Interlude: The Walking Ransom (Part Two)

In the end, I had Sissi choose the jewel. A vivid sapphire matched to the Miss's eye color, she says! Still, being able to match a jewel to your eyes is a nice thing. It's easy to pick, and it makes for a distinctive look. If you were Japanese, everyone would end up with onyx or black pearl.

The jewel decided, I slipped into the dress. Put on the dress, do up the hair, then add the jewel. The walking ransom, complete.

When I slid my arm smoothly into the dress Sissi held out, its silky feel surprised me. This is polyeste... no, no, silk. Silk. They say silk draws in moisture, has a smooth touch, and a refined sheen too, but I can't believe such a slippery fabric draws in any moisture.

Well, thinking such pointless things, the dress I slipped into was light as a feather. It was not. It was heavy as armor. Of course it was. There's no way a dress that can stand upright on its own without a torso-form is light.

"Guh... f..."

"Miss, you're beautiful! Now, let's do your hair. I've been practicing the piled-up style that's all the rage in the royal capital, modeled on a cuckoo clock!"

"What... did you say!"

A shock like being struck by lightning ran through me. I'd wondered what the wooden box was, sitting on the white-wood, fairy-tale dresser, but surely, that?! And the cute little bird set on the fluffy mini-cushion, that?!

What rose in my mind was the photo of the Renaissaaance in my history textbook. A decorative hairstyle like a parfait topped with soft-serve, all the rage in the royal capital?!

"Hold on there, Sissi dear. If you put a wooden box like that on my head, my neck might snap clean off."

The unexpected shock turned my speech strange too. But paying no mind to my distress, Sissi shook her head with a fine smile.

"It's all right, Miss! You're always training, aren't you! Of course your neck is sturdy too!"

"What am I, some kind of martial artist?! I certainly don't train my neck! Training your neck means, what, neck bridges?! That's not something a young lady does!"

"Miss..."

"What is it?!"

"It's a bit late for that."

Sissi lowered her eyes sadly and said it flatly in a small voice.

---

"Miss, the finishing touch is the shoes! Signora's newest model, its finest masterpiece, I want you to wear on your big day. Ed and I worked so hard on it!"

In contrast to Sissi's radiant smile, I was barely breathing. Of course I was. Bound in movement by a dress hard and heavy as steel armor, with a birdhouse on my head. She called it a cuckoo clock, but any way you look at it it's a birdhouse. Now and then it suddenly goes "cuckoo!", pointlessly realistic. It's so sudden it startles me!

"Miss? Are you all right?"

"N-no, I'm fine... I'm looking forward to the new piece you and Ed thought up."

I forced the words out to Sissi. However torturous the outfit I'm made to wear, Sissi means no harm. Probably. She's only putting the royal capital's trends into my look, with no ill intent at all... right?

"Wonderful! Now, here it is!"

"This is...!"

My eyes went wide with shock. So shocked my mouth fell open too.

"Signora's new piece, the Naga-Guttsu!"

"Whaaat?! Those are rubber boots!"

What the proud Sissi took out were, any way you looked at them, rubber boots. The white kind you'd wear at a school-lunch kitchen.

"The black Naga-Guttsu you developed with Bob, we finally managed to dye white after much trial and error!"

"Wow..."

"Dyeing water-repellent Naga-Guttsu was terribly hard. But how about it, this elegant form, this coloring...! With these, all eyes at the ball will be glued to you!"

"They will, sure, because you'd be wearing rubber boots at a ball."

As if such a young lady could exist! The rubber would squelch every time I danced! To think there was footwear with an even higher hurdle than slippers at a ball. That was a blind spot.

"Now, please try them on! Miss!"

"Th-that, only that, nooooo!"

---

"Miss, Miss, are you all right?!"

"Nooooo... huh?!"

When I came to, I was looking up at a familiar ceiling. This is...

"Huh? My room...?"

As I murmured it, dazed, Sissi lowered her brows with a "there, there" air.

"Miss, did you have a bad dream? You were groaning terribly. I was worried."

"A dream... oh, a dream..."

Sissi had been so real that I'd mixed up dream and reality, it seems.

"Me? I appeared in your dream?"

Oh no, my inner voice was leaking out again, it seems.

"Uh, yes... Sissi, you made a new Signora piece..."

At my words, Sissi made a startled face.

"My! Miss, you'd noticed the new piece I developed with Ed?!"

"Wha?!"

"I meant to keep it secret a while longer... as expected of you, Miss!"

"N-no... that's not it..."

"Look, the new Naga-Guttsu...!"

"Nooooo!"

Today too, House Edelweiss was peace itself.