Chapter 04
“You are truly beautiful.”
One of the maids who had been fixing Julia’s hair from behind said with a smile.
Julia smiled shyly and looked at her reflection in the mirror once more.
She had taken off the round glasses she’d been wearing ever since her eyesight worsened, and with the help of the maids, she had even put on makeup.
With three maids clinging to her, carefully brushing her messy hair and pinning pretty hairpins into it, even she thought her reflection looked quite decent.
“Jerome, come here and look at Julia. Isn’t she pretty?”
Catherine placed her hand on the arm of Jerome, who had just entered the room.
As Julia turned her head to look at Jerome, his sky-blue eyes sparkled brightly as he looked down at her.
“Yu… li… ah… You’re… pret… ty… beau… ti… ful…”
“Thank you, Jerome. You look very handsome today too.”
Julia replied with a bright smile.
“Now, now, you two stand together! Oh my… aren’t you just a perfectly matched couple?”
Catherine stood Julia and Jerome side by side, then turned her head left and right, seeking agreement from the servants nearby.
“Right? Don’t you think so? Isn’t that right? What do you think?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“They truly look wonderful together.”
The servants standing against the wall nodded quietly with gentle smiles.
“The two of you are like a beautiful painting. And it’s not just because you’re my beloved son and my dear Julia – truly! You match so well!”
“A beautiful pair.”
“You look splendid, almost dazzling.”
Julia, feeling overwhelmed by the continuous barrage of compliments, quickly linked her arm with Jerome’s and pulled him toward the entrance of the reception room.
“Thank you, everyone. W-We should go now, Jerome! We’ll be late. Lady Catherine, we’re leaving!”
“Just a moment, Julia!”
Catherine, calling out to Julia who was hurrying off, clicked her heels as she approached an old cabinet standing in one corner of the room.
She opened the cabinet drawer, rummaged around inside, and let out a satisfied sound as she found two small bottles.
“Mmm… So this is where they were!”
Catherine approached Julia and handed her two tiny medicine bottles containing a clear liquid.
Inside the pale green glass bottles, an unknown liquid shimmered quietly under the reception room lights.
“Julia, this is a medicine that clears the head. You wouldn’t want to get too excited at the graduation party and end up drinking too much, right? Drinking this before the mixed liquor will help. Have one with Jerome!”
“Lady Catherine…”
“Our Julia already has terrible habits when she’s drunk, so I have to make sure she’s prepared!”
Catherine tapped Julia’s arm playfully, laughing.
Julia was truly grateful for her consideration, paying attention to even such small details.
‘I wonder if this medicine was also procured from somewhere by Duke Duncan?’
Duke Duncan Duberte was a man so sensitive about his health that one might suspect he had hypochondria.
He would make a huge fuss if he so much as sneezed once while walking down the street, and would then order boxes full of tonic medicine.
Whenever they had the chance, the couple would buy up all sorts of medicines from all over the Empire – medicines good for relieving fatigue, good for the skin, good for loosening the tongue – filling Duberte Castle’s infirmary to the brim with new and mysterious remedies.
Julia tucked the glass bottles into her small handbag.
“You’re still drinking the special tonic I gave you last time, right?”
“Of course! I take it twice a day, every morning and evening, without fail.”
Satisfied with Julia’s prompt answer, Lady Catherine smiled brightly.
“Well then, you two go and have fun today. Eat lots of delicious food, meet good people, and be sure to check out the newly built guest rooms!”
“Thank you, Lady Catherine! We’ll be back!”
“Tha… nk… you… We’ll… be… back…”
With Catherine seeing them off, Julia and Jerome stepped out of the room and boarded the carriage headed for the Dunkeur Hotel.
“Julia! Jerome!”
Lily, who had been looking around the lavishly decorated ballroom of the Dunkeur Hotel, approached with a happy smile.
Julia, giving a slight nod to the gatekeeper who opened the hotel’s main entrance, walked straight toward Lily.
“Lily! You were here early?”
“My preparations finished earlier than I thought! Oh? But Julia, you look… today…”
Lily’s eyes widened as she faced Julia.
“Ugh… It’s a bit awkward, isn’t it? Is it too much?”
“No! You look so pretty! You should dress like this more often! You look like a different person!”
Lily exclaimed in admiration, touching Julia’s voluminously spread brown hair.
Julia squirmed awkwardly and whispered softly, only for Lily to hear.
“I’m dying of discomfort. How do noble ladies usually dress like this? The tightly cinched corset makes it so hard to breathe.”
And breathing wasn’t the only problem.
Her hands, trapped inside elegant white gloves that reached her elbows, seemed to be constantly sweating, and her feet, in high-heeled shoes, hurt so much that her toes felt like they would break after just a little walking.
The dress, cut low to reveal her slender neck and collarbone, also kept bothering her.
“Just endure it for today. These days, people don’t dress up this elaborately except for big events like balls and parties.”
“Still…”
“Let’s go inside! You’ve never tried the mixed liquor I personally made, have you? Big sis will show you lots of fun things today! But don’t completely lose your mind like last time!”
Julia, dragged along by the roughly pulling Lily, was swept into the center of the ballroom.
Lily pushed through the crowd filling the ballroom and walked without hesitation toward a table where their friends were gathered.
As soon as they reached the table with familiar faces, Evan, who was already seated, filled the empty glasses in front of them with a red liquid.
“Since you arrived late, take a sip first, Ladies and Gentlemen.”
Evan brought his right arm to his chest and bowed as if imitating a butler. Lily chuckled helplessly.
“You arrived too early, Evan. You were always late for school, but you always come early on occasions like this?”
“Lily, you don’t understand. You need to come early on occasions like this.”
“Oh dear…”
As soon as she sat down, Lily downed the liquor Evan had poured in one go.
True to her reputation as the Academy’s biggest drinker, she didn’t even blink even after downing that strong alcohol on an empty stomach.
Julia, on the other hand, was very weak to alcohol.
Julia took out a small medicine bottle from her handbag.
“What’s that, Julia?”
“Mm… A hangover remedy…?”
“Right, you’ll need that. Don’t overdrink today.”
“Julia! What are your drinking habits like anyway? I hear they’re quite famous.”
Daisy, sitting next to Evan, suddenly chimed in.
“Oh, Daisy, have you never seen Julia drunk?”
“No! Actually, Julia only ever studied; she wasn’t really one to enjoy drinking much in the first place, right?”
“That’s true… Except for one time. Lily’s twentieth birthday party.”
Evan lowered his voice and whispered as if sharing a big secret.
“What are you two doing in front of the person concerned…?”
Julia playfully glared at Evan and Daisy, then opened the bottle cap and downed the clear liquid in one go.
“Daisy, you should see Julia’s drinking habits for yourself. I think you might get to see them today.”
“No, I’m really going to control myself today.”
“Yeah, right.”
Already exasperated by her friends’ teasing, Julia shook her head and handed the remaining bottle to Jerome sitting next to her.
Jerome, meeting Julia’s eyes, smiled softly as he drank the medicine.
‘At least Jerome has a strong tolerance, so I don’t have to worry about him. I’d better worry about myself…!’
Julia picked up her glass with hands trembling from a mix of anticipation and anxiety.
The alcohol in this world was somehow different from the alcohol in the world before her possession.
How to put it? It made you feel a bit more lightheaded? It almost seemed to contain some kind of stimulant?
She had heard that in the Trinitan Empire, alcohol was basically made using vessels and tools crafted from magic stones.
There were apparently some constitutions that were particularly distant from magical power, and whether it was because she had that unusual constitution, Julia was noticeably weaker to alcohol than her other friends.
Julia brought the glass to her nose and inhaled.
The sweet scent of grapes and the sharp, pungent aroma of alcohol flowed into her nose at once.
“Is this like wine?”
Julia murmured as she slowly tilted the glass, letting the red liquid flow into her mouth.
A taste that was both refreshing and somewhat bitter lingered in her mouth before going down her throat cleanly.
The aftertaste left by the fruit wine spread through her nose, creating a pleasant feeling.
“It’s delicious…?”
“Oh? Julia, your glass is empty? Try this too!”
Lily, seeing Julia finish her first glass quickly, poured a blue liquid generously into Julia’s glass.
“What’s this? The color is strange?”
“It’s a mixed liquor I just made! I’ve never met anyone who said this tastes bad.”
Feeling confident from the fruit wine she just had, Julia downed the blue-tinged glass in one go.
“Whoa!”
“She drinks like she’s downing hot soup!”
She could feel the warm alcohol heating her throat, then her esophagus, then her stomach, one after another.
Ah, this sensation she hadn’t felt in a long time…! It was so exhilarating!
Excited by the alcohol she hadn’t had in a while, Julia began downing glass after glass of various colorful drinks.
Starting from sparkling liquor with a similar alcohol content to beer, to fermented liquor, distilled liquor, whiskey, and even mixed liquor that combined all of them in proper proportions…!
“Wow, this is really delicious!”
The more empty glasses she neatly stacked up, the more her mood seemed to rise up into the sky.
“Ju… li… a… You’re… drin… king… too… much…”
Just then, Jerome, sitting right next to her, grabbed her hand as she tried to bring another glass to her lips.
Turning her head, she saw Jerome, his cheeks also flushed red like hers, looking down at her with concern.
