Crazy Like a Fox

Chapter 2

The princess’s voice was enchanting, a sweet tone with a light melody, like the chirping of a skylark.

“Everyone is here.”

The princess entered the hall. Her wildly tangled, waist-length blonde hair cascaded down, sparkling under the blazing chandelier. Tucked haphazardly into her hair was a colorful flower crown. Her eyes and lips were crimson, and even her pallid cheeks, devoid of color, quickly flushed with warmth from the heat within.

After briefly surveying her surroundings, the princess began to move. Her small feet tread upon the red carpet at the entrance, then confidently stepped onto the cold marble floor as she made her way to the center of the hall. No one dared to impede her. It was as if she couldn’t be stopped.

“She truly looks like an angel,” someone muttered reluctantly, and the audience silently agreed. Of all the insane women in the world, Lisbelle Valdimar might be the most beautiful.

The chief advisor to the king, standing beside the throne at the head table of the banquet hall, nervously bowed halfway at the waist.

“Y-Your Majesty, Princess... She has...”

The king didn’t respond to his nervous stutters. King Lucife of Valdimar looked down disapprovingly at his daughter, who had entered the middle of the dance floor of the banquet hall as if she had flown there.

She was his fifth daughter. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared about her birth order, but that one was different. At some point, her actions had become so outrageous that they were ingrained in his mind; they were a disgrace to Valdimar’s honor. She was a princess who knew nothing of a warrior’s pride. The royal family didn’t need such weak offspring. If it were up to him, he would have kicked her out of the royal castle long ago. But now, no matter how much she fluttered about, he couldn’t simply discard her. Perhaps she might survive until the end of this succession war and somehow undo this terrible curse.

Though, of course, that’s highly unlikely. The troublemaker’s appearance was stunningly beautiful in a way that was truly breathtaking. She had truly taken after her mother. Lucife gripped the armrest of the throne and let out an irritated sigh.

“Leave her be.”

“Pardon? B-but...”

The chief advisor was taken aback by the unexpectedly lenient response from the king, who had always gritted his teeth while calling her a disgrace. The king had always strictly forbidden the princess from attending such public balls. How could he let his crazy daughter crawl into a gathering filled with high-ranking nobles?

“I’m really curious about what she’ll do today.”

The chief advisor was left speechless. He nodded reluctantly, his expression bewildered, resigned to yet another whim. Nonetheless, those words had effectively extended the fifth princess’s life by another day.

“Father!” The princess smiled brightly while looking at the throne, then raised her hands high and waved them in the air. “I’ve come to dance for you today.”

Lucife’s blue eyes lit up. Her soft and delicate voice filled the hall, resonating inexplicably.

“Dance?”

A faint crack appeared on Lucife’s face. It seems she intends to do the same thing as her mother, whose face she didn’t even know. The princess twirled once on the spot. Her flowing white gown and tousled blonde hair fluttered through the air. It wasn’t exactly dancing, but rather a series of gestures. Yet now, no whispers of mockery came from any corner. She hummed a melody in a voice barely audible.

“On the moonlit hill, the white evening primroses bloom.”

It was an old children’s song from Valdimar that the princess often sang. Her pitch and rhythm were irregular, yet the song strangely lingered in the ears.

“Dancing under the brightly smiling moon. All through the night… All through the night…”

Her bandaged foot seemed to have wounds on it. With every step she took, the white bandages stained crimson, leaving red footprints wherever the princess stepped.

“Until the night ends. Until the moon sets and all the flowers wither. I will wait alone...”

The sight of the princess dancing, bathed in the light pouring down from the chandelier above her head, was truly a graceful spectacle.

* * *

“Ah... Damn it.”

Returning to her room, Lisbelle muttered curses under her breath and hunched over in pain. The bandages she had roughly wrapped around her feet were soaked and sticky with blood.

“It hurts more than I thought.”

Muttering profanities too embarrassing to speak aloud—especially for royalty—Lisbelle unwrapped the dirty bandages and tossed them into a corner of the room. She tried to wipe the blood from the soles of her feet with the hem of her dress, but fresh blood spread over the dried brown stains, making an even bigger mess.

Lisbelle eventually got up from her chair and limped into the bathroom. As she dipped her feet into the lukewarm water of the tub, a sudden flash of pain shot through them.

“Ow...”

It felt like the skin on the soles of her feet was on fire. Grimacing through the searing pain, Lisbelle gently peeled off the dried scabs with a dry cloth. She wounded her feet a few days earlier when she was climbing the castle walls, which were covered in thorny vines. Her palms were also dotted with similar wounds. Although her hands healed quickly and scabbed over once she stopped using them, her feet took longer to recover because she wandered barefoot around the royal castle grounds.

“It’s so painful...”

Lisbelle looked down at the stinging wound on her foot and sighed deeply. Living as a madwoman was more exhausting than she had imagined. Pretending to be crazy wasn’t just about doing all sorts of crazy things without reason, and even those behaviors required careful planning.

Every time my father, the king, begins to lose interest, that’s my cue to orchestrate wild incidents, one after another, to regain his attention. It was routine to closely monitor the movements of the remaining princes. At the slightest hint of suspicion or an attempt to quietly dispose of her, she had to prove wholeheartedly that she was the craziest woman in the royal castle.

The bolder and more dangerous her crazy antics were, the better. Whether it was grabbing and trampling thorny vines without a care or scaling dark castle walls as if it were nothing, it had to reach the point where they would think, Wow, she’s truly insane, risking her life without a second thought.

In addition to periodically feigning convulsions, she had small habits like reaching out when seeing people, crying out along with the animals, and even acting aggressively when maids were told to leave the room.

All these behaviors were simply a collaborative effort of acquired intuition developed over time and meticulous planning. It was painfully clear why she had to scheme and engage in such risky behavior. It was Lisbelle’s only way to survive.

It began with the first prince slitting the throat of the second princess, transforming the essence of the succession ceremony into a battle royale where they had to either kill or be killed. However, there was still a way to escape the succession ceremony.

Valdimar’s peculiar succession ceremony was essentially a competition to determine the strongest royal. Therefore, to avoid the blades of her brothers, she simply needed to become the weakest royal. Insanity was the most effective way for Lisbelle to diminish her own worth. Their pitiful sister who went mad. Far from being a strong warrior, the youngest princess might one day die suddenly without anyone even noticing, let alone daring to covet the throne.

A weakling unworthy of other’s wariness.

That’s how Lisbelle portrayed herself.

“Poor Lisbelle. A disgrace to beautiful Valdimar.”

“Filthy lowlife. That girl alone tarnishes the pride of warriors. Wouldn’t it be less painful for her to take her own life than to live like that?”

The days filled with mockery and contempt from her brothers accumulated one after another, and before she realized it, nine years had passed. Lisbelle’s decision had proven to be right. Unlike her past, where she was killed one day before turning fifteen, this time Lisbelle managed to live until she was nineteen.

In the meantime, the fifth prince died at the hands of the second prince, leaving only three royals.

First Prince Jekyll Valdimar.

Second Prince Rodges Valdimar.

And Fifth Princess Lisbelle Valdimar.

“It seems she’ll end up dying on her own, even if I don’t intervene.”

She recalled the words her elder brother Jekyll had casually tossed out upon seeing her narrowly scaling the castle walls a few days ago. The moment she heard those words, tears of joy welled up in her eyes.

Yeah, keep fighting with Rodges forever, and just forget about me. Just leave me alone so I can escape! She shouted those words over and over in her head. Then, just when she finally felt relieved, she slipped and fell off the castle wall.

Lisbelle looked down, observing her torso and limbs, struck by a sudden doubt that had formed in her mind. Come to think of it, I really don’t have a single scratch on my body. She had fallen from such a great height, yet there wasn’t a single broken bone. The only injuries were on her palms and the soles of her feet where she had gripped and stepped on the thorny vines.

“She must be a madwoman protected by the goddess.”

She thought she even heard the palace servants murmuring such things. Lisbelle twisted her lips into a smirk.

“That’s right, keep cursing at me like that, please.”