The Fervent Sand Baths

by Nagaharu Hibihana

  The temple elder here was younger than the one in Jupiter. He had a gentle demeanor and appeared to be a good-natured middle-aged man.

  We left the rickshaw in the courtyard and sorted through our cargo. We donated whatever fruit could still be eaten but were no longer in selling condition to the temple as thanks and in exchange for our lodging fees, along with the message to “please eat them quickly.” We also treated them to dried meat.

  Maybe it was a difference in technique, but the dried meat made by humans stayed fresh longer compared to what the Torano’o tribe could make. It seemed best to buy a new batch when we left Ceresopolis.

  We planned to sell the aloe and dried dates to further fund our travels. The furs had been treated, so it would depend on their price.

  Anyhow, the temple residents enjoyed the fruit and dried meat. It looked like we left a good first impression.

  The main problem was the room Rulitora would stay in. Sand lizardmen didn’t use beds—they’d even be fine sleeping on bare dirt. In fact, beds were so soft that they couldn’t relax in them. He had slept on the floor back in Jupiteropolis.

  Thus, the room that the temple elder reserved for us was one that was once used by a visiting distinguished pilgrim. In other words, a VIP room.

  The floor was furnished with carpet, which the elder suggested would be more comfortable to sleep on than hardwood.

  “Oh, wow...” I couldn’t help but gasp when a priest led us into the room.

  Unlike the other guest rooms, this one had separate living and bedrooms. It wasn’t overly extravagant, but it was decorated in a refined manner with motifs of the goddess sisters.

  There was a fireplace in the living room. The large chimney above the fireplace was also decorated with a large relief.

  Five women were lined up vertically in the relief. According to the priest, it was a historical masterpiece depicting the goddess sisters.

  Clena entered the room and muttered “it sure feels like a temple now” as she looked up at the piece.

  After the priest left, Clena turned around and beckoned for me.

  “What’s up?”

  “Look at this.”

  “By this, you mean the relief?”

  I looked back at the relief hanging from the pillar as Clena told me. The top of it was rounded out, but otherwise it was shaped like the pillar. It sat inside a frame with golden lining, and was several steps above the rest of the furnishings in the room in terms of extravagance.

  One person was depicted in the top middle, then four more people to her left and right in a zigzag pattern. No, they were goddesses, so should I be using the term “people”?

  I couldn’t discern the good and bad characteristics of an art piece, but even I could tell that this was an outstanding work of art.

  “From the top down, they’re the Goddesses of Light, Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth.”

  “Huh, so they’re...”

  “The five goddess sisters.”

  Rulitora and Roni came up and stood beside us. Rulitora was looking at the relief in admiration, but Roni had somewhat of a meek expression as she grasped onto Clena’s sleeve.

  Then, Clena pointed at the relief and began to speak. “This was created after the battle between the first sacred king and the demon lord.”

  “You can tell?”

  “I can. Since there are five of them here.”

  “...What do you mean?”

  “Right now they’re called the five goddess sisters, but they used to be the six goddess sisters.”

  So who was the missing one?

  “Light, Fire, Wind, Water, Earth... could it be Darkness?”

  “You’re right. I’m impressed you figured that out.”

  “...Well, it’s no big deal. A lot of the stories back in my world used a similar setting.”

  It was a pretty cliché pattern when it came to video games.

  I doubted she would understand the term “video games,” so I opted to use “stories” instead.

  “That was the goddess that the desert kingdom, Hadesopolis, worshiped. Right, Lady Clena?” Roni contributed to Clena’s explanation.

  In short, this relief was created after the history involving the desert kingdom was erased 500 years ago, and thus there were only five goddesses here.

  Maybe that was how these girls came to know of the desert kingdom. Perhaps they saw something that depicted all six goddesses.

  The land where the demon lord and his race were born, and the Goddess of Darkness. It felt like the pieces were starting to fall into place.

  And then there was the Olympus Alliance, who erased that history. Perhaps the battle from 500 years ago wasn’t as simple and straightforward as a fight between the hero and the demon lord.

  Lost in thought, I grew uneasy that someone might be listening in on our conversation.

  “...We’re not being spied on or anything, right?”

  “It’d be a big scandal if the VIP room was bugged.”

  “Do not worry, I detect no other presence at the moment.”

  “I’m not picking up any scents of someone hiding, either.”

  Clena, who knew that this was an inappropriate place to be spied on.

  Rulitora, who could trace suspicious presences, and Roni, who could detect scents.

  I had such reliable comrades.

  In any case, it was still safest not to talk about the topic in the open too much. So we decided to end the conversation about the desert kingdom there.

  After that, we unloaded our cargo, relaxed in the living room, and talked about what we were going to do from here.

  Two sofas faced each other with a table in between. I was sitting on one, and Clena and Roni on the other. Rulitora was sitting cross-legged on top of the carpet. Since he had a long tail, he couldn’t sit on any sofas with backs to them.

  Of course, our next goal was to go back to the void and find the gate that the Torano’o elder told us about, but before that, we needed to prepare.

  “I want to take a break for tomorrow.”

  “Me too.”

  The first suggestion to pop out from Clena and me, whose muscles had yet to heal, was to just take a break tomorrow.

  “Oh, but we should sell our things sooner rather than later.”

  “Yeah, we do need to sell off the dried dates soon.”

  Selling them was impossible to do right now, but it was best to get done as soon as possible.

  Roni agreed with this suggestion. We’d ask the temple residents for guidance tomorrow.

  “Hey, why don’t we check out the temple’s library? We should be fine if we say we’re collecting information on the demon lord’s army.”

  “The demon lord’s army... You’re right, we’re going to need that information.”

  Clena suggested an idea and Rulitora responded in agreement.

  Indeed, we’d be better off not being ignorant about the demon lord’s army. We’d ask for help from the temple on this matter as well.

  After that, we needed to prepare for the next leg of our journey. We wanted to buy a carriage because it seemed convenient, but there was one problem standing in our way.

  “That destroyed gate... do you think a carriage could fit through it?”

  If we were only investigating the outside of the gate that the Torano’o tribe destroyed, then there’d be no issue, as the surrounding area was only wasteland. But the problem arose if we wanted to pass through the gate itself with a carriage.

  “It was fine when it was only Sir Touya and me, but now with Clena and Roni and all our luggage as well, it’d be impractical for us to travel with only a rickshaw.”

  “I really can’t walk that much.”

  Rulitora had a point. It’d be crazy to ask him to pull all three of us plus the belongings of four people in one rickshaw. And the argument against walking through the void was pretty convincing when the person making it had collapsed and almost died doing so.

  “How about we consider the
worst case scenario and buy a cheap carriage?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  It would be a waste, but we were taking safety measures. Buying a carriage would be best option here.

  “I’m so glad we don’t have to calculate water into our cargo.”

  “My gift is useful for that.”

  Of course, we didn’t want to just pack as much as we could; we had to consider the possibility of having to abandon it all as well. Clena was ideal to consult on this topic thanks to her experiences traveling.

  Now that the issue of cargo volume had come into play, we had one important point to consider: the storage capabilities of the Unlimited Bathroom.

  From the experiments I conducted on our way to Ceresopolis, I learned that time passed normally inside the bathroom even when the door was shut. For example, I closed the door while our laundry hung inside with the dryer fan turned on, and my MP continually depleted until the dryer fan turned off. I could dry our clothes in this manner.

  Outside of the bathtub itself, it seemed that the other devices could be used even when I wasn’t present.

  This was a sign of my growth. I was conflicted whether this was more convenient because the bathroom could be used without me, or less convenient for the same reason.

  So during our travels, I had Roni take care of washing our laundry while I dried them with the dryer fan to train my MP. In fact, I was doing so right now.

  The problem lay beyond that. The fact that time passed inside meant that any food placed there should grow rotten and get moldy. However, while the fruit that I left inside indeed got dried up or overripe to the point that it was inedible, it never grew mold.

  This perplexed Clena, Roni, and Rulitora, but I realized why it happened. The Unlimited Bath was a gift that allowed one to take a bath anywhere and anytime. It promised a pleasant bathing experience.

  But try picturing this. Could you willingly enter a bathtub that had mold growing all over it?

  The answer was no.

  Presumably, the Unlimited Bath itself had functions to prevent the growth of mold. Thinking about it, I had been using the bath for two months up until now without doing much in the way of cleaning, but I had never spotted a speck of mold.

  I had also tried placing a dagger inside, but it didn’t rust at all, either. I concluded that the bathroom controlled both the growth of mold and rust.

  “We’ll have no problems storing money, either.”

  “And since we can do laundry every day, we don’t need to bring too many changes of clothes!”

  One of the unexpectedly heavier, bulkier items among our cargo were coins. We had no choice, since there was no paper money in this world.

  Here people used three categories of currency—copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins. It would have been a pain if the currency varied in value between countries, but fortunately on this continent, there existed a shared currency called the Olympus coin.

  It was common sense for travelers to carry their daily expenses around in a small pouch and store the rest among their belongings. There was the risk of theft when walking around with a bag of coins. And it went without saying that there was the risk of burglary when storing belongings in an inn.

  The common sense solution was splitting one’s pouch into several more pouches. Another was exchanging one’s coins for precious gems, which held more value than gold coins though there was a slight loss in the exchange, so one could carry more money around at a time.

  And then there was me, who had no need for any common sense solutions whatsoever.

  I did carry around a bag of coins, but I just put the rest of the money inside the Unlimited Bathroom. The coins wouldn’t deteriorate like fruit, after all.

  As for the changes of clothes that Roni mentioned, travelers usually had three options: increase the amount of clothing they carried, walk around in damp clothes, or put up with wearing dirty clothes.

  But I had the power to dry our washed laundry while on the road. Nothing beat having your clothes dry under the basking sun, but I was blessed with a better environment compared to your ordinary traveler. The Unlimited Bath really found its place to shine outside of battle.

  In any case, we now had our general plan of action in Ceresopolis. I was lounging on the sofa when a temple priestess came to tell us that they had prepared a bath for us before dinner. They had also prepared a place for Rulitora to bathe in the courtyard with a folding screen for cover.

  I looked toward Clena to see what to do, but she replied to the priestess, “We’ll be right there.”

  After the priestess left with Rulitora holding a towel, I turned to Clena.

  “Was that so that they wouldn’t find out about the Unlimited Bath?”

  “That too, but it takes some effort to prepare a bath here. We’d look bad if we didn’t take them up on their offer after they went through all that trouble.”

  “...I see. That makes sense.”

  Enough water to fill the tub and enough wood to heat it up. This wasn’t something I was exposed to much since I used the Unlimited Bath, but in this world, baths cost both labor and money. For that reason, only aristocrats owned private baths, and the rest used the public ones.

  They had prepared all that for us. It would be flat-out rude to decline their hospitality.

  Also, I was sure that the baths here would be as large as the ones in Jupiteropolis. Bathing in a packed tub with Clena and Roni wasn’t bad—in fact, it was paradise—but a nice, relaxing soak in a large bathtub might be nice once in a while as well.

  “By the way, what will you do?”

  “About what?”

  “Do you want to bathe with us or bathe separately?”

  “...You’re asking me?”

  Was that really something best left for me to decide?

  I looked over at Roni, and she repeatedly glanced up at me with a red face.

  What did she mean with that expression? I hoped it didn’t signify her disapproval for perverted things.

  “Would the temple mind if we entered together?”

  “Huh? I doubt it... They wouldn’t try to meddle with personal affairs.”

  “In that case, as long as you two are okay with it, I want to bathe with you,” I asserted bluntly, and then continued. “I am indeed a man who yearns for mixed bathing. But that doesn’t mean I am willing to bathe with anybody.”

  “...Are you sure?”

  “It may not seem that way, but I’m still putting a lot of my faith in you two. Also in Haruno and Sera and Rium. And Lumis and Rin and Sandra.”

  Yes, I didn’t want just anybody. I hadn’t made promises to bathe with Lumis and the rest, but we had gone to town a few times together, so I considered them my friends. It might have seemed like all my friends were female from this, but I had male friends as well.

  Our difference in social status aside, I considered Rulitora a close friend.

  Then there was Dokutora and the other young warriors of the Torano’o tribe.

  Huh, they’re all sand lizardmen.

  “Wha?! Why are you crying?!”

  “Er... It’s nothing.”

  I’m not crying. I’m not crying. What’s wrong with having non-human friends?

  “Well, anyway. It’s up to you two. It’s usually the girls who make the decision on things like this.”

  “...I guess I have to, then. I bet you’re lonely, so we’ll keep you company. Is that okay with you, Roni?”

  “Of course!”

  Clena was bluffing, but as always, her cheeks were bright red.

  As for Roni, she had a beaming smile on her face and was wagging her tail energetically. It looked like her glances from just now didn’t harbor any bad intentions, thank goodness.

  “You’ll need to tell me all about those names I haven’t heard before.” Clena said with a grin.

  Was she angry? She didn’t look like it...

  “I’m not angry. I have some things I haven’t talked about, either.”r />
  Most likely related to her being disowned. I had no plans to force her into telling me. We were in similar, though very different situations. There was also the factor that she might not be opposed to polygamy, having been born and raised in an aristocratic family.

  “I’ll make you spill every last detail~♪” Clena said, as if she was enjoying some part of this.

  And so she led me by the hand to the bath in the temple.

  “I see, so all that happened.”

  I spilled every last detail about my relationship with Haruno and the other girls in the temple’s bathhouse. Roni was washing my back in the meantime.

  The bathhouse was underneath the temple, and light spirits lit the room up. It was one or two sizes smaller than a typical Japanese bathhouse, and was all made of stone.

  From the changing area, you could see a door on the left-hand side, stools lined up against the left wall, and a large bath along the right wall. There was no faucet or shower—one had to carry water over from the bathtub to use.

  There were no separate men’s and women’s baths. Instead, they were split up according to time slots. Our time slot was reserved for guests.

  Clena was sitting beside me, talking to me with her arms crossed. I wondered if she noticed how she was emphasizing her cleavage with the way her arms were squeezing her chest?

  “You’re not angry?”

  “Why would I be?” She returned my question with a tilt of her head.

  I had promised to bathe together with not only Haruno, but Sera and Rium as well, and I’d also talked about the kiss as well. Yet she didn’t seem particularly mad about any of it.

  “As long as you have the capabilities, Touya, I have nothing to complain about.”

  “So you’re saying I should support everyone?”

  “That, and protect them. It’s a dangerous world here, after all.”

  “I understand...”

  In one way or another, this world was ruled by the threat of monsters. Whether it be battle power, political power, or economic power, people would gather under those they felt had strength.

  “I believe in you, Touya.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”