The Genius Tailor’s Night Was Full of Secrets
At the Bergen count’s manor in northern Rowen.
“What do you mean, you can’t? What is that supposed to mean!”
Crash!
The teacup Sophia Bergen had thrown struck the wall and shattered into a hundred pieces.
The exclusive dress-room tailors flinched and bowed their heads, trembling.
“M-Miss, it’s just... there’s no way we can do that with our abilities. Making a dress fabric repel water without soaking through... Unless we coat it in oil, there’s no way to keep the feel of silk while adding waterproofing...”
“Ellen did it! That girl... it was perfectly fine! I saw it with my own eyes! Not a single drop got on it!”
Sophia seethed, unable to hold her temper in check.
The humiliation she’d suffered at Salon de Rose yesterday had left a deep wound in her pride.
Ellen, whom she’d always dismissed as plain and uncouth, had become the darling of high society with a single dress.
“Sister, for the love of—just stop. My head is pounding.”
From the sofa in the corner of the room, Felix muttered irritably, stretched out like a corpse.
His face was bruised purple and blue.
His eyes looked hollow.
“You shut up, Felix! You blew through the family’s allowance, then secretly borrowed from loan sharks and dumped it all into stocks, didn’t you? Father beat you half to death and you still haven’t learned your lesson?”
“...I just had bad luck, that’s all. If it hadn’t been for that damned acid fog...”
Felix shouted in protest, but there was no strength behind his voice.
Sophia looked at him as though he were a worm under her shoe, then turned away and spoke.
“What are you waiting for? Bring me Baron Gayle at once!”
Shortly after, Baron Gayle, the Bergen family’s exclusive mage, was shown in.
He was a capable third-tier mage.
“Please calm yourself, Miss. That phenomenon you described... it isn’t impossible from a magical standpoint.”
“Then put it on my dress immediately!”
Gayle coughed awkwardly and shook his head.
“The problem is efficiency. If you want clothes that don’t get wet, you have to keep a water-aspected defensive barrier running over the entire garment at all times. That means embedding at least two magic stones in the lining and leaving room to inscribe a magic circle.”
“Two magic stones?”
“It would add weight, and once the mana in the magic stones is exhausted, they’d have to be replaced every time. To stop a bit of splashing, you’d be putting a battlefield-grade ward into a dress. It would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”
His explanation was perfectly logical.
Waterproofing was only a byproduct; the original purpose of the technique was to protect against arrows or magical attacks, which made it a costly and inefficient arrangement.
But Sophia couldn’t accept that.
She was a student at Rowen Magic Tower Academy herself.
She wasn’t ignorant when it came to magic.
“Ellen’s dress looked light. I couldn’t see any magic stones at all, and I didn’t sense any mana fluctuations either! And don’t tell me it was some ancient artifact.”
“Hmm...”
Gayle stroked his beard.
“That is strange. To achieve that level of efficiency without magic stones...”
“Could it be a household spell? Something like cleaning or drying magic?”
Gayle snorted.
“Miss, household magic isn’t even proper magic. At best, it’s a trivial trick for dusting off dirt or drying wet hair.”
“Then how on earth did Ellen do it?”
“Well... the world is a big place. There may be some lucky mutant mage somewhere, unusually gifted in household magic. Though at the end of the day, that’s still just a household mage.”
“Then go find me one of those mutant household mages. I’ll use them as my exclusive tailor.”
Gayle scratched his head, looking troubled.
“That’s even harder. Most household mages are tucked away somewhere making a living, so they’re difficult to find in the first place. As for whether one with such exceptional ability exists and where they might be hiding, I have no way of knowing. It’ll take some time.”
“Time? I need to wipe that smug look off Ellen’s face as soon as tomorrow!”
Sophia sank into thought, biting at her fingernail.
If it was hard to find new talent, then the answer was simple.
Steal someone who was already proven.
“Look into it.”
“Into what, exactly?”
“That tailor Ellen hired. I heard from the maids that his name was Hans. Find out everything there is to know about him.”
At those words, Felix, who had been silently listening, twitched his eyebrows.
“...Wait, sister. Who did you just say? The tailor hired by the Valderk girl is really named Hans?”
“Yes. Hans. Why? Do you know him too?”
“Hmph!”
Felix’s expression flared with vicious hatred.
The memory returned of that indifferent commoner boy who had walked past him at the exchange as if mocking him.
“......Just some vulgar peasant who used to do cleaning in the library.”
He ground his teeth and shoved himself upright.
“Sister, you’re not seriously saying you want to make some lowly peasant into the Bergen family’s exclusive tailor? That would disgrace the family!”
“Peasant or not, I don’t care. If he has skill, all I need to do is keep him under my heel and use him.”
“No! That bastard... tsk. So insolent. A peasant, and acting like that! Next time I see him, I’ll crush him.”
“Then isn’t that convenient? If we bring him here, you can crush him for real.”
A grotesque delight spread across Felix’s twisted face.
“...You’re right. I want to see those arrogant eyes drown in fear with my own two eyes.”
Gayle’s eyes widened.
“Miss, then you mean to...”
“The Valderk family may be rich, but our house isn’t exactly poor. If we offer a few times his salary, he’ll come running. That’s how commoners are.”
Gayle let out a quiet sigh.
“And if he refuses to be taken from them?”
A thin smile curved Sophia’s lips.
“Then we’ll make sure Ellen can’t use him either. I can’t stand the thought of Ellen wearing the dress I can’t wear.”
“That is a very dangerous line of thinking. No matter how much of a commoner he is, if you harm someone employed by the Valderk family, things could turn ugly in a way that won’t be easy to smooth over.”
“Hmph! You think a whole war between two houses would break out over some commoner?”
“Even so, you absolutely mustn’t do it.”
“Then make sure that doesn’t happen by bringing him here.”
“Understood, Miss. I’ll do my very best.”
Gayle withdrew with a sigh.
* * *
Knock, knock.
“Hans, it’s me.”
It was 8 p.m.
Nen came to the annex.
In her hands she carried a black dress.
“Welcome, Nen.”
“About what you said this morning... I brought it. I’m sorry to trouble you with my clothes when you must be busy.”
Nen held out the maid’s uniform a little bashfully.
Not only the sleeves but the hem was worn thin and frayed.
“It’s fine. I’ll have it perfect by tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.”
I took the dress from her and set it on the worktable.
Nen glanced around the workshop, then seemed to remember something and asked, “The young lady gave special instructions. She said to support you with anything you need for your work—tools, materials, whatever. Is there anything you need?”
The first thing that came to mind was magic stones.
The spent magic stones I currently had were weak in output and short-lived.
If I could get a few clean, low-grade magic stones from the count’s household wealth, my work speed would increase tenfold.
But... no.
Even after winning Ellen’s goodwill, asking for magic stones as a tailor?
That would be beyond my station.
I didn’t want to do something so foolish and lose the affection I’d worked hard to gain.
“Well. I have enough thread and needles...”
After a moment’s thought, I spoke.
“Could I perhaps look at some newspapers?”
“Newspapers?”
Nen’s eyes went round.
“Like the Rowen Daily or the Merchant Guild Gazette.”
“You can read?”
A commoner, and a tailor, too?
Especially reading newspapers filled with difficult economic terms was rare.
“I used to help out as an assistant librarian at the library. I learned to read by watching over people’s shoulders back then. I don’t know all the difficult words, but I’d like to keep up with the world.”
I offered the excuse I’d prepared in advance.
Nen nodded then, as if reassessing me.
“Well, if you worked at a library, I suppose that makes sense.”
She looked at me with a bit more respect.
“It won’t be hard. I’ll ask the young lady for permission.”
“Really? Thank you!”
“Don’t mention it. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to tell me, all right?”
An hour later, Nen really did bring me a stack of newspapers.
The Imperial Economic Daily.
The front page was plastered with war news.
Then I opened the business section.
“......Huh.”
Before I knew it, a dry laugh escaped me.
A small chart made my heart start racing.
[Today’s Surging Stock: Black Forest Forestry]
- Current Price: 1 silver, 70 copper
- Bullish News: Rumor of an imminent first supply contract with the military.
My purchase price had been 5 copper.
And today, a staggering 170 copper!
Thirty-four times... is this real?
If I sold right now, 53 silver would come back as a full 18 gold.
18 gold coins!
For a commoner like me, that was a fortune I’d hardly ever even get to touch in my life.
Should I sell?
My heart pounded.
Should I lock in the profit here and play it safe?
No. Not yet.
I read the article more carefully.
“Military struggling to secure black ironwood supply... no substitute in sight.”
“Cedar Shipyard stock plunges 90 percent, trading suspended.”
The military still hadn’t signed the actual contract.
This was only on rumor alone.
Once the seal was stamped, the advance payment came in, and the shortage of black ironwood began to be felt in earnest—
This stock would soar past a hundred times, maybe even blow through the ceiling.
I’ll wait until it rises more.
I folded the newspaper carefully and tucked it deep in the drawer.
Then I sat back down at the worktable.
Focus. This is magical training for me.
I spread out the maid’s uniform Nen had entrusted to me.
The cloth was old, leaky in the rain and drafty in the wind.
Connect the spent magic stones to the circuit.
Combine the formulas I’d already verified successfully.
[First-Tier Composite Formula: mending worn cloth + trace removal + anti-soiling]
Was all this care really necessary for nothing more than a maid’s uniform?
And yet, for me, practicing magic, this outfit was no different from Ellen’s dress.
Fwoosh—
With a faint light, the fabric tightened itself, drawing taut and firm.
I increased the density of the cloth so that ordinary dirt would no longer cling but slide right off.
The mana’s being sucked out.
The pain was like my mana core being wrung dry.
Still, I didn’t stop.
Cold sweat ran down my back and my fingertips trembled, but I held on one second longer at that limit.
It was brutal training.
By the time the work was done, I was almost completely drained.
It’s practically as good as new.
Though unlike Ellen’s dress, it didn’t glow with any soft, alluring light.
From the start, the base material had been a cheap maid’s uniform, so there were limits.
I left out the radiant finish on purpose. If it stood out too much, it might give Nen trouble.
Even so, Nen’s maid’s uniform had been reborn into a dignified garment worthy of the count’s household.
“Hah... since my mana is depleted, I should rest for a bit.”
I was tired, and worn out.
And yet I could feel the mana capacity within my core growing, however slightly.
I was getting stronger.
Making money and building skill.
“Keep going.”
Fortunately, I had other materials to experiment with.
The handkerchiefs I’d made not long ago.
Let’s turn these handkerchiefs into magical handkerchiefs.
There was no fear of failure.
This was a magical experiment I was doing simply because I liked it.
No one was going to scold me if I failed.
That in itself is fun for me.
Coming up with a new formula each time and trying it out.
Before I knew it, I’d gotten so absorbed in my experiments that the hours slipped past midnight and into 2 a.m.
Then—
Knock, knock.
Someone was knocking on the annex door.
...?
Nen?
No, it couldn’t be her at this hour.
Then a guard?
I tensed instinctively.
Quickly, I covered the spent magic stones and the magical circuit diagrams scattered across the worktable with a cloth.
“Who is it?”
I asked as I moved toward the door.
“It’s me. Open the door.”
My heart dropped.
It wasn’t Nen, and it wasn’t a guard.
That clear, confident voice.
The owner of this manor, Ellen.
Why is she here at this hour?
I swallowed hard and opened the door.
Creak.
When the door swung open, I saw the silhouette of a girl standing with the moonlight at her back.
“Miss Ellen?”
Instead of her usual dazzling dress, she was dressed comfortably in a thin silk gown with a shawl draped over her shoulders.
Yet her expression was not playful as usual.
There was something sharp and serious in her eyes.
“What brings you here so late?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk. Then I saw the light was on and came to check it out.”
Ellen strode into the room, stopped in the middle, and gave a sniff.
The lingering traces of mana still hung in the air after the spell work, since I hadn’t had time to air the room out.
“......”
Her gaze landed on the worktable, on the fragment of spent magic stone that had slipped out when I’d hurriedly cleaned up.
Her eyes widened.
“Is this... a mana circuit? You made a circuit using the residual mana in spent magic stones?”
Thin lines of mana linked the spent magic stones together.
“That’s impossible! I’ve never seen anything like this.”
She stared hard at the mana circuit, as if trying to read something from it.
But after a moment, she shook her head, as though her brain hurt.
“I knew it. You’re not an ordinary tailor.”
For an instant, she turned her gaze on me.
Those blue eyes shining with cold light.
“Hans.”
“Yes, miss.”
The pressure was overwhelming.
She wasn’t some spoiled noble girl.
She was a quick-witted, sharp-eyed member of the ruling class who had been raised on elite education in one of Rowen’s greatest noble houses.
“Tell me the truth.”
Her voice was certain as she asked,
“Are you a mage?”