and over until you memorize the proper pitches. And second, put a bucket on your head and learn to correct the pitch as you go. You could also hum around the clock.”
“But how can I listen to a song with the correct pitch? Liliana isn’t here anymore…”
“Liliana isn’t the only person in this world who can sing in tune, you know? Beako would probably do the trick. Hey, Beakooo? Sing something for us.”
“What?! Why must I be the one to do such a thing, I wonder?”
With an aggravated sigh at Beatrice’s sudden defiance, Subaru argued, “As long as we have to do the lessons here, you might as well help. We’ll finish faster that way. And until we finish, we’re gonna be holing up in here rather frequently.”
“Mrrrggg… Still, I refuse to be ordered around by the likes of you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I think I know what’s going on. For all your smug critiquing, you’re a snobby little lady who’s all talk and no action. Okay, I get it. Just park yourself in the corner and read.”
“Who are you calling all talk and no action?! Don’t mock me, boy! Fine, I’ll help you, I suppose!”
And Beatrice gave the textbook reaction to Subaru’s reverse psychology. The ease with which she was manipulated made Subaru worry about her future, but for now, he appreciated her gullible nature.
And then the ditzy doll marched up to Emilia, pointed a finger right at her, and said, “I’m going to teach you, failure of a girl—the true spirit of music!”
“Uh, you don’t have to be that hardcore…” Subaru muttered.
“Y-yes, Professor! I eagerly await your instructions. I…promise I’ll stick with it.”
“She’s so obedient all of a sudden?!”
The sense of danger in Beatrice’s egotistical declaration actually made Emilia trust her more. From the look of her, she was ready to plunge herself into a singing bootcamp.
“Okay, to get a good sense of rhythm, it’s best to move your body while singing to practice creating the rhythm yourself,” Subaru said. “Clap your hands or stomp your feet. Just try synchronizing.”
“Okay, Lia, try clapping with me. Ready, go! One-mew, one-mew, one-mew!”
“One-m-mew, one-mew…”
Puck mimicked the clapping Subaru did during his explanation and coached Emilia in turn. Emilia grew increasingly flustered as she tried to keep up with the spirit’s soundless clapping paws.
“One-mew…eep!”
As Emilia clapped the rhythm, Beatrice put the bucket back on her head and calmly said, “All right, you’ll sing with this on again, I suppose. And I’ll discipline you until you can match me perfectly.”
The Archive of Forbidden Books was currently hosting a girl in a bucket, a doll-like girl staring sharply at her, and a small cat spirit boisterously dancing around them—from the outside, the sight could not be more surreal.
Subaru muttered, “This is like a nightmare. It doesn’t feel real…but if I had dreams like this, I’d probably see a psychiatrist.”
Still, in theory, these lessons ought to cure Emilia of her tone-deafness. Everyone involved was intensely focused. Things were settled enough here that Subaru could finally tend to a problem of a different nature.
“Sorry, guys, but nature’s calling me.”
“What is nature calling you about? I have no idea what you’re saying, I suppose.”
“The bathroom. There, now you made me say it. How embarrassing.”
After giving Beatrice a moment of smug satisfaction, Subaru left the room. He stole a glance at Emilia, and she seemed anxious, but as there was a bucket on her head, he couldn’t know for sure.
When Subaru left the Archive, Beatrice’s Passage was triggered. It was a liminal space connecting you with any door you wanted in the mansion, and this time, it spit him out directly beside Roswaal’s study. It was something Beatrice could only have done because she knew exactly what Subaru intended to do under the pretense of going to the restroom.
“That snarky little loli…” Subaru muttered under his breath as he knocked at the door to Roswaal’s study. “Rozchi? It’s me. Can I come in?”
“Indeed, you may, my boy! I was hoping you would come by rather soon to have a little chat with meee.”
Gaining permission from the room’s master, Subaru boldly entered the study. Sitting at the ebony desk of the spacious room was the eccentric clown-faced master of the house—Roswaal L Mathers. He beheld his underling Subaru with his heterochromatic eyes and said, “Nowww, it sounds like you’ve gotten Emilia caught up in some scrumptious drama again.”
“I didn’t ‘get her caught up in it,’ exactly. Emilia was actually the one who kicked things off this time. I’m sure there’s a ton of things you want to say to me right now, but please, take it easy on me just this once.”
“So you’re saying I should overlook her neglecting her studies when the royal selection is just around the corner?”
Roswaal’s jab stung, but his eyes were playful. He eagerly awaited Subaru’s excuse with open arms. Subaru sighed, lamenting his master of strange fancies.
“It might look like we’re wasting time, but taking a breather is important. Especially now. Everyone—including you—must’ve noticed she’s getting herself wound up way too tightly these days.”
The very day Subaru was summoned into this world, her badge was stolen in the capital. Right after that, demon beasts terrorized the marquis’s lands, and the very next day after that, Liliana brought more trouble into their lives. However, even though Emilia was involved in every incident, she did not directly confront and resolve the problems herself.
Given her position, she wasn’t allowed to purposefully put herself in danger, but this probably made her painfully aware of her own helplessness. And Subaru theorized that this had directly led to her overcrowded schedule.
Emilia would not hesitate to push herself beyond her limits to help someone else. The fact that she would surrender her limited free time to Subaru was evidence of this. Evidence that, if true, warmed Subaru’s heart.
“If you ask me, I wish she would work just a liiittle harder, though,” the marquis said.
“But singing lessons should improve her diaphragmatic breathing, making her a louder and stronger orator! And if she cures her tone-deafness, that will boost her confidence and mood! And if news of her beautiful singing voice spreads throughout the land, as a monarch and a songstress, Emilia will become a double threat—!”
“Ohh, fine, fine, I understaaand. I’ll allow this…‘breather,’ as you say.”
Roswaal raised a white flag from beneath the pile of sales pitches Subaru hurled at him. That being said, it was not Subaru’s words that had moved the marquis, but his consideration for Emilia’s mood as of late.
“You were the one who showed Emilia the lyulyre in the first place, weren’t you, Rozchi? I don’t know what kind of 4D chess you’re playing, but wouldn’t ya say things are going exactly the way you want?”
“When you’re in my position, there are quite a few of annoyances, my boy. And there’s Emilia’s personality to consider. I could always ask her to rest now and then, but would she listen?”
“Nope, she wouldn’t. She’d smile and nod, then sneak off and work herself extra hard behind closed doors. I can practically see it.”
And she shone so brightly when she got like that. Which was probably why he longed to support her. Whatever ulterior motives Roswaal might have, he was Emilia’s backer. So while their hearts were surely in different places, Roswaal’s ulterior motives were not the priority on this day.
“Be that as it maaay…is Emilia’s singing really that terrible?”
“It is. For someone with such a pretty speaking voice, it’s a miracle she sings so terribly.”
“Oh, there you go again. Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
“It’s the same feeling you’d get if somebody took the gourmet meal of everybody’s dreams and burned it to a crisp on a griddle.”
“Oh dear, what a waste.”
“Yeah, it is.”
It was a cruel truth that no amount of sympathy could hide.
After they shared a painful nod of understanding, Subaru raised a hand at Roswaal and said, “I’d better head back to the Archive. I told everybody I was going to use the restroom, so if I’m gone too long, they’ll think it was number two.”
“I think more than enough time has passed for them to make that assumption. Having said that, take good care of Emilia for me.”
“I will. Just for a little while longer…I’m gonna let Emilia be Emilia-tan.”
“Oh my, oh my…ha-ha-ha, what a way of words you have, my boy.” Roswaal chuckled loudly at Subaru’s roundabout way of talking.
Now that their mutual understanding had been renewed, Subaru left the marquis’s study with his newly acquired permission.
“Okay, I’m going back…but has Beako changed the room location already?”
He started by opening the door next to the study that should connect to the Archive of Forbidden Books. Ordinarily, the Archive’s position would have moved, leaving him with a reference room full of papers. However—
“Ooh, sweet. I’m in.”
Luckily, the Passage had not been moved, and Subaru returned to the Archive without any difficulty.
“I’m back, guys! Man, there was such a long line at the bathroom…”
Giving a canned excuse as he entered the Archive, Subaru surveyed the trio standing in the room. They hadn’t moved since he left. There stood Emilia, Beatrice, Puck, and—
“Nooo! Please, spare me! I’m begging you, anything but that!”
“My patience has worn thin, I suppose! You are making a mockery out of music! Step right outside with that bucket on your head and sing! I know what you lack—a sense of urgency!”
“Betty, sweet Betty? Please don’t force poor Lia to do something she doesn’t want to. Just give her a break. Even if she’s tone-deaf, she’s still a cutie.”
“But you’re too soft on her! That is the cause of her impudence, I suppose!”
With her sleeves rolled up, Beatrice meant business. She was yanking on bucket-headed Emilia’s hips while the latter clung onto the bookcase. Puck, meanwhile, was flying around them both and clapping his hands.
Subaru’s eyes glazed over. How much chaos could have possibly ensued during the ten minutes he was gone? He had a vague sense, and if he was right, there was little he could do aside from sighing in defeat.
In either case—
“So I originally started this exercise as a sort of fun way to help Emilia blow off some steam…but is this actually helping her relax at all? I’m beginning to think we put the cart before the horse here…”
Feeling vaguely worried that his promise to Roswaal had already been broken, Subaru had no choice but to insert himself into the trio’s chaotic lesson.
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