"...And with that, it's complete."
With that, all of my outfits were finally ready. It had taken longer than I expected, but that wasn't entirely the monsters' fault — Felt's perfectionism played a big part too. To an untrained eye, the differences were invisible, but Felt had spotted things that bothered her and redone sections that were nearly finished. From my perspective, I couldn't tell what had changed, but since I'd left everything in Felt's hands, I had no right to complain.
"Even so, Tenma... This might be a rather vulgar question, but just how much is this outfit actually worth?"
"At cost, it's practically free, but I'm guessing that's not really what you're asking, Albert? Honestly, even I don't know."
My outfit was a tuxedo of the sort you'd commonly see, though that was merely the shape. The fabric was made from thread spun using the black wool of Mary and Ali, combined with premium thread from Gol and Jill that had been dyed black. The shirt, on the other hand, was made from mid-grade and low-grade Gol and Jill thread along with ordinary thread. Apparently, the materials alone made it the most expensive tuxedo in the world, but Felt's real attention to detail wasn't in the fabric — it was in the stitching along the hem and sleeve linings done with the highest-grade Gol and Jill thread, and the buttons crafted from Rushing Dragon scales.
Thanks to all that meticulous craftsmanship, this tuxedo had a value that was honestly beyond imagination — even Felt herself couldn't put a price on it.
"This isn't just a family heirloom — it wouldn't be out of place as a national treasure, I tell you. I've heard of mothers having their wedding dresses remade for their daughters' ceremonies, and this tuxedo will surely follow the same path."
Indeed, if handled with care, it would be a waste not to pass it down to the next generation, and stored in a Magic Bag, it might even last a hundred years.
"Still, dyeing Silk Spider thread black... people would be justified in calling that pure madness."
"Perhaps so, but the dyeing didn't diminish the sheen at all, and I think it has its own particular charm, you know..."
"Well, under normal circumstances, outside busybodies would probably complain about the waste, but since Tenma here is the sole producer, no one can say a word. Or rather, if they did, the supply might just get cut off. And then those on the waiting list certainly wouldn't keep quiet about it. Mind you, their anger wouldn't be aimed at Tenma for cutting the supply, but at whoever opened their mouth and put Tenma in a foul mood."
"What I do with my own property is my business, and if anyone from the sidelines had a problem with it, I'd definitely cut off the supply. I'm not in this to make money off Gol and Jill thread, so I'm free to use the portions I'm not giving to others however I please — burn them, whatever. Granted, I'd have to explain the whole thing from start to finish to Lady Maria, and that would be a real pain."
Since Lady Maria managed the distribution of the Gol and Jill thread I wasn't using myself, she also had to explain the situation to those on the waiting list. It should be noted that while Lady Maria handled the distribution, no money flowed directly from me to her. Instead, a portion of the thread sales went to her charitable ventures, and those on the waiting list paid a handling fee upon receiving their thread. The fees alone amounted to quite a sum, but even more valuable for Lady Maria was the goodwill she gained from selling to the nobility.
As things stood, the only legitimate routes to obtain the thread were through me or Lady Maria. However, since I basically passed all the thread I wasn't using to Lady Maria, even someone like Duke Sanga or Marquis Samons was expected to acquire it through her. By doing so, I could deter other nobles from trying to get their hands on thread directly from me.
For that reason, nobles who wanted the thread through other means had two options: send people to Seigen's dungeon to capture Silk Spiders (though at present, there wasn't even a trace of them, let alone a sighting), or resell thread purchased from Lady Maria (though I'd never heard of any reselling actually happening, probably because turning a profit risked Lady Maria's displeasure).
Most of those nobles belonged to the Reformist Faction, and while there were members of other factions — Royalists and Neutrals included — who harbored resentment toward the royal family, nobles outside the Reformist Faction generally tried to acquire thread through Lady Maria. As a result, they had to humble themselves before her for the sake of the thread, which in turn bolstered her authority (and the King's as well, for that matter).
Additionally, those nobles believed that even if they offended me — the producer — they still wouldn't be able to obtain the thread, so while they couldn't exactly be called allies, the number of nobles who were at least not enemies had been growing.
"Still, if both Tenma's outfit and Primera's outfit use Gol and Jill thread, the cost of just those two outfits alone will go down in history."
Even at the price one might hypothetically charge if selling them to the general public, the sums would be astronomical. While there were tales in the continent's history of kingdoms bankrupting themselves through lavish weddings, so it might not technically be the most expensive in all of history, Albert said it could very well be the costliest in recent decades.
Of course, since most of the materials were self-sourced, this was merely a "what it would cost in monetary terms" kind of comparison — but even so, Albert laughed and said it would be something unseen in recent memory.
"I wasn't planning on making the wedding too grand, you know. Primera agreed, but once the Duke's house and the Royal Family were going to be involved, we had no choice but to make it a certain scale."
Neither Primera nor I had any objection to a small, intimate wedding, but the moment Primera's family turned out to be a ducal house, that option was off the table. So we tried to invite a reasonable number of acquaintances and keep it to a moderate scale, but since more than half of both Primera's and my acquaintances — excluding those from Kukuri Village on my side — were nobles, trimming the guest list was no small feat.
"I had expected it would be nothing but Royalist Faction nobles, but who would have thought you'd also invite guests from the Neutral Faction... and that it would be your side, Tenma, which makes it interesting."
As my personal guest, Baron Mustang of the Neutral Faction was set to attend. Baron Mustang and I had been on friendly terms ever since we cooperated during the coup d'état a few years back, and while he had never visited my place, we regularly exchanged letters and were close enough. It was through that connection that he ended up invited to the wedding, and apparently it became quite the talking point among the nobles.
"I never imagined that inviting Baron Mustang, who belongs to a different faction, would stir up rumors about poaching or the formation of a new faction..."
From the Royalist Faction, there came talk of the King trying to use me to bring in Baron Mustang, or that it was actually Duke Sanga who was trying to recruit Baron Mustang — and that Duke Sanga intended to use the two of us to establish a new "Duke Sanga Faction (tentative)."
From the Neutral Faction, the buzz was that Baron Mustang, widely regarded as a figure of great influence within the Neutral Faction, was planning to defect to the Royalist Faction at my invitation.
And the Reformist Faction's main narrative was apparently something along the lines of: the Royalist and Neutral Factions are using my wedding as a chance to forge an alliance and wipe out the Reformists in one fell swoop!
"Well, the Royalist and Neutral Faction theories aren't entirely implausible, but what's more likely to actually happen isn't a 'Duke Faction' so much as a 'Tenma Faction.' If you put Tenma at the top of the organization, even if only in name, you'd get both powerful military might and the people's support in one package. As for the Reformists... it's less a laughing matter than a pathetic one. Rather than worrying about being crushed, they'd be better off toning down the hostility at least on the surface."
That's what Grandpa had to say about it, though in reality, I believed the vast majority of Reformist nobles were already doing just that. The problem was that the small minority who couldn't help themselves stood out so much that the entire faction ended up being perceived as harboring extreme views or something close to it.
"I'm not sure you can call it thanks, exactly, but apparently several Reformist nobles have defected to other factions. Their main destination seems to be the Neutral Faction, and the ones who switched were apparently the more reasonable nobles within the Reformists, so the Neutral Faction ended up being the biggest beneficiary without having done a thing."
That probably meant the Reformists' resentment was now directed squarely at me and Baron Mustang, but since they'd brought it all on themselves through their own baseless assumptions and panicked overreactions, they had nobody to blame but themselves.
"Oh, by the way, Tenma — your father was lamenting something. Apparently, Primera refused to walk down the aisle with him."
"Yeah, I figured that would happen. I told her she should go with him, but Primera wanted to enter together with Serna and Henri, like they did... Since we'd already decided the wedding and reception would be done Primera's way, I couldn't really push the issue."
We had agreed that the wedding ceremony and reception would center on what Primera wanted, while I would have free rein over the after-party. This wasn't so much about respecting the bride's wishes for the ceremony as it was about me wanting to take charge of the after-party.
The reason was that the ceremony, being a ducal affair, would naturally draw a large number of nobles connected to the Duke's house — and I didn't want the people I actually wanted there, mainly the folks from Kukuri Village, feeling out of place. Duke Sanga and Primera's noble guests weren't going to look down on or mock the Kukuri villagers, but rather than have everyone on edge, I figured we could give them two separate occasions to celebrate.
The first would be a conventional wedding — the kind Serna and Henri had held — and the second would be more like a festival, the kind commonly held in small villages like Kukuri Village.
Kukuri Village had a church (though no priest), but many smaller villages didn't, so there were weddings where the couple simply declared themselves husband and wife before the villagers and then celebrated together in a festive atmosphere — and apparently that had been the predominant style in Kukuri Village. For reference, my father and mother had done the same as me: they were first celebrated in the Royal Capital by the King and the others, then moved to Kukuri Village and held another celebration there.
"I see. So the second one is a gathering of close friends from Tenma's side... By the way, I'm allowed to attend too, right?"
"Of course. My acquaintances will be the main crowd, but technically Albert and the rest count as my friends too."
"No, we're not just casual acquaintances—I'm going to be his brother-in-law. He probably can't quite wrap his head around that yet, though."
In all honesty, I couldn't muster even a shred of genuine feeling about Albert becoming my brother-in-law. When I thought of Albert, my image of him was the straight man of the three idiots. Plus, he really gave off the vibe of being Chris's lackey, so he never came across as someone older than me.
"Well, can't be helped given how we met, but at the very"
"least—"
"just"
"take the title off."
Come to think of it, Albert did have a past as a stalker. The fact that I'd never developed any respect for Albert and the others was definitely because of that incident and Chris.
"Even if you turned Albert away, Lion would just show up without reading the room, wouldn't he? The folks in Kukuri Village are used to Albert and the others by now, so there shouldn't be any problem."
Albert and the others came over to our place often, so they were on familiar terms with the Kukuri Village folks who visited just the same. That meant having them at the celebration shouldn't be a problem... But I hadn't really crossed paths with Duke Sanga or Marquis Samons all that much, so conversations might not flow all that smoothly. For the record, Uncle Mark, Aunt Martha, and the rest of the Kukuri Village crowd seemed oddly relaxed around the King and Maria. When I asked my uncle why, he just laughed and said, "Country folks are thick-skinned!" The real reason was probably that they'd had plenty of chances to talk with them at our place and had gotten used to it... But still, as Uncle said, they were definitely thick-skinned. Otherwise, even if they'd met at our place, they wouldn't have kept chatting to the point of actually getting close. In that sense, I was thick-skinned too for calling the guy "old man" right after meeting him... or rather, I had even more issues of my own.
"In any case, most of the guests will be from Kukuri Village, so it should feel like one of our usual drinking parties, just a bit bigger. Don't be shy—join in. Oh, and the King and Maria will almost certainly be there too, but it's a casual affair, so don't worry about it."
"No, as a noble of this kingdom, I have to be careful not to be discourteous. Just because it's a casual affair doesn't mean I can act rudely—doing so would almost always make things worse. And if it's His Majesty and Maria we're talking about, at best I'd be disinherited, and at worst, executed. Not only that, it would definitely bring fallout onto the Sanga Duchy, and in the worst case, the duchy could be destroyed entirely. Cain and I would never play along with that sort of joke, but with Lion, there's always that one-in-a-million chance, so don't joke about it, even as a joke."
Albert seemed to know I was joking, but he made sure to warn me to pick my audience. I didn't think even Lion would take it seriously... but you never know what happens when he gets drunk, so I made a mental note to avoid that particular joke.
"Lion really can't be trusted, can he... Well, when you think about everything he's done up until now, it's unfortunate, but he's given everyone plenty of reason to think that way."
Grandpa nodded in agreement, convinced that Lion was indeed the type to pull something like that.
"Tenma, you shouldn't be saying things like that where just anyone can hear. If someone who doesn't know the full story overhears, they'll think you're making fun of the King, the Queen, and the heir to Count Haust."
While I was cracking my usual jokes, Felt, who had been quiet up until then, butted in. I didn't actually mean to mock the King or anyone else, but hearing it put that way, I realized—belatedly—that it could certainly come across that way to an outsider. I made a mental note to keep that particular joke to myself from now on. Though when it came to Lion, I didn't think I needed to watch my words.
"Make sure you don't wrinkle it before the real thing. As for maintenance, the material is tough enough that you don't need to be too neurotic about it, but the more carefully you treat it, the longer it'll last."
Felt shoved the outfit into my hands, told me to stow it in the Magic Bag right away, and pointed toward the door. Once we had the outfit,
our business at
Felt's shop would be done, so we quietly saw ourselves out.
"Felt was looking pretty ticked off, wasn't she..."
"Well, can't be helped. If those rival shops found out we'd been badmouthing Alex and his people at Felt's store,"
"they'd quickly twist the whole thing around so it became 'Felt was the one talking trash'—"
"and spread that rumor all over town. Besides, even if she tried to deny it, just being present would make her complicit. So her only option was to warn us and throw us out—that was the only card she could play."
"We weren't even thinking about Felt—the three of us were just goofing off way too much."
Being so close to the King, we couldn't help but fixate on all his flaws, and we'd easily slip into griping about them—but we'd completely forgotten that, in the eyes of most people, that would count as lèse-majesté.
As I was reflecting on all this with Grandpa,
"Hey, Tenma... doesn't this mean I've technically been badmouthing His Majesty too?"
Albert asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
"You might not have said anything outright, but just being there with us amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"
"That's right. Even without saying a word, you'd be guilty by association. No—if anything, your rank puts you even lower than Alex's underlings, so you might be worse off than us... If it comes to that, I'll put in a good word for you."
"That's exactly why I have nothing to do with this!"
Albert's flustered reaction was so perfect that we kept teasing him all the way back to the mansion. Well, we'd meant to stop once we got there, but just as we were going for one last jab, Primera and Amour caught us red-handed—and so the Albert-roasting session got extended.
And then, the next day—
"So after all that teasing yesterday, you guys are just going to up and leave for the Royal Capital..."
With all our business in Gunjou City wrapped up, we paid our farewells to everyone we knew in the morning and departed for the Royal Capital that afternoon.
He was clearly unhappy about it, but Albert understood that the monster incident had forced Primera and me to extend our stay beyond the original plan—so despite his complaints, he didn't try to hold us back.
"Alright then—let's head to Seigen double-time!"
I called out to Amour, who was busy dueling the "Lynx Princess" that had come to see us off—
"I won again!"
Then Amour came back. Behind her was a tired-looking Aura, and behind her were three with unhappy expressions. For the record, Jeanne hadn't been participating from the start, probably because she'd been left out of the group recently, and that seemed to have added to Aura's burden. I was thinking it was unusual for Reni not to take part, but apparently she'd gone to stock up on merchandise and information right up until the moment of departure and wouldn't be back in time for the scheduled time.
"I'm sure there won't be any unexpected commotion in Seigen, right?"
When Primera murmured that as we were about to depart, Amour was looking at her with a gaze like someone pitying a fool… but on the way to Seigen, and even in Seigen itself, no problems arose—on the contrary, it went so smoothly it was almost eerie—and for some reason, Amour kept looking frustrated about it.