Leave a comment

After some distractions along the way, Mira got back to the Baron Hotel a bit before 8pm.

「I’ll be staying for two nights.」

Mira went to the hotel’s front desk and announced that.

She had not checked in as a customer there, but she went back because she left her wagon there, thanks to the card Julius gave her. Now that she had more time to look around, she realized that it actually looked like a fun place to stay at. It was an inn that really sold the idea of living like a noble.

So rather than trying to find another place, she decided to stay there.

Then an employee wearing a butler uniform escorted her to her room. The room decor also followed the trend and style of the whole building, everything from the furniture to the small accessories looking luxurious. But none of it was real gold, being merely painted to look like it.

The couch and bed in the room looked similar to everything else, but they actually felt really soft and high quality too.

「First things first, a bath is in order.」

Mira picked up the Baron Hotel’s guide from the table, went to sit comfortably, and read through it. Then she left the room and headed to the bathhouse.

Aligning with the concept of the whole Baron Hotel, they also had maids and butlers available, who for a price would accompany a guest and perform any services necessary.

Having a personal maid tending to all of one’s needs was a dream any man had, but Mira did not make use of it. She could always get more than her share of maids in Arkite’s castle.

Except that the Baron Hotel expected guests to employ one of their maids or butlers, so Mira quickly got lost without someone to guide her through the corridors. There was no signaling for guests to find their way in the building, all to preserve immersion.

So as Mira tried to get to the bathhouse, she ended up just wandering aimlessly around the building. Along the way she passed by other guests, and noticed that all of them had employed a maid or butler. In general most of the men were accompanied by a maid, and the women by a butler.

Eventually she ran into someone she knew, the detective who was also staying there. This time it was not Julius pushing his wheelchair, but a maid. Even he was making full use of that service.

He was wearing a bathrobe and looked like had just come out of a bath, and even though he was married and with kids, he was happily chatting with the maid.

(He seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit…)

Seeing that, Mira began to have some rather unsavory thoughts, wondering if the maids also offered a special bath service. Once the detective was out of sight, she headed in the direction he had come from. He looked like he had come out of a bath, so she was convinced that retracing his steps would lead her to the bathhouse.

Her hunch was correct and she finally reached the bathhouse. There she crossed through the women’s door, leading her to a spacious changing room illuminated by a chandelier.

(At least there’s no butlers inside here.)

While the maids and butlers were advertised as taking care of all needs one might have, they did not go as far as to enter the bathroom. Seeing that all the women in the changing room were alone, she realized that it was obvious for the butlers to stay outside. Then she began undressing.

A moment later she began thinking again. The detective was on a wheelchair, so getting into the bath would have been hard with no one helping him.

(…No, Julius is probably still inside the bath, and the detective just left first.)

Mira decided to believe that Julius had helped the detective inside the bath, while the maid had only helped after that. And so she finally opened the door leading to the bath.

「It’s more luxurious than I had anticipated…」

The bathtub was made of marble, with golden and silver accents. The floor and walls were also marble, while the faucets, shower heads, and the chandelier glimmered with gold and silver. On top of that there were plenty of fascinating naked women everywhere, adding to the allure of the room.

Mira admired it all, while also wondering if there really were any nobles who actually had a bathroom that looked like that.

Then again, the Baron Hotel was more like a glorified experience aimed at regular people, who did not know how nobles really lived like. In other words, it merely played off the ideas people had of nobles.

While exaggerated, Mira felt like that luxury was just right to accomplish the goal of the Baron Hotel, and she too began enjoying it.

When Mira had enjoyed her bath enough, she got out and changed into a simple one piece dress. It was the attire Mariana had placed in her basket for getting out of baths.

Then she headed back to her room, which also took her a while as she got lost again. When she was finally there, she rang a bell to call service and ordered some food. It was already quite late into the night, but the Baron Hotel had service all twenty four hours.

Mira finished eating her luxurious dinner, and then spent the rest of the night with leisure. She read the Skills Encyclopedia and research notes, practiced Sense Sync with Cait Sith, thought of ways to improve her Ashen Knights, and did all the things she enjoyed in life.

Sleepiness finally began to take over her when it was nearly midnight, so she crawled into her bed and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning she had a truly pleasant experience waking up in the Baron Hotel.

Mira woke up slightly past 7am, after which she slipped out of bed and completed her morning routine in a good mood. Then she had a latte to wash away the remaining drowsiness, and then just as agreed the day before, she went to meet with the detective at 8am in the dining hall.

The detective was already waiting for her there, and after a quick greeting they went to eat together while continuing their conversation from the day before.

「I’m sorry again, for yesterday. I had something to attend to that I couldn’t postpone no matter what. And it was something very important.」

The detective started off with that apology, though he kept glancing at Mira in an odd way, essentially begging her to ask what that important business was.

「Umm, where did we leave off yesterday? Something about an orphanage I think?」

But Julius softly pushed the detective aside and instead urged Mira to stay on track. He was essentially telling her that it was fine to ignore the detective’s attempt to narrate his stories again.

「Yes, that was exactly it. I actually overheard this story in the past, about a nameless village somewhere deep in a forest in northeastern Grimdart, and an orphanage said to exist there for war orphans. I wanted to ask if you’ve seen any place like that during your travels.」

Mira decided to trust Julius more, and so she quickly asked the question she had wanted to ask the day before.

After all, her main objective was not to capture Fuzzy Dice, but to find Artesia. If she knew where to search for the orphanage, she would have next to no interest in Fuzzy Dice anymore.