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Welcome Home [Part 2]
“It was the Church’s doctrine, right? It is easier for Foul energy to accumulate on our underwear. If you want to return to god’s side, you should make new underwear once every year after the social season. As hemp is too shabby for underwear material, while silk is too luxurious. Considering the material and prices of other fabrics, cotton has become our only choice as it is best for everyone.”
Francesca recited the Church’s doctrine she had heard many times ever since she was a little girl, from her memory.
“O-Oh…”
“Really?”
“That’s weird.”
“Eh? You don’t know about this?”
Francesca was taken aback when she heard the three siblings’ faint murmurs.
“There’s no church in the borderland, so…”
This was really their first time hearing this. The siblings had never heard of such a thing from their mother, who grew up in the Royal Capital, either.
…Well, House Stuart had just recently become financially stable enough to afford new underwear once a year. Before that, they had been living in poverty. In such destitution, it was hard to broach the matter of wanting to make new underwear. Even though they were freed from their financial difficulties, they still couldn’t fix their parsimonious tendency.
“Emma-sama, you must change out all of your underwear once a year. Underwear is always in direct contact with our skin, as harmful things tend to accumulate there. To wear evil on our body is a blasphemy to God. But now that there’s such a shortage of cotton… everyone can hardly obtain a piece and thus it led to them getting very irritated.”
I-It’s kinda like feng shui (Chinese geomancy), huh? Baffled, Emma couldn’t understand what her friend meant, even after Marion had persuaded her earnestly.
“Pardon me, but can’t we just use silk?”
The Stuart family basically leads a self-sufficient life.
Palace’s tax revenues were all used to benefit Palace.
They took care of silkworms and weaved silk for their own living. That’s why they had a lot of silk underwear and clothes.
Even if their underpants had holes, they would patch them up and continue wearing them with great care. Anyway, their underwear was clean as they had always washed it properly.
“Silk is too extravagant! Right, Caitlyn?”
“Uh-huh, Catherine! Silk is too extravagant!”
The twins also added that underwear must be made of cotton.
The siblings suddenly remembered that even though Rose was delighted when she had asked for silk nightwear, she seemed to have refused silk underwear.
“Um, luxury means seeking more than necessary, right? Now that cotton is unobtainable, isn’t asking for cotton underwear more of a luxury than using the available silk underwear? I think switching to alternatives is much better than bottling up your frustration and being all depressed and irritated because you can’t make new underwear…” Emma put forward her sincere opinion.
Being former Japanese & country folk, the siblings didn’t feel much attachment towards the religion and thus couldn’t comprehend their friends’ fixation with cotton.
First and foremost, it was too much of a mystery that they had been talking about underpants with a dead-serious face since earlier, and no one seemed to think of it as strange.
Frankly speaking, for the Church originating from the Empire, the world’s largest cotton producer, to incorporate the practice of making new cotton underwear after the social season, when most Imperial merchants visited with heaps of cotton, into its doctrine… Was it really only Emma who had noticed the obvious?
Even after Emma had expressed reasonable views on this matter, her friends shook their heads, saying, “But it has to be cotton after all…”
They seemed reluctant to disobey the teaching they’d received since childhood.
Seeing them like this, the siblings couldn’t help but think, ‘For them to be this obstinate… aren’t they already brainwashed?’
If most of the Kingdom’s nobles felt the same way as their friends, the price of cotton would most likely rise rapidly, and in reverse, the value of silk might fall.
“Huh? Doesn’t this mean that our House Stuart… is in a crisis?”
♠♠♠
Translator’s words: I’ve recently started reading the comments in the original raw site and some of them are pretty interesting. The author’s illustrative replies are also quite fun to read on their own.
Which is why we will have our first…
*drumroll*
… Readers’ Corner !
Reader A’s comment
“If they have no cotton, let them wear silk.” -Emma Antoinette
(Btw, Marie-san didn’t actually say, “let them eat cake.”)
Author’s reply
I was really thinking about that when I was writing!
Marie Antoinette had a hard life in other people’s stead.
If Emma is like that… If Emma turns out like that, I’m nervous about what’s going to happen!