Chapter 13

“When the heck did that happen, huh? Did we not ask the King?”

“Master visited the palace several times, but things didn’t go so well. Since the opponent is his Majesty the King, it was difficult to keep pushing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Helena, muttering absurdly at Will’s reply.

The king of Rasue ascended the throne at the age of 25, just 10 years after his accession in October last year. To commemorate his accession day, he held large-scale events and balls and had Raynor Stud create a ceremonial costume for the ceremony.

The clothes and cloaks ordered by the king at that time were enormous, hand-stitched with 300 large and small diamonds, 500 pearls, 25 rubies, and 30 sapphires.

However, the royal family did not pay any advance money except for 3 especially large diamonds, 5 rubies, and 30 sapphires to adorn their clothes.

Since it was customary for the royal family and noble families to pay in deferred payment, had to issue all the bills to procure materials such as jewels and expensive silk, soft sable hair, and the finest velvet to adorn the king’s clothes.

“Nevertheless, after the master’s hard work, two out of three bills were just finished. The problem is that there is only one left. And it will expire within ten days, and the gold coins we have are far short. But if the master’s condition is like that..”

As Jerome mumbled, Helena had to take a few deep breaths as she felt choked. “Why did you stop speaking?”

“I managed to solve all the orders of other noble families by paying in advance. Thanks to that, the master has been very busy.”

Helena was well aware that her father had been unusually busy since last winter. She, who thought it was simply because of an increase in order, was shocked when she found out the truth.

This… she can’t even imagine something like this would happen.

“But it doesn’t mean there’s no way to stop the last bill, right? It doesn’t seem like my father has been particularly worried about the recent bill…”

Jerome nodded at Helena’s question.

“Actually, Duke Bronant decided to order clothes this week. The master believed in only this. But as it is…”

Helena bit her lip involuntarily at those words.

“Besides, there is one more important issue. The clothes Duke Bronant decided to order are none other than the ceremonial costumes to be worn at the National Founding Dinner and commemorative ball. The duke made a pre-order at the end of last year for this order. If you don’t receive the order from His Excellency the Duke, who has been waiting for over half a year…”

“It will not be able to block the bill, and the reputation of the store will be damaged,” groaned Helena.

Regular aristocrats who order clothes from made competitive reservations to make new ceremonial costumes, mainly for official ceremonies.

Since the craftsmen carefully sew each stitch, the number of pieces of clothing produced in a year in was not very high.

In particular, in the case of ceremonial costumes, since various jewels and expensive subsidiary materials are mixed, it takes at least a month to produce one piece of clothing, even if several people worked on it together.