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“Lady Nicole, how can you sleep in that state!”
“Ngah?”

The next morning, I was awakened by Finia’s voice. There was a familiar ceiling above, with the familiar bed, and my usual inn room. Finia came to wake me up as usual, but there was one thing that was different.

It was that I was sleeping while holding an alcohol bottle.

“Huh, why do I have this?”
“That’s what I want to ask, Lady Nicole.”
“Wait, last night…”

I was drinking my worries away at the cafeteria with Gadius, and then Maxwell joined us and I was suggested to take new work, and then?

“I don’t remember past a certain point.”
“Good grief, you can’t be any further from how a lady should look.”
“I mean, I’m not trying to be one.”
“Lord Reid, you should realize that you’re a young beauty and pay attention to how you carry yourself.”
“Stop, I don’t want to hear anything about it!!”

I rose up while throwing the bottle away and Finia quickly approached me. And then she pushed me down without holding back. Was she tempting me or something?

“W-What are you doing?”
“I have to check if they did something unpardonable to you…”
“There’s no way they would do something like that!”
“Oh no, we have to make doubly sure, considering your eye power.”
“Lyell would go crazy! And Maria would not leave it be. There’s no point worrying about that.”
“If you say so… But let us make sure by taking a bath together, okay?”
“You just want to take a bath with me, don’t you?”
“…………No such thing.”
“What was that pause?”

That said, I fell asleep last night while drinking. I did feel like washing off my sweat.

“Oh well. I do want to wash off my sweat, so can I ask the usual?”
“Yes, of course.”

With that, Finia started the usual bath preparations.

Even after learning that I was Reid, this part remained the same. Maybe she lacked the awareness that I was formerly a man? Wait, thinking about it, I’ve only really interacted with her as a man when she was five. And now I was at her side as a woman.

The interval of her seeing me as a man is far too short. She might have no vigilance towards me because of that fact. If so, she really shouldn’t be speaking about others, but I better keep that to myself. Being able to see a beautiful woman is also a blessing for my eyes, after all.

After talking to Gadius, we received permission to use the bath with the condition that we would prepare it ourselves. It was a big enough bath for several adults to enter together, so preparing it took an equally heavy effort.

But that’s where Finia’s elemental magic came in handy. Being an elf, she had an aptitude for the four elemental magics, and she was flawless in all of them, unlike Letina.

But in exchange, she couldn’t use spells as difficult as Letina, but versatility was extremely useful.

At any rate, we had to first clean the whole bath before we filled it up.

First I used my threads and manipulated multiple mops, polishing the bath to a shine. Each of my ten threads held the same strength as me, and polished every nook and cranny, so it was ten times as efficient.

Then Finia washed everything off with water magic, and the bath was cleaned up in the blink of an eye.

Finally, we could have filled it up using the water drawn straight from the waterway, but that would’ve taken too long, so Finia also used the Create Water spell on top.

Once it got filled up after about thirty minutes, I cast a failed version of the Warm spell on the entire water, heating it up in one go. Like this, we finished filling up the bath with slightly hot water.

Naturally, the water would grow colder by night, but at that time we could just use the inn’s boiler or recast my Warm spell.

Thus, Finia and I indulged in the day’s first bath.

“Still, I know this is too late to say, but you really don’t seem to mind even after knowing that I’m Reid.”
“Huh, mind what? Of course, I mind you.”
“But we’re taking a bath together like this…”
“Elves are generally a liberated race. Elven baths tend to be mixed too.”
“Huh, really?!”

S̲h̲i̲t̲, had I known that in the past life, I would’ve been a regular customer of the elven baths in the hot spring towns! Maxwell, that b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲, why didn’t he tell me something so wonderful!

Speaking of which, Letina was unguarded like a child before our elementary graduation. The other boy students were the ones being embarrassed even.

My thoughts seemed to have shown on my face, Finia moved next to me with a pout.

Crap, I was supposed to be a noble hero in her mind. I shouldn’t be thinking of such tactless things.

“Cough. I understand now that you don’t feel discomfort in revealing your skin as a racial trait. But you still do other things like massages to me normally, don’t you?”
“Well, I am the one touching you. I see no problems.”
“Then, would you get embarrassed if I touched you?”
“Errr… a little?”

She turned her face away and said that. These gestures of hers were adorable in a different sense to Cortina. But I finally got a weakness out of her, so it wouldn’t hurt to try it out.

“Then I’ll give you a massage today. And I will be very elaborate with it.”

I approached her while moving my fingers. Seeing that, she suddenly covered her chest for some reason and fled from me.

“Huh, um, I’m grateful for your kindness, but aren’t you thinking something strange?”
“Something strange? What could it be?”
“L-Lady Nicole?!”

Looks like I overdid it with my prank a little, she started to splash water at me in resistance.

I reflected on that and decided to just let her give me a massage as always. But then I properly repaid her. In other words, as initially planned, I massaged her too. She was acting reserved and shy at first, but then she resigned herself and accepted it quietly.

As expected, it was too early to have the “adult relationship” with Finia as I had with Cortina, so I left it at the massage.

I dragged my body out of the bath feeling a little languid.

I wiped the moisture on my head with a towel and headed to the cafeteria. Gadius from over the counter noticed me and thanked me for cleaning the bath.

“Good work on cleaning the bath.”
“More importantly, which of you threw me on the bed together with that bottle?”
“Maxwell, of course.”

Gadius clearly avoided my gaze as he answered. That was it. Pretty sure they did it together.

At the floor table, Maxwell and Letina were joining Michelle and Cloud. He must’ve contacted everyone for me already.

Additionally, the gazes of the guests focused on us. But I guess I could understand it. Two beautiful girls who just got out of the bath showed up, after all. I was a former man too.

“More importantly, don’t make your comrades wait for so long.”
“Right, I’ll go discuss things with them.”

I had to discuss the request matter from yesterday with them.

Finia and I took cups of water from Gadius and headed to our comrades.