Chapter 16 — Very Well. Just This Once.
"Letaria. I'm giving you permission to go out on your own today—but do not, under any circumstances, cause trouble. Be a good girl, understood?"
…
"Who do you think you're talking to?! Lecturing me like I'm a child—how terribly rude!"
Letaria huffed through her nose as she walked along the main street of the residential sector Seldia, replaying this morning's exchange with Milea.
Having completed her first mission to perfection—her own assessment—and earned the official recognition of the vigilante corps, she had finally graduated from supervised status. A degree of independent movement had been granted.
No boisterous Steshia at her side. No expressionless Milea.
Letaria shook her dark purple hair loose and set off to explore the district at her leisure.
Her steps slowed at one of the holographic bulletin boards posted throughout the streets. The freelancer commission listings she had recently learned about from Merry were scrolling past.
"Pest extermination (Lava Worm)." "Survey assistance, debris field…"
She watched the text drift by and traced a finger along her bracelet—or rather, her terminal.
"…Twelve thousand, wasn't it."
Yesterday's payment. By this world's standards, earning that much from a single sortie should be considered quite sufficient. And yet, measured against Arden's maintenance costs, the road ahead stretched impossibly far.
Letaria exhaled a mildly complicated sigh and walked on.
An artificial park lit by manufactured light. No smell of earth—but a calculated breeze stirred the air, and vivid green swayed in it.
She settled onto a bench and let the unhurried time wash over her. This world without magic, where everything was constructed. Sitting here quietly, she found it didn't seem so bad after all—which struck her as curious.
A voice broke her peace.
"…Well, isn't it the lovely young lady from before!"
A familiar, ingratiating tone.
She looked up. Standing there was the man who had approached her once before, when she had been walking with Steshia.
"…You spoke to me before as well. You mentioned something about… 'modeling,' if I recall correctly."
"You remembered me! I'm flattered, truly. And seeing you again today—absolutely remarkable. That hair, those eyes… you'd be a sensation without question. What do you say—would you consider modeling?"
"Beautiful"—that word had been said to her often when she was small. Since arriving in this world, she had been hearing it again with some regularity.
…Though it frequently seemed to carry a different shade of meaning than she was accustomed to.
Which was precisely why being praised straightforwardly for her appearance was, in itself, not disagreeable.
(…That said, I'm not naive enough to simply nod along without terms.)
Letaria smiled with cool composure and studied the man with an assessing eye.
She knew now. In this world, when you provided something of value, the appropriate compensation followed.
"Supposing I were to accept this 'modeling'—I have one question. Can you pay me twelve thousand credits?"
"…………Pardon?"
The man went rigid, eyes wide.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, stretched his smile into something apologetic, and laughed.
"Ahh—well—you see. That's a bit steep for a newcomer's first rate, I'm afraid… Ha. Perhaps another time, if the terms can be worked out…!"
He made his exit with remarkable haste.
Letaria watched him go. She raised a hand to her lips—the habit of holding a fan—and let out a satisfied little sound.
"Naturally. I am not priced cheaply."
◆◆◆
That afternoon.
"Letaria-saaan! Please, I'm begging you! Just once—let me see that dress! Just once!"
With Steshia on her day off pleading on hands and knees, Letaria reluctantly hauled out "the garment in question" from deep inside her wardrobe—the one she had been keeping safely out of sight.
"You meant it when you said that back then…"
The dress she had been wearing when she first fell into this world. Magnificent and elaborate, entirely of another age.
Surrounded by machine oil and the materials of spacesuit-making, it radiated a somehow otherworldly brilliance.
"…Very well. Just this once."
When Letaria emerged after changing, Steshia let out a shriek that was practically a scream of delight.
"Amazing! The real thing really is something else! It's so cute! It's so beautiful! You look exactly like a princess!"
"I am not a princess! But I will concede—it is an entirely fitting level of nobility for someone of my standing!"
Steshia's wholehearted admiration sent Letaria's spirits soaring to their peak.
Then a figure who had apparently been standing in the corner of the room without anyone noticing began to move.
"…Oh… it's… magnificent… the layering of the fabric… the density of the embroidery… extraordinary…"
"Eep!? S-Sola-sama?! How long have you been there?!"
It was Sola, water-blue and pink hair swaying, eyes wide as dinner plates, drinking in every detail of the dress. Word had apparently reached her, and the designer in her soul had stirred. She simply could not stay away.
"Oh—Sola-san! Nice to meet you! I'm Steshia Rinin, vigilante corps!"
"Ah… n-nice to meet you… I work alongside Milea—I'm Sola… I made Letaria-san's pilot suit, among other things."
Sola fidgeted through her greeting; Steshia answered with a beaming smile. The two of them had been strangers until moments ago—but facing their shared "subject of admiration," they seemed to find common ground immediately.
"Sola-san, look at this dress! …Can you believe those Blang pirates had the nerve to call her a 'cosplay girl' and mock her for it? How could anyone fail to appreciate this?"
"I agree completely… Though Steshia-san—'cosplay' isn't actually a bad thing. Wearing the costume you love, embodying the character… it's a culture. A precious one."
"Oh, that's true! Letaria-san wears it so naturally she looks like the real thing—a genuine noble lady! It was just the way those pirates said it that was awful. But the beauty itself? Absolute."
Praised by both of them at once, Letaria looked away with a small, embarrassed smile.
(…Cosplay. Embodying. A culture…)
Those who had once called her nothing but a figure propped up in a costume—hollow, incompetent, unworthy of the title she wore.
But these two, here—they were receiving her, purely and simply, as someone for whom this garment was simply right.
A face drifted into Letaria's mind.
Rutir. The Holy Maiden, beloved by all—her younger sister, everything Letaria had not been.
"Sister… I want to be closer to you."
The hand Rutir had once extended toward her.
At the time, she had taken it for pity. Or else performance—condescension dressed up as kindness, and she had never once doubted it.
But…
(…What if—as these two seem to be saying—it was simply what it appeared to be?)
The pure, guileless enthusiasm behind the word "cosplay"—loving a thing enough to wear it, finding joy in becoming it. No hidden motive. No irony.
What if Rutir's words, too, had carried no ulterior meaning—had meant nothing more, and nothing less, than what they said?
The thought crossed her chest for just a moment.
"Letaria-san? What is it—you've gone quiet all of a sudden."
"…It's nothing. Never mind that—Steshia-san, how much longer do you intend to stare? Might I be permitted to change soon?"
"Nooo! I want to keep looking! Sola-san, let's take a photograph!"
"Yes! Please—I'd love some reference material for the next piece I make…!"
"Would you two stop getting carried away without my consent!"
She shooed the pair of them away, laughing and protesting in equal measure.
Then Letaria turned and looked at herself in the mirror.
The self in the dress. The self in the pilot suit.
She didn't yet know which one was real.
But the voices of the "peculiar people" she had met in this world were delivering something to her heart—something that had never reached her through the walls of the world she had left behind.