Episode 75
“People are waiting for a new wind to blow.”
“A fresh breeze… … !”
“To do that, we have to go beyond Tiamo and Serge.”
“I see. I don’t know who you are, but it must be hard to do something so enormous.”
My father responded as if he was talking about someone else.
I corrected my father’s thinking.
“Father should do it.”
“What?”
“It goes beyond Tiamo and Serge.”
“how?”
“We have a rough scenario in mind. Combining my father’s skills with Hebron’s strengths, we have come to the conclusion that we should create high-end clothing that focuses on the convenience of the user.”
“Keep talking.”
My father’s gaze changed. He straightened his posture and faced me. It seemed as if he had decided to listen to what I had to say seriously.
“Hebron’s influence is limited to Hebron and the Viscounty of Jayson. It is also sold outside, but it is difficult to get a fair price due to lack of recognition.”
“That’s true. But as time goes by, more and more people will come to appreciate my clothes.”
“It takes too long. And as Hebron’s reputation grows, there will be more forces opposing us. Even the designer Noir, who operates in the Seine Viscounty, is hell-bent on selling his father’s work.”
Designer Noir was Tiamo’s disciple. He may be called a disciple, but all he did was do odd jobs for five years.
That alone was more than enough to achieve success in the provinces.
“I will silence Noir. His sin of insulting the author is great.”
“Hmm! That guy sure has a foul mouth.”
My father tried not to show it, but it seemed like he didn’t mind me taking revenge on his behalf.
“But there are some things that can’t be helped. Noir sells imitations of Tiamo’s work. Fighting him is like fighting Tiamo.”
Noir was a businessman, not a designer. Unfortunately, there were few people around here who knew the difference.
“If you keep saying ‘If you love, like Hebron’ in the play
The common people were content to just wear clothes and go about. Even those who had the means adorned themselves with clothes worth a few silver dollars.
In order for designers to make money, they had to target the nobility and the rich. In particular, the dress worn by the daughters or wives of high-ranking nobles at parties became an important criterion.
“Even so, Viscountess Jailson wore my clothes to the last party. Your mother also attended the party wearing clothes I made.”
This is why my father’s clothes were selling like hotcakes in Zielson and Hebron.
But growth beyond that was difficult.
“The Duke of Breio has a seventeen-year-old youngest daughter. She will soon marry into the royal family, so we must take action before she enters the palace. After the wedding, she will no longer be the youngest daughter of the Duke, but a member of the royal family.”
“Use your hand? So you mean to say that you will dress the Duke’s youngest daughter in my clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Huh! Is that possible?”
It was realistically impossible. With Hebron’s fame, it was difficult to even meet the butler of the arrogant Duke of Breio. Since the Duke of Breio did not like ‘grass-eating Hebron’, it was highly likely that he would not even see the shadow of Breio before being promoted to Count.
But I had knowledge that others did not have. It was not knowledge from books, but knowledge gained through experience as a blood relative. It was the history of Ruby de Brayau left behind by Luis de Brayau.
“Tiamo and Serge’s clothes are fancy but uncomfortable.”
“Because beauty requires enduring discomfort.”
“Who made that law?”
“That, that is… … .”
The Kingdom of Zeno valued common sense.
Even if they were not enforced by law, they considered long-standing rules important. There was a strange belief that adhering to them would be protecting Zeno.
“Even if you look fancy, once you take off your clothes, you get hives all over your body. You put on makeup to cover it up, but the strong makeup makes the hives worse, and eventually, even if you receive regular treatment from a priest, you end up with a body that doesn’t get rid of the hives easily.”
“Was it that serious?”
It is not known to the outside world how much Ruby de Breyot suffers from allergies.
It was a top secret known only to the family.
I remembered Ruby’s childhood, when she couldn’t even scratch her itchy body and just cried. I wrapped a thick cloth around her hand to prevent her from scratching with her fingernails. One reason was that cutting her fingernails short was not enough to maintain her beauty.
‘The water spirit was your only joy.’
The water spirit had the power of purification. It used that power to take care of Ruby’s skin, but even this was forbidden at some point. Ruby’s skin was swollen because of the water spirit. Even so, it was a subtle difference, but the Duke of Braio was more concerned about the lack of commercial value than Ruby’s suffering.
‘I hope you live happily.’
I had no complaints about Ruby. No, the memories I had made with Ruby in the short time I had spent with her were engraved in my soul.
“Can you make the best clothes with this fabric? I have researched the measurements to make sure they are as close as possible.”
I used all my knowledge to make a fabric. It was a white cloth without any coloring.
It was soaked in herbs that are good for allergies, and was also post-processed to prevent fluff from growing on the surface of the fabric, which could irritate the skin.
My father’s eyebrows furrowed. It was difficult to dye compared to the best fabrics used by designers, and the material was so soft that it was difficult to cut it into the desired shape.
“I will try my best.”
“Oh, and Miss Ruby hates wearing pink.”
“What? Pink is the symbol of Ruby Yang… … .”
“I hate it. My favorite color is blue. It’s a clear blue like the sky.”
This was also a secret known only to the family.
And it was a fact that only I knew. Others pretended not to know even after hearing Ruby’s words.
“Okay, then let’s try to make it like that.”
My father made two sets of dressing gowns over the course of five days and sent them to the Duke of Breyot.
The Serpens upper house was delivered directly and made certain to be delivered to Ruby de Breyot’s maid.
On the afternoon of the eighth day, my father came running into my office with a confused look on his face.
“Oh, my son!”
I looked at my father’s expression. I thought something big had happened, but my father’s face was unable to hide his smile. The corners of his mouth kept going up.
“Do you like it?”
——————
faqwiki.us
Join our Discord for new chapter updates!
https://discord.com/invite/xr7SxG5T6V
——————
“Yes! He really likes them! He wants me to make ten more!”
“You can do it, right?”
“Ah! I have to do this no matter what!”
Since my father made Ruby’s clothes, Dina and I also had blue clothes. I wasn’t very interested in fashion anyway, and my younger sister Dina was at an age where she had difficulty distinguishing colors, let alone expressing herself.
After my father left the office, I went to the top of the serpentine.
“You may use prepared propaganda slogans.”
“Yes, your highness.”
The top of the serpent flared his nostrils.
It smelled like money.
A huge wooden sign was erected in the middle of the downtown area, and letters were written on it in ornate script and colors.
-Hebron, a masterpiece chosen by the Duke of Breo.
Immediately after, the Hebron store was in chaos. Even though they tripled the prices of the clothes, all the clothes in the store sold out and they had to close early.
It would take at least a year just to process the custom-made clothing orders that came in for my father.
Designer Noir also kept his mouth shut. He was not a man with the courage to curse Hebron, which had Breyo’s name entangled with.
Even if that weren’t the case, it would have been a painful reminder of how reckless it was to insult the Count’s father around the Hebron estate. I didn’t do anything about it. I just placed a few assassins who would watch over you as you passed through dark alleys or on the streets at night, or when you were sleeping in your house, spitting out murderous intent.
Due to this influence, Noir, whose energy was drained, became a regular customer of the Hebron council.
‘I only sold twelve sets of indoor clothes, but I didn’t lie. If Ruby continues to buy Hebron’s clothes after she gets married, then it will become ‘Hebron, a masterpiece chosen by the royal family.’
* * *
Unprecedented peace has come to Hebron.
There had been no sign of the branded monster in the vicinity for nearly two months. Only one had appeared in a distant area, which Canaan and I had to defeat.
In his spare time, he would stay in the castle, take care of Dina, or train with his soldiers.
And I still had time to spare. Since I slept less at night than other people, I spent the early morning wandering around the estate or going into Amy’s office to spend time.
“I’m worried.”
“me too.”
“I’m worried because I have too much money.”
“me too!”
Amy scratched her head. Money was pouring in from the ‘Hebron’ store that was operating in Hebron and Zielson. The gold coins that her father personally received were enough to make her eyes roll back.
“Where should I spend this money so that it will be known that it was well spent?”
“Do you really have to spend that money? You can just keep it and use it for something good later. And is that money yours? It’s also your father’s money. Wouldn’t it be good to leave it for your father’s old age? Or maybe buy some land nearby.”
I shook my head. Money isn’t something to be kept, but rather something to be thought about, and it was more efficient to take territory by force than to buy it with money.
“I told you, delegate your work to your subordinates. When will you be able to hand over your work to your successor?”
“… … We are setting up a system to prevent the careless leaking of confidential information, and even if it is leaked, we will distribute access to the information so that we can immediately find out who did it.”
“You’ve had a hard time.”
“It’s hard. So, how about reducing the workload?”
I ignored Amy’s words. She was struggling to buy a house. If she had a few trustworthy people around her, she wouldn’t have had to struggle so much.
“While you’re at it, let’s do this too. You don’t have to do this yourself.”
I opened a notebook titled “For the Development of Hebron.” It contained all sorts of fantasies that Amy and I had come up with. Some of them seemed impossible to achieve even if Zeno were king, but I placed the possible ones in the first half.
I looked into the ‘Infant Mortality Reduction Plan’, which included a plan to directly manage midwives in the Hebron territory.
“… … I will instruct Ryoma.”
Ryoma was a talented person from the Royal Academy. He was an administrative expert, and he was the one that Amy trusted the most.
The main idea was to pay a small monthly salary to midwives in the Hebron estate, so that they could live a stable life, and in return, they would do their best to help mothers give birth.
However, only those who had completed a certain level of education could become official midwives in Hebron.
“Before the rumor gets out, call in the midwives from other regions. Gather the midwives known for their skills only in Hebron.”
“Yes, my lord.”
And after a while, a strange phenomenon occurred where the midwives in the territory surrounding Hebron disappeared without a trace. There was even a rumor that a famous midwife from the capital was coming to Hebron.
