Chapter 13

Dress

"Is it really okay for you to come with me, though? Don't you have, like, temple stuff to do?"

Yorin gives me an understanding smile as we make our way down the surprisingly crowded early morning street. Shopkeepers are already all set up, but it feels like much of the city is trying to get first pick at the best deals, or perhaps make purchases before starting their own work days.

Despite having breakfast at the temple, I've already had an apple that was too red and shiny to resist and am just finishing off a buttery pastry whose smell enticed me.

"The Grand Temple isn't my residential site, Remmi," she explains. "In fact, I don't have one at all. I am what is called an itinerant priest, I go where I am needed." Her smile widens. "If anything, Sacred Genstai will be happy to see me gone. To have me there so long already, I am sure he feared I was intended to replace him. I am certain the temple in Dabun will have ways I can serve. And if there is no temple, well, it's been a while since I've gotten to start one."

"So that's it?" I ask. "You just drop your entire life and go because she said so?"

"... That is ... usually what happens when your empress tells you to do something, yes," Yorin drawls as she looks at me sideways as if I've asked something incredibly stupid, and I guess I did. "Though for her, I would do it, anyway. Why? Is that not how imperial edicts work where you are from?"

"Ah, I, uh, wouldn't know," I stammer, rubbing the back of my head. "Never got one. We're a constitutional republic."

"Ah," she says, like that explained something deep. "My condolences."

My eyebrow goes up and I tilt my head away from her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

But instead of answering, she bounds ahead another building and a half. "Hey, look, Remmi, we're here!"

Yorin's favorite clothier is a fanciful building of dark red wood with filigree of a yellow metal. It might be gold, but surely it's not. Even if that weren't ludicrously ostentatious, someone would come along and strip it off in the night, I'm certain. A second floor can be seen, but I doubt it's part of the store. Almost all of the stores in this area have a second floor similar to it, so I'm betting it's either a workshop, storage or the owner's home.

Yorin is standing next to the sign, so I go over to it and look it over. Not for the first time this day, I realize that I don't recognize the language it's written in, but I know what it says all the same.

"'Crow's Clothier - Lavish Looks for All Lanes of Life.' A lover of alliteration, likely."

The priestess smiles brightly at that. "Oh, he's going to like you, Remmi. Come, come!"

But when she pushes the door open, we get two steps in before I really don't like what I see.

"Oh. Hey," I greet that stupid dandy flatly. "What was your name again? Under Secretary?"

He looks as shocked to see us, but scrunches up his face in anger at my words. "That's Interior Secretary, you straw-haired street-walker! And it's my occupation, not my name!"

But I just sigh tiredly, as if he's not worth it. "Yeah, yeah, look at the blonde girl with no pants, woo hoo. Why do you think I'm here, genius? I want some real clothes."

"Then you should look somewhere else!" he decrees, even raising his nose to me as he crosses his arms. "Might I suggest starting somewhere a useless reject and a leaf muncher can actually afford? Perhaps a dumpster in the slums outside the city wall?"

Now he's starting to get on my nerves again. I give Yorin a tense smile. "So am I allowed to shoot him in the kneecap now, or ..."

But she just gives me that patient motherly smile back instead. "You are allowed to do whatever you think you can justify to an imperial investigation team."

"What a laughable concept! A broken review contender stuck at Level 1, attacking me?! If you had any idea the heights of sorcery at the fingertips of one such as I, the sheer magnitude of our level difference, the depths of arcane secrets provided to me by--"

"That's really big talk for a Level 14."

"What?!"

He finally brings his nose down far enough to see me smirking with my index and thumb beside my right eye at a 90-degree angle like half a finger frame.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

"Just checking out how full of hot air you are," I reply. "And you're no sorcerer, either. Oh, that's a telling trait. Explains so much."

"What is it?" Yorin asks innocently, but I'm sure she's playing along.

The dandy, however, clearly has no idea that I can't actually see his traits with Identify. Which makes it especially satisfying to know he actually does have an embarrassing one, if his reaction is any indication.

My imagination is madly churning out ideas of what it might be even as he lunges at me with a desperate sort of fury, as if he might stop me from voicing it.

... And trips over my outstretched leg to fall right into the cobblestone outside the door we just stepped through.

"Oops!" I exclaim, pulling my arms up against my chest. "I'm only a silly Level 1, I barely know where my body is half the time! Oh no!"

He yanks himself up off the ground with a growl as his mana begins to flow around him. "You wench! I'll do the empire a favor and clean it of your disgrace here and now!"

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The water swirling around his right fist disrupts and scatters as my pistol erupts with a bang and he collapses into the street again, a dozen roosting birds taking to the skies at the sudden noise. I raise the barrel toward my lips to blow off the gunsmoke, flip the safety back on and drop it back into its holster.

"So that's a Gunslinger's quick draw art," Yorin wonders. "I can see the similarity you spoke of. You even pull against the sling similarly to Xuhi. But was it wise to shoot the Interior Secretary?"

"Eh, he'll be fine. Turns out my class has some really great nonlethal options," I reply as I shut the door behind us, leaving the dandy outside, sprawled in the street as his limbs twitch with rigor in his paralysis.

"I never liked him, anyway," a man's voice comes from deeper in the store. "Attacking a Level 1 is an excellent excuse to ban him once and for all, as is calling my very first customer a leaf muncher."

We round the displays to see a bear of a man dressed in an ornate robe and wearing a pincushion on his hip like it's a sheath. "Yorin, always a pleasure to see you," he greets the priestess. "Don't let any court jester tell you that you are ever unwelcome in my store. What can I do for you today?"

"This is your store?" I can't help but ask as I look around. More ornate clothing than I've seen since the reviews fills every corner of my sight, all in carefully selected colors and stitched with delicate devotion. "You made all this?"

This is apparently a question he gets a lot, and he laughs it off easily. "Do not judge a scroll by its seal, young lady. I may not hesitate to go hunt my own supplies, but despite appearances, I am, above all, an artist first and foremost!" He gives a dramatic bow at his waist. "Jentas Crow, at your service. Any friend of Yorin is gladly welcome. I'll even shave off the thirty percent newcomer markup, just for you!"

I give a laugh back at the obvious joke. "Well, it'll be hard to turn down a sales pitch like that! I just hope you have what we need!"

He acts like he's just suffered a heart attack, stumbling back with his hand over his chest. "Yorin, what have you been telling this girl?! To put it in her head that there may be a style I cannot accommodate! I thought our long years of business meant more to you than that!"

"It is not so much an issue of style, Jentas," she corrects him with stern patience, "but a concern if anyone might be able to meet her unique equipment requirements from ready stock."

"Unique, hm?" he muses, scratching at a thick beard as he looks me over. "Ah, yes, the pants, I seem to recall that being mentioned in your exchange in my doorway."

"Not only are you the best," she adds, "I considered you the most likely in all the capitol to meet her needs, and the throne is paying for it."

His bushy eyebrows raise at that. "The throne?!"

She gestures me toward the clothier with her eyes and I pull out the gold coin and present it to him.

"This isn't money," he observes as he turns it over under a scrutinizing gaze. "Isn't this one of the badges of office handed out to the Heroes?"

"It is exactly that," Yorin confirms, and motions to me. "Today, we are shopping for essential equipment for Remmi Lee, the Gunslinger Hero."

He looks down to my holster at that, then back up at me. "Uh-huh. Well, you're in luck, Miss Hero! I've never heard of a Gunslinger before today, but if pants are the problem--"

"She can't wear long robes, either," Yorin beats him to it. "Apparently, it feels like being encased in concrete."

"What's concrete?"

"I don't know. Presumably, something stiff and extremely hard to move through."

"You got armor?" I insert into their banter.

Crow laughs again. "Little lady, I carry anything that could conceivably be worn on the humanoid body!"

"Even a small selection of imported jewelry," Yorin confirms as if she's bragging on her own shop.

But he waves it away. "Purely cosmetic, useless for an adventurer. You won't be able to claim a new set of earrings on your shiny throne invoice." He looks me over again. "Though come back when you are rich on your own merits, eh, girl? I've got a gold pair inset with sapphires that would fit your eyes perfectly."

I look down at my sandals, then back up to him. "Boots?"

He frowns at that, though. "Eh, boots, not so much, unless they're specific to the outfit. Beshia, she is the cobbler down the street. Lovely lady, retired adventurer, owns a very big ax. I don't particularly want her cross with me, like she would be if she thought I was stepping in on her territory. Happy neighbors are good for business, you understand? Especially happy neighbors with very big axes."

Yorin motions me away. "Remmi, you should go look through his selection, see if anything looks compatible to you. Even if it is not armor, it will tell us the direction we need to move in. I will go over your needs as I understand them with Jentas and call for you if there are any questions."

I nod and head off, and soon their back and forth, which frankly sounds only tangentially about my armor needs, drifts into the back of my mind as I soak in the array of styles and designs that surround me.

Crow really is talented. Some of his more daring designs even almost look pre-modern, though a lot of the experiments come off as just strange, strange enough he doesn't even bother marking some of them for sale. None of them, however, even the strangest among them - some sort of half robe that looks made for a barbarian with a fondness for pink and lace - actually look bad. Just ... I can't see anyone I've met since waking up here actually wearing it. Not that that's a particularly large sampling, I know.

But then I see it, and I stop dead in my tracks.

"Remmi? Remmi!"

I don't know how long I was standing there, but Yorin looks worried when I startle out of it and turn back to her.

"Oh, sorry, Yorin. What were you saying?"

"We were asking you to try on some light armor variants."

"Oh, that's not necessary," I say as I turn back to what stopped me. I step toward it with my arms wide as if to embrace it. "I already found exactly what I need."

It's actually a similar blue to the robes the temple gave me, which I suppose I've become rather attached to, with black highlights not unlike my ropes, but the leather is soft to the touch and brown, forming a tough breastplate and small shoulder pads that won't hinder any of my movement, as well as bracers and a pair of boots that I just know will be as comfortable as they are rugged.

But the outfit ... oh, the outfit ... It's a blue short dress that comes down to just past the mannequin's thighs, with stockings coming up underneath. It's cute and modern without making me think I'd look like an eyesore for being too out of place.

Crow comes over as well. "You like that?" he asks in surprise. "I only made it after being struck by the strangest sense of inspiration that ever came over me, just a few days ago. Only finished and put it out last night, in fact."

"Is the armor on it good," I ask, "or is it just for show like it is?"

His chest fills his upper robes to bursting with his pride. "I don't make anything just 'for show,' little lady. Aside from sizing, everything you see is ready to wear out the door. It's just strange you picked out such an experimental piece."

"Does that mean you didn't give it a name?"

At his confused look, I turn to Yorin. "Can I show people an Identify screen like I can my status?"

At her nod, I do the swirl thing with the window I've opened over the clothes. The one that shows its name as "Gunslinger Outfit."

There's a moment of silence as they stare at it, then Yorin looks to Crow. "I believe the Temple would call this Divine Providence."

Ten minutes later, we're on our way back out the door. The two of them were shocked again when it didn't even need resizing, it fit me like a glove. Poor Crow had his pin and measuring tape half raised and looked dejected at the realization, like it was a sacred part of the sales process he was getting robbed of. He charged us a hundred bars, insisting it was technically a unique custom piece, but threw in a nice backpack for me to stow the temple's robes in.

The dandy has recovered by the time we emerge back into the daylit street, and he starts ranting all over again, throwing out all sorts of threats and curses I don't really listen to. So I shoot him again with another Paralysis round and Yorin and I go grab an early lunch before we head to meet with the Empress for our carriage out of the capital.