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Roroa’s Mistaken Order
“Oh, drat... What am I gonna do about this?” Roroa muttered.
It was an unusually warm day in winter, with four days left before the 32nd day of the 12th month (New Year’s Eve).
In the apparel shop, The Silver Deer 2, which had finally opened in Parnam just a month earlier, Roroa, the former Princess of Amidonia and current candidate to become King Souma’s third primary queen, had a problem. There was a sleeveless, deep crimson dress spread out in front of her.
“How? How’d it go and turn out like this?” she complained.
“There’s no ‘how’ about it... It’s your own fault, isn’t it, Lady Roroa?” the handsome middle-aged man who was standing beside Roroa said with a touch of exasperation.
He was Sebastian, the owner of The Silver Deer. The Silver Deer’s main shop was in Van, but because Roroa, who was one of his best customers, had moved to Parnam, he had left the main shop to someone else to manage so that he could work here. This dress that was causing Roroa such a headache was one he had prepared for her.
“The tailors made this dress to the exact specifications you ordered, Lady Roroa,” he pointed out.
“Well, yeah, my l’il joke may have been what caused it...”
“Not ‘might.’ I can say with certainty that you caused this,” he said.
“No, no. It should’ve been clear I was just foolin’ around, right?” Pointing at the dress, Roroa exclaimed, “Who’d ever wear an oversized dress like this?!”
There was a single dress laid out in front of Roroa. However, that dress was an incredible eighteen meters long. Roroa stood in front of that dress which, even though it had been folded up, was still monopolizing the floor of the store, and held her head in her hands.
“Margie’s the one who’ll be wearin’ it, y’know?”
Margarita Wonder, or Margie as Roroa liked to call her, had been a general in the former Principality of Amidonia. She had now changed careers to become a singer. This dress was one that Roroa had ordered in advance for her. However, while Margarita was a tall woman, she fell just short of two meters tall, and this dress was clearly too long for her.
“Honestly... Were ya expectin’ a dragon to wear this thing?” Roroa asked.
“Like I said, this happened because it was made to the exact specifications you ordered. Have you forgotten what you wrote in the column for Madam Margarita’s height?”
“...1,950 cm.”
“That’s one 0 too many. What kind of giant is she?”
“Shouldn’t it’ve been obvious I wrote that as a joke because Margie’s so darn big?!” Roroa cried.
Roroa and Margarita were close. There was an age difference between them, and one was the daughter of the sovereign while the other was his retainer, but the care they both had for the common people must have been what united them. Roroa thought of Margarita as a friend, and Margarita didn’t hesitate to scold Roroa when she needed to. As part of that, the mischievous Roroa often made a joke out of Margarita’s height and would always receive a light chop to the head for it.
What had happened this time was that she’d written 1,950 cm in the height column, then showed it to Margarita and made fun of her, but she’d forgotten to correct it after she’d received her regular chop to the head.
“I mean, didn’t anyone think it was strange?! It’s eighteen meters, y’know!” Roroa exclaimed.
“You realize that you are the former Princess of Amidonia and a woman who will be His Majesty Souma’s queen, right? Even if they found it odd, no craftsman could possibly raise an objection.”
“Urgh... Am I not allowed to joke around anymore?” Roroa asked, teary-eyed.
“There’s no need for a ruler to be able to tell a joke,” Sebastian said, giving her the harsh truth. “Anyway, if we assume for now that we’ll be having Madam Margarita wear a different dress to participate in the song battle, what are we going to do with this one? Even if you leave it here, I’m going to have trouble selling it, you know?”
“Oh, enough already!” Roroa slapped her own cheeks to get herself fired up. “I’m not one for stayin’ down. I’ll show ya what Darlin’s smartest fiancée can do when she gets serious! Like when I turned around our loss in the war, I’m gonna find me a use for this monster dress!”
Roroa had herself worked up and ready to do something, but Sebastian looked doubtful.
“You say you’ll find a use for it, but what exactly? The best I can think of is taking it apart and reusing the material...”
Rora pressed her fingers to her temples. “Hrmm...” she groaned in thought. Then, about five seconds later, she clapped her hands, seemingly having come up with something. “I know! Here’s a change of thought, Sebastian! Instead of takin’ apart the dress and makin’ it a size she can wear, we’ve just gotta make it so she can wear one this size.”
“Hm? But, is it not impossible for her to wear it at this size?” Sebastian asked.
“If she were wearin’ it as a dress, sure. As a skirt, though, there’re ways it could be done.”
Roroa held up the dress by the back of the neck.
“If we were to close up the arm holes, and shorten this neck section, she could wear it like a skirt. If we stick the top half of a normal dress onto it, it’ll be a dress with an unusually large skirt.”
“However, wouldn’t she be dragging nine-tenths of the skirt behind her?” Sebastian asked.
Roroa waggled a finger and tut-tutted at him with a fearless smile. “If we were makin’ her wear it as a normal dress, I’m sure that’s what’d happen, but this dress is for the song battle. She’ll be wearin’ it on stage. The whole point is for it to stand out. If we put Margie up on a platform of some sort and spread out the hem of the skirt, it’d look mighty impressive, don’t ya think?”
“...I see,” Sebastian said. “You’ll make the dress itself part of the set.”
It was true that if she was only using it to sing on stage, so she didn’t need to move around, and a massive crimson dress would be quite eye-catching for the people watching over the Jewel Voice Broadcast. Sebastian was deeply impressed that she managed to come up with such an idea.
“Well... I’m sure Madam Margarita will hate it, though...” he murmured.
This was the Margarita who had served as a general in the Principality of Amidonia, which valued simplicity and fortitude. This sort of showy presentation wasn’t in her character.
Still, Roroa thought differently. “Margie’s not gorgeous like Big Sister Juna, but she’s got the nerve to speak her mind to anyone, and an ability for leadership that she developed in the military. The loreleis and orpheuses are what’s supportin’ this new culture of broadcast programs that’s startin’ to take root in this country. More and more of ’em are gonna have strong personalities. It’s gonna take someone with nerve and leadership like Margie to bring ’em all together. Me and Darlin’ both want Margie to be a leader in this new field of entertainment. That’s why I ought to use this dress to sell Margie to people throughout the kingdom. To make it so people throughout the kingdom know, where there’s entertainment, there’s Margarita.”
Roroa made her argument. She spoke with such conviction that for a moment Sebastian began to think, So there was that sort of deep meaning behind it, but... when he thought about it, this had all stemmed from Roroa’s mistaken order, and this was all just an excuse she had come up with for it.
“Is this a matter you should discuss with your family?” Sebastian asked.
“I-I think Darlin’ would understand, y’know?”
“I meant Lady Liscia, of course.”
“Not Big Sister Cia! She’s too serious. She’d start on me about how, ‘It’s important to show proper courtesy even to your closest retainers! You can’t let your mistakes cause trouble for those who serve you.’ Then I’d get an hour-long lecture, like the kind she gives to Darlin’!”
When Roroa hugged his arm, begging him, “Please, please, keep quiet about this,” through her tears, Sebastian was left with no choice but to remain silent about the matter.
In the end, Margarita ended up wearing this massive dress in the Red and White Song Battle.
She absolutely hated it, but the gaudy presentation was a big hit with the people, and over her protests, it became an annual tradition at the Red and White Song Battle.
Incidentally, when Souma saw Margarita’s giant dress, he whispered, “I thought she was the big boss of the celebrity world, but it turns out she’s the last boss, huh...”
And so, they all lived happily ever after. (Except Margarita.)