Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

It was the day of Christina’s party, and after rushing around all morning long finishing up every last bit of prep-work needed, Lucas had taken a nice cold shower, returned to his room, stood in front of his closet, taken a good hard look inside of it, then let out a long, looooooong sigh.

For some time now, he had had this nagging feeling he was forgetting something, something important, but it was only yesterday, when the residence’s Chief Steward, a dandy middle-aged man by the name of Reginald, asked him what he was planning on wearing to the banquet, that Lucas realized what that something was.

After recruiting Isaac and Felicity, his two eccentric workaholic tailors, Lucas had put all his focus into preparing Christina’s birthday gift, as well as the outfits for both his Master and his other Junior Sister, Eris.

In fact, he had gotten so caught up in that process, that he had neglected to get something tailored for himself!

Damn it, wasn’t the whole reason I went searching for tailors in the first place so that I could free myself from this torture?! Lucas felt like bashing his head against the dresser before him filled with gaudy, flamboyant, uncomfortable formalwear.

To make matters even worse, Tina had deman... ahem, strongly requested that Lucas serve as her formal escort to the party tonight.

Showing up next to his beautiful Junior Sister in her revolutionary new dress in a ’suit’ which he felt made him look more like a performing clown than a young noble lord was definitely going to be a special kind of hell.

Lucas had never been more thankful that this world didn’t have cameras of any kind, unlike in the other universe where literally everyone literally had a device capable of taking still photos, videos, and 3-D holographic captures of everything around them.

”Actually, I think Master said there were some Spirit Tools out there that could capture still images,” Lucas mused to himself, though he was fairly certain no one would have something like that with them today. After all, such devices were both extremely expensive and hard to find.

There was no way one would show up at the party tonight.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

*Thunk...*

Resting his head against the closet, when Lucas really thought about it, he suddenly felt like the chances of someone having a ’Spirit Camera’ on them were actually pretty high, especially considering the unexpected guests who had arrived just this morning and were currently smothering Tina in her room a few doors down the hall.

”Haaa... I hope there’s something in here that at least fits properly,” Lucas muttered to himself as he began digging.

Lucas hadn’t hit puberty just yet, something which was frankly a bit annoying to the boy who had a far more mature mentality that others his gave, so there hadn’t been a giant change in his build or height over the past few months, but that didn’t mean he was exactly the same size as he was back at the New Years Celebration.

Lucas had his own tailor shop now, which unlike most of his other projects and industries he had purchased outright instead of forming a joint partnership with the Balfour Family, so getting something altered in a hurry wouldn’t be a problem. That said, hastily re-working one of these awful outfits would probably result in it looking even worse that it originally did.

”Maybe I should just stay in the kitchen and help out there...” Lucas grumbled to himself, even though he knew doing that was totally impossible.

He couldn’t be absent from Christina’s birthday, no matter how embarrassed or uncomfortable he was with how he looked.

Sighing for perhaps the 10th time in as many minutes, Lucas continued his search for something... anything half-decent to wear while wondering how all the other residents of the house were doing.

.....

Eris, who had gotten back from the guild barely an hour ago, had also taken a quick detour to the showers to cool and clean herself off before hurrying back to her room where the maids had helped her get dressed and done her hair up nicely. She was now sitting in her very jealous mother’s room, kicking her feet lightly as she waited for Sasha to finish getting stuffed into a particularly uncomfortable looking getup.

Turning to her daughter, seeing her in her new, light, comfortable, beautifully designed outfit, Sasha felt a very strong urge to strangle Lucas for not making her one as well, especially when the maids who were helping her with her own dress kept tugging on strings and tying chords around her back.

Sasha had always hated wearing these kinds of formal clothes, and while it wasn’t the main reasons she had left home so many years ago, not having to squish herself into, or worse, be squished by others into these dresses was certainly something she counted as a positive.

Still, Sasha understood that at big events, a certain level of formality was expected, including wearing appropriate clothing, and the 16th birthday of a royal princess certainly counted.

For Christina, who she lived with and treated like a daughter, Sasha was willing to endure the tight fitted, over-the-top, stuffy formalwear that decorum demanded, but when she saw Eris in her new ’summer dress’, she nearly blew her top knowing that there was an acceptable alternative, one that not only looked better but was obviously far more comfortable, especially under the blazing heat of the summer sun.

I’ll make that boy regret this! Sasha vowed to herself, only to let out another grunt as the maids again tugged on the binding chords.

Honestly, even putting on heavy armour was more comfortable than this, which was simply absurd from Sasha’ perspective.

As for Eris, she seemed to understand from the look on her mother’s face that saying anything right now would only result in a spanking, so while trying not to smile too big, she twiddled her thumbs and stayed quiet, all while thanking her Senior Brother again and again in her head for freeing her from the torture Sasha was currently enduring.