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“Pardon? Do you mean to buy every dress from this shop?”
The owner asked with her eyes wide open, and words stuttering.
She looked at Calix, still unable to believe what she was hearing.
She had good reason to.
This was a street lined with dress shops and jewelry stores.
This is Stella Shopping Street, also known as the Ladies’ Street.
These were the finest shops, selling the most expensive items.
How much would it cost to buy everything here?
It would take an unimaginable amount of money.
It would probably cost more than the palace’s monthly budget.
“All right. Just Bring it all.”
However, Calix just gave the order casually.
He looked like he was just buying a handkerchief on the way out.
“Why, what’s the matter? Aren’t they for sale anyway?”
“Oh, no, no.. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
He’s right.
There was no problem in buying all these dresses and jewelry in the shop.
On the contrary, it would be strictly beneficial to the shop’s management.
The owner still had a puzzled look on her face, but she was quick to assess the situation.
She hurriedly bowed her head.
“Just a moment, Your Highness, and I’ll bring it all back.”
She summoned her staff, with a wave of her hand.
Soon, colorful dresses began to pour into the entire room, where the two were standing.
The staff came in with dresses one after another, and hung them all on the rack in front.
There were dresses of all colors and shapes.
There’s a cream-colored silk dress with petals embroidered with tiny pearls, a jade-colored satin evening gown with tiny emeralds between the lace of the skirt, a purple dress as bright as the Milky Way with pale pink diamonds as embellishments.
Erin, who had been watching all this in a daze, stumbled over to Calix.
“Oh, no, are you going to give all of this to her?”
It was too much, to say the least.
Instead of being impressed by the thoughtfulness, she was simply shocked.
A vision of a young lady who was suddenly overwhelmed by a mountain of dresses, flashed through her mind.
Erin was a little worried, so she asked.
“Won’t she be overwhelmed if we suddenly send her too many gifts?”
Calix then asked in a low voice,
“What do you mean, her?”
“Yes? No, I mean the person who will receive these gift.”
“Well, the recipient of the gift is here.”
“
What?”
‘What did he say?’
Erin asked, wondering what she had heard.
“Excuse me, whose gift is this for?”
Calix looked at her like she was asking the obvious.
“It’s a gift for you, of course.”
“..Huh?”
‘I thought he was going to give it to a girl he liked?’
Meanwhile, dresses were piling up on the dress rack in front of the two of them.
It wasn’t a nameless young lady who was overwhelmed by the mountain of dresses, but Erin herself.
“What the
 Why are you suddenly buying me all this stuff?”
“I thought you said you were doing me a favor?”
“A favor?”
Erin remembered the conversation she and Calix had had in the kitchen.
‘A favor?’
‘Yeah. First of all, I want you to come with me to the city center.’
It had seemed like nothing, so Erin had agreed.
‘All right.’
‘You’ll really do me a favor?’
Calix turned to Erin with a smile on his face. He looked so excited. It was cute to see him so happy, so Erin said yes.
‘Yes. At the time, I didn’t think it was weird in the slightest.’
Now that she thought about it, she felt even more uneasy.
“Didn’t you say we should go to the city center?”
“Yeah. I said we should go there first.”
Calix, who had been responding, raised one of his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Did you really think the favor was for you to come here?”
‘I did.’
Erin had thought that they were supposed to go to the city center to buy some clothes for him, then go to a restaurant after that, and just hang out for the day.
Calix looked genuinely incredulous.
“I couldn’t possibly just ask you to do that.”
“Then what was your original request?”
Calix smiled brightly.
“I’ll give my sister-in-law a dress, and I want her to wear it to the ball.”
“Okay.”
Erin realized that Calix had deceived her in an instant.
He’d brought her here on purpose without being honest with her from the start.
If he told her the truth, she wouldn’t have followed him.
He hadn’t even said that he was going to get her a gift, he just let her choose.
“Do you enjoy making fun of people?”
When Erin shut her mouth with a disgruntled growl, Calix suddenly sulked.
He then said with an aggrieved tone,
“You said you’d do me a favor.”
“Indeed. That’s what I promised.”
She just didn’t realize it was something like this.
Of course, Calix would probably be wearing fancy clothes on the day of the ball, so it made sense that Erin would be dressed similarly.
She’d feel a little bad for him if they were partners and one of them was wearing fancy clothes and the other was wearing an old-fashioned dress.
‘But still, this is too much, and I’m not here to rob an entire clothing shop
’
“This is too much.”
It’s not too much, it’s more like this is enough to last a lifetime.
She wondered if she had enough space to put all these.
“You’re going to need a new dress for the ball anyway, right?”
“But this is too much, I’m only going to the ball once, I don’t need to buy this much, and I don’t have anywhere to store it all.”
Erin would have to get rid of all the furniture in her room and move over to Melly just to fit all these dresses. It was that much.
Calix then replied nonchalantly, as if it didn’t matter,
“If you need a place to store it, just leave it at my manor for now.”
“No, but
”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just get rid of the ones that aren’t good enough.”
“Get rid?”
Calix glanced at the rows of dresses on the rack in front of them.
“I’m afraid there are a few that aren’t quite up to par. The ball is tomorrow, and you don’t have time to go through all the shops, do you? Just pick out the ones you’d like to wear to the ball and leave the rest at my mansion. You can come back later when you have time to choose more. I’ll tell them to get rid of anything you don’t like.”
The implication was that with only two days until the ball, she wouldn’t have time to choose, so he’d buy a bunch of stuff and get rid of what she didn’t need later.
Erin was left speechless by Calix’s stern tone.
‘I see, an Archduke is really different.’
Even though Erin herself had lived as a Duchess for nine years, she was still a fallen noble who barely lived in the light, so she hadn’t gotten used to this kind of extravagance.
“Can’t we just pick one right now and go with that?”
That would literally solve everything.
Seeing Erin’s puzzled look, Calix stepped closer.
The distance between them closed in an instant.
He was less than a breath away.
Erin tried to step back, but Calix was faster.
With one hand, he grazed the underside of her collarbone.
Erin flinched.
She tried to pull away, but froze.
Calix’s grip was on Erin’s shirt.
To be exact, below her collarbone, on the silk trim at her neckline.
The plain light green dress had a beige silk trim at the neckline, and it was slightly torn at the bottom.
It had been worn so long that it had become frayed.
“I didn’t even realize it was torn
”
Erin’s ears immediately burned with embarrassment as she realized it, but she’d been too busy working in the shop to bother with a dress.
She shut her mouth in embarrassment, and a wry smile immediately crossed Calix’s handsome face.
“Well, so what, you don’t have to live frugally now.”
He removed his hand from her neckline.
“I mean, you might have to go to another ball or tea party in the future, can’t you at least think about being prepared for that?”
“Uh, well, yeah, okay.”
Erin nodded, while looking back at the black dress on the rack.
She hadn’t worn anything quite like it when she’d been the mistress of the palace.
She’d just spend a little amount of money on herself in order to keep the palace in order.
She always wore a simple, unadorned dress.
Like the one she was wearing now.
It was the same plain light green dress she wore when she lived in the palace.
It paled in comparison to the gorgeous, jewel-encrusted gowns in front of her right now.
I suppose she doesn’t need to mind wearing such a colorful dress now.
“Yes. I promised, I’ll wear it.”
Erin decided to pick out a dress for the ball and a few other things that seemed essential, and store the rest at Calix’s mansion.
She then smiled and thanked Calix.
“Thank you for buying me so many dresses. I’ll cherish them.”
Calix smiled innocently.
Ever since he was a child, Erin had always worn straightforward, unadorned dresses.
When he saw her always wearing plain, solid-colored dresses, he thought, ‘Either our country is really poor, or we’re going through a triple-dip recession, and everyone is playing tricks on me.’
Though he quickly understood why Erin was acting the way she was.
Calix still wanted to make sure she wore a proper fancy dress now that she was out of the palace.
‘I’m looking forward to the ball.’
Erin, in a fancy dress, seemed to be much more beautiful than he could imagine.