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It has been a long time since the factories equipped with artifacts took over clothing production. Thanks to that, the commoners living in the present day could obtain clothes relatively cheaply.

“Um, Ms. Viola.”
“What is it!”

Naturally, the made-to-order system still remained as luxurious goods, but once the concept of “size” came to be, the made-to-order retailers were overpowered and the mass retailers started to stock up on all kinds of things from cold protectors down to socks, and their customers simply chose what to buy from their selections.

“……What is this?”
“Panties.”

In the women’s changing room of one such store which was slightly large like a locker room. Lucella was having a staring contest with the clothes Viola brought with her.

More specifically, with pure white underwear that was extremely lacking in the cloth area. Or well, it lacked cloth from Lucella’s point of view.

Women’s clothes might have generally been like this, and given his childish body, it may have been perfect too… maybe.

“Lucella, did you really grow outside of the mountain? Aren’t panties normally worn by civilized humans?”
“Err, let’s just say there are very complex circumstances involved here.”

—I was originally a guy! I never had to wear something like this!

Lucella screamed internally from the bottom of his heart.

Lucella removed her pelt and overcoat, becoming stark naked, and then gently put his legs through that unreliable-looking underwear. As it tightly clung to his body, it gave him an unfamiliar ticklish sense.

“Feels mysteriously adhesive.”
“Would you like to try on the bloomers too? They cover more body area, so it may distance you from the no-panty doctrine, but that adhesive sense will decrease.”
“Don’t just brand people as no-panty religious believers.”
“They don’t allow to try on the underwear but I already bought everything so it’s alright. You would be needing several pairs anyway.”

Viola tossed loose, trouser-like underwear at him. The white bloomers that were dainty and soft like flower petals had a small red ribbon as an ornament on the front side. This time it was too big instead.

He went and put it on anyway, but it felt like he was wearing loose trousers over bare skin. Without longer trousers or a skirt, its hems would be visible for sure.

The underwear for the upper part that he was handed over seemed like it was not much different from men’s shirts… but it felt a little loose.

Looking closely the chest part of it was slightly wider. The thin cloth was sewn apart under the chest part and it swelled out like a bag, giving a slight sense of roundness even to Lucella’s body which didn’t require that space.

—What’s with this childish and lame yet cute underwear… I feel like what I’m wearing is worse than not wearing it at all…

Lucella was hit by an indescribable ticklish sense of embarrassment. It was better to just wear a pelt compared to this for sure.

“Are you fine with these clothes? Everyday clothes for girls are generally like this around these parts.”

Viola had left the dressing room while Lucella wasn’t looking and brought clothes. The first was a white dress that could be used as loungewear too.

Above it, he wore a simple long cloth that only had a hole for the head which was fastened with a thin belt at the waist. It had a tartan pattern with a heavy focus on red, and it served as a coat.

Viola had dressed him before he knew it and was sparking her eyes at her creation.

“Good…! This is very good! That wild pelt gave you an aggressive and a kind of pure aura, which was good too, but this is something else! As expected, the innocence that everyday clothes bring out has no equal! This combination should be the best match for you!”

Viola was speaking even more energetically than before now that Wein was not here in this woman-only area.

“It just makes me want to dress you in red, despite the fact that it overlaps with your red hair. So, what does your dear mother think?”
“Err…”

Kafal, who didn’t know anything about clothes, just stood and watched Viola’s work from the side. Seeing the dressed-up Lucella, she opened her eyes wide.

“Lucella… amazing. Look… like… other… humans… but… still… Lucella.”

She gently touched Lucella, brushing his hair that had been combed and put into a slightly better shape. It felt quite ticklish.

“And what about your own impressions?”
“It’s better since it’s lighter than the pelt… but the ground feels unsteady and I can’t calm down…”
“Come, look in the mirror!”

Lucella thought he could tell what he was wearing by looking down, but once Viola dragged him to the mirror, he swallowed his breath.

There stood a beauty decorated brilliantly in red.

Viola’s evaluation was by no means an exaggeration— the girl in the mirror was pure and beautiful.

“………Cute.”

Lucella muttered due to shock but then came back to his senses. Viola was grinning with a shine in her glasses.

“D-D-Don’t misunderstand! I didn’t mean it like that!”
“So it’s not cute? What do you find problematic?”
“I mean, I would sound like a narcissist if I admit it…”
“What’s wrong with calling cute things cute? You have to recognize the reality for what it is.”

Cute things were cute. That was certainly the truth.

However, sensing his own cuteness was an unknown feeling for Lucella. His heart was beating faster than ever before.

“It is… cute?”

Kafal asked while tilting her head.

“Indeed. When you see something lovely that you want to hug and cuddle up to, we call it cute. Well, there are many examples and definitions for this word but…”
“Lucella… cute!”
“Mggh!”

Kafal leaped at Lucella with her chest and tackled, or rather, hugged her tightly. She seemed to have liked Viola’s idea to hug and cuddle her and did just that.

“Cute… cute… cute.”
“Hey, come on, leave it at that…”

But then, Kafal who was drowning in her cuteness suddenly stopped moving as if she came to her senses.

As Lucella wondered what was going on, Kafal, still hugging her, looked at the pelt that he removed and folded.

“Pelt… hate?”
“No, that’s not the case!”

Lucella vigorously shook his head.

—I see, this is what Kafal gave me and what I wore all this time… I guess it would feel bad to toss it away just because I came to the town.

Thanks to the pelt Kafal gave him, Lucella managed to overcome the cold and maintain some self-esteem instead of running around naked in the mountains.

However, it was a different situation now. He couldn’t walk around dressed like that in a human town.

“Look, the people are all dressed like this here… People, I mean, humans, have to dress according to the location. Just wearing a pelt isn’t suitable in public, but it’s fine on the mountain.”
“Okay…”

He thought he explained it enough, but Kafal still remained feeling down.

—Huh? That wasn’t what she was concerned about?

Kafal’s hands felt almost like they were clinging to her.

“Come now, let’s go and have everyone see it! As expected, my glasses were unerring! We have a peerless beauty here who can turn every head on the street in just everyday clothes!”
“What happened to not standing out?!”

Lucella got cold feet but Viola forcibly dragged her out of the dressing room.

The shelves lined up in the interior like that of a general store were displaying not accessories but ready-made goods, and a few customers were right in the middle of inspecting them.

The women who reacted to Viola’s voice and looked toward Lucella lost their words and even the passerby staff member did a trouble-take, while the parent and child who were not sure what to buy instantly decided to go with what Lucella was wearing.

—What do you mean by peerless beauty… What do you mean by peerless beauty?!

Lucella felt so embarrassed his face was burning.

It wasn’t like he blundered or looked unsightly. He opened a door to a new world where he learned of a different type of embarrassment.

“You girls sure are excited there.”
“Oh, Tim.”

The armored man who should have been gone to question Gemel was in the corner of the store and was engaged in a conversation with Wein.

When he saw Lucella’s appearance he gave a superb smile.

“Ohh, that’s really cute. Color me surprised… Huh, what’s wrong?”
“No, well… hearing your reserved impressions felt more objective and I felt like my escape got blocked…”
“Escape? What are you talking about?”

Lucella looked spent rather than happy from their compliments.

“…Err, did you find out anything about him?”
“Oh, yeah, I was just discussing that with Wein.”

Lucella decided to get to the main topic to try and forget about the clothes and this embarrassment.

“According to Gemel, he was never interested in his circumstances, and he never mentioned it either, so he didn’t know it. And it seems like he was affected like everyone else with his name and records forgotten and erased.”
“Isn’t it pretty cold to be so unfamiliar of your party members?”

Wein shrugged exaggeratedly as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

It would be one thing if it was a temporary party member that joined for some goal, but it was rare not to know anything when it came to long-standing members… Lucella somehow knew that much.

Adventurer party members were in the same boat. Party members who entrusted their lives to each other not knowing about the others would need to have serious reasons.

“I already heard it in the guild, but he was apparently the manager of Seventh Dice.”
“A manager?”
“Basically he was doing stuff like the procedures at the guild and all kinds of odd jobs. So he got the adventurer qualifications and joined their party for that reason, but he didn’t follow them to the quests. And the members of Seventh Dice also considered him a partial member.”

I see, if he wasn’t a member who fought alongside but instead a servant, that might make more sense… Lucella started to think so, but it was still strange even then.

“…Isn’t it strange? That nameless person got attacked and died to monsters in the middle of a quest, right? Why would a manager that normally didn’t fight join on a quest?”
“My thoughts exactly… According to Gemel, he was killed during the subjugation quest of the twin-headed skyshark last summer, so he apparently joined them on that day alone for some reason. Seventh Dice did actually accept the quest during that time, but something doesn’t feel right here.”
“In other words… Are you saying they might’ve accepted that subjugation quest just so they could publicly attribute his death to that quest while hiding the real cause of it?”
“I really don’t want to consider that, but…”

One of them seemed to swallow the saliva.

The conversation headed in a weird direction, the smell of intrigue drifting about.

“Well, our goal isn’t to investigate how he died. If there’s something fishy there it’s the guild’s job to investigate. Our goal is to follow his footsteps and gather information about the dragon language interpreter.”
“Do they really exist, though? Maybe the stuff about the dragon interpreter was just something he made up?”
“It seems that he wasn’t known to be a liar, though.”

With no real leads on their hands, Wein was showing some anxiety already.

Lucella didn’t know him either so he couldn’t say for sure, but from the view of someone who had spent time with a dragon, he couldn’t even imagine how anyone could learn a language so hard and half-doubted the existence of said interpreter.

“Speaking of which, Lucella, Gemel asked…”

Tim started to say something but shook his head and disregarded it.

“Actually, never mind. He was probably just curious.”
“Huh? Okay then.”

Lucella decided to not pay it any mind.