“The dress… looked like it was for a high noble lady, like a princess. Is it really fine for me to wear it at the party?” (Lily)
“It’s fine.” (Welner)
I answered Lily’s question. To be honest, the dress really suited Lily. It had a rather calm decoration, which suited Lily’s appearance.
As expected of Mr. Bierstedt, the dress chosen by the employee he recommended was really good. It was just that he sent me a smile as if expecting something when seeing us off. I should look at the merchants’ proposal later.
I then escorted Lily out of the store. There were times where I would call the carriage right in front of the store, but this time I called the carriage a bit further away from the store because of a particular reason. The coachman was one of the Count House’s people, so leaving the carriage with him should be fine.
As I waited for Lily to get into the carriage first, I turned my attention to the coachman.
“Did anything happen?” (Welner)
“There were two children who came here, so I donated some money to them in the name of the Count House.” (Coachman)
“Okay.” (Welner)
This was actually a code. Two children came here meant two people were tailing us. Saying children instead of adults meant the people who were tailing us were unarmed. Donated coins meant our side had sent people to keep an eye on them. Using the words Count House instead of my name, meant that the people who were tailing us were from another noble family.
In short, the coachman was saying that, ‘There were two unarmed people who were tailing us. They were the vassals of another noble family. We had sent our men to keep an eye on them, so we would know which noble families they came from soon.’
They probably didn’t think they were also being watched by people from our side. Because I left the carriage some distance away from the store, they must have let down their guard.
“I want to show Lily the capital, so make a little detour.” (Welner)
“Understood.” (Coachman)
The driver then adjusted the position of the magic lamp, a signal to tell the 4 guards who were guarding us from the shadows that we would take a different route. The guards would send a mirror signal if there was an emergency so until then, everything should be fine.
Annete was sitting on the coachman’s seat, so I was alone with Lily inside the carriage. I entered after Lily. As I sat in the carriage, Lily seemed to want to ask me something but I pretended to not notice.
“Do you also want to browse some stores on the way?”
“…Yes.”
A store that a girl would enjoy… Hmm…
With that, we started touring the capital. Although I said tour, it wasn’t like we could actually tour the entire capital in just half a day, and plus there were roads that the carriage couldn’t pass through at this hour, so we didn’t manage to tour the entire capital.
“This is all amazing…” (Lily)
“Their works are really sophisticated, right?” (Welner)
We were currently in a jewelry store. I thought girls would like shiny things, so I convinced Lily that we would just do some eye shopping and brought her here.
Still, the jewelry industry of this world was strangely advanced. I wasn’t talking about the rose cut, I was talking about the princess cut and oval cut jewel. Weren’t those two cuts things from the modern era? How did they exist here? Was there magic to cut jewels that made it possible to make those two cuts? Or maybe something like [Jeweler] Skill existed?
First was the maid uniform, now this. Sometimes things of this world were strangely advanced. Let’s stop thinking too much about it. All was well as long as Lily enjoyed her time.
“I should also pick jewelry that matches your dress.” (Welner)
“Um…that…” (Lily)
The dress for Lily had been decided, but the accessories like jewelry were still undecided. I had already put in a request for jewelry that suited Lily’s dress, and they said they would get an expert for me to consult the jewelry designs later.
“That’s why, we need to wait.” (Welner)
“I see…” (Lily)
She looked like a puppy being told to wait in front of food while looking at the jewels in the store. Then, Lily seemed to have noticed that Annete-san was also secretly admiring the jewelry. She and Annete-san made eye contact and laughed together.
“Is this whole building a store?” (Lily)
“Yes.” (Welner)
Lily looked surprised when she saw the five-story store. Although there weren’t that many, several stories building that contained different shops on each floor existed here.
However, since escalators and elevators didn’t exist in this era and the stairs were narrow, it was hard for customers in this type of store to go to the top floor.
It was also difficult to bring the items upstairs, so the top floor usually had light items like some cut fabrics, the first floor was usually for heavy items like pottery, while the third floor had daily use items made from woods like spoons and bowls. Larger items made from wood were usually sold in a specialty store.
While accompanying Lily who was talking with Annete about the items in the stores, I looked out of the window. The windows here didn’t have glass panels so I could see the busy street outside directly.
“Welner-sama?” (Lily)
“Hmm? What?” (Welner)
I turned my attention to Lily because she called me. It turned out, there was nothing that caught her eyes. In the end, I bought her a medium-sized mirror. Because glass was expensive, Lily at first refused, but I convinced her that it was fine.
The store on the fourth floor sold stationery, so I asked Lily if she wanted to buy some, but she said no since the stationery in the mansion was enough for her. Well, the stationery of a noble house was pretty high quality stuff.
Lily seemed to be more interested in the fifth floor that sold cut fabrics. When I asked her what she was going to use the fabric for, she answered that it was to repair her parents’ everyday clothes. I told Lily that I would make an arrangement for her parents’ clothes, so just buy what she wanted to buy.
I had to talk with my mother about clothing arrangements for all the servants, not just Lily’s parents later.
Our next destination was street stalls. I went to one of the stalls and ordered 2 skewers. The owner of the stall looked at me with a grin on his face while his hands were making the skewers skillfully.
“You sure brought a cute girlfriend today.” (The owner)
“Mind your own business! Just hurry up and make our skewers.” (Welner)
Lily looked surprised when I exchanged jokes with the stall owner.
After several minutes, the owner handed me two skewers and I accepted them with a sour smile. I handed one of them to Lily.
