The streets of Orissa City were like a boiling river, with colorful banners interweaving overhead into a brilliant canopy. The clamor of voices and the distant bard’s music merged into a massive wave of sound.
For Helos and her companions, who had just emerged from the desolate forest, this overwhelming festive atmosphere was both novel and carried an indescribable sense of pressure.
Helos clung tightly to Julius’s sleeve, struggling to weave through the crowd.
Although Julius used his back to shield her from most of the jostling, the feeling of constant contact still made her extremely uncomfortable. The curse of silence inside her seemed to grow restless in such a dense crowd.
“I can’t take it anymore.”
Helos panted heavily, a thin layer of sweat forming on her forehead.
“There are too many people. I feel like I’m about to suffocate.”
“Over here.”
Julius noticed the girl’s discomfort. He scanned the area and quickly spotted a small alley leading upward. Without hesitation, he took Helos’s wrist and led her and Gavi out of the seemingly endless stream of people.
The three followed the winding stone steps upward. The noise around them gradually faded as they climbed higher. The cool evening breeze on their faces finally dispelled the suffocating heat.
When they finally stopped, they had reached a viewing platform halfway up the city. It had originally been a watchtower for scouting enemy movements, but had been converted into a resting area for tourists.
Standing there, they could see most of Orissa City spread out below. Countless magic lamps twinkled beneath their feet, like a river of stars fallen to earth.
“Phew–“
Helos leaned against the railing without any pretense, breathing deeply.
“Finally alive again.”
She patted her flushed cheeks and looked at the surging crowd below, feeling a sense of relief at having escaped disaster.
“Looks like this kind of lively place really isn’t for me.”
The girl said self-deprecatingly.
“I’m better off staying in a dark, damp underground workshop, staring at a bunch of bottles and jars.”
Julius stood beside her, watching her with gentle eyes. He was about to say something comforting when a voice full of dissatisfaction suddenly rang out near them.
As the voice faded, the ring on Helos’s hand glowed faintly. Sylvia’s signature translucent figure slowly rose and finally hovered above the railing.
The Imperial Archmage folded her arms, looking down at the three panting young people with a face full of frustration.
“I’m talking to you three.”
Sylvia pointed at the brilliantly lit city below.
“You finally come to a place this bustling, and instead of enjoying life, you run up to this godforsaken high place to catch a cold? Do you have a screw loose in your heads?”
“Teacher…”
Helos rolled her eyes helplessly.
“You’re a ghost, so of course you’re not afraid of the crowd. I’m a mortal flesh-and-blood being. If I hadn’t gotten out just now, I would have been crushed into a meat patty.”
“And you know my ability. If I didn’t leave, the other tourists would have passed out.”
“Excuses. If they passed out, who can prove it was you? Maybe they’re just weak?”
Sylvia snorted.
“You’re a young girl in the prime of your youth, so why are you living even more gloomily than me, a few-hundred-year-old hag?”
She drifted in front of Helos, extended a pale finger, and gently lifted a strand of the girl’s silver hair.
“Since we’re already in a place like this, how can we not go shopping?”
“Shopping?”
Helos was taken aback. She instinctively looked at her two companions, only to find Julius and Gavi also exchanging glances, as if they hadn’t included that activity in their plans.
“Right! Shopping!”
Sylvia said matter-of-factly.
“Buying clothes, eating snacks, looking at all those fancy little trinkets. That’s what girls should be doing, right? Staring at magical beast corpses and alchemy materials all day, aren’t you afraid of getting sick?”
Helos was about to retort that she wasn’t interested in those things, but Gavi, who had been silent, suddenly moved.
Smack!
The blonde girl clapped her hands together sharply, producing a crisp sound. The noise startled everyone present.
Gavi’s normally calm gray eyes now seemed to sparkle with stars. It was as if some strange inner channel had been opened in that instant, and she radiated an unprecedented level of excitement.
“Lady Sylvia is right!”
Gavi echoed loudly, her voice full of agreement.
“Master, we really should go shopping!”
“Huh?”
Helos looked blankly at her maid.
“Gavi, are you okay?”
“Of course I’m fine.”
Gavi shook her head, her expression becoming extremely serious, as if analyzing a battle of life and death.
“Master, please look down at what you’re wearing now.”
She pointed a finger unceremoniously at Helos’s outfit. Helos instinctively looked down. She was wearing a dark brown form-fitting leather armor, with a thick protective coat over it, muddy combat boots on her feet, and nine leather pouches for alchemy potions hanging at her waist.
This outfit was her standard gear during forest training. For ease of movement and defense against magical beast attacks, she had deliberately chosen this hunter’s attire focused on flexibility and protection. In the forest, it hadn’t seemed wrong, since everyone was dusty and disheveled.
But when she put this outfit in this festival-filled city full of people in gorgeous dresses and elegant gowns, a strong sense of incongruity hit her.
She looked like a refugee just escaped from a battlefield, or some barbarian from nowhere, completely out of place in the glamorous world around her.
Helos’s cheeks burned.
“This…”
She had been so focused on traveling and avoiding the crowd that she had completely ignored her appearance.
“It really… doesn’t seem appropriate.”
She tugged awkwardly at her clothes, trying to cover the obvious scratch on her leather armor.
“Not just inappropriate.”
Sylvia ruthlessly added from the side.
“It’s a disaster. If you wear that to the festival, that little saint called Eleanor will probably faint on the spot. Forget supporting you, she’ll probably want to crawl into a hole.”
Helos imagined that scene and couldn’t help shivering. Indeed, with her sister’s perfectionist personality, if she saw her like this at the sacred festival, she would definitely lose it on the spot.
“Then… what do we do?”
Helos looked at Gavi at a loss.
“It seems we don’t have any dresses in our luggage?”
Gavi’s eyes grew even brighter. She stepped forward, grasped Helos’s shoulders, and spoke with a inexplicable determination.
“That’s why we need to go buy some!”
“Master, your current identity is the young lady of the Olivias family. In formal social occasions, your image represents the family’s face. We need to get you one set—no, multiple sets of attire befitting your status!”
“And…”
Gavi’s tone shifted. Her gaze slowly moved and finally landed on Julius, who was completely out of the loop standing nearby. A meaningful smile curled at her lips. The blonde girl had revealed her true intentions, finally throwing out her real goal.
“Since we’re buying clothes, doing it alone would be too boring.”
“Since Mr. Julius is here.”
“How about… we let him pick for you!”
“Eh?!”
“Huh?!”
Two exclamations rang out simultaneously. Helos and Julius both widened their eyes, wearing identical expressions of shock.
“Wh-why him?!”
Helos pointed at Julius stammeringly.
“This guy is a blockhead! Let him pick my clothes? Do you want me to go to the ball in a suit of plate armor?! His sense of fashion is stuck on how to polish armor better!”
“I… I also think it’s not suitable.”
Julius waved his hands in panic, a rare hint of embarrassment appearing on his stern face.
“I really don’t know much about women’s clothing. What if I pick something ugly…”
“No problem!”
Gavi directly interrupted their protests. She leaned close to Helos’s ear and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear:
“Master, taste can be cultivated! And…”
“Don’t you want to see, in Mr. Julius’s eyes, what kind of you is the most beautiful?”
These words hit Helos like a bombshell, exploding in her mind.
‘What kind of me… is the most beautiful?’
Helos’s heart skipped a beat. She instinctively looked up at Julius.
The dark-haired young man was standing there looking flustered, his gaze shifting, as if thinking about how to refuse this absurd proposal. But beneath that panic, Helos seemed to catch a flicker of expectation in his eyes.
‘Was he looking forward to it? Looking forward to seeing her in pretty clothes?’
Once this thought emerged, it grew like wildfire in Helos’s heart, impossible to suppress. That unique girlish shyness and vanity completely took over at that moment.
Helos cleared her throat, forcibly suppressing the burning heat in her cheeks.
“Ahem.”
She pretended to be reluctant, turning her head away, not daring to meet Julius’s eyes. Her voice was as soft as a mosquito’s buzz, her fingers nervously twisting the hem of her clothes.
“If… if Gavi says so…”
“Then… I’ll reluctantly let you try. But let me say this first! If you pick something too ugly, I absolutely won’t wear it!”
Julius was stunned. He looked at the girl before him, her face bright red yet feigning composure, at her earlobes turning pink from shyness, and at her long eyelashes trembling slightly in the sunset. The words of refusal circled in his throat, but finally turned into a helpless sigh.
“…Okay.”
He nodded, his voice low and gentle.
“Then I’ll do my best.”
“Awesome!”
Sylvia cheered in the air, her troublemaking demeanor even more excited than Gavi’s.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Quickly show me where the tailor shops are!”
“I’ll be this fool’s advisor!”
Thus, on the eve of the Winter Festival, a bizarre team consisting of a raggedly dressed noble young lady, a chosen one forced into service, a black-hearted golem maid, and a gossip-loving female ghost, marched in full force toward the most prosperous commercial street in Orissa City.
Only this time, their goal was no longer the evil Chaos Believers or terrifying magical beasts. Instead, it was the dazzling array of various dresses displayed in the shop windows.