The Chaotic Stone Sauna

by Nagaharu Hibihana

  On that note, Daisy was wearing a dress from an antique doll. The ceremony progressed without issue. When Haruno came forward, a senator started reading aloud a letter of commendation. After that, a court lady who had been waiting behind the senator stepped forward reverently and attached the medal to Haruno’s chest. At nearly the same time, loud cheers and thunderous clapping resounded from the crowd. The leader of the pilgrims was among the audience, clapping as loudly as she could with a beaming smile on her face. When Haruno escaped from the main hall, she gave a little wave toward the leader. The leader noticed that, took a few glances around her, then shyly waved back.

  A few days later, Haruno’s party armed themselves and set out on their journey on horseback. Right as they crossed the gate to Athenapolis, Haruno turned back to Sera and the rest.

  “Alright then, let’s be off.”

  Everyone gave her a firm nod in response. They were now a party of seven, including Haruno. Their numbers had dwindled quite a bit since she left Jupiteropolis with over 30 pilgrims in tow.

  But the Haruno back then had been saved by Touya acting as her decoy and was under the constant protection of the pilgrims. She had essentially taken her guardians along with her on her journey. When they had been fighting off monsters outside the city, the pilgrims had taken the lead, and Haruno had constantly been safeguarded as she tried to contribute to the battles.

  Perhaps this incident that shook Athena was the first battle that Haruno had managed to lead on her own. In that case, she felt even more proud to have been awarded the Olive Moon Medal.

  This is the start of my journey, she thought as she gripped the reins and set off.

  Words of the Great Ficus

  All beings are equal

  Whether human or demi-human,

  Rich or poor,

  Large or small,

  Whether wings grow from thy back or a tail sprouts from thy rear,

  Whether thou follow one goddess or another or none at all,

  There is no such trite nor sad reason

  For one to not find underwear most befitting thyself.

  Ficus

  Second Bath – The Bottomless Black Steel Bath

  Well damn, I was a little impressed.

  I stood speechless in front of a framed poem written by Ficus himself, hung inside the Ficus Brand store in Hephaestusopolis. If I were asked “which historical figure do you admire most?” right now, I might have blurted out “the great pervert Ficus” as my answer.

  After I’d heard from Haruno that Ficus Brand had made underwear for a giant and a little fairy, I became a little curious and started researching in-depth about the great pervert Ficus. Apparently he had lived a long life, up to almost 100 years. He died over 200 years ago, which meant he was born 300 years ago—around the same time Athena was being taken over.

  The sacred family and temple of the Goddess of Light were doing work in the shadows back then, and the inclination against demi-humans was probably still strong during the period he grew up in. Despite the time period, this pervert still boldly proclaimed that he didn’t care if someone was a human or demi-human—he just wanted to make them wear bras and panties. It may have sounded pretty idiotic, but it took some guts to do what he did.

  Take the low-rise panties on display in the shopfront, for example. From a modern Japanese person’s perspective, they looked like they were designed purely for style, but they actually served a purpose as well. The design was born to solve the very practical issue of not having panties get in the way of a demi-human’s tail. This was one of his legacies, thinking about it. Roni wore those kinds of panties every day, which is exactly what the great pervert would have wanted. Though I was no more convinced to imitate his single-leaf style of formal wear.

  It had been about half a month since our party started crashing in the workshop-slash-residence of the ketolt blacksmith Pardoe Paul. Word arrived from Haruno yesterday that she’d set off from Athenapolis.

  Our magic armor, the Magic Eater, needed some time to let the magic power stabilize before being tuned further, so we used the time off to go shopping today. Our main objective was to pick up the maid outfit we had ordered to make Rakti look like a labor raver. We had placed the order half a month ago, but since we wanted a custom one that could be worn during travel and requested several of them at once, it had taken a while to complete.

  And right now, I had just finished explaining what a “futon” was to the craftsmen for an order. The explanation had taken a while, since the concept of a futon didn’t exist in this world, but I thought the craftsmen got the basic idea. Rium was the only one among the girls who stayed around to listen to my futon explanation, but she had grown tired and was now taking a nap propped up beside Rulitora.

  It looked like Clena and the others weren’t done shopping yet, so I decided to look around the store for the time being.

  “This place looks like it’s half-meant for children.”

  “You mean the clothes are all small? Maybe it’s because there are a lot of ketolts here.”

  Thinking back to the Ficus Brand in Jupiteropolis, the walkways in the store were large enough to fit Rulitora since the city had all sorts of ravers, many of which lived there as middle-class citizens after completing their terms of employment. Ceresopolis, on the other hand, was a farming nation that demi-human ravers avoided, so the walkways were made without large demi-humans in mind. And here in Hephaestusopolis, the walkways were wide enough for Rulitora, but the shop’s displays were all very short, possibly to accommodate the small ketolts in the area.

  “Does that mean that half the customers here are ketolts?”

  “Probably, yeah.”

  A race of demi-humans called glaupis had once been driven out of Athenapolis, but apparently nothing of the sort happened in this city. According to what Pardoe told me later, the temple of light had indeed tried to banish the ketolts from this nation once. That was a story from 200 years ago. However, Hephaestusopolis and Athenapolis had one key difference. This nation had mines and blacksmiths, and talented blacksmiths were among the most respected here. The temple of light invaded the nation and tried to drive out the ketolts, but the ketolts responded by proclaiming, “Then find blacksmiths who can do a better job than us!” Apparently the temple of light couldn’t live up to that demand.

  Judging by how the fire clerics went out of their way to check if we were okay with demi-humans when we asked them for a good blacksmith recommendation, the human blacksmiths in this city couldn’t hold a candle to the ketolts. According to Shakova, it was a difference in the way they handled the fire stones. That difference led to the relative standings between the two temples now. I recalled how one cleric from the temple of the light had come to greet me on my way here, and how three clerics from the temple of fire pushed him over. I figured it would be best for the light temple to just withdraw completely at that point, but they must have had their reasons.

  “Sorry for the wait.” And while those thoughts ran through my head, Mark arrived carrying his bags.

  Mark Remus, an orange tabby cat. He was the son of Shakova Remus. He and Pardoe’s daughter, the pure-white ketolt named Crissa Paul, had come with us to shop today.

  He had purchased leather gloves for work. They were particularly resistant to fire, made from the skin of monsters called red lizards who lived around Mt. Lemnos. However, even those gloves didn’t stand a chance against the fire energy produced by divine intervention. Gloves were on the shopping list today because all of their current ones had burned up.

  “Where’s Crissa and the rest?”

  “Still shopping. Nothing we can do in these situations other than be quiet and wait.”

  Crissa was accompanying Clena and the other girls shopping.

  “It’s not something we can help them pick out, unless they want us to.”

  “Yeah...”

  Mark knitted his eyebrows the moment I mentioned Crissa’s name. He was 15 years of age and apparently har
bored a little crush on Crissa. Crissa was 18 years old, one year older than me. Pardoe’s and Shakova’s families had been close for a long time now, so she was a childhood friend and like an older sister to him. Not only that, but Crissa was a popular and attractive girl in her neighborhood. We were on good terms, so it was no surprise that he’d become vigilant of me.

  But don’t worry, Mark. I did think Crissa was cute, but she was a ketolt in the shape of a cat. I doubted I’d ever start developing feelings for her.

  It was cute seeing another cat like him all wary of me, unaware of my thoughts on the matter. After all, his biggest issue right now would be the fact that Crissa didn’t think of him as anything more than a childhood friend who was like a little brother to her. Well, it was fun watching them from the sidelines.

  “Thanks for waiting!”

  The girls walked up to us, having finally finished their shopping. Rakti led the group, prancing over to us in her maid uniform.

  “...Isn’t that a little short?”

  She had purchased her maid uniform, but the skirt seemed a bit on the short side. I wasn’t well-versed on the maid uniforms here, but I recalled the ones in Jupiter’s castle being longer than that. More than a maid uniform, the outfit looked like a waitress outfit you’d see at a cute café. Clena arrived a moment later to answer my question.

  “This is standard for maids working outside, you know?”

  “Really?”

  “It’d be hard to run away if something happened and she was wearing a long skirt.”

  These short maid outfits were originally used for maids working outside castles and mansions. Being inside the city didn’t guarantee safety, so the skirts needed to be short enough to allow them to run if anything ever came up.

  “So why couldn’t we just get her ordinary traveler’s clothes?”

  “It’s important for maids to be recognizable at a glance. Meaning, it’s important to be able to tell they’re a raver of someone noteworthy.”

  “I see...”

  So if anyone tried to lay a hand on the maid, they’d know they’d be picking a fight with the employer. Sometimes that might be inviting trouble, but I bet it helped steer away trouble most of the time.

  Employers were traveling far distances more often these days, so maid outfits had gotten sturdier in turn. Rakti’s outfit was one of those sturdy types.

  “What do you think? Does it look cute?” Rakti did a spin, which made her skirt flutter. I could see her slender and supple legs covered in pure white tights from under the skirt.

  Tights were apparently a trademark of maids traveling long distances. Grass and other various hazards might hurt their legs, so this protection was a matter of course.

  “You look cute, Rakti!”

  “Yaaay!”

  In any case, Rakti looked cute in her maid uniform. She jumped up and hugged me in response to my praise. Maybe I had gotten stronger, but I was able to catch and support her petite body pretty easily. Then, since she was happy to be on the same eye level as me for once, she showed me a beaming smile and rubbed our cheeks together.

  The maid uniform was a deep indigo-blue with a frilly white apron. I wondered if this was an okay design for travel wear, but I recalled that Clena’s surcoat was a dress as well.

  According to Roni, the materials for the apron were different from usual. It prioritized sturdiness rather than lightness. It didn’t look too different from the outside, but I noticed that the sheen was a little off.

  Clena and Roni also retrieved the clothes they had ordered. We put all of our purchases in one bag for Roni to carry.

  “Are you done on your end?”

  “Yes, we tried on our tailored clothes and they all look good.”

  “Now then, let’s head back.”

  I see, so they were slow because they had tried their clothing on. That was a vital step for getting custom-made clothing.

  “Oh, Roni. I can carry that for you.”

  “Eh? I couldn’t make you carry our things, Sir Touya...”

  “Let me at least do that much, as a man.”

  “Then let me take it.”

  I tried to take the bag off Roni’s hands, but Rulitora’s hand came swooping from above and picked the bag up as he was still carrying Rium on his back.

  “Don’t try to steal your attendants’ jobs.” Clena knocked me on the back of my head while I was still caught off guard by the surprise interruption.

  And then I finally realized. I had wanted to pick up our belongings as a man, but right now I was supposed to be “Roni’s owner.” I’d tried to keep it in mind before, but had totally forgotten just now.

  “S-sorry, Roni.”

  “No, thank you for worrying about me.” I apologized, but Roni forgave me with a slightly embarrassed look. Rulitora’s surprise interruption must have been a way to follow up on my blunder as well.

  “Rulitora, carry our things.”

  “Understood.”

  This was how I was supposed to act as their owner. I gave Rulitora an order and he replied with a dignified nod.

  “Um... was I acting badly too?” Rakti asked Clena while she still clung on to me.

  “...It’s fine as long as Touya is happy with it, but try to behave yourself in public.”

  “Understood, teacher!” Rakti vigorously raised a hand up in response to Clena. Let me remind you that this was the Goddess of Darkness we were dealing with.

  “Shall I carry that for you, Marky?”

  “...Nyo need.”

  Crissa smiled and tried to get Mark’s attention, but he swung his head away from her in embarrassment. She didn’t seem at all shocked by his attitude and instead gave a little giggle. This might have been an everyday occurrence for them. I mean, she was even calling him “Marky.” It felt like she was a level above him most of the time, but I wanted to think that was just our imagination.

  After that, we went to see how Haruno’s incident had influenced the raver market over here. But as soon as we arrived, I saw a wooden plank hung right over the entrance with “Annihilate Injustice!!” written in letters from this world on it, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  I decided to gather some information from a passerby, and apparently word had already gotten to the temple in Jupiter about the pastor of the temple of light in Athenapolis being involved in this incident. The temple then ordered investigations into each temple of light in every city-state. No perpetrators were found in this nation, since the demand for criminal ravers was low and no profit would be made from falsifying anything. I asked why criminal ravers weren’t more in demand here since they seemed like a perfect fit to work in the mines, and Mark answered my question.

  Mining for fire stones was the first job assigned to blacksmith apprentices. It was the first step to being able to discern the quality of fire stones. If you wanted to make something good, you had to start by gathering fire stones that were both big and high-quality. According to Mark, the human blacksmiths had a hard time realizing that.

  So being a miner was recognized as an honest job in this nation, and there was no need to gather criminal ravers since there were plenty of people lining up for the work already. Above all, Mt. Lemnos was a sacred place for the followers of the Goddess of Fire. More than a few people thought they’d rather work in the mines themselves than send criminals over there.

  And maybe it was just me, but I thought “no profit would be made” sounded like a more convincing argument than simply “I would never commit fraud!”

  On that note, the number-one thing this country needed was guards on Mt. Lemnos to protect the mines from monsters—battle ravers. Number two was labor ravers who attended to household needs. There were plenty of demi-human ravers who came here to seek employment as guards.

  Now that we had finished everything on our to-do list, we headed back to Pardoe’s house. While it looked like any other workshop on the outside, the other side of the building was a rather luxurious mansion. It was a good in
dicator of how skilled blacksmiths ranked socially in this nation. We wouldn’t be using the altar with the fire stone pillar today, so it was time for magic lessons and practice.

  “...I’ll help.” Rium, who had been sleeping on Rulitora this whole time, woke up and offered her assistance.

  I had learned over 10 new spells over the course of this half month. Considering how it had taken me three days to learn Summon Earth Spirit, I was now progressing at over twice the pace as back then.

  “Summon spirit!” I said, and a ball of fire formed at the top of my fingertip. I just summoned a spirit of fire. The heat was prickling my fingertip, so I quickly let the ball of fire go. The spirit then started changing its form to my will.

  According to the fire clerics, the flame could be fired off as a ball, an arrow, or a spear. Each of them were called “fireball,” “fire arrow,” and “flame spear,” and were treated like different spells, but they were all derived from fire spirit summoning.

  If I pumped too much MP into the spell, the firepower would get out of hand, so I needed to be careful. I mean, if it weren’t for the red lizard skin gloves Pardoe had given me when I told him I’d be practicing fire cleric spells, my hands would be burned black by now. The first time I tried the spell, the gloves went up in flames. Since then, I’d been careful about how much MP I used, and my second pair of gloves were still intact.

  Besides that, I’d learned a few more light and earth spells as well. Darkness spells were still not going well for me. According to Rakti, the spells were meant for demons only, and even if I were to become able to use them, it would take quite a bit of time.