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「I don’t know anything about this, so I’ll just watch for today.」

For some reason, the moment we entered the dressing room prepared for Ciel, she said this and quickly gave up on dressing me up. Still, her eyes were sparkling brightly, like an audience enjoying a fashion show. Seeing that, Fiiyanamia replied 「Right, right. That might be for the best.」 with a nod.

Ciel’s fashion sense is… by no means bad. Rather, it’s a mystery. I’ve only chosen innocuous hunter clothes and Ciel really stands out, so no matter what she wears, it’s hidden underneath a robe most of the time. I don’t have the courage to choose anything flashy, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that this resulted in Ciel not developing a fashion sense.

If I had to say, there was that time Celia taught us about fashion but that was just one time from more than two years ago. Ciel has grown a lot since then, so the clothes we bought don’t fit anymore. That’s why it’s not a bad thing for her to learn today. The fact that I’m delegated to be teaching material is something I don’t agree with, but if it’s for Ciel’s sake, then I can endure.

A scary thing is that among the five maids that came with us, three of them are strangely enthusiastic. They look as if they just found an excellent toy. After looking at me with a sharp gaze, they quickly shift their gazes on the clothes.

One of the other two maids went to Ciel and Fiiyanamia’s side, and the remaining one went to mine.

As I was looking on with fear and dread, the maid that was beside me lowered her head and apologized. With glasses over her upturned eyes, she seemed like a somewhat serious maid. She’s about twice my height —though that doesn’t mean she’s particularly tall— and she gives off a cold impression when she’s silent.

「What are you apologizing for?」
「About them. They haven’t served anyone other than Mistress Fiiyanamia, and both of you are quite adorable, so they’re in high spirits today.」
「You mentioned Mistress Fiiyanamia, but is Ciel also a subject for dressing up?」
「Yes. And we, by all means, would love for the two of you to be dressed up side by side-… No, for Miss Cielmer to grow accustomed to dressing up for the better.」

Considering the quick and excited way she was speaking at first, which showed her true personality for a moment, this person may have been interested in participating in the clothing selection process as well. Despite this, why is she here next to me? Come to think of it, I don’t know their names and I also don’t know how much they know about our circumstances.

Due to that, I don’t have any idea on how much I can talk. The cold feeling she gives seems to be only an outward impression, so maybe I can just ask.

「If you don’t mind, could you tell me your name?」
「Me? My name is Mohsa.」
「Then Mohsa, are you not going to join them?」

As I pointed to the maids picking out clothes, Mohsa gently shook her head.

「I am here because I won the right to serve Miss Ainsel after all.」
「You won?」
「Yes. After all, being entrusted to serve Mistress Fiiyanamia’s guests is a great privilege. There are only a few that have been invited to this mansion as a guest, you see.」

So that’s how it is. Being entrusted with a guest probably indicates that Fiiyanamia trusts them enough to do so, so I guess that is a privilege. Now that she mentioned it, Mohsa does somewhat look proud and triumphant.

Besides, serving probably includes helping out with changing clothes. In that case, I guess I really should confirm things with her.

「Mohsa, how much do you know about me?」
「Nothing at all… is what I would like to say, but I’ve been told that you are a being that would eventually become of equal standing to Mistress Fiiyanamia.」
「That doesn’t surprise you?」
「No. At first I was surprised, but since you are a guest of Mistress Fiiyanamia, it shouldn’t be inconceivable.」

Does that mean the maids of this mansion know about Fiiyanamia’s true nature? At the very least, they seem to know that she’s not mortal. Though, whether they know that she’s a divine messenger or not is a different story. Her appearance doesn’t change and she doesn’t necessarily always eat. She’s like a living legend, so I guess even the appearance of someone like me isn’t too shocking for them.

In other words, even for us who are about one-tenth of a god at this point, this mansion might be much more comfortable to live in than I thought. Well, the part about me becoming a god was something I only knew after coming here though. Before that, probably just someone with a multiple personality disorder.

「Well then, the preparations seem to be done, so let us now move on.」

With three… no, five pairs of eyes looking at me with anticipation, I walked in the midst of this slightly awkward atmosphere.

◇

With the help of Mohsa and the maids that selected the clothes, the first thing I wore was a white dress. It was filled to the brim with laces and frills and looked like something girls would love to wear. It had no sleeves but in exchange, I was given a long glove.

I’ve seen it before in manga and the like, but it’s my first time wearing this. It could be good during the summer to prevent sunburn. That random thought suddenly crossed my mind. I was also dressed in a corset. It’s not tight since I’m still a child but being that it’s something used for figure correction, it somewhat seemed to give me more of a feminine look.

I stood before a full-length mirror that showed my whole body for a final confirmation. I’m not really well-acquainted with these sorts of things but I think that a mirror this clear is hard to find even back on earth. At the very least, it’s completely different from the clouded mirror back at my place’s bathroom.

As I thought, with the presence of magic, there’s a difference in how developed things are. This strangely impressed me.

As for the vital part which is how I look, I think I became quite adorable. Though, my body is based on Ciel’s, so it’s only natural. Since the dress is white, my black eyes and hair stand out. It’s already good enough as is, but just when I thought that it looks somewhat incomplete, Mohsa wrapped a blue ribbon around my waist.

Yup, that should do it.

Two of the maids then nodded to each other and started working on my hair this time. It’s a bit late to say this, but since my hair is based on Ciel’s, it’s super long. After all, these are circuits. Cutting them would shorten our circuits, so it shouldn’t be cut. Also, it’s probably tougher than regular hair, so it couldn’t be cut so easily. To begin with, it’s also protected by my barrier, so it can’t be cut. If there’s a scissor that can cut it, it should be usable as a weapon.

Ponytail, braids, pigtails, I can see from beyond the mirror that they’re trying different styles, but just a change of hairstyle changes one’s impression a lot. Even men give off a different impression when they cut their hair short, so I guess it makes sense that a change of hairstyle would make someone seem different. Looking at it this way, it’s actually quite fun.

Eventually as an accent, only my left side was braided and now it’s complete.

「It suits you very well!」
「Thank you very much.」

The maid excitedly praised me, so I gave her my thanks. As for me, it’s been a good learning experience. Leaving the dress aside, learning the use of accessories and the effects of a change in hairstyle was quite fruitful.

Completing my look, I was brought back to where Ciel and the others were and Ciel immediately approached me. She then held both of my hands and excitedly spoke to me.

「Adorable, just adorable! The white dress really suits Ain!」
「I think it’ll suit Ciel too, you know? 」
「Really? Honestly, that doesn’t matter much for me as long as Ain’s adorable.」
「If it looks good on me, it’ll look good on you as well. I’m based on your appearance, after all. Besides… I want to see you wearing cute clothes too, Ciel.」

It would be nice if this gets Ciel to be interested in being fashionable but from how it looks, it seems like getting me dressed up is more important here. Being called adorable by Ciel is, well… isn’t bad at all, but even so, I want Ciel to look cute myself. After being a spectacle for a short while, I once again left for the next change of clothes.

◇

After that was a black dress. It had sleeves that covered up to my upper arm but it was see-through around the shoulder part. I was thinking that the black dress would overlap with my natural colors, but after donning a large, pearl-like necklace, it balanced everything out quite nicely. To finish the look, a brightly-colored hair accessory was added. I think I know the reason why girls like accessories now.

Although I was being dressed up like a doll, the experience turned out to be quite different from what I initially expected. Surprisingly, I found it to be simply enjoyable in a normal sort of way. From my point of view, it was practically like we’re dressing up Ciel after all. We have different colors so the same clothes would probably give a different impression on her, but the fashion itself is understandable. The issue is that all the clothes here are expensive.

If I try to prepare a similar outfit, there’s no telling how much it would cost us. While we do have a considerable amount of money, it’s still a personal concern… or maybe not. Actually, how much money do we have?

Putting aside the practical talk, I look to my side as I’m being dressed up. As our eyes met, Ciel smiled at me.

After several changes of clothes, Ciel finally joined the dress-up doll side of things. I heard that after being told that she can be together with me, she immediately switched sides. Will Ciel be alright? Isn’t she a bit too easy to handle? Or so I say, but I do understand that it’s probably only because it’s related to me. This makes me feel somewhat ticklish. I can’t help but feel embarrassed.

If I didn’t have a body, I could hide how I feel but right now, I probably can’t hide it at all.

After being dressed up, the two of us stand before the mirror side by side.

Ciel is wearing a black one-piece dress while I’m wearing a similar dress in white. Our hair is styled in a way that we’re mirroring each other. I have an earring on my left ear, while Ciel has one on her right. All of the small details on us are horizontally reversed and inverted color. The meticulousness of the maids is on full display. Though, if I had to say, my eyes being black in contrast to Ciel’s blue is probably the only thing that couldn’t fit the theme.

It can’t be helped. After all, we don’t have colored contact lenses here.

Reflected in the mirror, Ciel stares happily as she compares her appearance to mine. And then she snuggles close to me.

「We’re matching, matching!」
「That’s right, we are. Besides that, it looks great on you, Ciel.」
「Is that so? You look adorable too, Ain.」

Seeing Ciel cheerfully frolicking around, it really warms the heart. Besides, seeing Ciel wearing something pretty makes me somewhat want to dress her up myself. As expected, being of Japanese color, Ciel’s white skin looks really pretty.

I’m really glad that I protected Ciel from the sunlight. Ciel’s white hair is a result of it turning into circuits, so it probably wouldn’t change even with exposure to sunlight. With that in mind, black hair that functions as a circuit might actually be unique. Fiiyanamia’s hair is white too after all.

「It’s the same for Ainsel, but Miss Cielmer’s skin is so fair, it’s hard to believe that you’re a hunter.」
「Ain protected me after all.」
「How enviable.」

Seeing Ciel talking normally to the maid is… quite moving. Though, it might be that she just couldn’t change her way of talking very well since I’m next to her. Naturally, I won’t get jealous anymore. I don’t find it just a bit irking, not at all.

Despite this, Ciel looked at me. And then giggled. Somehow it feels like Ciel is the mature one, it’s frustrating. And as I got a bit displeased, Ciel gently patted my head.

I really can’t win against her. I lightened up a bit.

I’ve called Ciel easy to please before but I’m not much different myself.

Hiya~! And today we’re greeted with one of the clichés of the gender bender genre (especially of the Japanese variety): the dress up scene aka. dress up doll chapter~!

First of all, I love how different this scene is to the usual one you see in the gender bend stories. I think it’s due to Ain being already “female” for a long time, with her being in Ciel’s body and whatnot, but also due to Ain basically seeing Ciel in the mirror in most cases, lol. Most of the time, it’s once again Ain thinking of what would work on Ciel rather than how she looks, and I think this is one more thing that makes it different. A lot of the “dress up doll” chapters in other series don’t do much to progress the story or to, well, *tell* something. Rather, it sometimes ruins some of the characters for me, particularly the pushy one that wanted to dress the protag up in the first place. It sometimes gets uncomfortably pushy and rarely gets referenced to again. It’s somewhat disengaging to the story when done wrong and there’s usually a new character introduced to avoid existing characters being forced to be the uncomfortably pushy one. Here, we get more information not only about Ain and Ciel, but also the maids and the mansion. For example, Ciel getting dressed up with Ain after being convinced by someone (likely Fii) is in-character, and we get to know more about how the maids are somewhat lacking in excitement due to the infrequency of guests. Ain being Ain and thinking about what would be nice for Ciel and so forth.

And then of course, more bonding time with Ciel and Ain. Ain being extra adorable due to being unable to hide absolutely anything now with her having manifested a physical body, meanwhile Ciel just keeps on winning, lol. Ciel could already read Ain like an open book but now it’s like Ain was adapted into a movie, there’s not much left to the imagination (that’s another issue for another topic, lol). We get our new character Mohsa and the whole day still left for our princesses spend.

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!