<table>Author : Sasaki Ichiro Original Source : Syosetu Translator : Mab English Source : Re:Library Editor(s) : Silva</tbody></table>
Even as I tried to resist, the general store owner was a battle-hardened kid handler, what with her raising four unruly children herself. It shocked me to my core how easily she nullified all of my techniques and stripped me naked.
âHIIEEEEKKK!!â
âOh dear, what lovely skin you have~ What product do you use? Oh, you donât? Wow!â
She made me wear embroidered knickers.
âKYAAAAAHHH!!â
âYup, good butt you have there. Youâll have an easy time giving birth.â
She forcibly put panniers on me to make the dress expand more.
âNNYYOOOOO?!!â
âThank goodness, I still have my old panniers.â
She fitted a three-tiered flurry petticoat under my skirt.
âBYYUUUUU!!!â
âWow, you have high hips. How enviable.â
She draped a sky-blue one-piece dress over my head.
âDOHHEEEEEE!?!â
âWearing this will make the sleeves of your dress look good.â
And, as though she had been waiting for it, she put me in a dress decorated with snow-white laces and ribbons.
âHWEEEEEHHH!!??â
âOh dear, thereâs room on your waist. Well, I guess weâll tighten the ribbon there.â
She took off the ribbon on my hair, applied some kind of perfumed oil, and combed my hair through.
âHOGEEEEHH!?!?!â
âYour hair is so smooth and tangle-free. Make sure to take care of it!â
And finally, she put on a thin layer of makeup on me.
âNDDOOOOH?!?!?!â
âI think you donât need the makeup itself, but girls have manners, you see~ âŠThat said, you sure have a wide variation of screams.â
And thus, three hours passed⊠Just, why would girls take so much time and effort just to get ready? I donât understand. I had completely transformed into a different person altogether, and the one who stared back at me from the other side of the mirror had her face as pale as a ghost and her eyes just as dead.
âCheer up! Youâre ruining all the glow-up if you look that grim.â
ââŠwell, my face has been dull since birth, soâŠâ
âWell, I guess we do need to put on the veil then, as wasteful as it is. By the lord, covering your face with something like this is plain weird. Well, my own sons also liked to say nonsense like âooh the darkness within meâ or âthe seal in my left hand is throbbingâ when they were your age, so I guess itâs just a phase.â
Huh? Did my backstory just get the chuunibyou treatment�
âWell, youâre all fixed. Iâll keep your clothes here, so go have your fill!â And finally, she handed me a see-through veil and a pair of boots decorated with flowers before she haphazardly threw me out from the back room.
ââŠW-, will this actually hide my face?â Itâs pretty transparent, you knowâŠ
I put the veil as close to my face as possible, hoping that would obscure my face more, and sneaked back towards the store with a hunched back. In my mind, I saw myself as a certain covert operative soldier who fell to the allure of cardboard boxes to infiltrate enemy territory. Well, truthfully speaking, I too would love to hide in a cardboard box if cardboard boxes existed in this world.
After all, unlike my usual drab, this fluffy, frilly dress made me painfully aware of my gender. Syltiannaâs basic thoughts were that of a girl, so I usually wasnât very conscious of what I wore, but since my values as a boy were carried over and overwrote hers, I got really embarrassed as if I was crossdressing.
No⊠well⊠I guess I really was a girl, so perhaps calling it a crossdress wasnât exactly correct, but, even then, I was the notorious Ragweed Princess of Livitium Imperial Kingdom. Me putting on a dress and going into public was practically a new dark history in the making.
âB-, but, then again, the store owner didnât give me a bad impression back when she dressed me up, did she? By chance, have I perhaps graduated from being a ragweedâŠ?â
Come to think of it, back then, Syltianna was nicknamed Ragweed because people liked to associate her with her mother Clara who was titled the Cattleya of Livitium Imperial Kingdomâso perhaps there was a mix of envy and misdirected fury for my titling (well, apparently I was 3 years old when she died, so even Syltianna didnât have clear memories of her). So far fetched from her brilliant and graceful mother, a girl as ugly as used rags. That was why I was Ragweed, because I was a weed, so far from beautiful flowersâŠÂ Huh?1
ââarenât the premises already broken, then? Iâm no longer the dolt I had been before since I got the smarts I brought from my previous life, and while Iâm still chubby, Iâm not so flabby like a wet rag that my own figure is hard to look at⊠So, thereâs really no reason for me to be so harsh on myself?â
(This chapter is provided to you by Re:Library)
(Please visit Re:Library to show the translators your appreciation and stop supporting the content thief!)
Perhaps I should raise my self-esteem a bit. Well, itâs not like Iâm so outstandingly beautiful that everyone I meet falls for me, but Iâm not so ugly that people would throw their face away at my mere sight either. In fact, the store owner lady stayed in the same room as me for three hours straight, and she was just fine.
âYup, letâs have some confidence after all. All my daily efforts paid off and now Iâm as average looking as the next person, thatâs all!â
With that in mind, I straightened my back and brazenly walked into the general storeâs storefront where Eren and Vier should be.
âErenâoh?â There was no one there. Seeing that Vier wasnât here either⊠it didnât seem like she was in the restroom. Are they tired of waiting and gone to play?
âHmmâŠâ Well, I could try locating them with mana detection, but⊠Yeah, itâs no good. There were too many people, it was hard to single out Eren and Vier with how many pings I received back.
Well, this is a pickle. As I stood there in the middle of the road, looking troubled, suddenly a boyâs startled voice ââAh!!â came from the other side of the road. The voice turned out to belong to the boy who pulled my veil away the other day, this time with younger children in tow.
While indeed I had my face hidden, my veil was semi-transparent and my waist-length cherry blonde hair was down my back, so it seemed he could recognize me at a glance (well, he did unfortunately see my bare face the last time we met). Although, he was less recognizing and more frozen rigid like a frog meeting a snake.
(âŠI knew it, this veil really doesnât do its job, does it?)
Not to mention, his overtly erratic reaction was enough to make me once again question if there really was a problem with my face.
On the other hand, the little kids the boy (forgot his name) was ferrying around didnât seem to know me as the witchâs apprentice, their gazes were colored with curiosity and interest as they whispered to each other.
âWhoâs that?â âA princessâŠ?â âWow, a princess~â âShe a guest?â âWoow~â
I couldnât hear them that well, but they didnât give the same bad vibes as the last batch of kids who saw me. If anything, it was as if they just saw a rare animal. As I was starting to get uncomfortable, the boyâs brain finally rebooted, before he intently marched at meâface beet red as if he was furious.
âOi, you!â
âJill.â
ââHuh?â
âMy name. Itâs not âYouâ.â
âO-, oh. Jill⊠Jill, huh.â
âSo, what do you want? ErmâŠâ
âItâs Bruno.â
Bruno, for some reason, introduced himself heartily, half-proud, half-relieved.
âAh, I am Ian!â âIâm Carter!â âKenta here!â âWill!â
âIâm Charlie!â
âOi you skanks, Iâm talking here. Tone it down!â
When the little boys eagerly leaned forward and introduced themselves, Bruno held them back with his hand. That sight of them made a chuckle escape my mouth.
âAh! She laughed!â
âPrincess, you here for the festival?â
âAre you friends with Bruno?â
Their innocence washed away the ill feelings that had nestled in my heart. That being said, even though I dressed the same way as before, one-piece attire with a veil, I was a âWitchâ if I wore black but a âPrincessâ if I wore white, huh? How very childlike.
(This chapter is provided to you by Re:Library)
(If you are reading this from other sites, that means this content is stolen. Please support us by visiting our site.)
âJust shut up, you kids! Also, this guyâŠer, Jill is not a princess.â
âEeh, sheâs a princess!â
âRight!!â
âAah, youâre all so noisy. Oi, Jill! Erenâs calling you to the field in the east.â
So he informed me crudely, butâobviously, I could only twist my neck in confusion.
âWhere is that?â
âItâs uhh⊠Dangit, this stinks. Come!â
Bruno, scratching his mussed brown hair, walked away without waiting for my reply. I hesitated for a moment, but the kids surrounded me, so I followed his lead.
Authorâs Note:
In the draft, I planned to have the general store lady, the silver-haired receptionist, and the flower goddess run into each other so that Jill would go âWow, theyâre all so pretty. I can never be like them. After all, Iâm soâŠâ but I scrapped that.
Translatorâs Note:
Authorâs previous works. Ragweed Extended Universe? insert wojak here