“Many of our warriors died in our battle against the sandworm. We need to train more young people and turn them into warriors so they can protect the village, but now that we don’t even have Rulitora with us anymore, I just don’t know what to do,” Dokutora said, as he smacked the bare part of his head that wasn’t covered by the feather ornament.
After Rulitora left, Dokutora had been made the next warrior chief since he was the second strongest, but he really seemed to be at the end of his rope due to how bad the Torano’o tribe’s situation had become.
“Who were the nine lizardmen with you?” I asked.
“Oh, those are the warriors who survived.”
Only ten had survived the sandworm battle, including Dokutora. They always had to travel far not just for hunting, but to gather water as well, which is how they’d found us.
“Does it take time to train young lizardmen?”
“No. We can hunt on our own, after all. But...”
“But?”
“They’re still young. They shouldn’t have to hunt yet. But if we don’t make them into warriors, we won’t be able to move to a new settlement.”
Dokutora crouched down and scratched his head. It made his feather ornament – the symbol of the warrior chief – quiver on his head. Since the lizardmen traveled across the monster-filled wasteland, hunting, living, and then moving their entire village time and time again, they needed to have a hefty supply of warriors. But their trainees were all still very young, and weren’t at the proper age to start hunting.
“If they experience true battle, they’ll probably become fine warriors. But it’s dangerous to make such young lizardmen hunt. Especially now that we’ve already lost so many...” Dokutora looked up at the sky. He certainly seemed desperate.
I couldn’t bear to just sit and watch him, so I decided to give him my amateur opinion. “Why don’t you train them before they start hunting?”
“We always train them. But having real experience in battle makes a great difference.”
As someone who had basically zero battle experience, it was a bit troubling to hear. “Is it a bad idea to hunt in a group?”
“If they do, it’ll prevent each warrior from maturing on their own.”
I had figured it’d be the only safe way to give the young novice lizardmen some real battle experience, but Dokutora didn’t seem to like that idea. “Don’t the monsters around here run in packs?”
“If we attacked a pack, it’d start a war. When we hunt, we only target up to three at a time.”
It made sense. To Dokutora, Torano’o hunting meant one warrior taking on a monster and winning on his or her own. If they went hunting in groups, some warriors would end up not needing to do anything, which meant that certain warriors would get more experience than others. Dokutora wanted to turn each member of his tribe into a proper warrior, so that was a path he couldn’t take.
“How about this, then. Why don’t you create a squad?”
“A squad?”
“I’ve heard that this is how human armies work. Also, the heroes fought the demon lord four on one, remember?” I recalled how during my search for party members, I’d heard about how armies were composed of squads that each contained four people. “You have ten veteran warriors left, right? Why don’t you have each of them take three young lizardmen out and teach them how to hunt?”
If the veterans were watching small squads from the background, they’d be able to assist them and make sure everyone got an equal amount of experience. It was also safer than sending the young people out on their own, and would give them more experience than going out in a group. Dokutora seemed to like the one-on-one system, but this was no time to be stubborn.
“Hmmm. We’ve never done it that way up until now...” Dokutora growled. Considering how strong their bodies were, they might have never even considered the concept.
“But you’ve never been in this big of a crisis up until now, right? And besides, once they get enough experience, you can send them all out on their own again.”
“True. If we consider it a part of their training before they go out to hunt for real... Okay, I’m going to go talk to the elder.”
It was a balanced plan that didn’t lean too far toward either extreme, and it appeared to have convinced Dokutora. I didn’t know all the details about the Torano’o tribe’s living conditions, but I thought it was at least a better plan than what they had.
Dokutora quickly stood up and headed off to a group of lizardmen who had been watching us from afar. By the time I finished filling up all 14 jugs, it was already past 7 PM. The sun was long past set, but Rulitora’s group still had yet to arrive. I hope nothing happened to them...
After the lizardmen took the jugs and went back to their tents, Dokutora returned with another lizardman whose feather accessory was even more ornate than his. This lizardman had a scraggier face than the others, and as I stared at it, I started to understand what Dokutora had meant about older lizardmen’s scales getting harder. Judging from his fancy feather ornament, I guessed that this was the elder Dokutora had mentioned earlier. I thought about kneeling, but the two of them beat me to it.
“Sir Touya, Hero of the Goddess,” the elder said. Thank you so much for coming to save our tribe. I can’t possibly express my gratitude.”
“He gave me permission to create squads and start the new hunting training,” Dokutora said. “We’ll get them started first thing tomorrow!”
“I also hear that you bestowed us with a bit of your wisdom, so I would like to thank you for that as well,” the elder added.
Dokutora and the elder bowed their heads deeply. I’d experienced this sort of treatment several times before at the temple, so I had sort of gotten used to it, but it was more like I’d just given up on worrying about it. At least it no longer made me uncomfortable.
“After I heard about your tribe from Rulitora, I thought my gift might be able to help. The thing is, because of my MP, I can’t keep water flowing all day, but I hope to keep things going at a steady pace while you begin your battle training. While I’m working, I hope you’ll let me stay in your village with you.”
“Of course. We’ll be sure to protect you while you’re resting.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
In the end, asking for something fair in return made things move a lot more smoothly. My experience making a deal with that water merchant in the temple had come in handy. In exchange for saving the tribe from their water crisis, they’d let me stay here and offer me protection. It may not have been the fairest deal ever, but either way, they owed me now, and since we were both getting something out of this, it made everything else proceed with ease.
“Dokutora, prepare a new tent. We’ll let Sir Touya rest there.”
“I’ll have it set up at once!” Upon hearing the elder’s order, Dokutora instantly stood up and ran off. On his way, he called out to some other lizardmen. That tent was going to be ready in no time.
It turned out to be a white tent with a pillar in the center, just like the other ones that the Torano’o tribe used. It was made for lizardmen, so it looked pretty big to me.
By the time Rulitora’s group arrived, Dokutora and the other lizardmen had already finished setting up the tent. Only two young Torano’o tribe warriors had returned with Rulitora and the two girls in the rickshaw. Monsters were precious food to them, so the remaining seven had gone out to see what they could scavenge from the mess.
“It sure took you a while,” I said.
“Those two had taken more damage than we realized. I went slow so that I wouldn’t put any more strain on them...”
“Are you sure they’re okay?”
“I thought you’d want to hear about what happened to them, so I carried them to that tent over there.”
Rulitora and I headed to the tent to check on the two girls. When we got inside, the silver-haired girl named Clena spun violently around in bed and gave me a pained expression. Next to
her stood the girl with the custard cream-colored hair, Roni. Roni was lying deeper in the room, beyond Clena. It looked like she had taken much more damage.
“Relax,” I said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have saved you back there.”
“...”
I tried to calm them down, but it didn’t really work. Clena was staring at me as if she had chosen that spot specifically in order to protect Roni. They were definitely still afraid of me.
At this rate, they’ll never warm up to me. I guess I’ll have to try and force out a conversation here. I moved up to Clena and sat down in front of her. Rulitora sat down diagonally behind me.
“I guess it’s about time I introduced myself. I’m Touya. This sand lizardman is my raver, Rulitora. Just so you know, he isn’t a criminal raver.” As I introduced him, Rulitora bowed his head.
“...I’m Clena. And that’s Roni. She isn’t a criminal raver either, of course.” I couldn’t tell if she was still afraid of me or not, but she at least told me her name.
It seemed strange that she went out of her way to tell me that Roni wasn’t a criminal raver, but it made sense when I looked at her again. Roni had a full head of shaggy hair that went down to her waist. When I first rescued her, I hadn’t noticed, but on closer inspection, I realized that she had triangular beast ears right where her human ears would have been.
“Is she a demi-human?”
“Yes, a lycaon,” Clena said, then pushed Roni’s bangs apart and showed us her forehead. There was no oath seal on her forehead, which proved that she wasn’t a criminal raver. Clena must have wanted to convince us that her raver was a guiltless one.
According to Rulitora, lycaon were wolven demi-humans. They had wolf ears in place of human ears, and grew wolven tails from their rear ends. However, their faces looked almost exactly the same as humans. Their canines were a bit sharper, but Roni had her mouth closed, so I couldn’t check. Just like how Rulitora’s face resembled a lizard’s, lycaons’ faces had looked like wolves’ long ago. But ever since they started living alongside humans and believing in the Goddess of Light, their faces grew closer to humans’. People said there were generally two types of lycaons: those who still lived apart from humans and possessed wolven faces, and those who had mixed blood with humans and received blessings from the Goddess of Light. “Why’s her hair so shaggy?” I asked.
“...I don’t think that has anything to do with the fact that she’s a lycaon,” Clena answered.
Roni was wearing a leather breastplate, leather gauntlets, shinguards, a thin vest and long pants. She had a curved blade known as a scimitar strapped to her waist, and carried a small shield on her shoulder. All her equipment looked very practical and simple.
Clena’s silver hair was cut into a natural, soft bob. The silver color looked pretty, but unfortunately, it had lost its sheen. It looked like she was wearing a dress with a long skirt, but I could see that she was wearing metal armor beneath it. The hilt of the thin sword at her waist looked very well made, and it was plain to see by her fancy clothes that she had been born in the upper class. She also had a small shield on her left arm with its own ornate design.
“H-hold on a minute.” After staring at them, something came to mind and I gazed around the tent. Nope. Just like I thought, they were both missing a certain something. “What happened to your desert overcoats?”
“Desert...?” Clena gave me a dubious look.
But this is the wasteland, they were probably thinking – which meant they’d traveled to the wasteland part of the void without desert overcoats. Talk about reckless. There was a pretty good reason why they made overcoats specifically designed for the desert in this world. And even if they hadn’t brought them, they should have at least thought of some sort of countermeasure, such as using umbrellas or taking their armor off like I had.
“Don’t tell me...”
“Hey, what are you doing?!” Clena shouted as I moved close to her and touched her armor.
I ignored her panic. “I knew it. It feels hot...”
Because the sun had already set, it was only warm, but it probably felt like it was burning during the daytime. A white surcoat wasn’t enough to deflect the powerful sun in the wasteland. Roni was wearing leather armor, so hers wasn’t as bad as Clena’s, but it still felt warm. They probably had been unable to take off their equipment with the lizardmen around, and had kept it on the entire time.
“I’m just going to ask you this while you’re still awake – is it okay for me to take your equipment off? Your armor feels really hot.” Just so you know, I wasn’t bringing this up for impure reasons. It had to be done.
“...Fine. I wish I could just ask Roni to do it, though.” Clena seemed to understand this as well, so she hesitantly accepted my suggestion.
When she heard this, Roni winced and tried to pick herself up, but she didn’t have enough strength left. I held her back and helped her lay down again, but she resisted with what little power she still possessed.
“It’s okay, Roni! Don’t push yourself!” The moment Clena said that, Roni stopped resisting and slumped down to the bed. She was unconscious. She must have only made it this far due to her willpower.
I started undressing Clena first. Her dress-shaped surcoat was tied with a cord around her back, so she couldn’t undo it herself. Roni must have always helped her do it.
Underneath the surcoat, she was wearing half plate armor, gauntlets, and greaves. I silently removed her equipment. I figured that if I tried to fill the silence with some stupid quips, I’d only seem more worked up over this. Clena was clearly not used to having a man remove her armor, and blushed as she silently gave me free reign over her body.
Underneath her armor, she wore simple clothes that looked easy to move in, and seemed much higher quality than what I was wearing. She must be the daughter of some rich family...
“Oww!”
“I was afraid of this... I bet your skin got burned,” I said.
Clena flitted her eyes away from me. It seemed that I was right. Keeping that hot armor on for the entire day had ended up burning her skin. I mean, it’s not like they could hop into the Infinite Bath and cool themselves like I could, so I wasn’t surprised.
“I understand why you might not want to bring it up, but you have to be honest about these sorts of things.”
“Talking about it won’t change anything...”
“I can use healing magic. Only Healing Light, but still...”
The moment I said that, Clena’s face turned so red it looked like it was burning. I understood why – Healing Light required the caster to channel healing magic into their hands, which meant they needed to get close enough to touch their targets. Touching a wound would hurt the person, but since it sped up the healing process, many people did it that way. Due to that, Healing Light could only be used on superficial wounds. In order to heal bones or organs, one would have to use a more advanced spell that could heal from a distance.
“Just so you know, I’ve only been studying cleric magic for a little over a month.” In other words, I needed to have my target undress and show me the wound in order to heal it – which definitely required permission beforehand.
After I finished removing her armor, I called out to Clena, who was still struggling against the pain. “I’m going to take off Roni’s armor now, so you can use that time to decide whether or not you want magic healing. Even if you decide not to do it, I’ll prepare some clean water for you.”
“...Okay.”
It’d be easy to cool their bodies with water prepared using the Unlimited Bath. Whichever option Clena chose, she’d end up okay. As I thought about this, I started taking off Roni’s armor, and couldn’t help but glance at Clena as she pondered her decision with a bright red face. My hand happened to pass over Roni’s breasts a bit, but it wasn’t on purpose, so I hoped she’d forgive me. They were small, but when I touched them, I could feel how firm and perky they were. I also noticed how warm her body was.
/>
While I worked, Clena mumbled out questions to me. It started out with what a human like me was doing at a Torano’o tribe settlement, then how I got here and how I made Rulitora my raver. Of course, I told her the entire truth without hiding anything. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to tell her about my gift and how I was summoned, but it was too late now, since I had already told her about how I saved the Torano’o tribe from their water crisis. Incidentally, when she asked how I was going to prepare cold water, I made sure to explain that someone would have to bathe with me in order to use the Unlimited Bath. Of course, both of us didn’t need to bathe at the same time – I could always prepare the water separately.
“You’re... One of the heroes from another world who was summoned to Jupiter?” Clena asked.
The two girls came from Juno, a kingdom in the Olympus Alliance that lied farther to the northwest than Jupiter. They had passed through the Sacred City on their way to the void. They’d also heard rumors about the hero summoning.
Apparently, it snowed a lot in Juno. As I listened, I wondered if coming from a cold place had made them underestimate the heat of the void. People had most likely warned them about the heat, but it was something that people had to experience firsthand to really understand. When I touched upon this, Clena blushed and silently nodded. Another bullseye for me.
As I opened the door to the Unlimited Bath and continued to explain its ability, Clena’s eyes widened. I poured some water into a wash bowl and brought it out. Then, I loosened Roni’s collar and belt as she lay on a blanket.
Immediately, Clena started to panic. “What are you doing?! I didn’t say you could go that far!”
“Don’t get so freaked out. I only did it because it’s necessary.”
I had no plans to turn back. Now that I had her belt loosened, I could glance at a bit of the white panties she wore underneath, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Roni’s body felt so hot that I worried she might be experiencing heatstroke. Luckily, she drank some water, so she was probably a little better off, but she still had yet to sit up. It was time for some modern wisdom to come to the rescue.
Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension: The Hero of the Unlimited Bath Page 13