By the firelight, Boc was carefully mending the holes in Kiro’s clothes.
His movements were slow and clumsy, but every stitch carried a kind of devotion.
The other two founders of this “fashion empire,” Kiro and Patches, were huddled together, pointing at a mess of charcoal scribbles on a piece of parchment.
“No, no, no.”
Kiro shook her head hard and pointed at a twisted lump of lines on the drawing.
“Here. It needs to be fitted at the waist! Understand? Fitted! That’s how you show off the figure! You drew it like a barrel. Who’s going to buy that?”
“Yes, yes, Miss Kiro is absolutely right.”
Patches nodded repeatedly, picked up the charcoal, and added a few even more twisted lines beside that “barrel.”
“How about this? It highlights that… curve beauty you mentioned, while still maintaining dignity.”
“Hmm… It still feels like something is missing.”
Kiro rubbed her chin and sank into deep thought.
Loran quietly watched all of this.
An opportunist who lived by trickery and scams.
A source of chaos who treated overturning the world as entertainment.
And an insecure tailor who had only just crawled out of the swamp of self-loathing.
Because of one absurd idea, these three had formed a so-called “business organization.”
“Hey, Loran.”
Kiro ran over with the parchment in hand.
“Take a look. Our newest design. What do you think? Pretty impactful, right?”
Loran glanced at the drawing.
He fell silent for a moment.
“…Mm. It has a kind of… abstract beauty.”
“Right? That’s what I said!”
Kiro completely failed to hear the perfunctoriness in his words and proudly put the design away.
“This is our brand’s first main product. I’ve already thought of the name. It’ll be called The Queen’s New Clothes!”
“…”
The thin morning mist had not yet fully dispersed.
The campfire had long gone out, leaving only a pile of ashes that still held some warmth.
“…It’s done.”
A timid voice broke the silence.
Loran opened his eyes and saw Boc standing in front of him.
At this moment, his face no longer carried that usual insecurity and panic.
Instead, it was filled with a complicated mix of nervousness, exhaustion, and tremendous accomplishment.
In his hands, he held a neatly folded piece of clothing.
“It’s done?”
A lazy voice came from the side.
Kiro sat up with a yawn.
She rubbed her sleepy eyes, and her gaze was immediately drawn to the clothing in Boc’s hands.
Patches also poked his bald head out from behind a pile of miscellaneous items, his tiny eyes shining.
Boc did not speak.
He simply used trembling hands to slowly unfold the clothing.
It was a robe.
A robe based on Fia’s robe, yet completely different.
Boc had not found any black gauze fabric equal to Fia’s robe.
What he used was coarse linen stripped from Stormveil soldiers.
It carried a deep blue color, like the waters of Liurnia of the Lakes at midnight.
The surface of the fabric had been treated in some way. It no longer felt rough to the touch, but instead had a resilient texture with a fine grain.
The cut of the robe was also very different from Fia’s, which emphasized mystery and solemnity.
Boc seemed to have completely failed to grasp the essence of Kiro’s “fitted waist.”
The robe was almost straight from top to bottom, with no obvious waistline.
But around the cuffs and hem, he had used silver thread from who knew where to embroider circles of patterns resembling magic formations.
Those silver threads were not flashy.
However, under the morning light, they reflected specks of starlight, like broken diamonds scattered across the night sky.
The finishing touch was the collar.
Using a small piece of leather taken from some knight’s armor, Boc had made a small standing collar.
This added a touch of warrior-like firmness and sharpness to the robe.
It was not gorgeous.
Nor was it seductive.
But it had a unique beauty that mixed the atmosphere of a scholar with the style of a warrior.
“Wow…”
Kiro was the first to let out a sound of admiration.
She reached out and carefully touched the robe.
“This… you made this?”
She looked at Boc.
For the first time, there was no condescension in her eyes.
Boc nodded hard, his face flushed red from excitement.
“I… I followed the design Miss Kiro and Mr. Patches drew… and added some… some ideas of my own…”
“I burned Stormhawk feathers into ash and mixed them with a kind of glowing moss to dye the fabric…”
“The silver threads were removed from a Banished Knight’s cloak…”
“The collar came from a Godrick soldier’s leather armor…”
He explained incoherently, his voice trembling from excessive excitement.
Loran quietly looked at the robe.
He saw the status panel above Boc’s head changing violently.
[Name: Boc]
[Identity: Chief Fashion Designer Self-Appointed]
[Affection: +50 toward Kiro]
[Status: Extremely Excited / Recognized / Realizing His Value]
“A talent!”
Patches slapped his thigh and rushed over.
He grabbed the robe, held it before his eyes, and turned it over again and again, clicking his tongue in wonder.
“Brother Boc! No, Master Boc! This skill of yours is incredible! This isn’t clothing. This is art! This is runes!”
He turned his head and looked at Kiro, his eyes shining with golden light.
“Miss Kiro! Our empire has hope! With this robe alone, we can open the market!”
“No, we don’t even need to sell it!”
“We’ll hang it up and say this is the first prototype of The Queen’s New Clothes. Not for sale! We’ll use it specifically to whet the appetite of those nobles!”
“Right, right, right!”
Kiro also nodded excitedly.
“Then we set up preorders! Make them pay deposits first! We’ll say the production period is long, the materials are rare, and no one knows when the next batch will be ready!”
“Brilliant! Truly brilliant!”
The two of them huddled together again and began a new round of commercial conspiracy.
Around that newly made robe, Patches and Kiro launched into an hour-long, intense discussion about “brand positioning” and “target customers.”
“All right! I’ve decided!”
Kiro suddenly stood up.
She waved her hand, interrupting Patches’ endless speech on “Ten Strategies for Hunger Marketing.”
“Loran!”
She announced, “We’ll do as you said. We’re going to Raya Lucaria!”
Loran was somewhat surprised.
“But,” Kiro’s face showed the feverish excitement of a merchant discovering a new blue ocean, “we’re not going there to learn some dumb magic.”
She shook the robe open in the air like a flag.
“We’re going to promote this outfit inside the academy!”
Patches’ eyes lit up instantly.
“Brilliant! Truly brilliant, Miss Kiro!”
He slapped his thigh and stood up in excitement.
“How did I not think of that? The magic academy… that place gathers the richest, vainest, and most repressed people in all the Lands Between!”
“On the surface, one by one, they act all proper and talk about exploring the mysteries of the stars. But behind closed doors, who knows how badly they want to dress themselves up in something fancy and attract the attention of other sorcerers at a ball?”
“Exactly!”
Kiro was delighted by his words.
She imagined those sorcerers wearing ridiculous glintstone headpieces fighting each other over one piece of The Queen’s New Clothes, and the smile at the corner of her mouth deepened.
“That place will be the first base of our fashion empire!”
Loran looked at the two of them and could not say a single word.
His original plan had been to go to the academy in search of stronger sorcery and knowledge, in preparation for Sellen’s questline.
But now, this serious academic expedition had been forcibly twisted into an absurd…
Fashion show.
“Th-then… what about me?”
A timid voice came from the side.
Boc held his sewing kit, looking up at Kiro with both expectation and fear.
Kiro walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
“You, Boc, are of course coming with us too!”
“You are our chief designer! You need to see with your own eyes what kinds of styles and colors those sorcerers like! You need to gather inspiration! Prepare for our next season’s products!”
“I… I can go too?”
Boc was overwhelmed by the unexpected favor, so excited that he could barely speak properly.
“Of course!”
Patches also leaned over, put an arm around Boc’s shoulders, and spoke in an earnest tone.
“Master Boc, you are the soul of our empire! Without you, there would be no great undertaking for us! Come, let’s go together! Let those self-important sorcerers see what true fashion really is!”
Roderika quietly sat beside Loran.
Watching the three people in front of her, who seemed as if they had been injected with chicken blood, confusion was written all over her face.
She gently tugged at Loran’s sleeve.
“Mr. Loran… are we… really going there… to sell clothes?”
Loran turned his head.
He looked at her clear, bewildered eyes.
Then he looked at the three teammates who had already begun discussing “how to set up a stall in front of the academy library.”
He took a deep breath.
“…Yes.”
He answered.
“It seems that way.”