7. Even If I Become the Crazy Lady of This District (5)
It didn’t sit well with me that the exam had gone smoothly—contrary to my intentions—but regardless, I finished the exam without any trouble, changed clothes secretly in Library No. 5, and came out. It was perfect.
As I stepped outside, I saw Tasha dozing off on a bench in the hallway.
She must’ve been very sleepy from being outside during her usual nap time.
“Tasha, wake up.”
Tasha got up, yawning with a sleepy face.
“We’re going now, right, my lady?”
“Yeah. Let’s go…”
I grabbed Tasha’s hand and quickly pulled her behind a corner.
“Wha—?”
As she tried to ask what was going on, I put my finger to my lips and whispered,
‘It’s the princess.’
Tasha’s eyes widened, sparkling as if to say, ‘The princess?’
Footsteps and the sound of a dragging dress approached closer, and I pressed myself tightly against the wall, tense. If we were discovered here, I’d have no excuse for it.
“I didn’t know Your Highness was interested in plants.”
That sharp voice belonged to Rosalie.
“But I suppose Your Highness still lacks the skill to tend a garden properly.”
It warmed my heart to hear the bright voice of Princess Silaina Reynos, the same person who gave me the witch’s music sheet.
I’m back because of you, Princess. Just like you said, I’ll set everything right. So watch me closely.
I repeated the words I couldn’t say aloud in my heart.
Princess Silaina was Karzan’s younger sister and a year younger than me. Everyone thought she loved flowers and plants, but her real passion was fashion.
Later, a faceless designer appeared in the fashion world. Before my marriage, it was revealed that this designer was none other than Princess Silaina.
Afterward, the princess opened the empire’s largest boutique on the outskirts of Reynos. The reason she hid her talent was because of the Empress. The Empress wanted her to live the traditional life of a noble princess and was preparing for her to marry Rosalie’s older brother, Simon.
By now, talks of marriage between Princess Silaina and Simon were probably underway. That’s why the two met frequently and naturally grew closer.
“If you can’t use magic like Her Highness, it must be hard to grow plants, right?”
“My lady, you don’t need magic to grow plants. All you need is heart.”
“Oh my. There’s really so much to learn from Your Highness. I’ve never thought that way. I’m ashamed of myself for thinking it was simply too difficult.”
“You’ll do well, my lady. Because you have a warm heart.”
Because of their conversation taking place right there, Tasha and I were stuck hiding in a corner, unable to leave.
“Oh right, did you hear about the princess’s story?”
“What story?”
“About the dress Lady Vanity wore today.”
There are many eyes and ears in the royal palace. Since the maids saw my outfit before I even entered the exam room, rumors had likely already spread. But Princess Silaina sounded completely unaware.
“The dress Lady Vanity wore?”
There was clear curiosity in the princess’s voice.
“Yes, Vanity Reyce. She showed up in a ridiculously fancy dress, and rumors are spreading. Not in a good way.”
“What kind of dress was it?”
“It had diamonds dangling all over it. It was incredibly flashy. That dress alone could probably buy a small castle. No one said anything in front of her, but behind her back, everyone was gossiping like mad. But Your Highness, the Vanity I know isn’t normally that extravagant. I’m sure she had her reasons.”
Rosalie pretended to defend me while gossiping behind my back. Her betrayal in my previous life made it even more infuriating, but at least everything seemed to be going according to plan—for now, I was relieved.
“Was that dress from Marianne Boutique by any chance?”
“I don’t know much about clothes, so I’m not sure… but it had diamonds hanging all over.”
“Was it a new limited edition?”
“I’m not sure about that either…”
“Was it the one with glittering diamond-like stones sewn densely onto every hem of the dress?”
“They weren’t diamond-like. They were diamonds.”
“Was the color something like gold-plated… that kind of dress?”
As expected of someone interested in fashion, Princess Silaina got excited and asked detailed questions, while Rosalie’s voice gradually shrank in response.
“Y-yes, I think so. Why do you ask, Your Highness?”
There was confusion in Rosalie’s voice, and then we heard the princess sigh deeply.
“Oh! That dress. That’s the one I wanted. But I guess Lady Vanity already bought it.”
Why would the princess want such a flashy-looking dress? Do designers really find that kind of thing attractive?
“W-what? You wanted that dress, Your Highness?”
Rosalie sounded confused, and frankly, so was I.
“My lady, how can you live in Reynos—the fashion capital—and be so out of touch with fashion?”
“Pardon?”
Though she wasn’t scolding her loudly, the princess’s quiet admonition clearly flustered Rosalie—and me, too.
Was that dress really so amazing in the eyes of fashionistas? Enough to make them talk about fashion sense?
I could practically see the dumb expression Rosalie was making right now just from hearing her voice.
And I probably had the same expression on my face.
“The sparkly things on the dress weren’t real diamonds. They were something called ‘cubic.’ A jeweler named Hans developed them recently. They look exactly like diamonds on the outside.”
Cubic? So they weren’t real diamonds?
“They just look like diamonds? So they’re fake? But then why would Your Highness want to wear such a fake outfit…”
Rosalie’s voice trailed off in confusion. She didn’t get it. Neither did I. Why would the princess want to wear a fake diamond dress?
“How frustrating, my lady. Why do you think? Commoners want sparkling jewels like diamonds, but the price is too high, so they can’t even dream of owning one. Even if someone wanted to make a beautiful dress with diamonds, it would be too heavy and expensive. So Hans developed this cheaper alternative—cubic. It sparkles just like diamonds and makes affordable yet beautiful fashion possible. Understand now?”
I looked at Tasha, wondering if she knew this stuff, but she quickly shook her head. Guess her education was limited, being passed down through her household.
Still, Tasha—who usually showed great interest in clothes—was now looking at me with admiration.
Her expression seemed to say: “My lady, I didn’t know you had such refined taste!”
But I didn’t have any.
In both my past and current life, I had zero interest in clothes. To be honest, I wasn’t interested in anything impractical.
“Thanks to Hans’s cubic invention, that sparkling, beautiful dress could be made at a very low cost. So Marianne made only one. To find a true fashionista who could recognize the value of the cubic. She wanted to test whether people could distinguish between real and fake. But everyone assumed it was real diamond and didn’t dare to buy it. Then, Lady Vanity came along and bought it!”
“Then, why didn’t Your Highness buy it first…”
“Marianne refused to sell it to me. She said if no one bought it, she’d give it to me as a gift. But Vanity ended up buying it.”
“T-then…”
“Now do you understand? Lady Vanity didn’t wear something tacky. She was ahead of the trend. No—she set the trend!”
Oh my god. This was turning out nothing like I planned.
Tasha looked at me with astonished eyes, but I wasn’t pleased at all with that gaze.
What the heck was happening?
And just like that… I had to return home with the title Crazy Lady of This District drifting further away from me.
Rosalie’s gossiping behind my back wasn’t nearly as depressing as this.
Because a few days later, I really became a fashionista.
“My lady, I never knew you had such keen fashion sense!”
“Vanity! You said you didn’t care about becoming the crown princess, but that wasn’t true, was it?”
“My beautiful daughter! I thought you’d lost your mind when you got hurt riding, but now you’ve even gained a sense of style. I couldn’t be happier!”
“Vanity, I bought you some jewels, thinking you’d like them. I hope you do, my dear.”
This was driving me mad. My whole family was now proud of me.
How did someone like me, who knew nothing about fashion, become a fashionista?!
Even the royals were looking at me differently. At first, they saw me as a crazy, clueless noble lady—but now, they looked at me with admiration, as if I were leading society’s fashion trends.
Those were not the looks I wanted—my plan to be the crazy lady of the district was falling apart. Instead, my reputation was improving.
This isn’t what I wanted!
