"There we go... That makes it ten wins, two losses, and three draws."
"...Couldn't you lose a few more? You keep saying you're not in top shape, but you're awfully ruthless about it."
We had camped out about half a day's leisurely travel from Gunjou City.
Since we'd been traveling three days ahead of schedule, we decided to get an early rest so we wouldn't arrive at Gunjou City fatigued. Of course, the only reason we'd made such good time was that Chris, Albert, and Cain had been driving their hearts out to keep Lion from catching up.
The reason the three of them had worked so hard came down to two things: payback for the trouble they'd been put through in Russell City, and the idea that if Lion arrived in Gunjou City only to find they'd already finished their business and moved on to the next leg of the journey, her reaction would be absolutely priceless.
The mock battles just now had been Chris's idea — she'd suggested having actual combat-style matches to check how our bodies were holding up, and we'd been going at it a few rounds each time we camped since leaving Russell City.
The results of the mock battles went like this: at the first camp, I lost twice in a row before scraping a draw; at the next camp, two draws followed by a win. And from there, I'd been on a winning streak. This wasn't because I'd fully recovered — it was because I'd gotten used to how my body moved now, and because I'd started changing up my fighting style.
When I was on my losing streak, I'd been fighting with my normal instincts. During the draws, I'd focused mostly on defense. Now, I was fighting looking for counterattacks. On top of that, during my winning streak, I'd been treating my opponent not as Chris, but as if it were Din — moving my body while simultaneously spinning my brain at full speed. Thanks to that, despite my record, I was mentally running on fumes.
"Just when I try to come up with a counterstrategy, you go and recover a little more with every match, so I'm always one step behind... Tenma, you're absolutely awful, you know that?"
"Please stop making statements that could be misunderstood. If you keep being this harsh, I might just let slip a little complaint or two... right in front of Lady Maria."
"...Look who's talking."
"Tenma, next one's with me!"
While Chris and I were locked in a staring contest, Amour stepped up to volunteer, but as expected, with her brute-force fighting style, a proper bout didn't seem feasible under the circumstances, so I had to turn her down yet again.
"Well then, how about me and— is what I'd like to say, but I don't think I could hold a candle to Chris, senpai."
Cain had jumped on the same bandwagon as Amour, but he'd already judged that he didn't have as much to offer as Chris, and was self-deprecatingly chuckling as he said as much.
"Never mind all that — it looks like dinner will be ready soon, so why don't you go wash off the sweat?"
At Cain's words, I realized dinner was nearly ready and yielded my spot to Chris. The first time I'd suggested something like "ladies first," Chris had—
"Huh? You want to go after me? So that's your kind of thing, huh?"
So on the first day, I'd ignored Chris entirely and gone in first, occupying the bath until the last possible moment before dinner. After that, Chris stopped making those kinds of jokes. Apparently, she really didn't want to eat dinner reeking of sweat, so she'd put off eating to take a bath first — only to find that by the time she got out, almost all the food had been devoured, and she'd had enough of gnawing on black bread and dried meat all by herself.
However, when I try to take my bath after Chris gets out, Amour, Aura, and Jeanne immediately clean the tub, so it always takes a bit of time before I can get in. I don't mind since they fill it with fresh hot water, which feels great, and I let them do as they please. But it always cuts things close to dinnertime, so depending on how the cooking goes and how long Chris takes, I sometimes end up late to the table.
"So, how long are you planning to stay in Gunjou City?"
"About five days, maybe... I know a lot of people there, and it's the kind of place I can go whenever I want, so even a shorter stay would work. But that probably doesn't apply to Primera and Albert, right?"
Primera belonged to the Gunjou City Knights, so she couldn't just leave on a whim. And Albert basically had to stay in the Royal Capital, so the two of them would rarely get the chance to meet.
"Yeah, well... I guess so."
That clearly wasn't the answer he'd been hoping for. Cain replied in a deflated tone. I suppose he'd been expecting me to say something like "because I want to see Primera," but I'd only just started getting the hang of interacting with women, so I didn't have the composure for those kinds of quips. Besides, I'm not the type who could pull off a line like that.
"Speaking of which, I wonder how Lion's doing right about now?"
"Oh, yeah... She probably just received the Margrave's letter around now, right? Assuming the letter arrived, she'd be leaving Russell City tomorrow or the day after. When you put it that way, it might be hard for Lion and us to meet up in Gunjou City."
Cain shot me an annoyed look for obviously changing the subject, but his expression quickly brightened as he began predicting Lion's movements. By the end, he was speaking with clear excitement, having apparently imagined Lion flustering about.
"Tenma-sama, Chris will be getting out of the bath shortly. Amour is standing by with a brush, so there's no mistake... By the way, in Russell City and Gunjou City, the—"
City
"—what does it mean?"
After chatting with Cain for a while, Aura came to report on Chris's bath timing, and at the same time—
City
—she asked me what it meant. It must have come up during her conversation with Jeanne, but Aura apparently didn't understand the meaning. So she'd come to report to me while also sneaking in a question, and she kept glancing worriedly toward Jeanne and Leni.
"Nowadays they call it '"
City
"' but apparently it used to be called '"
City
"' too. The Russell City and Gunjou City of today didn't develop from towns or villages expanding. Apparently there were marketplaces where surrounding towns and villages sold their farm products, crafts, and hunted game. As the marketplaces grew in scale, merchants and adventurers began joining in, and inns and restaurants opened up to cater to them, eventually developing into a single town. And as that happened, the name changed as well—from 'the place for buying and selling, the '"
marketplace
' to the ' signifying a bustling place, '
marketplace
' it is said to have changed.' "
"Ohhh... so that's what it meant."
As I spoke, recalling what I'd looked up back when I lived in Gunjou City, Aura was listening with a dopey look on her face, thoroughly impressed.
"As expected of Tenma—you really know your stuff since you lived there. Plenty of people know it changed from a marketplace, but not many can explain it in that much detail."
"Wait! Could it be that Amour started cleaning so quickly because she didn't know what 'city' actually meant?"
I couldn't see Amour waiting inside the carriage while Chris finished her bath, but Aura was probably right.
Chris emerged from the carriage drying her hair, and Amour came out right after her. She must have finished cleaning while Chris was changing, and over the past few days she'd definitely gotten faster—if it came to cleaning the carriage bath, Amour's skill was second only to Aina's.
"Well then, time to hop in the bath."
Since Amour hadn't tried to charge in ever since Renny joined up, he could enjoy his bath in peace—that was the real upside. The one he actually worried about more than Amour was Aura. It wasn't that Aura would barge in out of some lecherous desire; she'd just bumble into the bath or the carriage while someone was changing, same as always, and every time she'd get chewed out by Chris and Amour. As for Jeanne, she had apparently taken to keeping a tally of how many times Aura had accidentally wandered into the bath, and once this trip was over, she intended to submit the count to Aina.
When he got out of the bath, food was already prepared—it had come together just in the nick of time. Today the main dish was grilled meat, so if they'd been any later, they might have ended up eating without it.
After dinner came an early bedtime, but this time they wanted to reach Gunjou City as early as possible, so they assigned watch duty to Slarin, Shiromaru, and Solomon, and also had Slarin command ten Golems. On top of that, the men would pitch their tents outside the carriage to sleep, ensuring they could respond immediately if anything happened.
"Alright, we'll set out at sunrise and be inside Gunjou City before noon. Dismissed!"
At my signal, everyone headed off to their sleeping spots. Well, the women would just sleep in the carriage, but the men still had to pitch their tents for the night, so they needed to get to work right away.
Setting up the tent left him drenched in sweat, but the carriage interior was the women's domain, so a bath was out of the question—he'd have to wipe himself down with a damp cloth and endure it until the women woke up in the morning. In principle, he or Grandpa could use magic to heat up some water and take a quick rinse right there... but ever since the incident where Aura had emerged from the carriage at precisely the wrong moment and let out a piercing scream, he'd been refraining from that unless circumstances truly demanded it. As it happened, the ones she'd caught naked that time were Grandpa and Lion, and to add insult to injury, they'd been caught striking full-frontal nude poses head-on. Naturally, for once everyone actually sympathized with the clumsy Aura, while the two who'd been spotted were the ones who got criticized. Then again, their full-frontal posing had been unsightly even by the standards of their own sex, so he'd laughed and told them they had it coming.
For those reasons, he'd settled for just wiping off the sweat, but come morning the women would use the bath first, so the men's turn was always bound to be late. And tomorrow they were supposed to arrive at Gunjou City before noon, so there might not even be time for a leisurely wash.
"It's a race against time, huh..."
He murmured that to himself as he drifted off to sleep, but...
"How did things end up like this..."
He was woken up by Slarin in the middle of the night. Slarin, who had woken him, looked apologetic.
The reason he'd been woken was Shiromaru and Solomon. Apparently, once everyone had fallen asleep, the two of them had started keeping watch around the area, and along the way, they'd found a herd of boars and wiped them out. "Wiped them out" was putting it strongly, but boars in this region were classified as pests whose extermination was recommended, and the damage they inflicted on crops was no laughing matter, so that part wasn't really an issue. The problem was that they'd wiped out multiple herds of boars, and the stench of all that blood had drawn in a large number of wolves.
With Shiromaru here, the wolves were currently keeping their distance and watching warily, but it would only be a matter of time before they attacked.
"First things first — I'll increase the number of Golems and tighten our perimeter security. As for the boars, let's collect them in the Magic Bag. Solomon, Slarin, I'm going to give you a bag with several boars in it. Take it somewhere far away and dump it. When you do, slit the boars' bellies open and let the smell spread. If they can get food safely without going through the trouble and danger of attacking us, most of them should head that way. That ought to thin out their numbers, but don't hold back against any that still come — beat them senseless!"
Once he gave the order, Slarin took the bag and climbed onto Solomon. Solomon then soared into the air, circled over the wolves, and flew off in some direction with the boars dangling below as if luring the wolves to follow.
"Sure enough, some of them got lured away... Shiromaru, strike first and strike hard! Dive right into their midst and scatter them with everything you've got!"
"Woof!"
Moments ago, Shiromaru had been lying on his back with his belly exposed as if reflecting on his misdeeds, but the moment he heard the order, he sprang up with renewed vigor and charged into the wolves, determined to redeem himself.
"The boars were one thing, but aren't there way too many wolves?"
As he watched the wolves being sent flying and thought about that, Grandpa emerged from the tent.
"Is the battle just about over, then?"
Apparently, Grandpa had noticed the wolves early on, but since he was handling things, the old man had simply taken his time getting ready before coming out.
"If you were awake, you should've come out sooner."
"Even if I'd rushed out, there wouldn't have been anything for me to do. If it's just standing around watching, might as well take my time, wouldn't you say?"
"Well, that's true. Besides, it was Slarin and the Golems who did the real work, so I was pretty much just standing around watching too... Oh, right!"
Since most of the wolves had started fleeing, he asked Grandpa to watch Shiromaru and decided to take this chance to finally —
build
the bathhouse.
"Should've just done this from the start."
He created three walls with earth magic and used a curtain in place of the fourth. Then, in the space inside, he placed the wine barrel he'd previously used as a bathtub, filled it with hot water, and made himself a bath. He immediately stripped off his clothes and got in.
"Whoa! While you've got me doing all the chores, you go and take a bath all by yourself? That's cheating!"
"Well, two of us can't fit in at the same time, so just hang tight until I'm done, Gramps."
"Hmph... In that case, I'll reheat the water before I get in!"
"Works for me! Oh, and when Slarin gets back, tell him to gather the rest of the boars we killed and the wolves in one spot."
"You certainly know how to push people around... Well, I suppose I can call it the price of a bath. I'll go wake up Albert and Cain too. It wouldn't be right to leave those two out of the bath."
Saying that, Gramps headed to the tent to rouse the two of them. His concern for those two was probably more than half a lie—he really just wanted help gathering the boars and wolves. Maybe he even planned to have them do some simple sorting.
"Albert, I'm done!"
"Finally... You've been gone a bit longer than expected."
The two of them had been initially happy when Gramps told them they could take a bath, but when they heard the condition was helping with the boar and wolf retrieval, they made some very unhappy faces. Well, being woken up out of nowhere and put to work on something that reeked—tough to deal with first thing in the morning.
"Well, all we have to do is sort what the Golem brings back by size into the Magic Bags, so it's easy enough, but the smell of blood is really something. It's gotten into our clothes too."
Albert scrunched up his face at the smell clinging to his clothes as he headed toward the bath.
"So this wraps up the work, right?"
Cain asked with a worried look, but in truth there were still some boars left. However—
"The rest can be handled by Slarin and the others, so head back to the tent."
After all, asking them to go back to the retrieval work right after a bath would be too harsh, and only a few boars remained. He didn't like the idea of getting smelly again after bathing either, but the remaining boars could be tossed in together without sorting. They were going to use the leftovers for their meals anyway.
"Still, we ended up with fewer than seventy boars. And it was a mixed herd of normal boars and Dash Boars... First time I've heard of that, but I guess since they're similar creatures, things like this can happen. The wolves numbered around thirty or so. Most of them ran off or split away, so if you count everything together, there might have been about a hundred."
He spread out his Search to track down the wolves, but they had already fled quite far. Only one small group of a few had shown up on his radar.
"Could the anomaly in the Great Old Forest be affecting things all the way out here?"
It was probably reading too much into it, since they were a fair distance from the Great Old Forest, but it was the only cause he could think of. He decided to report it to the guild in Gunjou City, just to be safe.
"Phew... that was a nice bath."
Lost in those thoughts, I was recovering the Golems I'd sent out to deal with the boars and wolves when Albert emerged from the bath with a satisfied look on his face.
"If Albert's done, then I've got one last job to do."
"Hm? Is there still something left to do?"
Perhaps worried he'd get dragged into the last job, Albert slowly began backing away, putting distance between us as he asked—but...
"You don't have to help or anything. The last job is just wiping down Shiromaru and Solomon."
"Then I guess I'm not needed."
Albert's expression softened with relief, figuring there was nothing for him to do, and he scurried back to his tent before I could change my mind.
Incidentally, the old man who bathed after me downed a brimming cup of sake the moment he got out, and was already snoring away in his tent.
I called over Shiromaru and Solomon, who had returned to keeping watch right after the hunt. Solomon came obediently, but Shiromaru, seemingly realizing he was about to get washed, tried to bolt in the opposite direction—only to be
stored
by Slarin. Still, Shiromaru, who had been spat out right in front of me, behaved himself once he saw Solomon getting his body wiped down with a damp towel. I'd love to give Shiromaru a proper full-body wash, but doing that in the middle of the night would take until morning, so I'd decided to hold off until we reached Gunjou City. As a compromise, this time I just wiped Shiromaru down with a damp towel.
Sure enough, Shiromaru was filthy beyond his usual grime—stained with boar and wolf blood, plus mud and grass from the chaos of the hunt. One pass wasn't nearly enough; I had to rinse and wring out the towel close to ten times before the surface dirt finally stopped being noticeable. The smell, however, was another matter entirely.
"Slarin, when we get some time in Gunjou City, I'll have Jeanne and Aura help out too, and we'll get Shiromaru properly clean."
I murmured my resolve to Slarin in a quiet voice as the freshly wiped Shiromaru moved away from me. And then, early the next morning—
"Good mor—wait, Tenma. Huh, what's that?"
I followed Chris's finger to where she'd stopped mid-greeting, and there stood the bathing area we'd forgotten to demolish during our soak.
"Hmm... You said you wanted to leave at dawn, but instead you snuck out in the middle of the night to enjoy a hot spring with just the guys, huh?"
It was only a makeshift bath, so calling it a hot spring was generous, but for Chris, if it meant bathing under the open sky, then it was well worth soaking in an outdoor bath. Still...
"Chris... at the very least, try not to flash anyone while we're in the city."
Amur had been exasperated by her. But it wasn't just Amur who felt that way — it seemed to be the unanimous opinion of all the women besides Chris, as they all stared at her with pleading looks.
"There's no way I have that kind of fetish!"
"But Chris, when you say you wanted to use a bathing area that would practically put everything on display with just a little gust of wind, and that too with the guys nearby, you can't really blame people for wondering if you've got some strange kink."
Ren's pointed observation made Chris fall silent, and after glancing at Amur and the others once more —
"I just wanted to take a bath somewhere with an open, freeing atmosphere! That's all there is to it!"
she shouted. And right after that, Amur told her, "See, I knew it — you're definitely an exhibitionist!" Chris sulked and retreated into the carriage's bathing area.
"Well, let's set Chris's... preferences aside for now. Shall we get going? The meals will have to be pre-made, but to make up for it, we'll treat ourselves to something good once we arrive in Gunjou City."
With that, we departed from our campsite. Of course, we had dismantled the bathing area — collecting the curtains, the sake barrels that doubled as buckets, and demolishing the mud walls. If we didn't do that, some shady characters might misuse it, or it could end up becoming a den for Monsters.
I discussed it with everyone and we agreed it was only slightly behind schedule and still within an acceptable range. We ate breakfast — all of us except Albert, who was handling the driver's duties. During that time, Chris continued her self-imposed isolation, and it was only after Ren talked her into it that she finally came out.
When Chris emerged, she spent quite a while offering explanations and apologies regarding her earlier remarks, so we just listened without saying a word. If we said something wrong, she might end up commandeering the bathing area and toilet again, and that was the last thing we needed.