episode_0166

New Year.

A moment when the new year arrives, filling us with the desire to start with a fresh mind and new resolutions, and to replace old things with new.

Therefore, many people think that the atelier will also be extremely busy, but this is only half true.

Some people do get busier, but others actually become more idle.

For reference, we belong to the idle side.

You might wonder why this is the case, but there are two main reasons: first, there are no special events in January and February except for the New Year, and second, April to June is wedding season.

There are no events in the cold months of January and February, and when winter passes and spring arrives, weddings follow one after another.

Since there is a difference in clothing between winter and spring, it is a waste to make new clothes specifically for January and February when there are no events, and the hassle is a bonus since there are so many things to prepare for winter.

Therefore, it is naturally more profitable and practical to skip January and February and start preparing clothes around the time the weather warms up for weddings or engagement ceremonies that will be held in the spring.

However, we do not currently accept orders for high-end dresses such as wedding dresses due to a shortage of manpower.

Most orders are concentrated in that area, so it is normal to have no work if you do not accept such orders.

However, we have not completely missed out on the benefits of weddings, as we do receive orders for stockings for brides or underwear for their ‘first moments’, but unless it is a girdle, it does not require much effort.

To the extent that I can handle two or three such orders a day by myself, so I cannot be busy even if I want to be.

Therefore, as soon as the Holy Day passed, the atelier became eerily peaceful.

How peaceful, you ask?

“Should I try making underwear, or should I try making a dress?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to try the dress?”

Duke Herbert and Duchess Fanny were able to invest time in personal designs,

“Elizabeth… C, can I ask you a question…?”

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Elin was able to go around asking other tailors for tricks and tips.

“The position was off just now, a little lower.”

“Ah…”

Walter was doing a strange thing called ‘hand technique enhancement’ by embroidering in the air with spiderwebs with Adelheid.

“Marie, your tail has turned black?”

“Gasp! Uwaaa! My glossy tail fur!”

“It’s nicely browned…”

“Heeing…”

Marie and Katerina were sprawled out in front of the stove, enjoying the warmth.

“Hahaha.”

“Young master.”

As I was chuckling while looking at Marie, who was teary-eyed at the black stain in the middle of her bright yellow tail fur, Emily, who had a basket full of letters, approached me.

And following Emily’s touch, letters began to pile up neatly on the desk.

You might wonder what these letters are all of a sudden, but this was the result of the seeds I had sown a month ago to replenish the tailors who were woefully inadequate compared to the work performance of the seamstresses.

The number was around thirty.

The applicants’ letters arrived just in time for the leisurely period, but I didn’t specifically intend for this timing when recruiting applicants.

It was just a coincidence that the period when I was about to go crazy due to the flood of work and the period when I had the spare time to teach people happened to coincide.

They’ve been trying to frame me lately, but I felt a very slight sense of gratitude for the world’s arrangement to give me a carrot instead of a whip as compensation for that.

Anything is better than nothing.

“Hmm…”

However, even so, there was something I didn’t like.

Despite having a little over a month of leeway, fewer letters arrived than I expected.

I’m a little ashamed to be thinking this myself.

Am I not a pretty famous person?

I’m looking for disciples, and there are only thirty?

I didn’t think this was right, so I tilted my head and looked at Emily.

“Emily, is this all the letters? You didn’t bring them in batches?”

“Yes, that’s all there is, I checked the mailbox and the surrounding floor thoroughly.”

“Hmm…”

There will be people who will rush in without these letters, so it may increase a little more than this, but it will be around forty at most.

“There aren’t as many as I thought…?”

Why?

I set the conditions more leniently than I thought to receive many applicants.

And I set the disqualification reasons quite leniently for those who might be scared and give up.

I thought that even if the applicants didn’t explode, there would be as many people as gathered when I recruited them before I made the atelier, but it didn’t even gather 1/4 of that.

Was the recruitment advertisement strange?

No, Elizabeth checked the advertisement, so it can’t be strange, am I too self-conscious?

Well, it’s strange to think that the first stroke of luck will continue.

I was lucky at that time, so attention was focused on me, but now I’ve shown my hand to some extent, so interest has waned a bit.

In the first place, these days, the anecdote of winning a baronet title through a meteoric rise to success is more famous than a designer’s resume…

“Tch…”

I clicked my tongue in disappointment and reached out for the letters.

I can’t forcibly drag out applicants who don’t exist, so I have to pick the right person from among those who came.

If it’s not enough, I can modify the advertisement and upload it one more time, and if it really doesn’t work, I can beg the guild a little.

I gave the guild some investment and gave them work, so I need to take something from them too.

_

It took exactly two hours and thirty-five minutes to read all thirty-two letters.

If it was someone with experience, it would have been complicated to check this and that, but since I was looking for disciples, most of them were very clean, so it didn’t take that long because it was enough to filter out their age, where they lived, their aspirations, and any disqualifications shown in the letters.

However, what bothered me was that there were too many aristocrats.

90% of the applicants were the children of barons or baronets.

I would understand if it was a family with a job in sewing or tailoring, but most of the families had no connection to tailoring, so I felt something suspicious.

Our employees are more suspicious when it comes to backgrounds, but the difference is too big from the first time when the ratio of nobles and commoners was close to 1 to 1.

And the feeling is different between the kids who came to me wanting to work when I had nothing and the kids who come to me after I’ve become famous.

The fact that the proportion of aristocrats has increased so much seemed to mean that there were many people who were blatantly hoping that something good would come from me or Elizabeth.

“Hmm~ I’m worried…”

No matter how leniently I think about it, I was reluctant to pick someone who was interested in the surroundings.

I’m picking them for the atelier, not for socializing.

I can filter them out through interviews, but these people are annoying.

It’s obvious that they’ll try to stick to me by using all sorts of strange methods, and it’s obvious that they’ll grumble and talk nonsense if they fail.

Even if most people aren’t like that, it’s still a headache if only one or two out of thirty are strange.

“I can’t help it.”

The plan to interview everyone as long as there are no problems with their documents is canceled.

I have no choice but to cut them off based on their background.

Discrimination based on origin is a hiring irregularity, but what’s that in the Middle Ages?

The most beautiful magic you can do in the Middle Ages is bribery and selling positions.

A magic in which you create a suitable position, and the emperor smiles and says, ‘It will be good for your well-being to buy it,’ and you get money and someone to do the work.

Even here, almost every country uses it as a way to create money because His Majesty the Emperor especially hates such things, so it’s a common method.

At the point where the beautiful custom of creating gold through the intangible value of public office and selecting officials without taxes is legal and customary, hiring irregularities are the same as nonexistent.

“Elizabeth.”

I got up from my seat with the pile of letters and approached Elizabeth.

“Yes, what’s wrong?”

“Among the senders of these letters, is there anyone you think I should filter out?”

“Where, let me see.”

And I handed the pile of letters to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth carefully examined the names and families written on the letters.

Passing, passing, taking out, passing and trying to pass, but frowning and taking out.

Elizabeth carefully selected each letter, and after checking all the letters, she handed me the four that she had set aside, saying.

“You have to filter out these four no matter what.”

“Yeah, but what’s the reason?”

“The parents of these two tried to bribe me, and these two are families that are greatly influenced by the Devonshire ducal family, they are practically servants of the ducal family, so I don’t know what they’ll do.”

“Hmm~ I see.”

I hummed softly and drew a large x on the back of the four letters that Elizabeth handed me.

I feel a little sorry for filtering them out because of their family, but Devonshire is a no-go, even if they’re just a noble faction.

I was so annoyed because of the late Duke of Devonshire that I had to prepare for tax audits and various administrative guidance.

“Are the rest okay? Or do you not know them well?”

“I don’t know them well, they’re not well-known families, so I think I’ll have to check them myself.”

I wouldn’t have minded if she had filtered out a few more, but still, I got rid of 10% for free, so it’s a profit if it’s a profit.

She even filtered out the confirmed landmines that would be fatal if they exploded.

“Thank you, this is enough.”

“Hehe~ I’m glad I was helpful.”

I smiled at Elizabeth and thanked her before returning to my seat.

I returned to my seat, picked up a pen, and immediately wrote a letter to the successful applicants notifying them of the interview date, and a formal rejection notice to the unsuccessful applicants.

“I guess I’ll have to shake the rest until not a speck of dust comes out during the interview.”

There are few, but I hope there will be at least one decent person among them.