“Oh, I’m sorry, sister. My hand just slipped.”

“You’re being too cruel……”

As she passed by the sniffling Florencia, Eriendna said,

“What should I do, compensate you for the ruined clothes?”

“……”

“But come to think of it, I don’t think I have any reason to do that. After all, the clothes you’re wearing aren’t actually yours…… Right?”

Only after Eriendna and her friends had gone far away did Florencia leave the dining hall. Her small retreating figure walking with heavy steps looked pitifully weak. Blinking her eyes repeatedly to swallow back the tears that kept trying to emerge, she returned to her room.

* * *

The next morning.

“Ouch……”

While washing herself alone in the bathroom of her room at the Imperial Academy dormitory, Florencia winced at the dull pain she felt inside.

‘What’s happening?’

Come to think of it, it had been like this for the past few days. The subtle pain she felt whenever she bathed or urinated was like…… as if someone had deliberately messed with the inside of her private parts.

She’d been going to sleep late these days because of all the assignments…… Could this happen when the body is tired?

Florencia frowned as she carefully wiped her stinging lower region. It was a part that she herself didn’t touch except when washing, and that no one had ever seen or touched until now. But she couldn’t visit a doctor or confide in anyone about the pain in a place that was too embarrassing to even mention.

On the day of the debutante ball, Ludwig, who had thoroughly enjoyed Florencia’s time while she was asleep for quite a long period, used his power to cleanly remove all traces left on her body before dressing her again.

“The red marks are pretty like flower petals, but Laura would be too shocked if she woke up.”

Ludwig muttered as he briefly squeezed Florencia’s br*asts before letting go. The two soft br*asts with their pleasant texture would immediately return to their resilient shape no matter how hard he squeezed them.

“When you wake up, your lower region will be a bit uncomfortable.”

Though he removed all the red marks left on Florencia’s body, he deliberately left traces of his violation of that place. Having inserted two fingers into the inexperienced narrow v*gina for the first time, and stimulated the delicate cl*toris with his hands and mouth until it turned red, it would sting for a few days. Despite exceeding his limits due to the long wait, Ludwig acknowledged that he should have shown more restraint for her sake.

“But…… I hope you’ll understand my desire not to erase all traces of our pleasant memories, my lady.”

After tightening the corset ribbons back to their original state with smooth movements, Florencia made whimpering sounds and squirmed even in her sleep.

“Good girl, it’s done.”

After carefully putting on the multi-layered dress, Ludwig gently kissed the sleeping Florencia’s face. She had said she’d been tired all day yesterday, and her lovably closed eyelids looked exhausted. After gazing at her regretfully for a moment, he brought his lips to them as well, pressing down lightly while using his holy power once more. Pure white, transparent light scattered into the air and seeped into Florencia.

“I’ll let you sleep a little longer, so rest well, Florencia.”

* * *

​Creeeeak—

There was the sound of the door opening while Florencia was bathing, followed immediately by a small thud!

“……Who’s there?”

Florencia, who had been comfortably squirming in the warm water, asked cautiously, but instead of an answer, there were only small noises as if someone was searching through the room, followed by the sound of the door closing.

With an uneasy feeling, she hurriedly washed the foam off her body. First, she put on a bathrobe to cover her n*ked body and went out of the bathroom.

There was no one in the room. She carefully opened the door and checked the corridor, but no one was in sight.

“There’s no one who would come into my room…… And there’s nothing worth taking in this room anyway.”

Florencia had no maid brought from her home, and she had to pay extra to request services from the Academy’s maids, so she did all the necessary housework like laundry and room cleaning herself. There were no friends who would visit her room this early in the morning.

“Perhaps the cleaning maids entered the wrong room and then left?”

As she tilted her head in confusion, Florencia noticed that the wardrobe door was slightly open. Looking carefully, she saw that the wardrobe where she kept her everyday dresses and the drawers next to it were all slightly open.

Florencia quickly approached them.

First, she flung open the wardrobe door and examined everything inside one by one. The few dresses filling the wardrobe were mostly clothes that Eriendna had grown tired of and altered to fit her, or shabby ones that Countess Hazel had reluctantly ordered from cheap tailors at low prices.

Fortunately, it seemed that nothing else was missing.

“Huh?”

As she sighed in relief and was about to close the wardrobe door, she suddenly felt a strange sense of unease. Florencia hurriedly opened the drawer again and searched the innermost part.

“……Why, why?”

Briefs that covered her private parts, petticoats, drawers, petticoats, and corsets. The innermost drawer where she kept her underwear was completely empty.

Who on earth?

​No, more importantly, why?

​Why would someone take only the underwear and leave everything else?

Florencia was so bewildered that she didn’t even notice the water droplets falling from her still-wet hair and soaking her bathrobe. Even the negligee she had placed on the bed to wear as pajamas had disappeared somewhere. Literally, everything categorized as underwear had been taken.

If she went to find Mrs. Burns, the dormitory supervisor of the girls’ dormitory, right now and said that someone had stolen all her underwear?​

A hundred out of a hundred times, instead of finding the culprit, she would likely be blamed and disciplined. Mrs. Burns, with her woodpecker-like appearance and strict personality, disliked Florencia very much in the first place.

I wouldn’t be able to find the culprit anyway.

Florencia shook her head from side to side.

‘I’ll just go to the shops in town this evening and buy some.’

With a small sigh, she opened her desk drawer to check the small amount of money she had saved. Fortunately, that hadn’t been taken.

But more than that…….

How am I supposed to attend classes right now?

As the more realistic thought crossed her mind, Florencia’s face turned pale.

* * *

“Eriendna…… Are you still sleeping?”

In the end, the path that poor Florencia chose was to ask for help from her half-sister Eriendna (although the other party didn’t seem to consider her as such).

She had no friends with whom she could openly discuss such a situation. It was a well-known fact that she, an illegitimate child, was treated worse than a maid in the Hazel family, and no young lady wanted to be close to such a Florencia. Starting with Eriendna, who was the same age but officially her younger sister due to her later birthday, who took the lead in ignoring her, others might not openly bully her but tacitly went along with the atmosphere.

“Ugh, how annoying! I’m dying to sleep, so why are you bothering me in the morning?”

Just hearing Florencia’s voice near her ear was enough to make Eriendna explode with irritation as she opened the door.

“What, what? Who dared to tell you to come into my room?”

Florencia, who had been trembling in the empty corridor wearing only a thin bathrobe, quickly entered as soon as the door opened, afraid that someone might see her.

“I’m sorry for waking you up so early, Edna!”

Eriendna, dressed in glossy silk pajamas, narrowed her eyes and looked her up and down.

“……What are you doing? What’s with that uncultured outfit?”

“Well, actually, I have an urgent situation…… I came to ask a favor.”

As expected, Eriendna frowned severely before Florencia could even finish speaking.

“Are you crazy? Asking to borrow underwear, are you in your right mind? How disgusting.”

“Please, Eriendna. You recently had all new clothes and underwear made for your debutante celebration. If you have extras, couldn’t you lend me just one set? I’m begging you.”

“That may be true…… but giving something I was going to wear to a lowly girl like you?”

She looked at Florencia with a sneer.

“And do you really think my size would even fit your unremarkable body?”

Eriendna, who inherited a tall stature and bold frame from her mother who came from a knight family, had a physique that exuded health. Her attractively tanned skin and glamorous body further accentuated her charm, making her very popular even before she came of age. Next to her confident presence, Florencia, with her white skin and petite build, looked relatively smaller and younger.

“I’m going to sleep more until classes start, so stop being annoying and get out.”

“……”

Florencia stood there, unable to either leave or enter, as Eriendna went back inside with a cold breeze.

“Wait.”

Just then, Eriendna, who was heading back to bed, turned around as if she had changed her mind.

“……Eriendna?”

“Would you come over here for a moment?”

Though the subtle voice felt ominous, Florencia had no other option and approached her, albeit with some hesitation.

In Eriendna’s room, a long wardrobe about five times the size of Florencia’s occupied an entire wall. She rummaged through the wardrobe drawers, took something out, and tossed it over.

“I really don’t want to give you my things, but since you’re begging so desperately, I’ll specially lend them to you. Put them on.”

“Thank you so much, Edna!”

Florencia examined the clothes in her hands. At first glance, they looked more like small pieces of cloth than underwear. It was a set of a corset and briefs that covered the chest, made entirely of thin red lace fabric. Moreover, the parts covering the two br*asts were made of completely see-through material, and the briefs were connected by precarious strings except for the minimal part covering the g*nitals, making it look like something that…… only courtesans selling their bodies would wear.

“Edna, this is too……”