Praise (2)
The dressmaking atelier of Clea Mercante, Vice-Master of the Robarara Merchant Guild.
As befits a proper boutique, it specializes in women's wear: purpose-made dresses, lace-drenched adorable nightgowns, and undergarments designed to heighten every curve of femininity.
Men's formalwear is sold as well—though only as a side offering.
The primary clientele consists of nobles from the Empire and neighboring kingdoms. Commoners and other classes are not turned away; the garments simply cost so much that only the comfortably wealthy tend to darken the door.
With enough coin, anyone may wear Mercante's clothes.
Items may be purchased by visiting the shop in person or through the Robarara Merchant Guild.
“The nightgown I gifted the Saintess last time? I made that one myself.”
While explaining the boutique, Clea flashed a sly grin.
“You call that a gift for a Saintess?”
The memory rose unbidden, and Lowen fixed her with a pointed look. Just recalling it made his stomach twist. That black slip had clung so sheer that every plump curve of Ariel’s backside showed through without mercy. Keeping his composure in the face of that lewd outfit had been a genuine ordeal.
Things were different now, of course.
“My, my—so the Bishop knows about it?”
Clea covered her mouth with one hand, eyes glittering with mischief.
“Did the Saintess put it on and show you?”
Ariel’s face went tomato-red.
“Uuu… th-that’s…”
She flailed at empty air, utterly lost. It really had been an embarrassing outfit. Fabric had covered her body, yet everything had still been visible—the pale swell of her hips, the cherry-blossom flush of her nipples, the holy stigma etched across her lower abdomen. All of it had shimmered beneath the black lace.
“I only meant it half as a joke, but she actually wore it? Bold little Saintess.”
Clea giggled, teasing without mercy.
“Uuuu…”
Ariel hid her cheeks behind the long side-locks that fell to her chest.
“So? Did you two have a hot night?”
The question was far too blunt. Even for someone as free-spirited as Clea, it was not the sort of thing one asked a Saintess. Lowen leveled a gaze thick with hostility at the woman needling Ariel. Clea’s shoulders gave a little jump. A chill like a blade tip pricked straight down her spine. That look was not mere threat—it carried clear killing intent.
“Whoa, those eyes are vicious.”
Convinced she might drop dead mid-stride if she kept going, Clea immediately apologized to Ariel.
“Sorry, Saintess. I went too far.”
Still half-hidden behind her hair, Ariel gave a small nod.
“Y-yes… I forgive you.”
Eager to clear the air, Clea switched topics.
“Anyway, I heard the news. Things got pretty spectacular in Rest Town, didn’t they?”
She read the papers every morning, so of course she knew what had happened there.
“Hero Who Shielded the City Amid a Towering Pillar of Flame!”
“Saintess Ariel Violet—Defender of Dozens of Knights!”
Those were the headlines. The Seventh Saintess, who until now had possessed vast divine power yet no notable deeds to her name, had finally made her debut. For days the papers had been full of nothing but Ariel. This morning’s edition even carried a piece titled The Saintess’s Abundant Divine Power—complete with a photograph that made her generous bust the unmistakable centerpiece.
“Abundant” was the polite word. “Voluptuous” would have been more accurate. Yet no one raised any serious objection to the phrasing. Chloe would have raised absolute hell if she had seen the article.
“Hero? I only did what any Saintess ought to do.”
Even as she said it, a pleased little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Being the center of attention was uncomfortable, but praise was always welcome. She was a touch miffed that Lowen’s name had been completely left out, yet the good feeling remained good all the same.
“So what brings you here today?”
Still basking in the word “hero,” Ariel suddenly clapped her hands as if she had only just remembered their purpose.
“We’re here to buy nightclothes.”
“Nightclothes?”
Given the conversation of a moment ago, the only nightclothes that sprang to Clea’s mind were the sheer, skin-revealing kind.
“Yes! Animal pajamas!”
She had wanted a set for ages. Back at the Grand Cathedral she had once seen a little girl wearing animal pajamas and had longed for a pair of her own ever since.
“Ah… animal pajamas.”
Faced with Ariel’s pure, childlike eyes, Clea felt a twinge of guilt.
“Pick one out. Consider it an apology for the teasing—my treat.”
“No, I’ll pay for it.”
“Don’t make it awkward. Just choose whatever the Saintess likes.”
A merchant’s instincts wanted the coin, but fully soothing the Saintess’s guardian seemed to require this gesture.
“This way.”
Clea led Ariel toward the sleepwear corner.
For reference, a single set of animal pajamas at Mercante’s Boutique ran five hundred thousand Rel.
Ariel’s pajama fashion show began.
—Swish!
The fitting-room curtain swept open, and out stepped Ariel in a bright yellow chick onesie.
“Bishop Lowen, how do I look? Cheep?”
She peered up at him while making little chick noises. That peeping mouth looked for all the world as if it were begging for feed. Any animal would have suited cute Ariel, yet even the baggy onesie could not hide the generous development that lent the baby chick a distinctly mature air. Personally, Lowen thought chick pajamas suited flat-chested girls better.
“Cute.”
At his brief appraisal Ariel beamed.
“Ehehe, cheep. Hehe, cheep.”
Why the sound effects?
“I’m going to try another one!”
She vanished back into the fitting room. A short while later the curtain swished open again.
“Woof woof! It’s a puppy onesie, woof!”
This time the cry matched the costume: a dog onesie with ochre fur and brown ears that somehow called to mind a country mutt from the far provinces.
“This one even has a tail, woof.”
Ariel turned and gave her hips a playful little wiggle. The puppy tail attached to the seat swayed as if it were thoroughly pleased with itself.
Oh no.
She was simply showing off the tail in pure innocence, yet the sight instantly summoned for Lowen the memory of last night—Ariel the lewd bitch spreading her rear hole wide and rocking her hips. He made the sign of the cross in his mind.
“Woof woof! Isn’t this one cute too?”
And then the barking itself dragged up the next memory: Ariel clenching around his cock with her back passage while she whimpered “woof woof.” He wanted to say, “You look like a bitch in heat,” but they were not in bed, so the words stayed locked behind his teeth. Even in bed he would never have said it—well, he had blurted something similar once, but only because her rear had felt far too good at the time.
He shook the vivid image of bitch-Ariel out of his head, then smiled gently and nodded.
“The puppy is cute as well.”
“Woof woof!”
Like a dog praised by its master, Ariel gave a pretty little bark of delight and disappeared into the fitting room once more.
“May I ask one thing?”
Lowen glanced sidelong at Clea.
“What?”
“Have you enchanted these pajamas to make the wearer imitate animal sounds?”
Clea shook her head.
“The Saintess is just full of aegyo.”
The fabric was sturdy, the stretch comfortable, and there were sleep-enhancing buffs woven in, but nothing that forced animal noises. The sounds came purely from Ariel’s excitement at wearing the adorable costumes.
They waited. The curtain opened again.
“Mooooo—this time I’m a dairy cow.”
A spotted cow onesie. The pink udders of an actual cow had not been rendered, yet a pair of splendidly full breasts still jiggled proudly up top. Magnificent. Of course the oversized milk-makers suited a dairy cow best of all.
“Well? Well?”
Ariel tilted her head left and right, waiting for Lowen’s praise.
“It suits you perfectly.”
At the word “perfectly” she bounced in place. With every hop her divine-power pouches swayed up and down. Was she not wearing a brassiere? Looking closer, he could just make out the faint outline of two little beans at the tips. She really was braless. Nightclothes were meant for comfort, but this was taking comfort a bit far.
“Aaaah! What do I do?!”
Lowen, who had been studying those faintly raised points, asked with perfect nonchalance,
“What’s the matter?”
“You keep saying everything is cute, so I don’t know which one to pick! The chick is the one I wanted first, the puppy’s swishy tail is adorable, and the cow is the one you said was the cutest—so I’m stuck!”
Clea jabbed Lowen in the ribs with her elbow.
“Then why don’t you choose for her, Bishop?”
“Me?”
“That’s a wonderful idea! Bishop Lowen, please pick one!”
Suddenly the choice was his. All of them suited her. As he had already noted, anything looked good on Ariel. Considering the bust, the cow was ideal—yet a little too on-the-nose. The puppy would keep reminding him of her shaking her hips like a bitch. The chick was cute but clashed with the generous chest. Why was he agonizing over pajamas of all things?
“Hmm… any of them would be fine.”
Clea smacked him on the back.
“Worst possible answer.”
“Why is it the worst?”
“Don’t you know ‘any of them’ is the most indifferent thing you can say?”
So particular. They all looked good; just pick one of the three.
“This is when a man is supposed to choose properly.”
The fussiness reminded him of a green knight fretting over which sword to take—what metal, which smith—when any decent blade would do. That sort of deliberation only came after a knight had left the novice stage behind. Of course, what they were choosing now was sleepwear.
“Hmm… the Saintess looks so cute in every one that it’s hard to decide.”
At Lowen’s muttered dilemma, Ariel’s lips curved into a soft, blissful smile. Clea watched with interest. In that smile she saw a girl thoroughly in love. The first time they had met, the feeling had been faint; now it was vivid and deep.
“Then how about this?”
Clea proposed a method. Following that proposal, Ariel now stood in a rabbit onesie whose long ears drooped limply.
—Swish.
The curtain opened and Lowen stepped out.
“Haa… why do I have to wear this?”
Dressed in a black wolf onesie (animal pajamas came in men’s sizes as well), Lowen scowled. Clea’s idea had been to pick matching concepts and try them on together—something about deepening their bond since the two of them lived alone at the cathedral. That was the polite fiction. The real goal was to outfit Ariel with couple pajamas.
Not identical ones, of course.
Wolf and rabbit.
A predator-and-prey couple set.
Lowen had had no intention of putting one on, but Ariel, curious to see him in animal pajamas, had stubbornly insisted. In the end he had yielded and tried it.
“It suits you.”
That handsome face plus those predatory eyes made him look like a genuine wolf.
“What do you think, Saintess?”
“Y-yes? Huh?”
Ariel was staring up at him, utterly entranced. Lowen in animal pajamas was both adorable and dashing in a wolfish way. Her heart hammered. Like a masochistic rabbit smitten with a wolf, she wanted to offer herself up and cry, “Please devour me, Mr. Wolf!”
“Um… th-that is… it suits you very well. Yes, it really does.”
She nodded vigorously while crushing the lewd thoughts deep inside.
Lowen felt awkward. Receiving compliments while dressed in something children would wear made him feel as if he were being mocked.
“Clea, how much is the onesie Bishop Lowen is wearing?”
“Men’s animal pajamas are six hundred thousand Ruel.”
“I’ll take it.”
Ariel pulled three gold coins from the purse Chloe had given her before they left (each gold coin was worth two hundred thousand Ruel) and held them out to Clea.
“Thank you for your patronage.”
“Hold on. I am not going to wear this.”
Trying it on was one thing; wearing it at the cathedral was another.
“You’re not going to wear it…?”
Ariel’s eyes instantly brimmed as if she might cry at any second. The drooping rabbit ears only doubled the pitiful effect. A perfect trap.
“Haa…”
Lowen let out a long sigh.
“Very well. When the weather turns cold, I will wear it occasionally.”
“Yay!”
Ariel hopped up and down with pure joy.
“Clea, I’ll take this rabbit onesie!”