This world didn’t really have anything worthy of being called a maid uniform.
Because the nobles had no particular reason to take interest in commoners’ clothing.
The maid uniform that we commonly think of in modern times, based on a black one-piece dress, was an outfit established during the Victorian era when a class that was ambiguous—neither noble nor commoner—increased explosively.
It was born from people who weren’t nobles but wanted to put on airs like nobles, wishing to distinguish themselves from their maids and to boast that they could employ them.
But in this place, where there was no need for that, a maid uniform just had to be neat, and all you needed to do was tie on an apron.
What kind of terrible thing was this?
The maid’s color scheme wasn’t black and white?
Because this was unacceptable, I made a maid uniform as my very first creation.
Unfortunately, the modern maid uniform has become an element of sexual fetish, but the maid uniform first born in the Victorian era had modesty, neatness, plainness, and calmness as its core keywords.
What’s important to nobles is dignity, so their servants can’t be vulgar.
And our Emily is a maid whose essence is modesty, neatness, and calmness.
“Hehehe... Heheheh...”
The laughter wouldn’t stop.
I stared intently at the dressing room Emily had entered, bursting into laughter like a madman every ten seconds.
To think I could see a perfect, flawless maid for the first time since being reborn.
“She’s late...”
It had only been three minutes since Emily entered the dressing room.
It wasn’t even enough time to have gone in and properly changed, but waiting like this made me feel as though I’d become an old man.
Was this what a child felt like waiting for their first Christmas?
—Click.
“!”
While I was waiting for Emily, shaking my legs restlessly, the doorknob turned, and the firmly closed door of the dressing room opened.
Finally!
I could see the perfect, flawless maid that I hadn’t laid eyes on in seventeen years.
My heart pounded as if it would burst.
While rubbing my chest and trying to calm my rampaging heart, Emily walked out of the dressing room awkwardly, as if the new clothes felt strange.
“Hss... Hoo...”
Carefully closing the dressing room door, Emily took a deep breath and slowly walked toward me.
A blouse-like bodice, a skirt that felt voluminous yet graceful.
I had aimed for the dress length to be slightly short so that her flats and socks would peek out when she walked, and I added pure white frills to the hem to keep it from looking too plain.
The apron, an essential item for a maid, was made from white cloth with as few decorations as possible to keep it plain. The length was long enough to cover from the shins to the chest, but the width was slightly narrow so the dress wouldn’t be completely hidden.
And to finish, since her hair was somewhat plain, a frill-decorated headband.
“Young Master.”
Emily, who had before I knew it approached right up to my nose, placed her hands politely near her navel, straightened her back, and neatly put her legs together.
“How does it look to you, Young Master? Does it suit me as well as you imagined?”
Black hair and dark eyes that faintly gave off a gray hue.
A ponytail tied up neatly without a single stray hair.
Clean, translucent skin.
A calm and graceful impression.
Plus one spoonful of maid uniform.
“Perfect.”
I held up my right thumb and smiled broadly.
A talent optimized for maid uniforms had put on a maid uniform—there was no way it would look strange.
If it looked strange? Then that meant I had made the clothes like an idiot.
Because the face is what completes fashion.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Is there anywhere uncomfortable or loose?”
“Hmm...”
Emily pouted her lips and moved her arms and legs about.
After moving around wildly, squatting down and stretching, she smiled brightly and assumed a polite posture again.
“It’s fine, the size fits just right.”
“Really?”
It was a welcome sound.
Because it meant there was no need for further alterations.
Later, I just needed to neatly finish the roughly tidied threads and the hem.
“Um, Young Master.”
While I was admiring myself for having made it quite perfectly despite having taken up sewing for the first time in a long while, and was looking Emily up and down, Emily, who had been fidgeting with her fingers restlessly, spoke carefully.
“If you’ve seen enough, may I take it off now?”
“Hmm...”
I had checked what I needed to, so it was fine for her to take it off, but...
There was still one thing left I wanted to see.
The thing I had wanted to see most when I first made the maid uniform.
“Before you take it off, can I ask one favor?”
“...Is it something strange?”
“No, I just need you to say one thing.”
“I’ll decide after hearing it.”
“Please say, ‘Young Master, it is morning. Please wake up,’ just once, with no expression at all, in a gentle voice.”
“...?”
Along with an expression full of questions, Emily’s lips twisted slightly to the left.
I knew full well that it was out of nowhere, but a servant in a maid uniform waking her master in the morning with a gentle voice while drawing the curtains—
Honestly, there was no way I could resist this.
I figured if she had endured those tacky clothes all this time, it should be fine to receive this much as compensation.
“Well... if it’s just that much, I can do it.”
“Then please.”
Emily made a reluctant expression, but after a brief moment of thought, a barely positive response came out.
“Ahem! Hem!”
Closing her eyes and wiping all expression from her face, Emily covered her mouth with her right fist, cleared her throat, and loosened up.
Through a very brief preparation, a maid who treated her master in a businesslike, official manner appeared before my eyes.
I clasped my hands together and waited with a pounding heart, and Emily’s firmly closed lips gently parted.
“Young Master, it is morning. Please wake up.”
A much more serious expression and eyes narrower than usual.
Red lips releasing a gentle voice.
Gracefulness born of restrained movements and attitude.
Plain, yet beautiful.
Why couldn’t I have seen this sight sooner?
To think such a jewel had been left in those tacky clothes—I resented my past self so much for not having had the courage to do this even a little younger.
“Young Master? Um... please stop staring blankly and say something.”
As I was gazing at Emily in a daze, Emily said, blushing and shrinking her neck as if embarrassed.
“Ah...”
This was too good to keep to myself.
Shouldn’t everyone in the mansion see this, not just me?
“Young Master?”
I sprang up and grabbed Emily’s wrist.
It was still breakfast time, so if we went to the dining room, Mother would be there, right?
It would be close, but if we hurried, we’d arrive before Mother left.
“Emily, let’s go see Mother right now.”
“Huh?”
I pulled Emily’s arm and left the room just like that.
A flustered Emily tried to pull her arm back and stop me, but it isn’t easy for a woman to overpower a man in strength.
“Young Master! Please wait! Mother? You mean going to the Lady like this? Like this?”
“It’s fine, Emily, because you’re the prettiest you’ve ever been right now!”
“That’s not what I mean! Young Master! Please calm down! I should change clothes before going to the Lady—”
“Let’s hurry, Emily!”
“Yooooung Masteeeer!”
As the door opened, Emily’s voice echoed loudly through the hallway.
_
In the dining room I arrived at dragging Emily along, Father and Hayes were nowhere to be seen, having apparently finished their meal and left already, but fortunately, Mother was still seated at the table continuing her breakfast.
So overjoyed that we had arrived barely in time, I called out to Mother in an excited voice.
“Mother!”
“Yes, William, this mother can hear you perfectly well even if you speak softly.”
Mother, who had been cutting her meat with a knife in an elegant posture, frowned and slightly covered her ear with her left hand.
“So.”
Her head, which had been facing her plate, slowly rose and turned toward me.
“What is this commotion so early in the morning...”
Mother, who had been glaring at me with wide eyes, saw Emily standing behind me, and about three furrows formed between her brows.
Then, after glancing at another maid waiting nearby, she looked at Emily again and opened her mouth.
“William, what have you done to Emily?”
I forcibly pulled Emily, who was hiding behind me, out and pushed her forward so she was clearly visible to Mother.
“Um, Young Master? Why are you pushing me forw—please wait!”
Emily, who had turned pale, tried to resist by shaking her head vigorously, but it was not a very meaningful act.
“Ugh...”
Feeling the difference in strength once again, Emily straightened her posture with a half-resigned expression and stood up straight.
I fixed the crooked headband from the slight scuffle behind her back and said with a smile like a parent looking at their well-grown child.
“Mother, isn’t this outfit really pretty?”
“Hmm...”
Accompanied by a small murmur, Mother’s eyes moved from top to bottom, then from bottom to top.
“Well... I don’t know where you bought it, but it’s not bad. It’s neat, tidy, and it suits Emily well.”
“Right?”
As expected, I knew Mother would recognize it at a glance.
I felt like I could fly.
As I was patting Emily’s back and grinning, Mother put down her fork, pressed hard at her temple with her left hand, and opened her mouth.
“William, so can you explain what this is about?”
“Mother, how about changing all the maids’ outfits in the house to this?”
“Haa...”
Mother’s deep sigh, her eyes squeezed shut, filled the dining room.
The atmosphere turned cold in an instant. All the servants in the dining room bowed their heads in unison to avoid meeting Mother’s eyes.
“Young Masteeeer...”
Emily, stuck between me and Mother and unable to avoid the situation like the other servants, called out to me in a voice brimming with tears.
But if my opponent was Mother, there wasn’t much I could do either.
I merely avoided Emily’s desperate eyes and waited for Mother to say something.
“William.”
As I waited anxiously, Mother opened her eyes and called me.
Then, glaring at me with sharp eyes and pointing at the chair across from her with her knife, she spoke in a cold voice.
“First, sit down and eat.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Mother’s angry...