CH 84

“Cecile?” Estian exclaimed, standing up in surprise. ‘Why is she here?’ She was supposed to be sitting in her palace, receiving the gifts he sent and waiting for him. However, no matter which way one looked, the woman who just burst through the doors of the banquet hall was definitely Cecile. And her sudden entrance was not the only reason for his surprise. 

“Her clothes…!” Another reason for garnering the entire hall’s undivided attention and dropped jaws was the state of her outfit. Or what should be her outfit, as what she currently wore could not quite be defined as clothing. 

“What on earth is with that getup?”

The empress was clad in reams of uncut cloth—more accurately, she had wrapped the cloth around her body. 

The long trail behind her caught their eyes. At first glance, it appeared to be the trailing hem of a very long dress, but it was too long and narrow. Upon closer inspection, they realized the fabric was just tied from end to end.

The person standing closest to Cecile observed her for a moment, eyes narrowed, and then they cried out in astonishment, “My Lord, is that not all Delphian silk!?”

“What?”

“Delphian silk?” The other nobles, surprised, shot to their feet. “What, so you just wildly dragged that precious cloth all this way?” One of them asked.

“Besides, what reason is there for you to come here wrapped up in uncut silk!”

They all knew long ago that something was wrong with their empress’s head, but apparently, it was more serious than they previously assumed. An empress showing up to an official occasion… wrapped in cloth? Dragging the finest silk in the continent along the ground?

Every attendee in the banquet hall stared at Cecile, speechless. A moment later, however, their expressions changed little by little. 

“But, I must say… Doesn’t it seem rather becoming?” someone commented.

“…Yes, you think so too?”

They all doubted their eyes.

* * *

Cecile had crudely wrapped herself in silk. It was not even cut properly—she tied it together like rope, dragging the ends all the way to the banquet hall. It was supposed to be bizarre, ridiculous. And yet, for some strange reason, those inside the hall couldn’t take their eyes off of her. The Delphian silk they thought had been randomly tied together gently fluttered in the air—it was a bewildering sight at first, but the more they looked, the more it seemed quite pleasing. 

“Good heavens! Good God!” An envoy from the kingdom of Aswan suddenly exclaimed in a voice filled with admiration.

“Baroness Diana?” Princess Yuliana called out to the woman who just cried out, confused.

Baroness Diana, the envoy in charge of the arts and culture division, showed disbelief on her face. Gesticulating wildly with her hands, the baroness turned to Yuliana and said, surprised, “Princess, isn’t that quite shocking? Arranging patterns and colors in such a bold, daring way! It may seem like chaos itself, but that very disorder is perfection!” 

For a brief instant, Yuliana’s face read, ‘The heck is this woman going on about?’, but she soon straightened out her expression and replied, “Is, is that so?”

“Indeed! It is a concept I have been experimenting with since long ago, but I could only leave it as a sketch. I lacked a model who could perfectly express it, and yet…” said the baroness, her voice all of a sudden a mix of thrilled joy and tears. 

Ignoring the hysterical baroness, Yuliana turned her gaze to Cecile. ‘That’s the empress?’

Despite never having met in person before, it was impossible to be unaware of the identity of that person. With dazzling waist-length platinum hair, dark green eyes, and an appearance that robbed even Yuliana of her breath, this had to be the rumored empress. ‘More than anything else, this woman’s crazy antic proves she’s the empress!’ 

Yuliana had braced herself—she had heard the tales—but she did not expect the empress to be this mad. The princess coughed delicately, not having expected such an intense first meeting.