by CHIROLU
Latina took off her hat and tunic and stowed them away in the closet, then she held out a hand towards Dale as he sat down the knapsack in the corner of the room.
“Dale.”
“Right.”
Without even having to ask what she wanted, he passed her his overcoat.
Though they were newlyweds, they didn’t have any of the awkwardness about them that you might expect.
It seemed that Vint had found a spot he liked on the corner of the rug, too. Apparently he had already determined it would be where he would sleep tonight, as he laid right down and relaxed.
“Wah...” Latina exclaimed as she opened the window wide and leaned out. Fitting of such a high-class room, it provided just about the best possible view of Affe imaginable. Thanks to that, she was able to take in the refined sights of the inn town from an entirely different angle than when they were walking down the street.
“Amazing... It’s so pretty...”
“By the way, you said your dream was to someday open an inn every bit as good as the Ocelot, right, Latina...?”
“I have no idea when it may happen, but still... I think it would be nice if I could make it come true. A place where travelers and customers could feel nice and relaxed... And where they could eat delicious food with a smile,” Latina replied with a smile of her own, the brilliant sunset providing a backdrop behind her. “You see, Kenneth said that for a lot of people it seems like nothing’s ever going right, but if you can enjoy delicious food and cooking, then a day might not feel so bad. And so, I want to make a place where people can feel that way, too.”
“I see.”
Considering she was the sister of Vassilios’s ruler and the wife of the Platinum Hero who saved the nation, it was hard to call the dream of just running a single inn and bar all that realistic.
Her thinking was more in line with common folks, and she had a bit of an escapist streak, but she was a clever girl by nature, so she must have understood that.
And so, Dale decided not to deny her dream and instead just silently nod and smile, causing her to smile back. However, her smile looked just a bit more mature than usual.
“I have no idea what form it’ll take, but I’m sure it’ll come true one day. And then, I can take what Kenneth and Rita taught me and teach it to someone else in turn. I really think I’d like to try that,” Latina said with her hands together as if she was praying. Then, in the next instant she returned to her previous brilliant smile and pointed out the window to a large building in the center of town. “Hey Dale, what’s that building? I can see a lot of people coming in and out of it...”
“Ah, that’s a communal bath. This inn also has a bath, but residents and travelers in less equipped inns use that instead.”
“Ooh...”
“The public bathhouses in Kreuz are already way larger than the bath in the Ocelot, but this one is a whole lot bigger than even those.”
“Really?”
“I think there’s some value in giving it a look. Right, since it’s still too early for dinner, do you want to go give it a try now?”
“Yeah!”
Latina suddenly turned away from the window, looking like she was ready to go flying out of the room this very second. Shooting her a bit of a strained smile all the while, Dale closed the window and then followed after her.
† † †
It was a time after the small town along the highway between Laband and Vassilios had been built.
The lordship of that land, built up by adventurers, had been given to someone who wasn’t even part of Laband’s nobility out of recognition of a certain hero’s exceptional achievements.
Some loudly proclaimed that little bit of land on the frontier was hardly a fitting reward for the hero’s great accomplishments, but the man himself showed clear disdain for becoming a member of nobility. And besides, the land fit the needs of the hero and his wife perfectly, so it ended up coming to fruition.
If Laband loudly insisted on its ownership of the newly cleared land, it would have the real possibility of causing tension with their new ally of Vassilios. And since Laband’s strength as a nation had been weakened by the assault of the demon lords, it wouldn’t do to cause unnecessary friction with their neighboring country.
However, the wife of that hero charged with the lordship also happened to be the younger sister of Vassilios’s ruler.
And so, they yielded that land in the midst of magical beast territory to the hero and his wife, as proof of the friendship between the two nations.
The greatest accomplishment by the hero was his battle with the demon lords, but there were a great many casualties in the process. And additionally, a great many also found themselves far worse off as the world at large suffered.
And so the couple running the land took it upon themselves to charitably aid such folks, with the wife in particular being especially involved. They worked particularly hard for the children, making sure that the kids left all alone in the world could have a proper upbringing in their domain.
The wife was seen as a motherly figure to many of those children, yet she disapproved of all the praise that she received. For some of those who knew her personally, they would describe these kind acts seeking no reward as her seemingly trying to atone for some sort of sin.
And in one part of town, there existed an inn called the Singing White Cat.
It was a famous inn known even in other domains for its excellent customer service and delicious food, and it was opened by the couple who ran the domain.
The wife had made the decision to open the place when thinking of the children she was helping to raise, to give them a greater number of options for their futures. Obviously there were jobs for adventurers in the land, but not everyone would grow to be one. After all, people existed who were not skilled in either physical strength or magical ability. For that reason, it was important to have a place where they could let their respective skills develop, in order to give them a better footing for heading forth into the future. And as a result, the children who helped in this inn were valued highly when they went to work elsewhere in the service industry or cuisine, which in turn raised the inn’s reputation even further.
The wife was also famous for having a mythical beast follow her around like a bodyguard, but he was a wolf, so the reason she used a cat in her inn’s name remained a mystery to most.
However, that was all still a while off...
† † †
Dale and Latina had lightened their load by leaving their luggage in the inn, then resumed their relaxed stroll through Affe. The destination they had in mind was the communal bath that they had seen from their room at the inn. Since it was a facility used by a large number of people, it was separated into men’s and women’s baths in order to maintain order and security. In that way, it was hard to call it a place that would help fulfill Dale’s blunt desire to get all lovey-dovey.
However, he was able to put off such trifling matters for later when Latina was getting all excited right in front of him.
He truly was a man who stuck to his convictions.
“Affe gets a lot of tourists, so just like with Kreuz, it doesn’t have much of an issue with folks being prejudiced against other races. But there are weirdos who talk about stuff like human supremacy everywhere, so you should still take care.”
“Yeah. But it’ll probably be perfectly fine.”
“It’s true that the roots of your horns are hidden in your hair and hard to see, but it’s still not good to be overly optimistic about stuff...”
Dale had brought that up before they entered the communal bath out of concern for Latina. And it was just like him to say that, so Latina shot him back a strained smile.
“But Dale... Only heroes can harm demon lords. I don’t think it would be very likely for me to just happen to be harassed by a hero in the bath.”
“Only heroes can put the life of a demon lord in danger, but as long as it doesn’t go that far
, anybody should still be able to mess with you.”
“I think you’re worrying too much, but still, I appreciate the concern. Thank you, Dale.”
“Seriously, take care.”
“Right.”
They were only parting for a short while, yet they were still so flirty about it.
It was the sort of sickeningly sweet exchange that would make someone long for that pup lounging about the inn to butt in. However, in a way, perhaps it was fitting for a newlywed couple to be having such an exchange in front of a public facility without even thinking about it.
When they stepped into the communal bath, they were first greeted by a lobby. As she watched Dale pay enough for the two of them at the desk, Latina also noticed numerous people showing what looked like wooden tags and then heading inside. After a bit of thinking, she realized from their clothes and the like that they must live in the town. And so, those wooden tags must have been proof that they paid in advance to use it for a period of time.
If you pay all at once like that, does it get a bit cheaper...? Or maybe this place is cheaper for residents of the town in general...?
Those thoughts running through her head just went to show that her thinking really was more in line with the common folk.
Behind the desk, the paths for men and women split off to the left and right. And so Dale and Latina separated, and she excitedly continued further in.
“Bath time, bath time!”
However, when the path separated into two again, Latina stopped and tilted her head.
“It says it splits off into a bath exclusively for humans... Maybe Dale wasn’t worrying too much...”
Normally Latina didn’t ever really pay attention to the differences between races, but when it was so clearly thrust in front of her like this, it caused her to feel a bit depressed. However, when she noticed that even customers who were clearly human weren’t heading to the exclusive bath, she tilted her head yet again.
“Hmm?”
It was bugging her, so she went ahead and promptly stopped a passing employee to ask.
“Ah, it’s true that this bath is exclusively for humans, but it’s pretty small, so most of our customers prefer to use the large shared bath.”
“Really?”
“More than catering to racial supremacists, we have it because we know some folks don’t like beastman fur or merfolk scales floating in the water.”
“I see.”
“And at the turn of the season, the shared bath is designated exclusively for beastmen. If we left it like normal, it would be completely packed.”
“That certainly must be something...”
The distinguishing points of beastmen were their triangular ears, tails, and fur covering their whole body.
Since Latina habitually brushed Vint, she found it easy to imagine how much fur beastmen must leave around when shedding, considering their greater surface area.
“We also rent soap and hand towels, but beastmen use multiple times more soap than other races, while merfolk prefer to use hard brushes to clean themselves rather than washing by hand. We’ll also occasionally have angel customers, but they generally aren’t fond of staying in the water for a long time, so they mainly use the steam bath. So well, the races all have their own preferences.”
“They have their own preferences, huh...? That’s good to know.”
Having cleared up her doubts, Latina started humming and heading back down the path. Alongside the relief she felt, she was also glad to have gained new knowledge, so she was in quite high spirits.
“The baths in Vassilios were really lukewarm... And apparently Chrysos isn’t good with hot baths, either. I’m not too fond of it being overly hot myself, so maybe that’s a preference for the devil race.”
As someone who also worked in the service industry, she really was impressed by how flexible they were in responding to the likes and needs of their customers.
At her core, Latina’s thinking really was more in line with her role as the Ocelot’s adorable waitress rather than the princess of the neighboring nation, even more than Dale had thought.
Even back in Kreuz, most ordinary folks used public bathhouses. However, Latina had rarely ever been to one, seeing as the Dancing Ocelot was equipped with a bath. That bath was meant to respond to customer demands, but when Latina was little no one felt comfortable having her go to the bathhouse on her own. And when she was older she was an important part of the shop’s staff, so she bathed there for convenience’s sake in order to ensure she was available during work hours.
She had gone to the bathhouse purely out of curiosity after hearing about them from her friends who lived in the eastern district, but that had only been a handful of times.
So frankly, it left a strong impression on Latina when she slipped into the bath so large that even if she stretched out her whole body, she wouldn’t come close to reaching the edges.
“Waah...”
As she felt the slightly more viscous-feeling water against her skin, she sunk down to her shoulders and breathed a sigh of admiration. She really could stretch out as much as her heart desired, unlike with her usual bath.
“This is wonderful. I think I might really like big baths...”
If she were to voice that opinion in front of Dale, though, he would surely say they should go ahead and install a large bath in the Ocelot. The thought of it caused her to unwittingly let out a little giggle.
After a bit of time enjoying the bath while humming cheerfully, Latina’s attention returned to taking in her surroundings.
The soap that she had borrowed from the desk at Dale’s suggestion smelled of essential oils. It was different than what she usually used, but it was a vibrant aroma that most girls would probably enjoy. And so, she headed over to the spot for washing yourself off, looking forward to giving it a try.
“Now that I think of it, we passed a shop selling soaps on the way here. I thought it was unusual, but maybe it would be nice to try all sorts out while we’re here, and then bring some back as souvenirs,” Latina mumbled to herself while making even more bubbles than when she usually bathed.
Her thought process was that since it was a special occasion she would splurge, but that was in line with the thinking of the common man, too.
“I think I’d like some pomade that goes well with the scent of the soap, too. I’ll have to ask Dale if we can make a detour,” she happily muttered as she washed herself off.
Even as she was doing that, she subconsciously kept an eye on her surroundings. And her gaze didn’t fail to stop so she could observe the uniquely shaped sponges people who seemed like locals were using, or the brushes favored by merfolk.
Using something to clean yourself roughly like that may be popular with adventurers, too.
Latina really did have endless interest in such tools, the likes of which she didn’t ever see in her day-to-day life.
If she could get them for a good price, she really would like to try to buy a few to bring back with her.
As she had those thoughts that were hardly consumer-like in nature, she was awash in a mild bliss while being wrapped up in the lovely aroma of the soap.
As a result, when she met up with Dale after finishing her bath, they had a different newlywed-hot-spring-town date than he had expected.
Since Affe was a town with a lot of tourists, they made sure the streets were lit up at dark as well, out of consideration for guests traveling from the communal bath to their various inns. That was accomplished by a portion of the stones making up the paths giving off a gentle light. They weren’t magical devices, but rather were manufactured from a material containing trace bits of mana, called phosphorescent stone. It was a unique material which gave off light once the sun went down, but in the light of day it looked identical to any other stone. Surely they chose that method so as not to impact the overall scenery.
“On the other hand, it’s more of a pain to maintain and adjust than just using a magical device. Plus,
the amount of light and how long it lasts is based on the amount it stores up during the day, so it isn’t exactly fixed. That can definitely be a problem too. But it’s cheap enough that you don’t really have to worry about anyone trying to steal them, I suppose.”
“I see... How interesting.”
The smile on Latina’s face at that moment was absolutely, undoubtedly adorable.
It was an entirely different look than the usual innocent expression she gave off, with her freshly washed hair worn up and her skin still ever so lightly flushed red. She really was absolutely beautiful, and it was hard to imagine anyone arguing with that.
And yet, there was something off.
They were in a refined town with just a bit of light out. So why exactly was he giving a lecture on the town’s fixtures in the midst of all this romantic atmosphere?
Being all lovey-dovey, and exchanging sweet words with one another...
Wasn’t that the stuff newlyweds were supposed to do when it wasn’t a strategic marriage or an arranged one, but one born out of piping hot passion for one another?
“Ah, that’s the shop! Dale, can we take a bit of a detour?”
“Of course.”
Naturally, he was ready and willing to respond to Latina’s request. He didn’t mind doing more shopping, especially when she looked so adorable asking for something. And he was confident that his savings and earnings were more than enough that it wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, something definitely seemed off.
“Maybe we should have gotten married just a bit earlier... If we did, then would things have been more lovey-dovey...?”
“Hmm?”
Dale had asked that question without expecting a proper answer as he watched Latina contently pick out a scrubbing brush made from a dried out plant, as they stood in the corner of a plain, unadorned general store favored by the locals.
Still, Latina sure did look cute when her eyes sparkled, perhaps because her curiosity was being satisfied.
Dale really was acting just like his usual self too, with the way that his thoughts weren’t straying from that subject in the slightest.
