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Seeing me looking bitter, having to ultimately choose whether I would abandon my past or my current self, Aste leaked a sigh. He shrugs his shoulders and leaned to the chair as if exhausted.

“Good grief, you really are one troublesome fellow. So you just want a magic item that can allow you to use Polymorph for now?”
“Yeah, please. I’ll pay you how much you want, and I’ll do anything.”
“Oh, you’ll do anything?”
“Ah, no. Except for anything immoral, okay?”

I mentioned it just in case after seeing the perverted smile on his face. I’m sorry, but I had no plan of becoming someone who’d cause discord in families. Not just families, even couples and such.

“Ah, well. But Polymorph, huh… I’ve never made a magic item with that effect.”
“So, it’s impossible for you too?”
“No, if it’s just to load it into a scroll, I can do it even now. I even have the materials at hand.”
“Then do it already!”
“Okay, I got it already. But only after we drink the tea. Den makes some delicious tea. I drove those skills into him.”

Along with his words, Den brought herbal tea with a tray.

“I have kept you waiting. It’s a blend of lemongrass and ginger.”
“Oh, that looks quite delicious.”

Given that this place was half-sunk, the air was quite stagnant. The fragrant smell of the tea filled such a place now. The aroma alone stirred our appetites.

“Ginger warms the body, while lemongrass has a calming effect, so it should help you calm down.”
“Ohoh.”

While you could say the winter had passed its peak, the nights were still decently cold. His consideration was really helpful. Was this also due to Aste’s butler training?

“Moreover, it is also good for anemia and helps produce milk.
“Pffffft!”

Wait, why did he try to make me drink something that helps with breast milk production? I don’t even have milk yet to begin with.

“Well, I feared you might be feeling anemic. I smelled blood from M’lady.”
“Ugh.”

Now that he mentioned it, I did have my menstruation just recently. I couldn’t deny that I had slight anemia.

“And, with all due respect, I have detected some problems with your chest area.”
“That’s none of your concern, okay!?”
“It has been six months since our meeting. Considering the growth so far, there are some concerns to—”
“Enough already! Also, we have things to do. Aste, hurry up and drink your tea already!”

Where did I go wrong for even the Ogre that I helped to start sexually harassing me? I forcefully ended the topic and poured the tea in Aste’s mouth.
“Hot! Hey, hold on a bit, it’s hoot!”
“Did you awaken to hot water torture recently?”
“Are there other casualties?”
“Already two.”

Wait, it wasn’t hot water with Cloud. It doesn’t count! And I burned that summoner guy with threads too. I’ve never splashed hot water at anyone.

“Don’t spread baseless rumors. The night is short, hurry up, hurry up.”
“Stop pouring hot tea in my mouth already!”

After a great fuss, we decided to head to Aste’s cave.

Den seemed to hold the sense of obligation to protect my hideout, so he didn’t follow us to the cave and insisted on remaining behind.

Thus we headed there with just the three of us, and he guided us inside. The house inside the cave… Was a weird way of putting it, but in the room beyond it, there was a pile of materials that I had never seen before.

“This is amazing. I haven’t seen these even in my previous life.”
“It’s a collection that I have spent many years collecting.”
“With this much, you really should be able to make a high-ranking scroll.”
“Yeah, but as for work… Right, it will probably take about five hours even for me.”
“Five hours… It’ll be dead of night by then. Or rather, probably better to say it’ll be dawn.”

Making a detour shaved away quite a bit of our time. It was already close to midnight. In five hours, it’ll practically be morning already.

“I’ll start right away, so you two rest in the guest room over there.”
“You had a guest room?”
“This is still a house, you know? Of course there is one.”
“It’s buried inside a cave, too late to call it a house.”
“It’s not like it’s buried because I wanted to. I just reformed my old house that got rolled up in a volcanic eruption.”
“Wait, how long has this house been around for…”

I have heard that this mountain had erupted before. But that happened so long ago even the folktales of it were uncertain.

At any rate, it would suit us if there was a guest room. It was already night, so I was feeling sleepy. I dragged Maxwell who seemed to want to stay and watch, and slipped into the room.

It was a room so pleasant it was unfit for an underground place. Near the ceiling, there was a substrate of something like a folding fan attached to it, and it slowly rotated, sending air to the outside.

This allowed the air inside to circulate, constantly bringing in fresh air.

“Hoho, so that rotating fan is creating wind here.”
“It has a strangely good angle too. Must be good during the summer.”
“The cold wind machines have similar mechanisms too if I am not mistaken.”

The cold wind machines that were your summertime friends. They had Ice Wall spells inside them, and they passed the wind through it, breezing cold air out into the rooms.

Incidentally, it was the Whitey who created those apparently. Quite hard to imagine from her.

Other than that, I noticed one important thing.

“Hey, this room… There’s only one bed.”
“T-That appears to be the case.”

There was only one smallish bed here. It would be quite cramped to sleep there.

“Well I have a small body, so I guess we could sleep somehow.”
“That is not the problem here. You should start paying attention to the contact with the opposite sex at that age already.”
“Hah? We are companions… What are you saying after all this time?”
“Agh, enough. I shall sleep on the floor.”
“I said I don’t mind.”
“I do mind!”

Well, there was a thick carpet on the floor, so he wouldn’t feel cold. Maxwell used his robe as a blanket and lied down. I looked at him with a gaze that questioned his obstinacy, and then also lied on the bed.