The Fervent Sand Baths

by Nagaharu Hibihana

  “Doesn’t it smell like the outside here?”

  “The floor... is it made from dead grass?”

  “Assuming it’s the same as it was from my world, it’s made from a thing called soft rush straw.” The plant hadn’t necessarily died, it had just been dehydrated.

  “I see, so that’s why it smells so nice,” Roni said, then took a deep breath. She was right, the room smelled like fresh tatami. It seemed she had taken a liking to the scent.

  “Wow... this is made using some complicated techniques.”

  Clena had a stunned look on her face and kept silent. I could guess her train of thought, though. There were a variety of buildings in this world, but the majority of them were made with mud walls, while the nobles would live in houses built from stone.

  Only poor farmers lived in wooden houses. These girls probably couldn’t ignore their bias, having grown up in this world. They could tell the tatami wasn’t on the same level, though, after seeing how intricately woven it was. Her astonishment came from the mismatch between her idea of grass flooring and the complex methods used to make the tatami.

  “Wow... Amazing...” Rium got on her hands and knees and inspected the weave on the tatami mats.

  Fighting off the urge to pat her little protruding butt, I returned to the changing room to get started on healing everyone’s wounds.

  “Rium, are you alright?”

  “Yes.”

  Rium hadn’t sustained any injuries during her call for reinforcement, so I left her in the tatami room. Next, I stuck my head out of the Unlimited Bath and called out to Rulitora.

  “Are you wounded anywhere, Rulitora?”

  “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”

  He seemed uninjured as well. Only Clena and Roni needed some healing. I ignored the wounds on my own limbs and started their treatment.

  “I just realized, but Healing Light won’t let you heal your own back.”

  “Isn’t there a higher level healing spell to make up for that?”

  I couldn’t heal my back since I wasn’t able to reach it, but there was a more complex spell for that. I sort of understood the theory behind it, which I suppose was good enough for now.

  “...Well, in any case. Show me your wounds, you two.”

  “Alright.” Roni took the initiative to undress first, stripping down to her underwear. I couldn’t heal her unless I was touching her skin directly, after all.

  “Where are your wounds?”

  “Our hands and feet... Roni has one on her back, too.”

  “Lady Clena, we’ll need to heal the one on your chest as well.”

  “Yeah, I’ll make sure to heal that up really carefully.” I gulped down the last of my soup and psyched myself up.

  I didn’t have any ulterior motives, I promise. There was no way I could leave a scar on Clena’s breasts. Sure, I had to touch them to heal them, but I had only pure intentions. Probably.

  “You touched me in a really perverted way.”

  “I’m a man, after all!” I wasn’t gonna make excuses.

  Besides, I couldn’t heal her properly by just brushing against her skin. I needed to make sure every last nerve ending in my hands made contact with her breasts.

  After I finished healing her, Clena stared at me as she put her clothes back on, but she understood I’d completely healed her so there was nothing left for her to say. When I had taken off her bandages, I had seen a deep cut running across the top of her voluptuous right breast. It would definitely have left a scar if I hadn’t healed it myself.

  She said she tried dodging a knife that came flying at her, but didn’t make it in time. She’d still been lucky, though, considering how the knife would have gone straight through her chest if she hadn’t dodged at all. She had a few deep wounds on her arms and legs as well, but I managed to heal all of them up without a trace.

  I could use my magic without any issues. Rather, I might have had an even bigger supply now compared to before.

  “I believe the room got bigger from defeating Goldfish, but the structure inside changed and we have one more room now.”

  “Let’s make the tatami room the bedroom. We won’t have to sleep surrounded by luggage anymore.”

  I looked inside the room with the open fusuma to see Rium rolling around joyfully. Looks like she discovered how comfortable tatami was. Roni’s eyes sparkled as she watched Rium, so I told her to go ahead and join.

  “I wonder what the curse he cast on me really was?”

  “...” Clena was silent.

  I looked over, wondering what was wrong, to find her looking down at her exposed chest, collar unbuttoned.

  “Are you implying I should look?”

  “N-No, I’m not!” Clena covered her chest, flustered. She was probably inspecting the area I had just healed.

  “Did I heal it alright?”

  “Yeah, you did. But Touya, do you really feel okay?” Clena peered up at me with a worried look.

  I could see her cleavage since she hadn’t buttoned her collar yet. She blushed as soon as she noticed my gaze, then turned her back to me and buttoned herself up.

  I looked at her back and asked, “Do you have any idea what the curse might be?”

  “This is just my guess, but I think it’s the blessing of the Goddess of Darkness. The tatami room must have been created from that.”

  True, I couldn’t imagine my Unlimited Bath being upgraded from a curse. Especially since this gift was originally from the Goddess of Light. So just like how the bathtub turned into cedar from the Goddess of Earth’s blessing, the tatami room could have been created from the Goddess of Darkness’ blessing.

  “So the curse was a blessing?”

  I remembered a saying back in my world that went “both a blessing and a curse.”

  “Isn’t that how you become one of the demon race, though? Will you really be okay?” Clena asked me again, this time with an argument we couldn’t ignore.

  Still, I felt absolutely nothing abnormal in my body.

  “Er, but wait. Was his goal trying to turn me into a demon? Really?”

  “That would explain why it would’ve been a curse...” Clena muttered pensively.

  We didn’t have any proof, though. Goldfish had commented that I’d make a fine demon lord, but was he actually being serious?

  “What happens when you transform into a demon?”

  “Your physical appearance changes first. Take off your clothes a little.”

  “A-alright...” It was my turn to strip now. I decided to heal my own wounds in the meantime.

  Clena inspected my body while I healed the cuts on my arms and legs. I couldn’t see my back, but Clena said I had no injuries there. I wasn’t showing any signs of transforming into a demon, either.

  “Yeah, you’re fine here, too.”

  “...Stop looking at that so casually.”

  “What, you think I’ve never seen it before? This makes us even.”

  I won’t get into the specifics of what she was talking about, but her stubborn face was bright red at the moment. She didn’t look as composed as she tried to act.

  “Y-you’re really the exact same everywhere...”

  “Actually...” I told her about the strange dream I had while I had been knocked out.

  What if those were the personifications of my blessings, assuming the forms of the goddesses? In other words, the light and darkness blessings inside me were clashing with each other right now, but the earth blessing was protecting me from getting harmed by it.

  “So maybe the Goddess of Earth’s blessing is keeping my body from morphing right now?”

  “Well, it’s a possibility,” Clena saw the logic in my argument. “But there’s also the chance you become a demon without changing physically.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I don’t know... but there might have been demons who didn’t look much different from humans at all. I can think of some off the top of my head.” Clena looked off
into the distance.

  I was reminded of what Goldfish said when I looked at her. It would be awkward, but I decided to go ahead and ask her now.

  “...Is your sword really related to the Dark Prince?” I asked, looking her dead in the eyes.

  Goldfish said that Clena’s sword, which she used as a medium for her spirit magic, belonged to the Dark Prince. She claimed that she didn’t know who the original owner was.

  Clena looked back at me for a while, then eventually sighed deeply and started speaking.

  “Alright. I’ll tell you everything.”

  I stood up straight and perked up my ears. I noticed that the fusuma to the tatami room had shut before I realized it. Roni was probably giving us some privacy.

  “That sword used to be my mom’s.”

  “Did one of your ancestors steal it from the Dark Prince, or something like that?”

  “No, mom said that she got it from the prince himself.”

  Now that piqued my curiosity. Her words implied that the Dark Prince gave his sword away of his own accord. What in the world would have brought him to do that? No, I should be asking what sort of relationship Clena’s mother had with the Dark Prince in the first place.

  “Wait a second...!”

  “...Yeah, this sword was a present that my dad gave to my mom. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “So that means the Dark Prince is your dad?”

  “I don’t know. The only thing I can say for sure is that my dad, who I’ve never met, gifted my mom this sword.”

  I see. Even if the sword really belonged to the Dark Prince like Goldfish claimed, the one who gave it to Clena’s mom might not necessarily have been him.

  “You’re not lying about your age, right?”

  “I’m not. I’m really 15.”

  It had been 500 years since the demon lord and the prince had been summoned to this world. There was a chance the sword had been passed down a few generations, or that it had fallen into someone else’s hands along the way.

  So Clena was mixed human and demon...? No, I couldn’t say that just yet. There was still a chance that some human had stolen the sword from the Dark Prince.

  “So I came all the way here to find out more about my identity.”

  “To find out who your father was?”

  Clena shook her head at my question. “That’s part of it, but I wanted to know whether I was really a demon or not.”

  So her claim that there might have been “demons who didn’t look much different from humans” was referring to herself. She didn’t know who her father was, so she had no idea if she was human, demon, or a mix.

  “I thought I’d find something out if I came here... But it was all in vain. Looks like I’ll have to start from the beginning again,” Clena said with a laugh—but she looked frail, like she could burst into tears any moment. “...It’s gotten kind of humid. We should start getting lunch ready soon.” She stood up and quickly exited the Unlimited Bath. I couldn’t help but notice the tears at the corners of her eyes, though.

  “...Are you going to be alright?” I called to her from behind as she started prepping for lunch. It wasn’t just my imagination that her shoulders were drooping a little.

  “I’ll be fine. Just wait and see, I’ll put everything I’ve got into making lunch.” Clena turned around and smiled at me, but it was plain as day how much she was pushing herself.

  Roni was the primary cook in our party, while I was the one who helped her out the most. It was abnormal for Clena to take the initiative to make lunch like this.

  I walked over and positioned myself between her and the frying pan so that we were facing each other. She really was looking glum.

  “I can guess what you’re about to say, but are you really okay, Touya?”

  “Okay with what?”

  “You know, aren’t you feeling anything? You might turn into a demon any moment now.”

  “Oh, that...”

  A human would transform into a demon once blessed by the Goddess of Darkness. We had no proof, but that was likely the curse that Goldfish placed on me. Calling it a “curse” was probably just his brand of sarcasm.

  My reputation would definitely take a hit if I became known as a hero summoned by the Goddess of Light who turned into a demon. That was probably another reason Goldfish called it a “curse.” Well, we had no way of confirming it with him anymore, seeing as how he turned into a boiled fish and then evaporated. But nothing other than my Unlimited Bath had changed so far, so I wasn’t feeling the gravity of the situation yet. The possibility that Clena’s father might be a demon had me a lot more worried. She had come all the way to the desert kingdom, Hadesopolis, in search of clues about her father, yet we had found nothing.

  “Don’t worry about me. Even if we don’t find anything here, I’ll just need to keep looking elsewhere. What matters is what you plan on doing after this, Touya.”

  “I’ll gather more blessings from other goddesses and... help you find clues about your father. There’s not much for me to think about.”

  It hadn’t sunk in for me yet, but both Clena and I might be flesh-and-blood demons now. Though it was only a possibility for her at the moment.

  “Can’t we just say that we’ll keep traveling together for the time being?”

  “...You’re right.”

  It was faint, but she finally gave me a genuine smile. She then returned her focus to the pan and continued cooking.

  “Give that to me.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re holding it all wrong, it’s dangerous.”

  My biggest problem to tackle right now was helping Clena out with cooking.

  After we finished cooking, I decided to send Haruno a letter before sitting down to eat. We were on guard with Goldfish around and didn’t want him finding out that we had friends outside our party, so we had held off on writing letters until now.

  I might as well take this opportunity to mention that we defeated one of the demon generals. I wonder if Haruno would be happy to hear that? Or maybe she’ll be worried after learning that we were fighting a demon general?

  I decided to hold off on telling her about my curse or the blessing from the Goddess of Darkness. We didn’t have any definitive proof yet, so I didn’t want to worry her too much. Of course, I kept Clena’s story a secret as well. I’d be safe telling Haruno about my feelings, though...

  “Hmm, you’re writing a letter to Haruno?”

  “Yeah, since we can let our guard down now... Don’t look, okay?”

  “I’m not the type to read other people’s letters. But...”

  “But?”

  “Don’t start ignoring us, alright?”

  It felt like she returned to her glum mood from earlier. I see, the fact I was contacting an old friend had her worried. I had to make things clear on this topic, too.

  “By ignoring, you mean not taking baths with you anymore and things like that?”

  “...Yeah, though I guess you’ll never do that.”

  “Of course. I’ll never stop as long as you don’t tell me to.” I wanted her to believe that she and the other girls were all important to me.

  After hearing my answer, Clena had a relieved, though exasperated smile on her face.

  Afterward, during lunch, I was served a bigger helping than usual. Clena, who had set the table, must have been in a good mood.

  After finishing a peaceful lunch, we decided to start our investigation in the armory. A few weapons and pieces of armor were left. Goldfish couldn’t control anything with magic cast on it, which meant that every item left in this room was protected by some sort of spell.

  “Oh yeah, there was one full set of armor left.”

  “Hm? Didn’t all three come out?”

  “There was one set that Goldfish took apart so that he could hide himself.”

  “...Oh yeah.”

  Come to think of it, Goldfish had taken apart one set of armor and put it on the shelf, then c
oncealed himself among the other two suits of armor. So if only three suits of armor left the armory, that meant the fourth had some sort of spell on it.

  “...I can see why he wasn’t able to control this one.”

  The remaining set of armor was pure black, just like the one Goldfish used. I didn’t know enough about metal to tell if it was made from the same material, though. The helmet had two ogre-like horns growing out of its forehead, and the rest of the armor felt like it was designed to incite as much fear as possible. If Goldfish could control this, he definitely would have used it to scare us.

  “The only problem is that we don’t know what sort of spells have been cast on it.”

  “We can’t do anything about that until we have an expert take a look.”

  “Let’s put it inside the Unlimited Bath for now.”

  No matter what sort of spells were on that thing, we couldn’t just leave it behind.

  Besides that, there were plenty of swords, spears, axes, and even a bow scattered around. We couldn’t find any arrows to use with the bow, though. For now, we carried everything we found into the Unlimited Bath.

  “Rulitora, help us out with this.”

  “What about keeping watch?”

  “I’ll take care of the hole.”

  We had Rulitora and the horse come inside the armory, and then I resealed the hole using earth spirits. It was quick work since the slab of wall he had cut was still there.

  “A full suit of armor would be worth a lot. What should we do about the other three outside, Sir Touya?” Roni asked, tilting her head.

  It was easy to imagine that the armor was worth more than my brigandine. I could literally wash away any spells Goldfish had cast with my water, and weight wasn’t an issue as long as we put everything inside the Unlimited Bath. And so we brought all three with us. It’d be a waste to just leave them behind, anyway.

  “Let’s bring everything we can, including the stuff I buried into the floor and walls.”

  “There were a bunch of cheap ones mixed in there, you know?”

  Goldfish controlled everything that hadn’t had any spells cast on them. There might be a famous sword or two in the mix, but most of them were just old and rickety weapons. We had limited space, so we put everything in the one stuto wide area surrounding the bath. Of course, we made sure to handle everything carefully.