Fairy Tale Chronicles

Chapter 14.2

All things considered, you have such remarkable proportions, yet you find the need to resist exposing yourself…」

「…Got a problem with that?」

「No, I was simply thinking that you truly understand the proper way to present yourself.」

「Wha？」

Haruna’s eyes became dots in response to this strange area of appreciation. She hadn’t exactly reduced her skin exposure because she was fixated on “properly presenting” herself. She just didn’t feel like going out of her way to appeal to some lechers that she didn’t even know, and then risk putting unnecessary pressure on Hiroshi, but it seemed that the dressers had a different interpretation.

「A recent trend amongst the more well-developed ladies is to skirt the edge of decency in the display of skin.」

「And a vocal portion of the gentlemen have lionized such behavior, so that unfortunately served to make some of these ladies become bolder and bolder as they repeated this process…」

「Going instead so far as to hide one’s assets can indeed be amorous. I was waiting for someone to finally make a bold statement such as that, so when you asked for these specifications, I was especially pleased, Haruna-sama.」

「And so we wish to raise our overall power here and teach both the ladies and gentlemen the beauty of hiding things. Clean, refined; the kind of allure that causes anyone with ill intent to hesitate. They must understand just how much more fierce the eros is that comes from all these things.」

The three of them drew back with all their might as they experienced the zealous feelings of duty exhibited from the dressers. That being said, since Haruna was at the brunt of all this, she couldn’t just openly sympathize.

「And you two. You look like this doesn’t concern you, but rest assured, there is something we’d like to request you do.」

「Wha？」

「S-Such as？」

「We don’t have enough time on this occasion, so we shall be seeing you off shortly, but as both of your materials are exceedingly good, you had best exaggerate each of your alluring points to the max.」

A rather dangerous look in her eyes, the leader of the dressers had a suspicious smile on her face as she asserted this. Honestly, it was scary.

「In your case, Makoto-sama, there is no material greater than this for proving that a slender, healthy body does not always have to be well-endowed to be appealing. Please do see to it that you carry yourself with the dignity of both body and soul to become a star of hope for all the ladies who were not blessed with a protrusion like Haruna-sama.」

「No thank you! I don’t wanna be a star of freaking hope!」

「With Mio-sama’s prematurity, her charm comes from her thin, dangerously delicate frame, and this opportunity won’t arrive again. Which is why we had the bold thought of utilizing it to its full potential. For those debutante ladies who are recklessly attempting to overreach themselves, we wanted to show them at least once just how powerful a weapon this temporary charm is.」

「B-But, that totally sounds like it would draw the attention of perverts or men with unique taste and I really don’t like the sound of that……」

Elegantly dodging Makoto and Mio’s clear displeasure, the dressers began basting the clothing for tomorrow’s dining and evening party. It seemed that they truly were running out of time. The evening party clothing that was arguably the best chance to show their talent, and other than the order to lay off on the exposure, they had roughly finished sewing decidedly orthodox dresses. At most, Haruna’s dress had slightly less overall volume than the average ones.

「Any minimal adjustments will be made tomorrow for when you change. So we will go ahead and end things for today.」

「It’s finally over…」

「My ribs, my ribs…」

Upon realizing that they were free to go, Makoto and Haruna released voices of relief and resentment. Having finally been released from the corset and feeling comfortable again, they came across an important issue.

「Oh, right.」

「What is it？」

「After we change into the clothing tomorrow, would we even have any free time to enchant it？」

「You would have more than ample time to prepare such things before the evening party, but I do not know how much time the enchantment requires, so I cannot say much in that regard.」

「Is that right…」

The dressers came to realize what Haruna was concerned about, bowing their heads in apology. In actuality, thinking of their strange position, they would probably like to lay one or two enchantments if it meant more reassurance. But as it was outside of their expertise, they didn’t know whether or not there would be enough time. After all, even for enchantments that didn’t have amazing effects, the amount of time required to bestow them was longer than you would expect.

First checking how much time they had left, they decided to ask Hiroshi if he could do anything about it, and had the dressers withdraw. Honestly, by just having fabric and patterned paper, it was conceivable that it would be faster to have Hiroshi sew them at high speed, but unfortunately, things wouldn’t be that simple this time around.

「Haru.」

「What？」

「If worst comes to worst, I’ll make simple enchantments.」

「Please do.」

After the female dressers had headed off, Mio made that suggestion. It was a simple enchantment that didn’t last long, but it would still last for around the entirety of the party. The only issues would be surprise attacks and status conditions. Even for secretly bringing along healing potions, there was a limit to how much they could bring, so they made it their priority to at least prevent the especially troublesome types in advance. At worst, as long as they could prevent instant death at least once and nullify Confusion, Poison, and Bind, they could at least avoid the danger of being helplessly stepped all over.

「This certainly ended up being a drag, though.」

「I’m sure that these are all things that we had to deal with in order to move forward, but how should I say this… I feel like we’re quite lacking in preparation.」

「I think so too, but if we accept that we can’t make perfect preparations, isn’t this pretty good?」

While quickly putting their clothes back on, Makoto and Haruna grumbled about this and that. Finally releasing a sigh once they were back in their familiar clothing, they headed to the room where they had planned to meet up, going outside without asking for any guidance.

「So which room were we going to use again？」

「Don’t ask me that.」

「Wait a moment, as I’m still trying to remember.」

The hallway they were walking through was meager in its physical characteristics, and the female group ended up flustered in many ways as they began to lose track of their current location. Since they had never actually been through there before, Haruna’s memorization ability wouldn’t be all that helpful. Eventually, thanks to Haruna remembering the route, though strangely enough still nearly wandering, they made it to the room while still managing to not run into any major difficulties.

「Is it me, or does Hiroshi look kinda worn out?」

「Well, I guess you can say a lot of stuff happened.」

「You didn’t run into any women, did you？」

「Well, uhh, how should I put this…」

The girls thought of all the possible reasons as to why Tatsuya was tilting his head, finding difficulty to say what was on his mind. After thinking about it briefly…

「Was there some issue regarding the clothing？」

「…Y’all are gonna know when tomorrow hits anyway, so I’ll be upfront: I can’t find nothin’ that looks good on me.」

The room filled with silence at Hiroshi as he spoke in a quite disheartened tone.

「No, it’s not like nothing looked good on you.」

「I know this is true all the time, but when I buy multiple expensive articles of clothin’ and I still look lame in them? That’s just depressin’…」

「I-Is it really that bad…？」

As Haruna said that, she envisioned having him change into various clothing, both from the other world and this world. After “dressing him up” like a doll numerous times, she came to the conclusion that…

「…At the very least, at the current moment, it’s gonna be difficult. That’s all I know.」

「Y’know, I’d be a lot more pleased if ya just said I look lame in whatever I wear…」

「No, not that, uhh… how should I phrase this？」

From the two months she had known him, Haruna had realized that the real issue when it came to Hiroshi was not so much appearance or physique as it was his atmosphere. Hiroshi’s face had rather rich, Japanese-esque eyes, and so was his face. He wasn’t beautiful per say, but neither was he unattractive. She wouldn’t object to seeing him in the kind of casual-wear fashion magazines with some periodical change. But also on the flipside, Haruna could also see him looking quite decent in well-tailored, high-quality brand Western clothing.

So then, what was the issue?

「In your case, Hiroshi-kun, I think that you would need some fairly precise clothing, but…」

「But？」

「At our kind of age, you’d have to become quite used to wearing such clothing, or else it just wouldn’t cut it… is what I think I’m trying to say.」

「I get it. From what you said, I can come to terms with my uncertainty from earlier.」

It was quite true that for Hiroshi, even if on the inside he were an accomplished craftsman, there was no such aura coming from the outside. Though it was true that he had trained straightforwardly, he was only really skilled in-game, and it wasn’t as if he had actually had real life experience. Also, this power was essentially just something he was borrowing, so it was understandable that there wasn’t any sort of impressive atmosphere that accompanied his skill. Adding to that, perhaps because something that had happened in the past, he didn’t give off the open-hearted vibe typical of youth his age, and anything outside his field of expertise would leave him with a complete lack of confidence and a negative thought process, so at the current point in time, Hiroshi was not the kind of person who could just put on an order-made suit and wear it with finesse.

On the topic of dignity, there was also the aspect of living enough years to achieve results amidst the difficulties of society. Just like how doing exceedingly well in sports, becoming a sudden hit in the entertainment industry, or being born with enough money to where wearing exquisite clothing was the norm was not by any means “normal”, there were not many people of the ages of 17 or 18 who could dress stylishly in expensive clothing brands.

On the flipside, even if he were to try and wear casual clothing loosely like others from his age range, rather than look stylish, Hiroshi would look more sloppy and unclean, so even if he tried to go the opposite route, he would just look lame and uncool. Normally, clothing looks good on people once they’ve accumulated enough experience and confidence in that area. This mismatch was probably connected to why Hiroshi just looked lame in anything he wore.

If there was anything that he looked okay in, it was mainly in a jersey or work outfit. Wearing a work outfit wouldn’t necessarily make his “lame” appearance a bad thing. Such outfits would never even be evaluated in fashion terms anyway, and it wasn’t unusual for veteran craftsmen to look lame upon first glance, but because of that, it somehow made them cool in a sense. Hiroshi probably wouldn’t be made fun of either if he were to try for that angle. Although it wouldn’t exactly resolve this particular occasion…

「Anyhow, since there definitely will be something traumatic waiting for him, we’d best negotiate with His Highness or His Lordship to where Hiroshi doesn’t participate in evening parties, or at the very least pulls out as soon as possible.」

「Right. I certainly shan’t deal with Hiro being made into a mockery by these worthless people over this worthless affair.」

「After all, there are people anywhere who’ll belittle someone’s right to live just by looking at their outward appearance or atmosphere.」

”Especially when they get to my age,” muttered Haruna softly. She hadn’t specifically heard what had happened to him, but it was reasonable to say that she had a good grasp on his trauma. Even when Makoto was about to ask whether or not the world was actually that way, she had sensed something from Hiroshi’s gloomy expression and stopped herself. Females truly had a firm grasp on many things.

Makoto found herself feeling nothing but admiration for how often he was able to keep his composure when interacting with females. While she was sure that parameter revisions were in effect since coming here, he still made sure to keep his distance from other females. Not just herself, Mio, and Aearis- even in relation to Haruna, who he was the closest to, he probably didn’t have complete trust with in all the essential areas, and yet here he was, living in close proximity with them with a bit of caution. At the end of the day, much like Haruna but in a different sense, Hiroshi was quite developed as a person.

That being said, this situation before them was probably a miracle in itself, existing only because Haruna had been the person to first live alongside Hiroshi. Normally, there would be no foreseeable end to Hiroshi’s complaints in this situation, and yet Haruna saw his mannerisms for what they were and laughed it off, interacting with him as per usual, other than taking care to leave some space between them. How many females could do that sort of thing? At least in her’s or Mio’s case, they probably would have been assured failure in less than three days if it had not been for Haruna’s cushioning. With the other group of girls, Elena and Aearis seemed like they had a bit more of a knack for it, but that was because of their positioning in society. When it came to actually living together, there was no guarantee that the people tagging along with them wouldn’t make some sort of mistake, so in the end it just came down to whether everything collapsed earlier or later.