Proofreader: Xemul
The next day, Loren’s party was by the east gate of Kapha when the first afternoon bell rang. They dressed as usual and were armed, but their luggage seemed to be a little bulkier than usual.
“I didn’t think about the bathrobe thing at all.”
It was Lapis who said this. Until yesterday, when Loren told her about the bathrobe preparations that Klaus had told him, she hadn’t thought about it at all, and the two of them had to make a quick trip to the clothing stores in Kapha. But almost no one took baths in Kapha, so there was no way the stores would have bathrobes in stock; the store had to quickly take their measurements and make them right there.
Loren thought it would be too late to have them made now, but bathrobes were made of non-transparent white cloth, and the structure was simple enough: just hanging over the shoulders and tied at the waist with a string, so it took only about half a day from measurement to completion.
“They’re a bit expensive though.”
Lapis paid some more money to the store to have the work done in a short time and with the highest priority. Loren tilted his head and wondered if it was necessary to go that far, but from Lapis’ point of view, it seemed to be very important.
“I can’t expose my skin to complete strangers.”
She said, but a question suddenly came to Loren’s mind.
“Wasn’t there a bath in your parents’ house?”
From all the talks about preparing bathrobes and exposing skin, it seemed to Loren that Lapis wasn’t accustomed to taking baths, so he decided to ask such a question.
But Lapis replied with a puzzled expression:
“Of course there was?”
“Is that so? But it doesn’t look like you’re used to going in there though, does it?”
It was impossible to say out loud, but Lapis’ family home is a huge Demon King’s castle. It was so large that it would not be surprising if there were not one or two baths, but ten or twenty.
When Loren asked if she was used to taking baths, Lapis answered with a slight blush on her face.
“I have taken baths before, but never with anyone else. So, of course, there was no such thing as being seen by someone while bathing.”
“In the town we’re going to, the baths are separated for men and women, right?”
From Lapis’ reaction, it seemed as if they were going to take mixed baths, and Loren confirmed it just in case.
When he was a mercenary, Loren used to clean his body only by wiping it down with a cloth soaked in hot water or taking a dip in a lake or river. But even in such cases, a certain degree of gender separation existed as a matter of course. Loren had thought that this was a common practice, but looking at Lapis’ shyness, it didn’t seem as if there would be any such division.
“Of course! If they were mixed baths, I would definitely refuse to use them!”
“I’ll trust your words then. But if they’re divided by gender, doesn’t that mean that only people of the same sex can see you? Then it’s not a big deal to be seen…”
“No. Absolutely no.”
Loren changed the subject, thinking that there must be some kind of non-negotiable line in the way Lapis said it so clearly.
“Did you prepare Gula’s too?”
Gula did not accompany them on their shopping trip. Lorén thought that since they had not taken her measurements, if Gula had not prepared a bathrobe for herself in advance, there would be none for her. But Lapis seemed to have thought about her as well.
“I’m a little concerned because I haven’t taken measurements, but I’m having them made based on my eye measurements.”
“I don’t mind being naked though?”
Gula seemed to find the whole thing troublesome, but when Lapis glared at her sternly, she mumbled something and made the end of her sentence unclear. Loren thought that Lapis didn’t have to glare at her like that because it wasn’t her business, but the words that came out of his mouth were about something else.
“You had it made by eye measurements?”
“Eh? Yeah, well. Gula wasn’t there.”
Lapis said and tilted her head in puzzle as if to ask what was wrong with that. Loren stared at her for a while, then turned his gaze towards Gula, and after a few more moments, he muttered something in a whisper.
“The outcome is apparent somehow.”
“Outcome? What outcome, Loren?”
Neither Lapis nor Gula could quite grasp what Loren muttered about, but before he could say anything to Lapis’ question,a carriage approached the three of them.
“Have we kept you waiting?”
It was Klaus who greeted them from the driver bench. Next to him was the magician Ange, who bowed at them, and in the carriage were the blond knight and a light blue-haired priest.
“No, we haven’t waited that long.”
Loren answered and approached the carriage with his luggage. Leila, the knight, opened the carriage door and invited him to get in. Inside the carriage, there were seats facing each other, and the seats on one side of the carriage were vacant, perhaps reserved for Loren’s party.
“Leila and… Laura, is it?”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I’m honored you still remember me.”
“We’re in your care.”
The two bowed in unison as a greeting. Loren returned the gesture, then briefly looked around the carriage. It was Klaus who rented it, and he must have paid a good deal of money. The carriage was carefully constructed, and the interior was quite spacious. The seats seemed comfortable, and it would not be so tiring even on a long trip.
“Can the three of us here sit on the empty seats over here?”
“No, one of you should sit with us if you can.”
Loren looked down at himself as Leila said. The most heavily-built in here was Loren, and he took up a lot of space. It would be cramped if the three of them sat on the same side, so Leila suggested that one of them should come to their side. And although no one said anything, Gula promptly moved.
“Having a big body is nice too.”
As Loren sat down on his seat, feeling a little sorry for himself, Laura said with a forced smile. But her gaze suddenly turned to his shoulder.
“Is that a decoration? It’s very well made.”
What caught Laura’s eye was Nig clinging to his shoulder. Nig, with its shiny black body, certainly looked artificial when standing still. In fact, according to a silver-class adventurer who had worked with them before, it was a dangerous kind of spider. But it seemed to be friendly to Loren, and he kept it clinging to his shoulder, assuming it would do no harm as long as it remained docile.
“An Obsidian Spider? No, it can’t be… can it? Is it attached to humans? Are spiders attached to humans in the first place…?”
Eyes strained on the spider, Leila muttered to herself with a frown and a hint of sweat on her forehead. But her common sense got in the way, and she was unable to believe that what she was saying was the truth.
“Is everything ready? Let’s get going then, shall we?”
Klaus called out to them from the driver bench, probably because Loren’s party had taken their seats. Loren nodded in response, seeing that there seemed to be no problem with their departure. After having his confirmation, Klaus shook the reins, and the two horses tied to the carriage slowly began to move forward.
“That reminds me. That… What is it, the name of that town?”
“Karlovy?”
Having forgotten the name of the town they were heading to, Loren was helped by Lapis. Loren slapped a hand to his forehead and nodded.
“Yes, that’s it. How long does it take to get to Karlovy?”
Loren had heard that it was a city in the southern part of the continent, a city of food and hot springs, but he had no information about how far it was from Kapah or how long it would take to get there by a horse-drawn carriage.
“Eh, how long will it take?”
Lapis asked Leila. Leila folded her arms, thought for a moment, and then gave her answer.
“It’s just past the border, you know. We can see it for a few days, I think?”
“That’s far…”
“I think it will take about four days to reach the eastern border, and from there it should be a day or two.”
It was Laura who supplemented the information.
Loren had thought that it would not be a distance that could be covered in a day or two, but he hadn’t expected to spend several days to reach the town, and he began to worry whether the luggage he had brought would really be enough.
“Don’t worry about the trip there. We may have asked you to bring some luggage, but I think we can basically cover everything with what we have stocked in this carriage.”
“You’re very well prepared, aren’t you?”
“Because we can use Klaus’s wallet this time. We went shopping with no reservation.”
With a grin, Leila pulled out several glasses and a bottle of expensive-looking wine from under her seat and waved them at Loren.
“Drinking in the middle of the day? How nice.”
“Would you like to join? You know what, we have plenty of alcohol in stock too.”
With Leila’s encouragement, Loren accepted a glass and had some of that expensive-looking wine poured for him. But he looked at Klaus’ back at the driver bench with a somewhat worried expression.
“Is it alright? I know he’ll pay for everything, but I’m suddenly worried.”
“He won’t go broke. Even if he does… we’re still here.”
“For now, we’ll punish him until we’re satisfied. Then, if he repents, we’ll forgive him.”
“That guy’s still… Ah, scary.”
From Leila’s words, it seemed that they didn’t have any intention of abandoning him, but they also had no intention of condoning him half-heartedly. The red of the wine in Loren’s glass somehow looked like blood, and he lost the appetite to taste it. He couldn’t help but laugh a troubled laugh.