Shopping
“U~n, when it comes to things that a girl needs, it has got to be clothes. Haku-chan is cute, so she’ll be even cuter if we wear cute clothes on her!”
Caro says joyfully. The 3 of us, Haku, Caro, and me, came to the shopping district, but somehow, Caro has been acting strange since she met Haku. Why does she look so happy?
“Caro, you’ve been looking delighted since you met Haku, what’s the matter?”
“Nn? To be honest, I wanted a younger sister. But I only have a younger brother, Clifford, right? Although I was also happy when Clifford was born, it’s not like I wasn’t slightly disappointed. Merry, if I have to say, feels like an elder sister”
Caro says and looks over here with a smile. I see. Caro wants to pamper Haku like a little sister huh. That Haku, perhaps isn’t used the stores around, is looking around restlessly.
“What’s the matter? Is there something that you want?”
When I ask Haku, Haku jumps and shakes her head. I wonder if she’s holding back?
“Fufu, Haku-chan, you don’t have to hold back. Lei will pay for everything”
Oi, what are you saying. It’s true that I’ll pay for it, but I can’t indulge just Haku. I didn’t give that much money even to Mei-chan and the others.
“But, you’ve given the three of them more than enough to gather clothes, accessories and so forth, right?”
“That’s a given. Priscilla is my woman after all; Mei-chan and Roy are helping out around my house. I have to fork out that much at least”
I’m asking the three of them to handle the things around the house while we’re at the academy. I have to fork out that much at least.
“But, how are you earning that much? Are you receiving it from the Margrave or something?”
“No, Chichiue only sends allowance to Eliza-hahaue and Aerith. Aniue probably also only receive food expenses. I don’t get anything. I guess it means, ‘men should earn their own money’. It appears that Marco-aniue and Vont-aniue are also earning money at the guild when they have something they need.
I’m also either earning money at the guild or helping out with His Highness Raymond’s requests that come to Shishou and receiving those rewards. Well, the sums for those rewards are ridiculous though”
I’ve saved an amount that won’t quite decrease in my wallet thanks to that. Although it’s an amount that will be gone in an instant if I bought a house or something, it’s an amount that won’t decrease from living normally. I was told that a prize would also be given for the recent goblin subjugation, so it’s going to increase again.
“Heh~ that’s amazing huh. In that case, Haku-chan, let’s buy plenty!”
“Er, keep it in moderation”
Perhaps she didn’t hear my mutter, Caro is waltzing in the shopping district. It can’t be helped. In any case, I guess I’ll follow her.
“Haku, tell me if there’s anything that you want”
“Nn”
As Caro is shopping while scouring around, asking Haku whether if she needs it, and asking me for my opinion, we arrived at a certain store.
“……a boutique?”
“Uwaa, there are lots of cute clothes! Haku-chan, how’s this!?”
I guess it’s a boutique since there are all kinds of clothes, from adult’s clothes to children’s clothes, lined up inside the show window
“Why is the outer wall pink?”
In contrast to the stores around that are white or grey ordinarily, or ordinary colours like brown even if it’s coloured, this store alone is pink for some reason. Furthermore, it’s not an ordinary pink, it’s a shocking pink and obviously standing out from its surroundings.
“Geez, something like that is fine, isn’t it; whatever the colour outside is. More importantly, it looks like there are lots of cute clothes, so let’s trying going inside!”
“Ah, wai!”
“Nn!”
It seems I won’t be able to stop Caro, whose tension skyrocketed. Caro drags my arm and goes inside, Haku gets swept along and follows suit. Sorry, Haku.
And when we enter the store, unlike the colour outside, it was a store with a serene atmosphere. It looks like there are customers here and there, and they’re all women.
“Haku-chan, let’s choose!”
……your eyes shining too brightly. It can’t be helped. I pat Haku’s back
“Go and choose what you like”
and make her go. While looking back and forth between me and Caro, who’s holding clothes, Haku said ‘Nn‘ and headed to Caro’s side. Is it my imagination that her voice at that time sounded somewhat happy?
“A~ra, well aren’t you a good Otou-sannnn?”
As I’m watching Caro, who’s choosing the clothes, and Haku, who’s becoming a dress-up doll, I hear a repulsive voice from behind. It’s a deep voice that sounds like it’s resonating from the bottom of the earth. A cold chill runs down my back, and I jump away from that spot. And when I turn around
“Araaaaa! Now that I take a closer lookkk, aren’t you the Hero-channnnnn!”
a muscular cross-dressing middle-aged man who’s slightly over 2 metres was standing there. He’s wearing his black hair in twin tail, with a flower-shaped hair clip on his left side. His make-up is unbelievably thick and it’s green around his mouth, which I guess is from shaving his beard.
I don’t know whether the size of his outfit doesn’t fit or this is how it’s intended to be, and neither do I want to know, but his chest is exposed, and his chest hair is visible. His sleeves are short and frilly, and his shorts are so tight that it makes me wonder if it’s going to tear. Furthermore, his entire body is pink.
“Wh, who might you be?”
I want somebody to praise me, who managed to ask without suddenly slashing at him. If I had encountered him outside the store, I probably would’ve slashed at him.
“Araann! Are you curious about meeee? I’m the manager of this store, Blossom Garden, Madam Blossom~. Nice to meet you, Hero-chan. Ufuun!”
Saying that; this cross-dressing muscular hulk, Madam Blossom, winks at me. I’m happy when Alexia and the others do it, but my killing intent wells up when this person does it to me.
“……how did you know about me?”
“Something like thattt, there are fewer people who don’t knoww. I was watching the King’s speech yesterday after allll. Besidess, I was told about it by Onee-samaa~”
It’s irritating how he’s bloody wriggling his hips whenever he speaks. Don’t lift your pinky¹[1. Don’t wink! Haa, haa, this person is quite exhausting. Leaving that aside, who’s Onee-sama?
“Who is ‘Onee-sama‘?”
“Araan? Weren’t you toldd? Isn’t it obviously the strongest woman of this country, Sylphid-oneesamaaaa”
……I didn’t expect Shishou to actually come up here. Over there, Madam Blossom’s story began.
It seems Madam Blossom was originally an Adventurer and was a former A Rank Adventurer at that. A skilled individual who’s about to be S Rank soon.
It seems one day, he took on a noble escorting request that asked for him, and as he was escorting the noble, Shishou showed up.
Naturally, Madam Blossom went up against Shishou for the sake of protecting the nobles as per the request, but he was beaten to a pulp alongside the other bodyguards.
It seems Madam Blossom was charmed by Shishou‘s overwhelming strength, lovable movements, and beautiful looks at that time.
By the way, the noble at the time was naturally captured by Shishou. That noble was guilty of selling the innocent residents in their area to slave traders in the shadows for the sake of making a profit, and because that matter was exposed to the Kingdom, they commissioned Madam Blossom to try to escape.
With such things happening as well, Madam Blossom, who came back to the Kingdom, as a result of thinking about how to chase after Shishou, I don’t know what went on in his mind, but it seems he thought he’d first become a woman and ended up in this state. And it seems he awoken to womanhood at that time.
After that, he learned every single bit of skill he thinks a woman needs, culinary, laundry, needlework, cleaning, all kinds of housework skills, quit being an Adventurer to make the clothes and accessories that he especially likes even amongst that, his job, invested all the money he earned during his time as an Adventurer, and created this store. It’s a blessing that he’s good with his hands right from the start.
It seems living as an ordinary woman was too enjoyable, and he stopped chasing after Shishou halfway through.
“Noww, Onee-sama comes to this store to buy clothes, and we have tea togetherrr”
They get along that well huh. I didn’t hear about it even once in these 4 years.
“Lei, I think this is enou…….u……wa”
Over there, Caro, who came at just the right time, saw Madam Blossom and froze. Haku, who’s holding hands with Caro, also dropped her bear from being overly surprised.
“Araan, how cutee! I wanna eat you upp!”
Madam Blossom, who then licks her lips. An unsettling chill runs down my spine again.
“Ba, Barrier!”
“Nnn!”
In response to Madam Blossom’s excessive amazingness, Caro activates her Barrier and Haku takes out her knife. It took about 10 minutes afterwards to persuade and calm them down.
After that, they introduce themselves, and in the course of Caro asking Madam Blossom various things about clothes, as I thought, maybe it’s because they have chemistry as women(?), they had gotten along exceptionally well.
Haku is holding Caro’s hand tightly with a slightly frightened expression. It looks like she opened up considerably to Caro, but she doesn’t try to move closer to Madam Blossom. It can’t be helped. I don’t want to get close him either.
As I’m watching that sight, Caro comes to where I am
“Lei, this is everything but……”
says, and pulls me along to, a mountain of clothes. ……huh? If I remember correctly, shouldn’t we be buying Haku’s clothes? There are clothes that obviously don’t match Haku’s height, and clothes that aren’t Caro’s either mixed in.
“……I was searching for clothes that match everybody, and it ended up like this”
Caro says, looking slightly apologetic.
“……well, I guess it’s fine. As one would expect, I would stop you if you were to say that you’re buying this all for yourself, but if there’s everybody’s share then”
“Thanks, Lei!”
Caro who says and embraces me. Un, the perks, the perks. No breasts though.
Giri!
Ouch ouch! You’re hugging too tightly! Like I said, how did you realise!
And then somebody clings to my right hand. I try looking in that direction and
“……thanks”
Haku, who thanks me expressionlessly, was there. It’s worth it to come here even if it’s just for this. Excluding that shop manager.
“Anraa! You’re buying this muchhh! In that case, you can have everything at half price! After all, you’re Onee-sama‘s disciple, and it looks like you’ll come here from now on as well!”
Madam Blossom, who said and gave me a discount. I could’ve been genuinely happy if she didn’t wink at me when she talks though…….
I have the shop assistants bag the large number of clothes we bought(all the shop assistants were beautiful women), I put them in the Item Ring, and we left the store.
All the shop assistants showed up to send us off, but it was slightly frightening that there are whooshing sounds going, ‘Goon, Goon!’ whenever Madam Blossom waves her hand.
“Fufu, it was fun huh”
“That shop? Although it was quite intense, did you have fun?”
“That’s not it. The date with Lei was”
Caro says that and smiles. However, today, I just followed Caro as she chooses the things that Haku needs. I just gave my opinion occasionally; I left the clothes and stuff entirely to Caro though.
“Even so, it’s fun to be able to be with Lei. ……it also served as practice for when we have kids in the future”
Saying that; Caro blushes and turns away. If you say something like that to me, even I am going to blush, aren’t I.
I look in the opposite direction to dodge the topic. I’m holding hands with Caro with my left hand and Haku on my right hand.
“Did Haku have fun?”
When I ask Haku, Haku looks in my direction
“……it was fun. Onii”
Saying that; she smiled at me, albeit very mildly. ……Onii, refers to me huh. I didn’t expect her to address me as such, but this makes me happy in its own way. It’d be great if she carries on opening her heart up to me even more in this manner. We headed home while I’m thinking of something like that.
……however, the darkness inside this child’s heart was deeper than we had thought.
