Chapter 47
The day after she ate fried pies with Monica, Lana Collet arrived at the trading company's office and felt a slight wave of dizziness when she saw Clifford's clothes.
"Good morning, Lana."
"Good morning, Cliff... Hey, what's with that outfittttt..."
Lana pressed one hand to her forehead, then looked at Clifford again with steely resolve.
Clifford was wearing a shirt, vest, and scarf... but the colors and patterns were awful.
He had paired a floral-patterned shirt with a checkered vest and trousers, then added a garish red scarf covered in bright green polka dots.
"W-why is every single thing patterned!? And where did you even find that migraine-inducing scarf!?"
"It was the smallest table mat in the kitchen."
"It's not even a scarf!"
Lana clutched her head and let out a shrill scream.
Lately, Clifford had been wearing relatively easy-to-coordinate clothes that Lana had chosen for him, so why had he suddenly embarked on such a wild fashion adventure?
"Anyway, take off that table mat! I'm pretty sure we have some shirts in stock at the warehouse. Change into one of those. If you wear a plain shirt, the vest and trousers should be okay as they are. Well, more or less!"
"We're out of plain white shirts. The only ones we have are pink."
"Nooooo! Pink does not work with that vest, pink does not work! More importantly, that particular pink isn't a shade that suits you, Cliff!"
"I don't mind staying like this."
"I mind! How am I supposed to relax with someone wearing such eye-searing clothes beside me!? I'm going to the shop nearby to buy you a white shirt!"
True to her word, Lana rushed to a tailor's shop first thing in the morning, bought a plain white shirt, and thrust it at Clifford. By then, she had wasted nearly an hour of her precious morning.
"Oh, honestly..." Lana sighed as she sat down, and Clifford, now changed into the shirt, placed an envelope in front of her.
"What's this?"
"A reply from Mr. Pollock."
Pollock was the embroiderer working on the mage's robe Lana was currently putting so much effort into developing.
He had originally been an artisan employed by Lana's father's Collet Trading Company, but Lana had used her father's connections to commission Pollock to embroider the robe.
Pollock was a highly skilled embroiderer. More importantly, artisans capable of imbuing magic formulas through embroidery were exceedingly rare.
Lana opened the envelope, her face tense with nerves.
The robe, whose unveiling was fast approaching, already had its basic form completed.
All that remained was the embroidery, but in truth, Lana and Pollock had been at odds over the embroidery design.
The embroidery designs Lana had proposed had already been rejected nine times.
What would Mr. Pollock's response to the momentous tenth proposal be...? With a tense expression, Lana pulled the design sheet from the envelope.
Written in huge letters across the embroidery design Lana had drawn with painstaking effort were the words:
──Insufficient study. Start over.
"Aaargh, come on!!"
Slamming both palms onto the table, Lana glared at Pollock's reply.
That stubborn embroiderer was always like this. He never said what was wrong, merely threw the words "insufficient study" at Lana.
A mage's robe with special embroidery was a type of magic tool.
Although Lana's knowledge of magic tools was shallow, she had desperately studied the fundamentals of magic tools ever since the preparation period before she founded the trading company.
Monica had checked the magic formulas, so there shouldn't be any mistakes.
That meant the problem had to lie elsewhere.
"With this amount of gold thread, I should be able to imbue the necessary magic formulas sufficiently... So what exactly is wrong with it...? The position of the embroidery? Its length?"
Pollock was a fast worker and had several apprentices, so ten days should be enough to finish the embroidery.
However, fewer than two weeks remained until the unveiling.
If Pollock did not approve her next submission, the robe would almost certainly not be ready in time for the unveiling.
Lana entrusted her other miscellaneous tasks to Cliff and focused on the design. Embroidery designs were time-consuming enough on their own, but incorporating magic formulas imposed even more restrictions.
The process of imbuing a material with a magic formula was called enchantment, but enchantment was a terrible fit for fabric.
Precious metals, on the other hand, were ideally suited to it. That was why gold and silver thread wrapped in gold or silver leaf was enchanted.
But the amount of gold leaf used in gold thread was minuscule. The more complex the magic formula being imbued, the more gold thread was required.
In extreme cases, it would be easier simply to sew on a gemstone. Even a somewhat poor-quality gemstone could have a fair amount of magic formulas imbued in it.
(But then you might as well just attach a magic-tool brooch afterward, wouldn't you...?)
Clothing and ornaments that required time and effort were, in themselves, symbols of status.
Imbuing magic formulas using embroidery thread alone was the mark of a true connoisseur.
If she wanted to win over the high-end mages who were the target market for this product, she absolutely could not compromise on using embroidery alone to imbue the magic formulas.
"Let's see... The length of gold thread needed to imbue this magic formula is..."
Lana sketched out several new designs, then clicked the beads of her abacus while referring to the formula Monica had taught her.
She spent the time relentlessly revising the designs and calculating the amount of embroidery thread required, and before she knew it, noon had arrived.
The design was almost complete. Once it was finished, she would need to deliver it to Mr. Pollock immediately.
(At this rate, I won't make it to my meeting with Monica...)
As Lana glared at the clock, Clifford finished his morning's work and said while closing the lid of the inkpot,
"I could give Monica a message—tell her you won't be able to come today."
"...Ugh, could you? Oh, you don't know what Monica looks like, do you? She has light-brown hair and brownish eyes..."
After Lana described Monica's appearance, Clifford answered simply, "Got it," and left the office.
Feeling sorry for Monica, Lana worked her quill frantically.
(Honestly! If Cliff had given me these documents a little earlier, I might have had more time! ...And oh, that's right—I still haven't asked Monica about having Bartholomew-san serve as the model!)
She would need to adjust the robe's length and other details to suit the model. Somehow, she had to find the time to consult Monica today.
She wanted Monica to introduce her to Mr. Bartholomew Alexander, the black-haired, golden-eyed young man.
＊ ＊ ＊
Monica had left home earlier than usual because she was so excited. After taking a slight detour as part of her walk, she headed for the fish restaurant where she and Lana had arranged to meet.
She had intended to kill a little time, but it was still too early for their meeting, and Lana was nowhere to be seen in front of the restaurant.
Instead, an unfamiliar man was standing there.
He was a tall man with long black hair tied at the nape of his neck. His large, thick glasses covered half his face, making his features difficult to discern, but he appeared to be in his early twenties.
Monica was uncomfortable around tall men, so she lowered her gaze to avoid making eye contact. The man strode toward her.
She had assumed he would simply walk past her, but the man stopped in front of Monica.
"Are you Monica?"
"...Huh?"
Monica looked up at the man in bewilderment.
The lenses of the glasses worn by the man looking down at Monica glinted ominously in the backlight.
"I'm Clifford Anderson, secretary to the president of Flux Trading Company."
Flux Trading Company was the name of the trading company Lana had recently founded.
Since Lana's father already operated a Sazandoll branch of the Collet Trading Company, Lana had chosen a different name for her own company instead of using "Collet."
Flux Trading Company received financial support from Lana's father, but it was a separate entity from the Collet Trading Company.
(...Um, so this man is... Lana's secretary?)
If Lana's secretary had come to the place where Monica was supposed to meet Lana, did that mean something had happened to her?
As Monica grew anxious, the man who had introduced himself as Clifford said flatly,
"I want to make a deal with you."
"...A deal?"
Clifford took a gold coin from his pocket and held it out before Monica's bewildered face.
"Sell me the time you spend with Lana. Specifically, I want her all to myself for one month."
It took Monica a considerable amount of time to understand what he had said.
Even after she understood his meaning, Monica had no idea how to respond, and she opened and closed her mouth helplessly.
"Um, well... why would you want to do that?"
"Why? I already told you the reason. I want Lana all to myself. So don't see her for one month."
"Um, does Lana know about this...?"
"Of course not. This amount includes hush money."
As he spoke, Clifford forcibly tried to press the gold coin into Monica's hand.
Monica frantically swatted Clifford's hand away.
"N-no... I don't want it..."
Monica hid both hands behind her back.
In response to Monica's clear refusal to accept the gold coin, Clifford did not change his expression in the slightest. Instead, he took a second coin from his pocket.
"You're greedy. Fine, two gold coins."
"N-no matter how much you offer, I don't want it...!"
"That's a problem. I can't have Lana all to myself."
"I-I have a problem with that, too!"
Monica was easily pressured, and whenever someone insisted in a forceful tone, she had a bad habit of nodding along before she knew it. That was how, two years ago, a fellow student had pressured her into accepting a top-secret mission.
But this time, Monica absolutely could not nod.
"I don't want to stop seeing Lana..."
"Three gold coins."
Clifford took out a third gold coin and held it out to Monica.
Monica firmly suppressed the urge to lower her head and stared straight at Clifford.
"P-please go home... I absolutely won't accept that money."
Clifford's expression did not change at all, to an almost frightening degree.
He returned the three gold coins to his pocket, then held out a large gold coin—the sort of thing rarely seen in a transaction between private individuals.
"One large gold coin."
"I don't want it!"
Just as Monica shouted in an unusually forceful tone, she heard footsteps behind her.
"Monica!"
Lana came running toward them, looking frantic.
When Lana saw Monica's tearful expression, she shot Clifford a fierce glare.
"Hey, Cliff! What did you say to Monica!?"
"Nothing. I merely offered her a personal deal."
Lana gave Clifford a suspicious look at his utterly matter-of-fact answer, but quickly turned back to Monica.
The moment Monica saw Lana's face, the tension left her, and she nearly started crying.
Reassuring her, Lana spoke in a gentle voice.
"Monica, Cliff said something weird to you, didn't he? You can pretty much ignore everything Cliff says, okay?"
"Lana should show me more respect."
Lana ignored Clifford as he firmly asserted this from behind her.
"Cliff is... a little mean-spirited, and he has a bad habit of trying to solve everything with money, but..."
"That's true of you, too."
Lana's cheek twitched.
"...I was going to say, 'He's not a bad person,' but never mind."
Even when Lana glared daggers at him, Clifford remained completely unfazed.
Whether Monica was crying or Lana was angry, Clifford spoke with an unflappable air that seemed to say none of it mattered to him.
"More importantly, Lana. Weren't you too busy with work to come here? I thought I came all this way to tell Monica that."
"That's true, but... I had something I absolutely had to ask Monica, so I hurried to finish the design proposal!"
"You wanted to ask me something?"
As she spoke, Monica thought about it.
A little while ago, Lana had asked Monica to teach her how to calculate the amount of magic power that could be imbued when using gold thread for embroidery.
(She just mentioned a "design proposal"... It must be related to that, right?)
If Monica could help Lana in her area of expertise, she had no reason to refuse.
Before Monica could say, "Ask me anything," Lana opened her mouth.
"I want you to introduce me to Bartholomew Alexander-san!"
The name was so unexpected that Monica's thoughts ground to a halt.
"...Lana, do you mean the protagonist of an adventure novel?"
At Monica's halting words, Lana laughed and shook her head. "No, no."
"You know, the tall, black-haired man who was looking after your house!"
There was only one person—no, one creature—who had been looking after Monica's house and called himself Bartholomew Alexander.
Worgan's black dragon, currently deep in hibernation.
(Nerooooooooo!? Why!? Why does Lana know about Nero!?)
As Monica opened and closed her mouth helplessly, Lana leaned forward slightly, clenched a fist, and said,
"He was so wonderful, I want to meet him and talk to him!"
Lana's cheeks were rosy, and her eyes shone dreamily as she said this.
...Just like a maiden in love.