Chapter 8

Chapter 8

What the Hell Is This Bath?

“...Saintess?”

A Hero candidate had arrived. That meant Cassian had finally appeared. After all, he was our Order's Hero in the original story.

Considering it took at least a year to be officially recognized as a Hero after becoming a candidate, there should be at least a year left before the original story began.

Of course, he might've started scheming even while still a candidate, so I couldn't let my guard down.

“Saintess Beatrice!”

“Ah! Huh? Were you calling me?”

Old Bartolomew's booming voice, almost like a shout, startled me into stammering.

“...Are you all right? Your complexion is pale.”

“Uh... I'm fine.”

“What do you mean, fine? Your face is as white as paper.”

The old man studied me with concern.

“Don't make such a fuss, old man. I was just... a little surprised by the news that a Hero candidate had arrived.”

“Hmm.”

Bartolomew didn't even listen to me and instead raised his divine power to inspect my condition.

“Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything seriously wrong. To think the news of a Hero candidate would startle you so much. I suppose you really do have a side befitting a girl your age.”

“What are you talking about, old man?”

“Judging from your usual behavior, I sometimes suspect a man over thirty is living inside you.”

“...Ghk!”

I was so startled that I bit my tongue and let out a bizarre shriek.

D-Damn sharp old bastard.

I've always thought this old man had strangely good instincts.

“Tsk. Haven't I told you not to make such undignified noises?”

“You're the one who said something weird.”

Healing my bitten tongue with divine power, I sank back into thought.

‘What am I supposed to do about Cassian?’

It was something I'd worried about ever since joining the Order.

I didn't know how he had brought the Order under his control. I didn't know how strong he was either.

In the worst case, he could be someone even the current me couldn't handle. Heroes supposedly possessed power and potential far beyond ordinary humans.

Beyond his name and position, everything about him was shrouded in mystery.

Naturally, there was no way to prepare a specific countermeasure.

So the method I chose was to become strong enough that no one could trample me, and preserve or strengthen our Order's forces so it wouldn't collapse easily.

As I'd said before, our preparations were perfect.

Our Order now boasted combat strength at the very top among the Seven Great Holy Orders.

“Saintess!”

“Uh... Huh?”

Old Bartolomew's shout dragged me out of my thoughts once again.

At my dazed reaction, the old man shook his head.

“Phew... I keep calling you and you keep failing to hear me. Is something truly wrong?”

“No, nothing's wrong.”

“Then let me change the question slightly. What did you discuss with the Goddess?”

His question reminded me of something I'd temporarily forgotten because of Cassian.

Right. I should tell him about the bath. The Goddess had told me to speak with either the old man or Grandpa Pope.

“The Goddess told me I need to take a bath.”

“A bath... you say.”

The old man frowned at my words. Well, of course he'd be confused. I was someone who normally washed myself perfectly well.

“I see. Then the Hero can wait.”

“The Hero can wait?”

“Yes.”

What?

Regardless of whether Cassian was a bastard or not, a Hero was an important military asset.

In the original story, the protagonist—ah, what was his name again? Anyway, he'd been nothing more than a green apprentice Holy Knight, but after experiencing training and actual combat, he'd quickly grown stronger than regular Holy Knights.

And if you considered the symbolic weight of the title Hero, it wasn't something that should be dismissed as unimportant.

“I never thought I'd hear you call a Hero unimportant.”

“When several matters overlap, what have I taught you about deciding the order in which to handle them?”

The old man answered my question with something that sounded vaguely like a Zen riddle.

“You said to deal with the most important thing first, right?”

Still, I'd heard that lecture so many times the answer came automatically.

“Good. You remember. Therefore, the bath comes first.”

“...Okay, but I seriously don't understand.”

Was taking a bath really that important?

Of course, knowing what Cassian did in the original, I could personally call him nothing but trash.

What that bastard did was a million light-years removed from the Hero's duty to defeat demons and demonic beasts in order to save and protect people.

But hearing the old man call the Hero unimportant was different.

It meant that this ‘bath’ was important enough for him to dismiss the Hero himself.

It probably wasn't anything like the ordinary bath I was imagining. Most likely, ‘bath’ was some metaphor for something else.

Honestly, the word itself tempted me to make a joke, but judging from the old man's grave expression, this didn't seem like the time.

...And Grandpa Pope and the Goddess had both asked me to stop stressing him out so much.

“Return to your room, cleanse your body and mind, and wait. I will prepare the bath with His Holiness, so please, for once, remain quietly in place.”

“...Okay.”

The old man didn't even wait for my reply before rushing off somewhere.

“Bathing must be a really big deal, huh? If even the old man who treats running in the hallways like a mortal sin is acting like that.”

I muttered sourly while watching him disappear into the distance, then returned to my room and waited quietly.

...And as time passed, evening eventually arrived.

I'd spent the day sprawled across the bed, repeatedly falling asleep and waking up, and by the time I came fully to my senses, darkness had already settled beyond the window.

“What the hell. Was this just some weird way of asking me to stay locked in my room?”

I stared blankly at the darkness outside the window and muttered.

I'd spent the whole day doing nothing but rolling around in bed, falling asleep, waking up, hugging the blanket and pillow while rolling around some more, then falling asleep again. Somehow, I felt like I'd committed a crime.

Maybe because I'd spent my entire life staying so busy until now.

Still, the old man had asked me to... What was it again? I can't remember clearly after sleeping.

Hmm... Keep my body and mind pure...

Pure...

Pu...

Ah, he told me to relax.

Spending the entire day rolling around in bed was definitely relaxing. That meant I'd done my absolute best to follow the old man's request. Maybe this would finally stop his forehead from expanding.

A grin spread across my face as the guilt vanished and was replaced by a strange sense of accomplishment.

But that raised one question.

“What the hell kind of bath takes this long to prepare?”

Could this be the old man's underhanded scheme to keep me quietly shut in my room because the Hero candidate had arrived?

That... actually makes sense...!

I sprang upright from the bed and was just about to go outside and confront him.

Knock knock-

“Saintess, are you inside?”

“Marie?”

“May I come in?”

“Yeah, come in. What's up?”

But my attempt to go confront him failed because my attendant priestess, Marie, entered my room after knocking.

She was carrying a white robe and a container filled with scented oil.

“What are those?”

“I was told to apply the scented oil to your body, have you put on the robe, then follow me.”

“...Old Bartolomew told you that?”

“His Holiness did.”

“Uh... okay.”

Did preparing a bath really take this long? And Grandpa himself had ordered it? Was this bath seriously such a big deal? With those thoughts, I swallowed nervously and nodded.

“Then take your clothes off first.”

“What?”

“Take them off. I can't apply the scented oil otherwise.”

“Can't I do it myself?”

Even if we were both women, getting completely naked and having her rub oil all over me was a little...

“Stop complaining, take your clothes off, and lie down. I was told to bring you quickly.”

“Okay...”

I obediently nodded.

After having scented oil thoroughly applied over my entire body, I left the room wearing nothing but a robe over my bare skin.

“...This feels weird. I feel like some kind of pervert.”

Walking through the Order's corridors with nothing but a robe over my naked body felt incredibly strange.

And the way Marie was looking at me was strange too.

“What?”

“...It just feels a little odd hearing that from someone who walks around wearing the Sacred Vestments.”

“Shut up.”

Truth hurts, Marie. Pouting at that thought, I continued following her.

We stopped in a relatively deserted corridor of the Order. Marie slightly shifted one of the torches hanging there to illuminate the darkness of night, and with a rumbling sound, a staircase leading underground appeared.

“...Whoa. The Order has secret passages?”

“I only learned about this today too.”

“Is there some hidden secret facility down there? This is weirdly exciting.”

The situation stirred every man's romantic fantasies, and an exclamation escaped me before I could stop it.

“Apparently. I was told that the moment I leave after escorting you inside, I'll forget everything about this place.”

“Seriously? They go that far?”

There must've been something here that absolutely couldn't be revealed.

We crossed the oddly ancient-feeling underground passage and eventually arrived at...

“A bathhouse?”

A bathhouse.

Why the hell did they need to hide a bathhouse this secretively?

And it's ridiculously extravagant too. Is this some bathhouse for the Goddess or something?

She does occasionally descend with a physical body during the festival held once every ten years, after all.

“This is a bathhouse for the Goddess.”

Grandpa Pope, who had been waiting inside, spoke to me as I looked around curiously.

“Wait, seriously?”

I'd made that guess as a joke, but I was right? Maybe I'm actually ridiculously smart.

“...Don't tell me this is all holy water? Holy shit, how much did you pour into this?”

While congratulating myself internally, I caught sight of the silvery liquid filling the enormous bath and unconsciously dropped my jaw.

A tiny potion bottle of holy water cost as much as an ordinary person's monthly living expenses.

And right now, enough of it to fill an entire bathhouse was sloshing around in front of me.

In other words, this was like filling a bath with gold coins and bathing in them.

...Maybe even more expensive than that?

Anyway, one thing was certain: the cost was beyond anything I could even begin to calculate.

“You may enter.”

“Naked?”

Grandpa Pope nodded.

“Ah.”

“A fully grown young lady should not be so shameless about undressing in front of a man, Saintess.”

I immediately moved to strip off my robe, only for Grandpa Pope to stop me.

“...But Grandpa, you just told me to get in.”

“Please enter after Priestess Marie and I have left.”

Grandpa Pope lit the incense burner beside the bath. Silver mist began flowing from it.

“You must remain fully immersed until all of the incense has burned away.”

I glanced at the slowly burning incense and nodded.

“Priestess Marie, let us leave.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

Marie and Grandpa Pope left the bathhouse.

After removing my robe, I looked at the mirror on one side of the bath. Reflected there was a voluptuous beauty wearing absolutely nothing.

“Hmm. It really is pretty ridiculous.”

I'd lived in this body for thirteen years now, so seeing myself naked didn't make me embarrassed or guilty anymore.

Besides, I hadn't suddenly possessed a body like this as an adult. I'd watched this body gradually grow from childhood, so there was even less reason to feel embarrassed.

“Though that actually made it more annoying.”

Watching my body slowly become more feminine as secondary sexual characteristics appeared with age had been genuinely distressing.

It irritated me because it felt like my body was constantly reminding me, You're a woman now.

And the first time that... happened... was seriously... humiliating enough to make me want to die.

“Let's not think about that.”

How long until the next cycle? Ah... damn it, next week. I hate it because it hurts like hell. Having to endure that godforsaken pain once every month really makes the female body seem absurdly unfair.

Grumbling to myself, I dipped the tips of my toes into the bath.

A strangely viscous yet soft sensation, unlike ordinary water, wrapped around my toes.

...This is safe to get into, right?

Something about it gave me an instinctive sense of rejection.

I don't know. I've never actually seen it in person, but it kind of looks like mercury.

I remember hearing that some emperor in ancient China thought mercury was an elixir of immortality and either bathed in it or smeared it on his skin until he died young from mercury poisoning.

...This world is basically medieval, so it wouldn't be that strange if people mistook mercury for holy water.

Of course, that wasn't the case. Holy water was made when a high-ranking priest spent a great deal of time consecrating ordinary water.

“Eh, whatever. The Goddess wouldn't make me do something that could hurt me.”

Don't drink holy water. Give it to your skin.

Humming a modified version of some old commercial slogan that popped into my head, I slowly entered the bath.

“Ughhh... this feels weird.”

I frowned instinctively at the way the holy water clung to my body more thickly than ordinary water.

“Damn, I really can't get used to this.”

Ah, right. There's one more inconvenient thing about having a woman's body.

Every time I soak in a bath, the two excessively large lumps of flesh on my chest float upward due to buoyancy.

They get in the way when I swing a spear, they're annoying when I bathe, and they're a major contributor to back pain too.

They were nice to look at when they were attached to someone else, but having them on my own body offered practically no benefits.

Didn't ancient Amazon warriors supposedly cut off one breast because of problems like this?

...Unfortunately, I didn't have the courage for that. It would obviously hurt like hell.

If I was going to get transmigrated anyway, why couldn't it have been into a man's body? Preferably a handsome, muscular one. Grumbling, I lowered myself until the holy water reached my neck.

The silver mist rising from the incense burner had already filled the bathhouse.

Once submerged in the warm holy water, I felt as though I'd been enclosed inside a massive cocoon. Yet rather than feeling suffocated, I felt strangely comfortable.

The clutter filling my mind slowly washed away beneath a growing haze.

And like that, embraced by the shimmering silver-white holy water, I sank into a deep sleep.