by CHIROLU
The one to call out to her back then had been Patrick Hartmann. He was a young guard who had once seen her home after they’d all attended the Ahmar night festival together.
As a guard, it was Patrick’s job to preserve public order around town. Because of that, it wasn’t rare in the least for him to be out on patrol. And the two had grown close enough that when they ran into each other on such occasions, they would exchange greetings.
He had called out to Chloe because Kreuz had been growing less and less safe.
Thanks to the absolute vigilance of the guards and the leadership of the adventurers, Kreuz was foremost in terms of public order for Laband, but even so, it was hard to call it “safe” compared to how things were in times of peace. And so, it was plenty possible that a young woman walking around all on her own and looking helpless could end up getting wrapped up in some sort of trouble.
“Yeah... It’s alright, I’ll be fine.”
If she were her usual determined self, that statement would have sounded persuasive even without anything to back it up. But at the time, there wasn’t even a hint of her usual unjustified level of confidence. The smile on her face seemed somehow empty and pitiful.
“If it’s just on your way home, then I’ll walk you back.”
“I told you, I’m fine...”
“I was in the middle of delivering orders to the unit in that part of town, anyway,” Patrick said with a smile, taking care not to directly argue with her claim.
Thinking back on it, Chloe figured that was when her perception of him started to shift, bit by bit.
It was also Patrick’s advice that lead to the creation of a symbol for the adventurers and those with similar feelings to fixate on.
“If you’ve never done it before, then you can just bring it up with someone capable of such things. After all, people who can gather everyone together are important, too. Of course, it would be nice if you counted me among your connections, too...”
When they met in the Backstreet Bakery while he was buying a mountain of snacks for his squad and she was grabbing lunch, he mentioned that to her and provided her with a task to handle.
She had been nothing but depressed, but now there was something she could contribute with, too. That made her happier than anything else.
Chloe drew the rough design work herself, but since she wasn’t a specialist, it was ultimately a bit shabby-looking. As someone who had worked for a long time in the clothing industry, she couldn’t bring herself to present such amateurish work to the world.
It was then that Patrick got involved, and she received advice from an expert who had regular dealings with the guards. This expert in crests and the like adjusted the Fairy Princess design, providing an additional level of polish.
As for the connections needed to actually construct the flag, Chloe herself already had them. As a tailor, she had ties to both workshops that specialized in delicate dying, as well as those well known for their complex, yet sturdy, weaves.
After creating a prototype, she talked to the adventurers of the Ocelot and established a budget. She ended up with far more money and orders than she’d expected, and she couldn’t possibly sew all the flags on her own, so it turned into a big job spanning numerous workshops.
A darkness had fallen over Kreuz’s crafting district, but this special order invigorated the fabric workshops. It was a job which would earn them the gratitude of a great many people, and it also really felt like something worth doing.
When Chloe raised the finished Fairy Princess flag high, Patrick was by her side.
As she raised the flag as if to say, “We’re here looking for you, so hurry up and realize that!” Chloe looked up at the flag and felt a swell of powerful emotions within her.
In the same manner, the distance between her and Patrick gradually shrank over time. Before she knew it, the youth who was once a mere acquaintance had become something far more than that.
That was why Chloe had been unable to bring herself to talk in detail with Latina about Patrick. After all, doing so meant telling her friend the details about how helpless she felt back then, and how difficult it was.
She had already told Latina what she needed to, so she had no intention of tediously dragging things out. After all, everything was over and done with. Chloe was a decisive person, so she got angry, was apologized to, and accepted that. She was entirely satisfied with that.
Really, she was just pleased to have her friend back.
Besides, above all else, it was just too awkward. She felt embarrassed, in other words.
Because she was talking to someone who had known her since childhood, the idea of revealing such uncharacteristically girlish feelings was so embarrassing she felt like she would faint.
And so, Chloe had reported the matter to her friend, hiding her true feelings behind a joke.
Chloe couldn’t help but feel relieved, seeing how Latina didn’t seem to notice the agony she was feeling inside.
“You’re getting married...”
“Will you attend the ceremony?”
“Of course. But still... I thought that I was going to be first...” she muttered, a bit dumbfounded somehow, but then she shot her best friend a smile. “It feels strange somehow, me telling you ‘I wish you happiness’...”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly decide on something like this with the intention of becoming unhappy.”
“It’s just an odd feeling, like somebody’s stealing you away.”
“Considering how you go on and on about your own romance, I don’t want to hear that from you...”
They both broke out laughing in tandem, realizing just how true that was.
“What sort of person is your fiance?”
“You may have met him once before.”
“Really?”
Seeing Latina tilt her head in thought, as nobody was coming to mind, Chloe laughed in amusement.
Meanwhile, around that time...
“Chloe and I are going to get married,” Patrick suddenly informed Rudolph when the two were on break, only for the latter to spit out the cold water he had been drinking in surprise.
“Gross...” Patrick said, furrowing his brows.
“You... Huh? Are you serious?” Rudolph asked with a grimace.
He had overheard for a while now that his colleague was getting closer to his childhood friend, but to be honest, he thought it had just been crazy talk. Thanks to the strange pecking order that he’d been conditioned to see things with as a child, he frankly couldn’t even imagine someone having romantic feelings towards her.
“You know, some folks say marriage is where a life goes to die...”
“I’ll tell Chloe that’s how you congratulated us,” Patrick responded with a refreshing smile.
“Sorry. Like, seriously. Please forgive me...”
The way he immediately crumbled and started apologizing showed just what sort of relationship Rudolph had with his childhood friend.
And he seemed to have a fine relationship with his colleague, too.
†
Though it was a wedding, it wasn’t as if commoners could afford such luxury as wedding dresses. The ability to order an impractical outfit of the sort that you would only wear once in a lifetime was limited solely to nobles and the rich.
For common folk, they simply wore the best clothes they owned, and then a ceremony was held at the temple of Quirmizi, the god who governed not only the earth and harvest, but also marriage. Kreuz was rather strict when it came to public records, too, so it was also customary to present documentation to the lord’s manor at the same time.
Once you received the god’s blessing and finished the proper procedures at the manor, you announced the matter more publicly. Normally, folks did that by holding a banquet and inviting people from their neighborhood. The custom had the additional benefit of introducing the couple to their neighbors, to help make their future relations easier.
As a commoner, Chloe of course had no p
lans of ordering a wedding dress and holding an elaborate banquet. However, she did work as a tailor. And her pride as a craftswoman wouldn’t allow her to take this once in a lifetime event with only halfhearted ambition.
Accordingly, Chloe decided to prepare a new outfit from scratch.
“You guards already have uniforms, so fortunately that means I only need to prepare one for myself, which is a big help.”
Fittingly, though, she still kept a strict budget. After a great deal of deliberation, she decided on a fabric that compromised on neither price nor weave from amongst a great number of samples. And the fact that the dying process went just as she had planned was exceptionally encouraging.
As she sat beside her friend who was hurriedly moving along her needle, Latina looked at the design sheet and the incomplete outfit and tilted her head.
“I think that some sort of large accessory would look nice here...”
“It just wasn’t in the budget.”
“Right... And it would be too expensive for me to give it to you as a gift, to congratulate you...”
“Yeah, if you went that far, I’d probably end up getting mad.”
While looking at her friend, who had reacted just as expected with her commoner’s money sense, Latina wagged her index finger back and forth looking troubled.
“But you know, you could still borrow one. I’ll get permission, so how about it?”
“I can’t say I’m not interested, but... I mean, I’d be terrified of something happening to it...”
“I can keep an eye on it in the meantime.”
That proposal had Chloe seriously excited.
Naturally, she had an interest in the sort of expensive jewelry that would normally be out of her grasp with her financial standing. Plus there was the fact that Latina was assuredly thinking of borrowing something from Dale’s home village of Tislow.
Chrysos, who had been staying in Kreuz until just a few days ago, ruled over the nation of Vassilios, which was blessed with all sorts of abundant ores underneath the ground. And Tislow was a foremost producer of magical devices, which used such materials. Plus there was that tough old Granny Wendelgard and her son Randolph. A plan to combine the resources of that neighboring country with Dale’s own personal connections was only natural.
Jewelry-styled decorative magical devices that served as exemplars of Tislow’s specialty were delivered to Kreuz using a special postal service. Countless such goods had been sent to present Chrysos as examples, and to be gifted to her depending on the circumstances.
By the way, Chrysos had a very strong interest in the chic goods produced with Tislow’s techniques for processing jewels. She seemed very interested in taking some home with her, in the hopes of cultivating such an industry in her own country.
However, Tislow was Dale’s home village. That was the one point of which Chrysos disapproved. If she accepted such expensive gifts, then it would be like a favor owed to Dale, which she found deeply unpleasant.
Dale succeeded in convincing Chrysos to accept them, though, by pointing out that Latina had the same sort of jewelry. Apparently her desire to match readily surpassed her dislike of Dale.
The jewelry that hadn’t been presented to Chrysos was currently still in Kreuz.
With that said, it would be far too careless to just casually leave them sitting around in the attic of the Ocelot. And so instead they were being stored at the bank in the Azraq temple, but Latina figured she could get permission if she wrote a letter to Granny Wen in Tislow explaining her circumstances.
Granny Wen doted on Latina just like Dale did, but at the same time, she trusted Latina enough to know such requests would not be made lightly. And though Latina could get immediate permission if she sought it from Dale rather than Granny Wen, she was honest enough not to try something like that.
“What color gem would be good...? Maybe something similar to that of your outfit...?”
“Are we really going to be able to choose all that?”
“Well, there aren’t a ton, but they were intended as samples to begin with, so there’s a pretty diverse selection.”
“Then what about an opposing color? I mean, if I’m getting the chance, that would stand out more...”
“Would it be better to have a simple design, or one with lots of ornamentation?”
They passed the time engrossed in their discussion, the outfit in progress laid out before them.
Latina was enraptured by the outfit her best friend had selected for her big day, but that was only natural. She was, after all, a girl of the age to be interested in fashion.
The question of what she would wear to the wedding was of utmost importance, too.
“Hmm...”
Latina was digging through her box of clothing in the Ocelot’s attic. She had grabbed her best outfits and was laying them out.
“It would be good to have a different color from Chloe... This one’s cute and I really like it, but it’s not the right season...”
“If you’re worrying that much about it, are you going out somewhere?” Dale asked, tilting his head as he looked at Latina. He wasn’t planning to go out, so he honestly had no idea what she was so worried about.
“Um, Chloe’s getting married.”
“Is that so?”
Dale was acquainted with Latina’s best friend, as she occasionally came to visit at the Ocelot.
“And so, I was wondering what I should wear...”
“You’d look cute in anything, Latina.”
Dale’s attention was, of course, entirely lavished on Latina rather than what she was doing.
“What should I do with my hair...? Should I buy a new accessory...?”
Latina brought one hand up to her head, and was lost in thought.
Ribbons were just too childish. Considering her hair color, silver accessories may bring things together nicely. No wait, maybe she should splurge a bit on gold, to have something truly brilliant. Her thoughts just kept on racing through her head.
“Should I buy you something?” Dale asked, but Latina just said, “No,” with a bit of a troubled frown.
“I get the feeling that you would go overboard and buy me something more suited for an evening party, Dale...”
“Wouldn’t you rather have something high quality than something cheap?”
“I wouldn’t really wear it often enough to get something like that...”
Dale tilted his head. He had a very selective sense of aesthetics, due to being raised in a town foremost among jewelry producers in Laband, and his perception of value was also completely apart from that of a common man. Plus his “normal” encounters with such jewelry involved high society and nobility, which left him a bit biased.
With her commoner’s mindset, Latina certainly wouldn’t be able to bring herself to regularly wear the sort of accessory Dale would select, and in fact would end up immediately storing it in the bank at the temple of Azraq.
She could tell that much from how splendid the bracelet he had given her for their engagement was.
“Still, that girl’s getting married, huh...?”
He may have had a fiancee the same age in the form of Latina, but it still blindsided him to hear such news about a girl he had known since she was a child.
“Should I... perform the ceremony?” Dale asked, wanting to offer his blessing.
“Wah?” Latina reacted, looking clearly confused with a complex expression on her face. “Dale? But why?”
“Why...? I mean, the wedding will be at the temple of Quirmizi, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So for a normal citizen’s ceremony, they’ll just assign a regular priest, yeah?”
“Isn’t that plenty, though?”
“Well yeah, I guess. But... I’m considered a high ranking priest. So wouldn’t having me do it make things more auspicious?”
“Wha?” she let slip again, which was a habit when she didn’t understand something. It was like a question mark
for her, and just happened reflexively.
While hesitating a bit due to her reaction, Dale went ahead and explained his skills.
“I have divine protection from Azraq too, but... My divine protection from Quirmizi is of a high enough rank to perform religious ceremonies, and I’ve had training as a priest.”
A special trait of those known as heroes was that they possessed divine protection from multiple gods. On top of that, Dale’s home village of Tislow was considered a holy ground of Quirmizi’s, having received great favor from that god.
There were a number of aspects to his status as a hero that Dale wasn’t fond of, so he didn’t spread it around that he possessed such divine protection. But on the other hand, the title of “hero” ultimately belonged to an ability, not a job. And so officially, Dale’s occupation was that of a high ranking Quirmizi priest.
That was why Dale had brought up the idea, but Latina still looked troubled.
“It’s like I can’t even imagine how many things you can do, Dale...”
It was a rather strange feeling, being told that by a prodigy like Latina.
“Hmm... I’ll ask Chloe next time I see her.”
“I see.”
Dale seemed to have already lost interest in the wedding itself, and was now looking over the outfits Latina had spread out. Being his usual self, he was thinking that if he only had a bit more notice, he could have put in an order with a tailor for her.
And since Latina knew precisely how Dale was, she’d intentionally waited this long to begin preparing. As someone who enjoyed cleaning up and keeping things tidy, Latina didn’t wish to end up with more outfits than she needed.
The following day, Latina mentioned Dale’s proposal to Chloe.
In one hand, she held a bundle from a confectioner she had discovered just the other day near the high class residences of the western district. She had found it back when her sister was visiting and she was frequently visiting the western district. Normally she wouldn’t purchase anything from such an upper-class establishment, but they sold such brilliantly decorated sweets that would be just perfect for the celebratory banquet for the wedding.
Chloe certainly looked surprised to see Latina show up with such an expensive-looking bundle, but when she heard the surprisingly reasonable cost, she was an entirely different manner of shocked.
