The bath is done.
Granted, it’s the primitive kind — a giant hollowed-out log, basically.
Sunk into the ground as an open-air bath.
Standing, it fits about five people; solo, you can just barely manage to sit.
Something like the old goemon-buro cauldron bath at my grandma’s place in the countryside.
Heating the water is, of course, an ordeal.
I boil water in batches using a commercial-grade stockpot — ramen-shop scale, ordered via offering box — then cut the boiling water with cold. Repeat.
Honestly, the labor cost is enormous. No argument.
Definitely an area for future improvement, but—
“Ahhh… paradise.”
The word escaped with the sigh.
Since arriving here, “bathing” has meant dips in the river.
I kept clean every day, obviously — but there was no way a man born and raised in the modern era was ever going to be satisfied with THAT.
When it comes to healing a tired body, nothing, NOTHING beats a bath.
Though “tired,” in my case, is less about fieldwork and mostly about servicing three women.
When they take turns launching assaults, even full deployment of Skill: Emperor of the Night can’t save you.
—Primarily in the sleep-deprivation sense.
Plus, about once a week the special guest fox ears joins the fray.
And whenever the fox comes over, Sonya eats arc dragon liver right along with her… and transforms into a berserker rabbit.
Frankly, the situation becomes uncontainable.
That mystery compound that puts beastfolk into heat — apparently extremely real.
On top of which, the other two watched Sonya’s good-morning and goodnight kisses and declared they’d be doing those too, so… anyway, it’s all exhausting.
Not that I hate any of it. So it’s fine.
Mulling all this over, I looked up at the sky—
“Huh. Two moons.”
I knew about the red moon, but tonight there’s a normal-colored one too.
Maybe the normal one only shows occasionally — orbital mechanics or something?
“Come to think of it, I’ve never just… looked up at the night sky here.”
At first it was hand-to-mouth snake-eating survival, then a nonstop parade of women moving in, then getting ripped off… and to top it off, a Demon Lord.
But one way or another, life here has finally found its rails.
Food is plentiful. Supplies can be sourced through fox-eared Arisa.
And when I need seasonings — offering box.
Yeah. I can make a real life here. I’m sure of it now.
And above everything else — those girls… every one of them is pretty damn adorable, all told.
Thinking it, I climbed out of the bath and entered the cabin, where Sonya came bounding up.
“The bath~♪ It’s my turn next~♪”
Boing, boing — she’s in a spectacular mood, apparently.
Turns out this world has no custom of bathing at all — hearing that was legitimately a small culture shock.
“My very first bath~♪”
And with that, Sonya stripped off her clothes and made to sprint for the open-air bath without so much as a towel.
She looks middle-to-high-school aged, and she is nude, and I have several concerns about all of it.
…That said, skin that fresh and dewy is a fine thing, to touch or behold. Objectively speaking.
“Oi. Hold up a second.”
“What is it~?”
I handed Sonya the Goods — freshly imported from modern Japan via offering box.
“A present.”
“A present~?”
I nodded; Sonya accepted the Goods with a puzzled head-tilt.
”…Yeah. You’re probably… going to be surprised.”