“Welco—... Gah! Barbarians?!”
The moment we opened the shop door, a shrill scream rang out in place of a friendly greeting.
The clerk at the counter took one look at us, stumbled backward, crashed into a display rack, and plopped down onto the floor.
For an instant, silence fell over the shop as if cold water had been poured over it.
The other customers who had been choosing clothes began whispering as they looked at us.
“Are those... barbarians from beyond the wall? The ‘Extra-Territorial Peoples,’ I mean.”
“Leather clothes, and even axes... They’re real.”
“Shouldn’t we call the guards?”
Still, the atmosphere was not exactly hostile.
They were the eyes of people observing and guarding against something they had never seen before.
Of course, if it had been an ordinary barbarian, he would have immediately pulled out his axe and caused a scene, shouting, “Who are you calling a barbarian!”
“Ahem.”
I chuckled and gently wrapped an arm around Kara’s shoulders as she began to stiffen with tension.
Then, in a deliberately dignified yet pointed voice, I said,
“That was a little harsh. Our baby can hear you, you know. Calling us ‘barbarians’ right to our faces.”
“Uh, um...?”
The clerk blinked in confusion.
She must have expected me to get angry over her mistake, but when I suddenly brought up childcare, her brain seemed to stop working.
I didn’t miss that opening and added with a smooth smile,
“It’s not good for prenatal education. Or you could use what that customer over there said earlier—‘Extra-Territorial Peoples.’ Doesn’t that sound much nicer?”
“Ah....”
At my relaxed response, the clerk’s face turned as red as a ripe tomato.
Kara, standing beside me, also caught on to my intent and joined in, stroking her belly.
“That’s right. We can’t have our child learning bad words from the womb.”
Kara’s voice was calm.
But her blue eyes were emitting a silent pressure that said, “If you don’t apologize, I’ll rip out this shop’s pillars.”
“I-I’m sorry! I was rude...!”
The clerk hurriedly bowed her head and apologized.
The soldiers nearby also seemed to relax, murmuring, “Oh... they can speak?” and “They’re more polite than I expected.”
Situation resolved.
An elegant victory.
‘Count Aizen was right after all.’
I recalled the advice Count Aizen had given me the previous night.
『The borderlands are a place where all sorts of people come and go, so while there will be some prejudice, what you’ll encounter more strongly than blind hatred is wariness and observation born from unfamiliarity.』
『Use the low expectations that prejudice creates. If you act affably, their caution will be shaken much more easily.』
『Hatred with deep roots is hard to cut down at the base, but shallow-rooted wariness is like a weed that can be pulled out with only a little force.』
It was exactly as he had said.
At the slight display of manners and easygoing charm we showed them, their shallow wariness was pulled out helplessly.
I winked at Kara, and she chuckled, hugging my arm tightly.
‘Good. The first button’s done up properly.’
Just as I was about to start choosing clothes in earnest—
Bang!
The door to the workshop inside the shop flew open roughly, and an elderly gentleman with a tape measure around his neck came rushing out.
His hair was completely white, but his eyes gleamed like those of a wild beast. He was the shop’s head tailor.
“What is all this commotion! I can’t concentrate on making clothes!”
He roared and swept his gaze across the hall.
Then his eyes landed on the two of us.
“......!”
His eyes widened as if they were about to pop out.
I instinctively stepped in front of Kara.
Just as I was about to raise my guard, thinking he was about to pick a fight—
“Oh... Oooooh!”
An exclamation burst from the old gentleman’s mouth.
His eyes were like those of a miner who had discovered a rough diamond while wandering through a mine.
Or the madness of an artist who had finally met the muse he had spent his entire life searching for.
“Move! Everyone, move!”
The old gentleman shoved the clerk aside and rushed at me.
“Th-this can’t be!”
Without warning, he began feeling around my waist and shoulders.
“Excuse me! What are you doing!”
I tried to step back in bewilderment, but he paid no attention and poked at the muscles of my back.
“A body over two meters tall... and no belly?”
“What?”
“Normally, with a build this big, you’d expect a beer gut or sagging love handles... But this is a perfect inverted triangle!”
He pulled out his tape measure and instantly measured my chest and waist.
“Chest width... tapering waist... My word! This is sculpture! A living statue!”
The tailor shouted in excitement, spittle flying.
“You lot! What are you doing! Bring pins! Fabric and chalk too!”
At his yell, other tailors came pouring out of the workshop.
They surrounded me and began exclaiming in admiration as if they had seen some rare spectacle.
“Wow... Look at the way that shoulder line falls.”
“Ready-made sizes will never fit him. We’ll have to take in the entire waist.”
“Putting a loose ready-made outfit on a body like this would be a sin! It has to be custom-made!”
In their eyes, I was no longer a “barbarian.”
I had become the greatest “canvas” and “mannequin” upon which they could display their skills.
The clothing shops of this border city mainly served large-bodied soldiers, so most of them were used to making clothes that concealed the figures of potbellied middle-aged men.
And then, out of nowhere, a perfectly muscular model had appeared. Their occupational disease had flared up.
“Um... Excuse me?”
Troubled, I looked at Kara.
But Kara’s situation was not much different.
“My goodness... Madam! Pardon me, but could you turn around just once?”
Female tailors had surrounded Kara.
“Oh my, oh my! Look at that hip line!”
“She’s so beautifully tall, and her proportions... This is a fit you’d never get from the noble young ladies of the Empire!”
“You’re pregnant? Ah, you’re in the early stage. Even so, your lines aren’t lost at all! If we put you in an empire-style dress, it would be the descent of a goddess!”
Kara, too, had a “healthy Valkyrie” style rarely seen in the Empire.
For tailors who had only ever made clothes for scrawny noble young ladies, Kara’s firm and refreshing figure was a blessing in itself.
“Um... We just came to buy a few ready-made outfits....”
Kara said, bewildered, but the head tailor firmly shook his head.
“Absolutely not! That would be an insult to clothing!”
With his face flushed from excitement, he launched into an impassioned speech.
“We have, on occasion, dressed life-size marble statues at the request of eccentric nobles from the capital. Of course, their proportions were perfect. But those were merely static lumps of stone! They were dead work, with no need to capture the mechanics of joints meant for ‘movement,’ the very essence of clothing, or the rhythm of muscles.”
He grabbed my arm, his eyes shining like those of a seeker of truth.
“But the two of you are different! Those creations... They are the very bodies of living, breathing heroes, as if they had leapt out of myth! This is a chance that may come once in a lifetime, if ever, to pour all my skill into moving works of art!”
“Um, thank you for the compliments, but this is really embarrassing…”
“Please, I beg you. Let us make your clothes. We won’t even take payment! No, please, just wear them!”
“No, how can you not take payment? You’re running a business.”
“It is an honor to dress bodies like these in my clothes! Now, this way!”
In the end, we were dragged off to the fitting rooms by the tailors.
It was utter chaos.
“Spread your legs a little farther! The thigh circumference is... wow, that’s art.”
“Madam, raise your arms. An off-shoulder style that shows your shoulder line would be perfect!”
Dozens of tailors clung to us, taking measurements, holding up fabrics, and placing pins.
At first, I was flustered, but later, it became rather funny.
I had been worried we might be discriminated against as barbarians, but far from discrimination, it had turned into a fan meeting.
‘People of the Empire are more passionate than I expected.’
I chuckled as I looked at myself in the mirror, surrounded by tailors.
Then Kara’s voice came from beyond the partition beside me.
“Oh, this dress is pretty. Varg! How do I look in this?”
“Beautiful! Very beautiful!”
Hearing the delight in Kara’s voice put me in a good mood as well.
The fitting began in earnest.
First was Kara’s turn.
When Kara drew back the fitting room curtain and stepped out, another exclamation broke out inside the shop.
“Ooooh...!”
It was an outfit the tailors had created by taking a men’s officer dress uniform as the base and altering the waist and hip lines.
The black uniform contrasted with Kara’s pale skin, creating an even more alluring atmosphere.
On top of that, because she was still in the early stages of pregnancy and her belly had not yet begun to show, her lines were fully visible. It was truly the textbook example of how a uniform should fit.
“Perfect, madam! I thought the goddess of the battlefield had descended!”
The tailors clapped like seals, and the soldier customers watching from nearby stared as if their souls had left their bodies.
“Wow... A fit like that is possible?”
“She looks cooler than the Imperial Guard.”
Kara also seemed pleased with her reflection, turning this way and that before the mirror with a smile.
The problem was me.
“Grrrgh....”
Inside the fitting room, I was groaning.
“Customer? Are you still not ready?”
“No, it’s just... My arms won’t go in.”
I was sweating buckets as I wrestled with the shirt.
My height, close to two meters, was a problem, but the bigger problem was my muscles.
There was no fabric capable of handling the trapezius and deltoids that rose up hard and massive like rock.
The stiff, non-stretch fabric unique to imperial dress uniforms was screaming before it had even settled over my shoulders.
When I pulled back the curtain and emerged with my upper body half exposed, the tailors’ expressions turned serious.
“Oh dear... Even the largest size isn’t nearly enough.”
The head tailor stroked his beard with a troubled expression.
“By any chance... will you be staying in this border city for a few days? If you give us just a little time, we can procure special fabric from the capital and tailor something for you.”
At his suggestion, I shook my head.
“No, we’re just stopping to resupply and then heading straight to Aizenguard. We can’t stay long….”
My answer caused a stir among the tailors.
“He’s going to Aizenguard?”
“That place is close to the capital, so it’s crawling with skilled fellows!”
“If those bastards see this body... we won’t even get a chance!”
Their eyes wavered.
The pride of borderland artisans.
The sense of crisis that they might lose this overwhelming creation to the refined dandies of the capital stirred them up.
“No! We can’t let them take him!”
The head tailor shouted, eyes wide.
“Bring the largest thing we have for now! Let’s at least try to get the sleeves on!”
Pressed by urgency, the tailors rummaged through the storeroom and brought out a gigantic dress uniform that looked big enough to cover a bear hide.
They clung to me and began forcing the clothes onto me.
“Now, put your arm this way... Heave-ho! Just a little more!”
“Hoo... Hoo....”
Thanks to their desperate efforts, we finally succeeded in getting both arms into the sleeves.
However.
“This... is a bit too tight, isn’t it? I can’t breathe.”
There was no hope of buttoning it up, and the back and shoulders were stretched taut to the point of bursting.
“It’s fine! The fit has taken shape! Now, try straightening your shoulders!”
At the tailor’s urging, I carefully straightened my shoulders.
Only very slightly.
I used only the faint amount of strength the warriors of the Winterclaw tribe used when warming up.
At that moment—
Riiiiip!
Pop!
With a crisp tearing sound, the fabric wrapped around my back screamed.
A barbarian’s compressed muscles.
There was no way ordinary fabric could withstand the explosive force generated when muscles with the elasticity of a rubber ball and the density of steel repeatedly contracted and relaxed.
Shreds of ruined cloth fluttered down.
Suddenly half-naked, I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.
“Ah... This is why I said I wouldn’t wear it. Do I have to pay for this?”
But the tailors’ reaction was unexpected.
“Pay for it? This is data!”
They did not care at all that the clothes had torn.
On the contrary, their eyes shone as if to say, “As expected, my prediction was right!”
“Did you see that? Ordinary Oxford cloth cannot withstand the tensile coefficient!”
“Silk blends won’t work either! They lack elasticity!”
Without paying any attention to the torn clothes, they clung to my back again with tape measures and began an intense conference.
As I found myself more flustered by their mad passion, the head tailor shouted with a solemn expression, as if he had made up his mind.
“This won’t do. Bring it out!”
“Pardon? Surely you don’t mean...?”
“Yes. We’re bringing out the treasure of the Closer family!”
A short while later.
The head tailor emerged from deep within the storeroom carrying an ebony box covered in a thick layer of dust.
His hands trembled faintly as he opened it.
Creak.
When the box opened, it revealed a fabric with a unique, glossy texture.
It was a mysterious item whose color changed subtly whenever it caught the light, like the hide of a living creature.
“What is that...?”
One of the soldiers watching from nearby widened his eyes.
Head Tailor Closer caressed the fabric and spoke in a trembling voice.
“It is ‘Behemoth Hide.’”
“Pardon? Behemoth?”
When I asked back, the customers inside the shop gasped and fell silent.
In the early days of the Empire’s founding.
Behemoths were legendary high-ranking monsters said to have poured out when the “Gate” opened.
Their hide was tougher than steel yet more flexible than rubber, and above all, it possessed the insane ability to remember the user’s mana patterns and self-regenerate when mana was infused into it even after being damaged.
After the Gate was sealed, its source of supply vanished, and even when it had been available, it was a legendary fabric that could only be seen in the imperial treasure vault or among the military supplies of frontline commanders.
‘No, why would you use something like a national treasure on clothes for someone you just met?’
I stared at the head tailor in disbelief.
But his eyes were already gleaming with madness.
He was in no state to be reasoned with.