Having unleashed a deluge of plant people onto the streets after Ryota had told him to keep things quiet, Rhys quietly slipped out the back door and quietly put a lot of distance between himself and the spreading panic spilling out the front of Tooru’s mansion. As long as he wasn’t the one being loud, it was all good, and as long as he wasn’t seen around the plant people, then they couldn’t possibly be his fault.
It was some real “if I put my head under the blanket, you can’t see me” logic, but it was his logic, dammit. And hey, maybe it was just trashy enough to work! Probably not, but a man can dream, right?
Proving the old adage true, he beelined it back to the previous scene of his most recent crime that wasn’t the one he’d just committed, and wandered the library’s shelves in search of a particular cat. Moving quietly, he whispered, “Az. Hey, Az.”
A soft meow was his only warning before nine pounds of furry flesh landed on his shoulders. “Remove me from these premises. They’re looking for me, but they’re letting humans out. I can hitch a ride with you.”
“Can’t you take human form?”
“That’s who they’re looking for,” Az said, as if it were the most obvious thing ever.
“Then… can’t you…” Rhys fell silent. I don’t know what I’m arguing at this point. Az knows the situation better than me. Not only that, but he has a long history of deciding something and sticking to it, whether it plays out in reality or not. And, putting all that aside, I’m currently doing a favor for him, and planning to ask a favor in return. Why am I fighting it?
The librarians moved briskly about the library, still searching for whoever had broken into their inner sanctum of knowledge. Rhys wandered toward the exit, trying not to move too quickly, and sidled outside. Az went to hop off his shoulder, but Rhys lifted his hand, blocking the cat on.
“What?”
“I need another prince.”
“Is one not enough?”
Rhys shook his head. “Ideally, I want three more, but two could be enough. There’s something I need to confirm.”
Az looked at him. “People will take notice.”
People have probably already taken notice. Though, at the same time, he understood what Az was saying. It was a warning: you’ve pushed it far enough, but any farther, and the higher-ranking mages might step in.
Rhys shook his head. “It’s too important to stop for something like that.”
“In that case, you can find another wastrel prince at the brothel. He prefers the one with a butterfly signboard.”
“That easily?” Rhys asked, shocked.
Az yawned before answering. “I warned you, did I not? You’re an adult.”
Rhys raised his brows. Fair enough. He was used to people distrusting him, or maybe, in Az’s case, he was used to people caring about his welfare more. But Az just didn’t care about whether he was going to do something stupid and potentially harmful. If he wanted to do something stupid, it was up to him to realize it was stupid and not do it. Az wasn’t going to talk him out of it. He’d watch, and maybe nudge something off a ledge onto Rhys’s beaten and bloody body afterwards, but he wasn’t going to stop Rhys.
“Besides, has it not occurred to you that I might have my own agenda? I currently pick which princes to point you toward. I control the mad serial killer, with no footprints left behind.” Az laid down on his shoulder and licked his paw smugly.
“Yeah, but I like you. And we’ve been friends for a while. I don’t mind helping you with whatever you’re after, and if you do have an agenda, aren’t I building rapport with you, a powerful expert who’s somewhat interested in me and who’s helped me out before? I think that’s probably a win for me.”
Az stopped licking his paw, and for the first time in a while, Rhys felt his aura. It was a very normal Tier 5 aura, and notably higher than the Tier 4 aura he’d had back when Rhys was Tier 4. “Powerful expert? I’m merely a small cat.”
“Uh huh. You’ve been saying that for a while.”
“It’s true.” Az hopped off Rhys’s shoulder and sauntered off before Rhys could say any more.
Rhys shook his head at the cat’s back and walked off in the other direction. He didn’t know where the red light district was, but he knew where Ryota hadn’t shown him in the grand city tour, and he knew where the nice part of the city was, so he could extrapolate where the red light district should be, more or less. It didn’t take too long before he was wandering through narrow alleyways with welcoming doorways beckoning customers even at this time of day. Beautiful women stood around looking supremely bored while simultaneously calling out to passerby, while hot men called from the next alley over. Rhys wandered through, getting the lay of the land. It wasn’t hard to locate the shop with the butterfly signboard; it was large, prominent, and grand, and had plenty of patrons even at this bright hour. He did another lap or two to make sure there were no other butterflies, then left.
There weren’t many bodies of water on the city in the sky, but he located one after a while and hopped in, emerging as the beautiful Rina. He took a moment to dry off, then set out. Spinning a cloth bag around his finger, he headed into the fashion district. Tooru had been loaded, and he hadn’t hesitated to loot the body, either. Of course, Tooru’s spirit stones had been stored in a storage ring, which he hadn’t wanted to take a chance on; what if it was tracked, or someone recognized it? So he’d transferred the spirit stones to his own storage ring, removing a small portion to the cloth bag he carried around now.
He picked a gaudy-looking store and wandered in, peering around the ready-made robes until one of the attendants hurried over. “Could I help you, ma’am?”
“Certainly. I’m looking for something… trendy, hot, and a little risqué, but not too much. Can you help me with that?”
“Absolutely. Just this way… ah, before we get started, what’s your budget?”
Rhys scoffed. “A prince’s ransom.” Or at least his pocket change.
The attendant beamed and bowed. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”
Rhys continued to pick through the robes while the attendant went looking on their own racks, in that awkward I-don’t-actually-care-about-any-of-this-but-I-need-something-to-do-while-the-attendant-is-busy way he’d done a billion times before, though usually not for clothes. Clothes stores didn’t have attendants where he was from. Not, like, planet-wide, but certainly for people in his financial situation. He was lucky if he bought his clothes from a store that only sold clothes, as opposed to just picking them up at the same superstore that sold him toothpaste, food, gardening supplies, car accessories, and baby wipes. Clothes from a clothes store were downright bougie compared to his usual fare.
Well, that’s only half my old clothes. The other half came from anime conventions, which is probably the trashiest answer, but also, I mostly supported actual small artists by handing them cash, which I think I can safely feel good about. I feel less good about the trashy booths that were clearly stealing graphics off the internet or ripping pirated assets and rehashing them for shitty anime t-shirts. I didn’t buy a whole lot of those, especially once I realized they were just pirated bullshit and not giving any money to whoever actually made the thing, but young baby anime-con-goer me didn’t know any better, so I can’t say I never supported them. Or that the shirts were all terrible. Some of them were bangers. Pirated bullshit bangers, but bangers nonetheless.
There were definitely no attendants at anime conventions. At best, there were badge-checkers and aggressive peace-bonders. Really aggressive. He got peace-bonding wooden or fake-metal swords and nerf guns and so on and so forth, but once, they’d made him peace-bond a wooden spoon. Not even a big one, just an ordinary one from the salad-tossing portion of the store. He still didn’t get that, but hey, if it made the con-people happy and they let him carry his wooden spoon into the dealer’s hall with a zip-tie around the shaft, then whatever. At least he had the honor (?) of never getting walked out of the convention by the police or rolled out into an ambulance, even if he’d gotten a little sassy about his wooden spoon.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, ma’am. I’ve picked a small selection of our best. If you’ll come right this way, we have some changing rooms in the back for you to try them on.”
“Excellent,” Rhys said, and followed her to the back of the store.
He had no idea what this region considered risqué. Most people walked around covered from neck to ankle, maybe daring to show forearms or legs, if they were male, but the red light district had had its fair share of designs that would’ve been extreme for his homeworld. And of course, it wasn’t as if no one wore cute short skirts or shorter sleeves and pant legs, it just wasn’t super common on the streets. Even outside of the red light district, there were servers and doorgirls in short sleeves and hip slits, or midriff-bearing shirts and provocatively short skirts. The average person dressed like they were going to a conservative church in winter, but no one seemed particularly bothered by others wearing considerably less.
And of course, the rare water sprite wandering around made no secret of their status; he’d seen some wearing gear that would make Lira blush (or at least hike up her skirt competitively). It turned out that the water-parasol wasn’t Lira’s specialty, but common amongst her kind, and it’d taken the third or fourth passing water sprite before he’d stopped whipping around to see if the localized rainstorm was Lira. Water sprites hadn’t been common in the other cities he’d visited so far in this region, but this was the capital. If they were going to intermingle with humans anywhere, it’d be in the city that they technically co-ruled with the twenty-six other clans.
(It’d actually taken him a little longer to find a pond than he’d expected because the first two he’d popped by were populated by sprites, and he hadn’t wanted to reveal his knowledge of their restricted art in front of random sprites. That might lead to questions, and he was a busy man who didn’t want any more questions about his hobbies.)
The attendant pushed open the door to a small but sumptuous room and passed him the outfits with a smile, and he raised his brows. Guess I’m about to discover what risqué is around here.
He closed and locked the door behind him, then set the costumes around the room to get a good look at them. One was so tiny that he immediately rejected it, the getup reminiscent of a certain space princess’s imprisonment more than anything. The transformation could only go so far, and he hadn’t brought his razor, so his legs were still hairy. He was pretty sure he could will the hair off if he really tried, but he was attached to it. Literally. It was part of his body. But also, it took time to regrow leg hair, and that was a long time for some rando to notice and ask why he had such shiny legs, mommy, and then he had to explain cosplay in a public pool and anyways, working out just really wasn’t for him, thanks, no, he didn’t need the gym membership anymore.
Gods, he thought, as sweat broke out down his back. He’d totally buried that encounter in his psyche, deep, deep in his heart. What a place to remember it.
In any case, one of the outfits included a pair of opaque tights and another one included leggings, so he had his fair pick of options for unshaved legs.
I mean, they could be European about it, he reasoned, then looked at his legs. Yeah, no. It’s a forest down there. Not a chance.
Luckily, he could remix his leg-covering options into any of the three remaining options, so he took his time looking over each.
One was a very ornate pink robe with voluminous sleeves, a complicated, broad fastening sash that was itself decorated and bedecked with bells, and a normal robes’ collar, but a very short skirt. It was clearly meant to display the wearer’s legs, and it came paired with a pair of thigh-high socks. Rhys nodded in approval. Indeed, a truly classic look. He hadn’t heard anyone call it “absolute territory” in years, but there was something about the bulge of the thigh over the high sock and under the short skirt that was deeply appealing. On the other hand, that kind of look belonged to the short and adorable types, of which he was a member no longer. If he wore that, there’d be six inches between the socks and the skirt, assuming the socks even came over the tops of his knees. He sighed and turned away. Not with those socks. Maybe with the tights, but only if the other options were total no-gos.
The next option was paired with opaque tights, and it was… a look. Black, rigid, shiny. High collar, with a military flair without being outright military. A pleated skirt and all-black stilettos… by which he meant narrow lace-up high-heeled boots that looked like they’d walked right out of a period movie, since there weren’t stilettos in this region yet. Quietly earmarking shoes as a new industry to look into, he gave it a look, deeply considering it. It wasn’t risque, per se, but there was something about it. A certain je ne sais quoi that made him want to crack a whip and step on people, consensually. A police hat would’ve totally polished it off, but obviously they lacked that kind of headwear, too.
It’s a good look, but it’s not like I know the prince is an M. That was putting all his eggs in one basket, and without more information, he didn’t know if it was a good basket or not. The butterfly club had seemed pretty vanilla, too, rather than an S&M establishment, so it probably wasn’t the right pick. He reached out, fiddling with the stiff cuff. I wonder why they picked this for me? I mean, I have my moments, but I don’t feel like I give out that aura. And it’s not like I’m on that side all the time.
Shrugging, he turned to the final option. This was the one he’d felt most drawn toward from the start, and to the end, he really felt as if it were the best pick. The design was timeless; a qipao-style dress with a hip slit and a knee-length skirt, cap sleeves, and a gratuitous titty window. He’d had the fat to generate himself a pair of those, so all good there, and his legs weren’t bad once he shifted things around a bit. Amusingly, the hip slit was connected to the titty window which was also connected to the collar fastening, making the whole thing one big hospital gown, but sexy. The fabric itself was unremarkable, a middling red with ordinary flowers embroidered onto it, but he rather liked the shape of the thing. The shoes were ordinary flats that made his big feet appear unflatteringly large, and he twisted his lips in disapproval. It was nice that they matched the fabric of the dress, but man, they made it look like he had flippers. He did, but he didn’t want to look like he did.
After experimenting a bit with the leggings and tights, he decided on his final look: the qipao over the shiny tights and the tiny boots, with the sash from the first dress as a sort of shawl, though not the keep-grandma-warm-around-the-shoulders type, but the sexy 1920’s draped around the elbows and dangling uselessly type. Like a boa, but without the feathers.
He twisted and turned, checking his new outfit in the mirror a few times, then nodded in satisfaction. It was perfect.
As for his hair… it was long, as per the traditions of this world, and bound in a ponytail. He’d changed it to a high ponytail for maximum sexiness (Arianna couldn’t be wrong), and he already felt like his new hairstyle was going to suck his brain out of his head via his follicles, so he’d done it right. If the prince wanted any more than that, he was going to have to suck it (not Rhys’s brain); hair was a pain in the ass, wigs were heavy, hot, and even more painful than a high ponytail, and to be honest, he just didn’t feel like dealing with it right now.
If he was going to a brothel, then the obvious easy route to getting the man alone was seduction, but Rhys wasn’t above more underhanded or stupid tactics. If plan A didn’t work, plan B wasn’t to come back as an even sexier woman, plan B was to whoop the idiot prince until he gave up and came quietly, and he was working on plan C right now.
Tidying up the rest of the clothes, he emerged from the dressing room still clad in his new gear. “Would it be a problem to wear it out?” he asked, already handing over the string bag. He’d checked all the tags while he was in there and transferred the right amount of spirit stones into the bag. Of course, it wasn’t big enough, so he’d had to use a modified version of the trash hoop enchantment to create a teleport zone just outside his core to temporarily store the spirit stones as a sort of pseudo-dimensional pouch situation, but it worked.
The attendant accepted the bag, quickly scanned its interior, and beamed. “No, of course not.”
Rhys smiled back. He gestured vaguely at the bag. “I would remove the stones from that as soon as you can. It’s a temporary enchantment I use for day shopping… the dimensional enchantment rarely lasts the night. An anti-theft measure, you understand.”
More like, I’m trying not to cheat you out of your money, Rhys added silently. He was fine with scamming scumbags, but this nice lady had helped him earnestly, and she deserved to be paid for her hard work.
Another part of him rolled its eyes at the stupid excuse, which implied that he was constantly moving spirit stones around or willing to throw them away in large quantities, but he internally waved it away. She wasn’t going to think that deeply about it. She was just going to take the spirit stones and throw the bag away.
“Of course. Please enjoy.” She bowed, and with one last nod, Rhys strutted out of the shop.
From the clothes shop, he headed to the nearest makeup store, where he once again paid with Tooru’s money, then absconded to the testing room to do his face. A few pieces of practical yet feminine jewelry later, and he was on his way back to the butterfly brothel. It was reaching twilight by then; the perfect hour for a visit.
Wait up for me, wastrel prince.