The message board on the box in the small wooden cabin was covered in writing in all kinds of handwriting, like a pebble engraved with the flowing sands of time.
Just by looking at the words on it, I, inside the cozy little cabin, felt as if I had also arrived at “Lan Calendar 2011” and “Lan Calendar 2012” on the message board.
Before my eyes appeared scene after scene from those moments—the ranger Isilian, carrying a bow and arrows on her back, elegantly drinking tea at the door; Ailian, who had been chased here by a Monster, showing a relieved smile after escaping; and the elegant fashion designer Irena carefully folding the clothes she had designed herself and putting them into the box…
Their smiles, their feelings, their memories, and their stories gently opened and gently closed before me.
Although this world was still unfamiliar to me, in this moment I felt a wonderful sense of safety, as if I had returned to my own home.
I crouched down and wiped some of the dust off the box.
Like the door outside, the wooden box in the room was not locked.
It did not even have a mechanism that could be locked, and it felt like any slightly clever small animal could open it by itself.
I grabbed both sides of the box’s top lid and gently lifted it upward—
“Pfft.“
With almost no resistance, the wooden box, which seemed very large to me at this moment, opened.
I set the box’s top lid aside and looked inside.
Some handmade items that were probably meant as blessings, a strange flare gun, a wooden box containing dark purple raisins, a bottle of wine, some dried fruits from unknown fruits, and a blue-and-white outfit—hmm… probably something called a “sailor uniform.”
The reason I could guess from the clothes folded into a “tofu block” that this was a sailor uniform was… the side with the collar had been placed on top.
At its neckline was an obvious 2D anime sailor-uniform ribbon bow, and beside the clothes were a pair of similarly folded white socks and a pair of small brown uniform shoes.
Combined with the message about “fashion designer Irena” I had just seen on the message board, it was not hard to guess that these were clothes she had prepared for travelers passing by.
‘What kind of world is this? Why is there a design like a sailor uniform?’
What I saw and heard made me increasingly curious about the world I was in.
Based on the information I had so far, I had been born from an Egg, and my childhood friend Xin Xin seemed to live here too.
While inside the Egg, I had once heard her voice.
Besides that, the biosphere of this world seemed somewhat different from Earth’s.
At least so far, all the animals I had met were not afraid of people.
Instead, they seemed to get along well with humans.
There was a great variety of plants, and many had traces of Earth’s crops, such as the “strawberries” and “bananas” by the river.
Most importantly, these wild plants grew very well even without human intervention, and the fruits they bore were large and plump.
If all these fruits were edible, it felt like anyone could survive in the outskirts just by eating fruit.
The natural resources overflowed to an excessive degree.
Also, judging from the messages left by these girls on the message board, keywords such as “Monster,” “Water Star Stone,” “Life Spirit,” and “enchantment” seemed to have already sketched out the rough outline of this world.
There was no doubt that this was a world where magic existed.
“Monsters” and humans were enemies, humans were normally good friends with “spirits,” and they could ask “spirits” to do things for them.
By using the “enchantment” of “Water Star Stone,” many things could be achieved.
In addition, I discovered one more thing: in this “Elven Language” that I had automatically mastered, there were no descriptive words related to “men.”
‘If I am not mistaken, this world seems to be, just as Xin Xin told me in my dream, girls only.’
‘An otherworld with only girls?’
Thinking of this, my gaze fell on the two little bunnies on my chest with their pretty shapes.
‘Hmm… I should put on clothes first.’
‘Although what the fashion designer left in the box is female clothing, a little skirt that makes me blush and my heart race just from one glance, it is still better than running around the forest wearing nothing, right?’
I comforted myself like that.
After making this decision, I first took out the raisins along with the box and sniffed the smell inside.
‘Hmm, they should still be edible; there was no obvious strange odor.’
Each of these grapes was plump.
Even after losing moisture, they were almost the size of cherries.
The owner must have gathered them very carefully.
Suppressing the urge to “bite into a raisin,” I put the wooden box aside, took the dried fruit and wine out of the box, made enough space, picked up the clothes, and carried them to the small bed nearby.
From the contact between the skin of my chest and wrists and the clothes, I could clearly tell that the materials used to make this outfit were especially soft and light.
Unlike the cheap clothes I had bought from roadside stalls on Earth when I was a middle-aged man, the feel was truly comfortable.
I spread the clothes out on the bed and hesitated in the room for nearly three minutes before I finally gathered the courage to pick up the top and hold it against my body.
‘Wearing female clothing for the first time…’
‘I, a middle-aged man… am now going to wear female clothing…’
‘Wuu wuu wuu aaaah… so embarrassing!’
With “three parts humiliation, three parts unwillingness, three parts submission, and half a part nonchalance,” I unbuttoned the chest button of the sailor uniform top, briefly observed the structure of this kind of clothing, and put it on.
‘I have no choice.’
There had been no trace of human habitation near the great grassland where I was born, and I had not found any place around this small wooden cabin where people might live.
This sailor uniform was the only clothing I could find at hand in this emergency.
Moreover… even if people really did live nearby, I could not just go talk to them naked.
I would definitely be treated as a pervert.
‘Therefore, no matter how reluctant or unaccustomed I am, I have to wear this sailor uniform.’
“…”
The main colors of this outfit were sky blue and white, just like my hair color and eye color.
Below the chest ribbon was a relatively stiff chest panel, and the chest panel was connected to the neckline by two hidden buttons.
In the very center was a symbol similar to the navy emblem in “Fleet Collection”—above was a playful female symbol ♀, and below was an anchor symbol.
The two were blended very well.
This pattern appearing at the center of the sailor uniform’s neckline made the clothes themselves look cute while also perfectly expressing the meaning of a sailor uniform.
‘Hmm… it actually feels quite suitable.’
‘The message board seemed to mention that this sailor uniform is suitable for girls from 130 cm to 140 cm tall. Does that mean I am currently within that height range?’
After putting on the top, I briefly adjusted the neckline and tried puffing out my chest.
My current body was very immature, but definitely not completely “flat.”
The size of my chest was probably in the A-to-B range.
Fortunately, the inside of this sailor uniform top had two relatively soft pieces of fabric attached at the chest area, and the clothing itself was opaque.
Otherwise, for someone not wearing underwear like me, it would have been extremely awkward.
The bow tie that matched the sailor uniform top was a detachable bow style.
The tie itself was just a band, so it did not need to be tied.
I only had to put the band around my neck, pass it around the shoulder straps at the back of the clothes, and hide it beneath the neckline.
That was quite convenient.
After putting on the top and the tie, I picked up the black-and-white sailor skirt and held it against my waist.
Once I understood the little mechanism on the skirt, I pulled down the vertical zipper, slid it onto my waist from bottom to top, then pulled the zipper up.
After that, I pulled the horizontal zipper at the waist to the left to a suitable position and released it.
In this way, this cute little skirt was perfectly secured around my waist.
After putting on the clothes and skirt, feeling the empty lower half of my body, I was extremely embarrassed.
At the same time, I could not help marveling at the sewing level of this world—the artisan who made this outfit was far too skilled.
It felt on par with Earth’s modern industry.
How on earth had they done it?
Was it also through magic?
Finally, I took the soft white thigh-high stockings and small leather shoes out of the box and tried to slip my little feet into the uniform shoes.
‘It feels… a little big? But I should still be able to wear them. If they look big barefoot, they will probably be about right with socks.’
‘But… do I really have to wear stockings?’
If wearing the sailor uniform and little skirt had already made me incredibly ashamed, then stockings, especially white thigh-high stockings, were challenging my “macho man” dignity.
In my impression, stockings were completely women’s clothing.
And white thigh-high stockings probably needed an extra “2D” attribute, because only girls from 2D could pull them off.
‘Although with the body and appearance of a little girl like me, I can indeed perfectly suit white thigh-high stockings, but… actually making me wear this kind of stocking is still too embarrassing.’
‘But if I wear only clothes and no socks, it will look strange, and the owner of the clothes on the message board also said the outfit is a set. If I do not wear a certain accessory, there will be no “set effect” or something like that.’
“Mmm…“
Beside the small bed, I flattened these soft silk stockings and felt their slightly cool, silky smoothness.
There was no doubt that, like the clothes, these stockings used very particular materials.
Both the feel and the texture were excellent.
‘Then… continue?’
This time, I hesitated for nearly five minutes before secretly making up my mind.
I stretched open the edge of the stocking opening, imitated the way anime girls put on clothes, rolled the stocking up little by little, and lifted my foot.
‘—I hope Xin Xin in this world will not laugh at me when she sees this.’
“…”
…
[Erlinni Isha’s Notes]——
The textile industry of Lumina depended to a great extent on the imagination of the estate owner and the proficiency of Life Spirit production.
In the process of making clothes, the girls of Lumina generally handled the design.
As long as they told the Life Spirit the style of clothes they wanted to design and provided the corresponding raw materials and dyes, the Life Spirit could enter its own spirit space to produce clothes of that style and give the outfit an “enchantment.”
Because killing Monsters had a chance to drop clothing from Earth, the “Star of Descent” would also share what it had seen and heard on Earth with the girls around it.
Therefore, you could see many Earth designs in Lumina, such as sailor uniforms or Gothic Lolita dresses.
Some fashion designers would also design new clothes based on these novel outfits.
In resource-rich Lumina, many unused clothes would be sent to the Traveler’s Station to help travelers passing through.