A New Dress
“Lady Rozemyne, shall we go to the orphanage director’s chambers?” Fran asked. “Monika has gone ahead and prepared to welcome the Gilberta Company.”
They had acquired some cheap cloth that would be pinned onto Brigitte and then cut into a mock-up dress in a process known as draping. It might have been my imagination, but she seemed a little excited as we made our way to the chambers. I was excited too, since Tuuli would be coming with Corinna.
I get to see Tuuli and Lutz again. Eheheh... Heheheheh.
“Good morning, everyone. Thank you for waiting.”
By the time we got there, the Gilberta Company had already arrived; Benno, Lutz, Corinna, Tuuli, and several other seamstresses were in the front hall. We had talked about who would be coming ahead of time, but I was still surprised by how packed the room was. In all honesty, it felt a bit cramped.
Once we had finished exchanging the standard greetings, I glanced over at Monika. “Let’s move so that we can begin adjusting as soon as possible. Fran, I shall leave you to look after the men.”
I went to the hidden room, with Brigitte, Corinna, and Tuuli, as well as the seamstresses carrying their bundles and tools, following close behind.
“Please, come inside. You may join us as well, Monika.”
“As you wish.”
Since this was a fitting for a noblewoman, only women were allowed into the hidden room. As Brigitte stripped down and prepared to be measured, the seamstresses busily moved about, spreading a large piece of cloth across a screen by the entrance so that nobody would be able to see inside when the door opened.
Brigitte had returned her light armor to the shape of a feystone and, with the help of the seamstresses, undressed down to her underclothes. She then transformed one of the feystones she had brought with her into something of a tight bodysuit. It would allow the dress to be cut without them needing to worry about the needles poking into her skin.
“This serves as the basis for knight armor made from feystones. All students learn to make them upon entering the Royal Academy,” Brigitte explained, gesturing to her new attire. “Even knights who seem to be entirely unarmored are in truth wearing one of these beneath their flashy clothes.”
It seemed that nobles always wore what was basically a Kevlar vest beneath their clothes. In less peaceful duchies, it was standard for even scholars and attendants to wear them to protect against surprise attacks. The fact that I wasn’t required to wear one despite being a member of the archducal family showed just how peaceful Ehrenfest really was.
...I guess you don’t really need bras and stuff when you’ve got a tight bodysuit like that, huh?
I hadn’t really spent much time alone with any older women since becoming a noble, so I wasn’t sure what the underwear situation was for adult women. But if everyone was wearing tight feystone bodysuits, then I could guess that they didn’t need much support in the way of underwear. Commoners probably had more advanced clothing in that department, especially seeing as they already wore things like tight bodices.
Mm... I don’t know. This feels a bit... off. It wouldn’t be very sexy to have a metallic feystone hardened over your upper body with a pair of drawers underneath.
These thoughts were entirely founded in my time spent as Urano, but long-legged beauties looked best in garter belts, not floofy drawers. The thought had never occurred to me since I was too young for sexy lingerie, and even in my Urano days, I had never thought about wearing any, but now I was confident that this world needed an underwear revolution too.
Seriously. The thought of such hot, full-bodied babes wearing lame old drawers is just plain depressing.
But for now, my battle would be making sure female knights had skirts that didn’t flip up when they moved, as this was precisely why they found it necessary to wear such long, bland drawers in the first place. There was no point in me inventing sexy underwear if wearing it made them unable to fight.
Practicality or sexiness? This truly is a question for the ages.
Anyway, while I was deeply pondering other people’s underwear in my own little world, Corinna and her seamstresses started pressing the cloth against Brigitte. They folded it according to the designs drawn on the boards, then began snipping away and pinning frills where required. Meanwhile, Tuuli handed them pins, fetched what they needed, and carefully watched everything they did. I silently cheered her on, happy to see that she was trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible.
I was pretty curious to see Brigitte’s dress starting to be made before my eyes, but I couldn’t just stare at the seamstresses the entire time; the process would take a while, and I could simply check up on them later when they were almost done.
“Monika, would you inform me when the cutting is over? I must discuss other matters with Benno.”
“As you wish.”
Monika opened the door for me, and I exited the hidden room. It was only Benno, Lutz, Fran, Gil, and Damuel waiting for me on the second floor, which meant I could act a bit more like myself without needing to worry.
“I shall join your discussion until the cutting is done,” I said, sitting down and gesturing for Benno to continue as I sipped the tea that Fran had prepared for me.
“First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude,” Benno began. “Thanks to your assistance, Lady Rozemyne, I am doing more business with nobles than ever before.”
Well, that was what he said out loud, but the look in his dark-red eyes seemed to actually say, “I’m freakin’ busy as hell now and it’s all your fault.” As a merchant, he was probably happy to have more sales and connections with nobles, but it was also probably true that he was a step closer to death from overwork.
“Listen, Benno... Any euphemisms are going to go completely over my head. If there’s something on your mind, please don’t feel you have to mince your words,” I said, dropping the noble act while looking over everyone in the room.
Benno eyed Fran and Damuel, slowly dropping his act too. “Yeah?”
“I’ve been getting the impression that I’m loading way too much work onto the Gilberta Company lately. If you think it’s too much for you, I can distribute some elsewhere.”
“Hey, watch it. I don’t need that kinda pity. Plus, you’ll just make everyone think you’re dropping us, idiot. Are you seriously gonna make the same mistake you just made with Ingo all over again? You wanna jeopardize the future of the Gilberta Company too?”
“Absolutely not!”
“I’m not gonna let anyone else have this work, no matter how busy we get. Get that into your skull and don’t forget it.”
As it turned out, lessening Benno’s workload wouldn’t help at all; the last thing the Gilberta Company wanted was a rumor spreading that they were being cut off.
“I understand that everyone here shares history, but please do try a little harder to keep up appearances,” Fran said with a frown.
Benno and I exchanged looks, then shrugged.
“Lady Rozemyne, I ask that you continue to grace the Gilberta Company with your patronage.”
“But of course.”
“Now, about today’s business... Lady Rozemyne, while we were in Hasse, you said that you wished to network with Giebe Illgner. May I ask for more details?” Benno asked, his eyes narrowed slightly.
A sudden wave of unease washed over me. It was a look that clearly said, “Are you seriously trying to load more work onto me?” But there was no helping it now that he had warned me not to give these jobs to any other store; I had no choice but to load more onto him.
“It turns out that Illgner is a mountainous region with an abundance of wood, and there are many species of tree there that I am unfamiliar with. I would like to visit the province to experiment with making new kinds of paper.”
“In other words, you intend to make paper in Illgner...?”
“Yes. I wish to bring Lutz, Gil, and several gray priests for the purpose of making paper. Will that be at all problematic?”
Benno deeply furrowed his brow. “Very. We can’t send Lutz on a trip this important without someone else from the Gilberta Company going with him, but no viable options come to mind. I personally can’t go on such a long-distance journey given our increasing business with nobles, and neither can Mark, since he’s the only other person who can handle that kind of work by himself.”
His other employees weren’t yet capable of properly conducting themselves in front of a land-owning noble. And while I wasn’t too familiar with the Gilberta Company’s state of affairs, I could assume they were low on manpower, given that they had needed to borrow the help of priests when selling things in the castle.
“Is Otto not capable of doing business with nobles?”
A letter from Dad had mentioned that, once Otto had completed this year’s budget work, he would be quitting his job as a soldier to return to being a merchant. Given that Spring Prayer was over and we were now halfway through the season, chances were that had already happened.
“Otto is perfectly suitable when it comes to his business knowledge, but he has not yet been trained in the mannerisms necessary for working with nobles.”
“He should be fine interacting with laynobles, though, right? Even when he was working at the gate, he was entrusted with letting nobles through. The most important thing is just getting used to the new environment. He could start with laynobles and work his way up.”
Even Dad was able to speak properly to the nobles passing through the gate. Nobles would certainly expect more from a merchant than a guard, but I was certain Otto could do the job once he’d gotten used to it.
“Why not start by pairing up Mark and Otto? You can provide support when necessary and even bring other trainees around,” I suggested.
By this point, even I had managed to learn enough noble mannerisms to get by. If Otto got serious about it, he’d probably be able to act like an archnoble within a single season of practice. Well, assuming he also had a proper teacher, that is.
Benno looked between Fran and me, his brow lowered in thought. “Could you train Otto and his assistant Theo to understand polite mannerisms, just as you trained Leon to be a waiter?”
“Fran? Your thoughts?” I asked. He had been involved with training Leon, and since the only people in the temple who could teach the mannerisms necessary for dealing with nobles were the gray priests who had been trained by Ferdinand, a member of the archducal family, he and Zahm were the only ones out of my attendants suited to the job.
“Well, I should be able to make some time for it, since Zahm will soon officially become your attendant,” Fran mused. “I already intended to teach Nicola and Monika proper etiquette, and it would not be a problem for Otto and this Theo gentleman to join them in the orphanage director’s chambers. Though I will only be able to teach them etiquette, and nothing more.”
Benno gave a light shrug in response. “The etiquette is the part that’s important. Commoners have no real opportunities to learn how to greet, speak to, or handle things around nobles.”
In the past, Benno had mentioned how tough it had been to find someone who could teach him noble manners. Not even piling up a load of money would necessarily help in finding one. Thus, as payment for providing such a priceless instructor, I asked for the help of two priceless helpers myself.
“Now, as payment for this, I ask that you send Mark and Lutz to Illgner with me once Otto and Theo have learned their noble mannerisms.”
“...As you wish.”
And so, Fran accepted the duty of training Otto and Theo. We would let them know through Lutz when we were ready to start.
“One last thing,” Benno said. “Lutz, Gil—give your reports to Lady Rozemyne.”
“Yes, sir,” they both replied sharply, turning to look my way. They then exchanged a pleased grin with one another, before reverting back to their serious expressions to deliver the reports.
“The new printing press designed by Zack and created by Ingo and Johann has been completed.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed, almost leaping out of my chair at the news, but Fran quickly placed his hands on my shoulders to stop me. He pushed me back down with a smile and directed me to remain seated.
Sorry... I got so excited that, for a second, I completely dropped the refined lady act.
“We would like you to observe the trial run, Lady Rozemyne. What would you recommend we print first?”
As much as I wanted to rush off and see it right away, everyone was indirectly stopping me. Instead, they simply wanted me to provide the base text for something to be printed.
“Does anything in particular come to mind, Lady Rozemyne?” Lutz asked again, urging me to answer.
I leaned forward. “The new printing press exists not for picture books, but books that are filled to the brim with letters. Thus, I would like to focus on text-heavy books for children who have outgrown their picture books.”
I would use the tales about knights commonly told among nobles to write cool, easy-to-understand stories that showed kids what kind of work they did. And while I was at it, I would have Wilma draw wonderful illustrations with Ferdinand as a model to bring in female customers, practically killing two birds with one stone. All I needed to do was add the classic disclaimer at the start: “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” It was an iron shield, and I wasn’t afraid of Ferdinand objecting. He could take it up in fantasy court.
“Has Ingo finished the letter type cases, the typesetting stand, the composing stick, and the interline spacers? What about Johann? Has he completed the furniture and setting rule?” I asked, wondering about the smaller tools that were just as important in the printing process.
Lutz nodded proudly. “All finished. We’ve also ordered more than enough ink. As soon as we have the manuscript, we can get started.”
Yippee! Praise be to the gods!
“What fantastic news!” I said cheerfully. “I must teach you to use the press and metal letter types as soon as possible. You may find that the letter type cases are quite hard to move. I shall go to the workshop and teach you all at once!”
“Lady Rozemyne, that is a bit...” Fran began, trying to stop me, but I shook my head at him.
“I want to use this opportunity to go from typesetting to printing all the way through at least once. I understand that I mustn’t do any work myself, but I’ve been working toward the creation of a printing press for so long now; I want to be the first to touch it,” I declared, balling my fists in determination.
Fran eventually caved, shaking his head back at me in defeat. Gil shrugged, knowing there was no stopping us now, while Lutz simply crossed his arms.
“I think Fran and Sir Damuel should allow only a select few into the workshop, granting Lady Rozemyne an opportunity to do as she pleases,” Lutz proposed. “Either way, she’ll need to teach us how to use it sooner or later.”
“Lutz! I knew it. You understand me better than anyone!” I clasped my hands together, moved by his kindness, only to hear him add that letting me do this would calm me down before I did anything crazy.
Ngh... Maybe he knows me too well.
“Once I have the manuscript ready, we can begin testing the printing press at once.”
“Please calm down, Lady Rozemyne. At this rate, you’ll surely collapse.”
“If we start printing right away, I wonder if we can have a volume ready by the summer’s Starbind Ceremony?”
“Calm down. You’re seriously about to collapse. And if you collapse now, they’re never gonna let you touch the printing press,” Lutz warned. He had switched from his polite language to his usual rough way of speaking when he realized that I wasn’t listening and needed to be properly threatened.
I gasped, sensing that he was serious. “Anything but that.”
As I took deep breaths to collect myself, the feystone by the hidden room’s door lit up.
“Lady Rozemyne, Monika is signaling for you,” Fran said.
“Very well. I shall check up on them.”
I stepped into the hidden room and past the makeshift screen to where Brigitte was. The cheap cloth wrapped around her figure was filled with tiny pins, but it was certainly in the shape of a sleeveless gown. And perhaps due to it being a singular undyed color, it looked entirely like she was wearing a wedding dress.
“My, how wonderful! It looks incredible on you, Brigitte!”
The dress was on another level entirely from the one she had worn last year. I walked around her, examining it from top to bottom. It mostly matched the design I had provided, but there were a few awkward areas that caught my attention, probably due to this being the first time Corinna had ever made something like this.
“Let’s see... Corinna, pinch the dress up around here to better define the chest. You’ll also want the back part to look a little more like this,” I explained as Corinna took out several pins and adjusted their positions to alter how Brigitte’s figure was presented. The actual dress would be cut out from fabric with these pieces as a basis, so everyone had a serious look in their eyes.
The cloth clung tightly to Brigitte’s upper body, wonderfully accentuating her curves from her chest down to her hips. Frills had been sewn by her waist, leading to a long skirt that used plenty of cloth. Since Brigitte was a knight, the design needed to emphasize being easy to move around in, so it was deliberately light and thin for how much cloth was being used.
“Brigitte, is the dress uncomfortably tight anywhere?” I asked.
“Not at all. I like that the lack of cloth covering my shoulders makes it easy to move my arms. Plus, in emergencies, I could simply cover them with a feystone.”
Despite how lovely it looked, she was focusing entirely on how convenient it would be during battle. I wasn’t sure whether I should praise her for that, or beg her to treat the situation at least a little more romantically. As much as I wanted her to use this dress to pin down a wonderful husband, she didn’t seem to be thinking about that at all.
“...May I invite Damuel inside? I think that the dress suits you like a dream, Brigitte, but I would like to hear the opinion of a nobleman as well.”
“Certainly. I would also like to ask about other female knights wearing this,” Brigitte replied.
She didn’t seem opposed to the idea, so I exited the hidden room again. “Damuel, would you come with me for a moment?”
“May I ask why?”
“We would appreciate the opinion of a man. Please tell us what you think about Brigitte’s dress, if you would.”
Damuel merely blinked in response, visibly confused.
“I know that Brigitte would wear the dress no matter her own thoughts, since I designed it myself, but there is no point in us making something that does not appeal to noblemen. I would like to hear your frank, up-front opinion as a man so that we may move forward without any such fears. We cannot allow Brigitte to bring shame upon herself simply as the result of my own potentially unusual taste in fashion. Don’t you agree?”
At that point, Damuel stiffened, before nodding in agreement. In a sense, he had seen many of my rampages up close and personal; he knew that I was usually out of sync with the rest of society. If my actions were about to publicly embarrass Brigitte, then I’d much rather he stopped me now.
“Damuel is here. May we come in, Brigitte?”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
I entered the hidden room once more, this time with Damuel following behind me. But the moment we circled around the partition screen, he froze, letting out a small gasp.
Hearing the noise, I turned around and looked up at him. “Damuel?”
He didn’t respond. His eyes were open wide in shock, his gaze so fixed on Brigitte that he was practically boring holes into her. Then, a quiet exhale escaped his slightly agape mouth. He blinked a few times, as though he had seen something so dazzling that he was unable to believe his eyes, and his mouth slowly formed a smile.
...I think I just witnessed the very moment someone fell in love.
Even Corinna and the seamstresses had caught on that the motionless Damuel was completely lovestruck, and they started looking at him with amused eyes. I could practically hear them say, “Spring certainly is the season when love blooms.”
My urge to grin alongside them mixed with my desire to push Damuel forward. In my eyes, his feelings were so obvious that he might as well just confess them.
“So, Damuel—what do you think?”
“Wha?! I, er...” Damuel staggered the moment I pulled on his cape, shooting me a surprised look and blurting out a response. He then quickly turned his gaze back to Brigitte. “Ahem. It’s, ah... It’s quite nice, I think.”
Don’t get all embarrassed now! You need to be more direct or your praise won’t get across! Come on! You can do it!
I tried silently cheering him on, but deep down I already knew—Damuel was kind of a wimp. He averted his gaze, unable to look directly at Brigitte, and said nothing more. Everyone else watched on, waiting for him to say something, but his mouth remained shut. The only things that moved were his eyes as they wandered anxiously around the room.
“Lady Rozemyne designed this specifically for me, but do you think it would be suitable for other female knights as well?” Brigitte asked, looking down at her dress.
“Maybe. I think, well...” Damuel mustered a vague answer before trailing off, eventually resorting to a small nod. I wanted him to be clearer with his feedback, but love had melted his brain so thoroughly that it didn’t seem like he would be of much use here.
“It seems the dress has passed the test, so we shall go with this design. Damuel, please vacate the room so that we may complete the fitting,” I said, deciding it was best to give up on him for now and shooing him out.
Once the door was closed, I turned around and anxiously looked at Brigitte. His true feelings had been so obvious, there was no way she hadn’t noticed as well.
“Um, Brigitte...”
She gave a small, embarrassed smile. “Damuel certainly is easy to understand, isn’t he? That was the first time a man has ever looked at me like that, so I must confess to feeling a little flustered right now.”
Nah, nah, nah. You’re genuinely stunning, Brigitte. And men have definitely looked at you like that before. You just never noticed because they weren’t so obvious about it.
She probably hadn’t noticed because she was too busy thinking about her family, her province, and things to do with combat. Or perhaps she only had eyes for the person she was engaged to. It was bound to be one or the other, if you asked me.
“Brigitte, about Damuel...”
“I think he is a fine man with an overall diligent personality. He isn’t overly uptight, no doubt due to him being a second son and lacking a title himself, and I do not believe he would even consider attempting to control Illgner. Furthermore, Lady Rozemyne, the simple fact that he is one of your favored guard knights makes him a valuable asset to Illgner,” she replied.
As I blinked in surprise at how positively Brigitte thought of Damuel, she gave me a bright smile.
“But the gap between our mana capacities is simply too vast; I am not even considering being with him.”
She had flat-out rejected him, and with a pretty smile at that. But her words reminded me—Ferdinand had mentioned once before that, in order to have children together, two people need to possess similar quantities of mana. For that reason, I wouldn’t have been able to marry anyone as a commoner. It seemed that, in noble society, romance was predicated on mana capacity, so a gap too vast would end a romance before it had even begun.
...Damuel fell in love with Brigitte, and she rejected him almost immediately. This is just too sad.
I knew that my blessing was gradually expanding Damuel’s mana capacity, but I wasn’t sure how much it had grown, nor how much it would need to grow for Brigitte to change her mind. Was it possible that he could earn Brigitte’s consideration by working hard? I thought it over, but I had zero experience with romance and a weak grasp on noble culture at best. The chances were that nothing good would come from me butting my head into the love lives of others, so I would just have to silently cheer him on in my heart.
Damuel, if you can somehow close the mana gap between you and Brigitte, you might just have a chance... Do the best you can!
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