I've never washed clothes by hand, in my old world.

I never had to, who does? We have washing machines and such.

There are occasions where something needs to be washed by hands, but rarely is it ever clothes.

As such, I had Ellen show me the proper way to wash my clothes. She insisted I shouldn't need to as an Esteemed Spirit, but I made her do it anyways.

It's a simple technique, when it's a material like cloth.

That said, I wanted to wash off blood. So I came to the river to directly scrub out the blood before it could set into my yukata. I was in a terrible mood, and getting a permanent blood stain would only worsen it.

I thought it would be bad, but it turns out fresh blood is surprisingly easy to scrub off in water. Well, it took me quite a while and I even ended up stripping down to do so, as the clothes I wore underneath, and even my skin had some blood.

Ah, a cute little fox girl boy, naked in the river as he scrubs clean his yukata and undergarments.

Surely no one will walk by and catch me in the act like some sort of cliche.

No seriously, I didn't think someone would come by here, but I could hear footsteps through the forest. They're light, so probably a child. But due to the lack of wind, I can't tell who it is by smell.

As such, I decided to slide on my underwear just in case, and considered putting on a bit more, but quite frankly I didn't really care about being caught naked—I'm just trying to cover up my true gender at this point. It's become natural to do so.

Well, they might question why my clothes seems to have blood, but let them. I could explain it as being animal blood or something, seeing as only that Violet girl and myself can tell it's human blood by smell.

However, the figure which appeared from the forest turned out to be someone I was not expecting.

"Ah, I'm sorry," a soft voice said in slight panick, before that figure hid behind a tree.

It was that succubus-like girl with Aniel's group. I think Aire said she could... read my desires or something, right? What was her name?

"Don't mind it," I said casually, as I returned to scrubbing my clothes. "You came here for something, correct?"

"W-well, Aniel wanted to know where you were, and I thought you would be done with your bath. He wants your input on what to do with the prisoners who surrendered."

"That so?" I didn't think I'd get input on that. Quite honestly, I didn't care. "Well, if it were up to me, I'd just impale them all on pikes to scare away my enemies. Buuuut... That probably isn't a good idea. Might scare the villagers too, and spread disease."

It was a joke of course. There was no point in "scaring away my enemies," when I had none to scare away.

However, this girl seems displeased by the idea. Well, that's obvious.

"It's a complicated problem. He can do as he likes with them. Sell them as slaves, or whatever. Kill them for all I care." It didn't really effect me, but I guess he can't just leave them here. And taking them back with him would slow them down. In fact, accepting prisoners at all with their current plan was problematic. They didn't plan to stay here after the battle, and carrying prisoners was troublesome.

"You can probably use them as hostages. I'm not taking care of them, tho," I added, as I pulled my dressed out of the water, tried to dry it a bit, and hung it on a branch for now.

"Maybe if it was just a handful of them to toy with, but I don't wanna babysit a camp of losers," I said, as I turned back towards the girl. She avoided eye contact as I looked towards her, and I wondered. Does she know I'm a guy? It's not that far-fetched an idea. If I were but a girl, this aversion to my nudity would be trivial, right?

Well, she's affiliated with that Violet girl, so it's a high possibility.

"So is that it?" I asked, walking over to the girl.

"N-no, there's something else," She said, as she cast her eyes down, but didn't quite say anything.

"Well, I can't read minds," I said, as I tried to urge her to go on.

"It's... Aniel was wondering if I could stay here, until they're done with the rebellion," She said.

"Hoh?" I let out a sound of intrigue.

I didn't have a problem with babysitting a bit, if it was to gain some favor from Aniel.

However—"Is it Aniel who wants this, or yourself?"

"It's... Aniel," She claimed, as she bowed her head to me.

However, he didn't seem like that sort to me. Well, I do have trouble reading him, so who knows, but leaving this girl behind? I'm certain she still has use to him, at the very least.

"I see. You see yourself as a burden," I said. This got a reaction out of her. "Right. You're a noblewoman, who hardly exercised a day in your life, right? But Aniel's group, even if they're amateurs, have at least trained up their body for maybe a year or two, right?"

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I knew some details about this girl and the others, but I was guessing for anything else. I had some limited information, but...

"They don't like you, right? Or rather, they don't care about you. And you can see it with that ability of yours. You slow them down, with that weak body of yours. But I can see the type Aniel is. He won't complain about you, if he feels responsible for you, right? Tells you to call him by name, even though your social status is practically dirt, and he talks to you with some level of dignity, right? But yet, you only slow him down, and now you want to throw yourself away for him."

Ah... Is she crying? Not quite yet, but I can see her face turning red, and water gathering at her eyes. So I was that close, huh? Well, you don't need powers to read a person who broadcasts their feelings.

"So then, girl? What is it you want? You can see my desires. Which of those desires did you plan to exploit?" I asked, deciding to stop teasing her.

"I... I..." She seemed to hesitate, as if she knew the answer to my question, but wasn't sure if she was allowed to speak it, "I thought I could appeal to your need to control people!" She shouted with her head lowered. "I-i'd be happy to do as you wish, until Aniel returned for me!"

"Is that right?" Come to think of it, was I a control freak? Well... That would explain a number of things. Though, it's pretty embarrassing she would admit it like that. But, despite what she says—"Well taking care of another pet doesn't sound all bad. But you know, what if I decide to do something perverted to you?" I asked with a smirk.

She can see my desires. I assume that includes even the ones I'm not fully aware of. So surely she's at least some hint that I could potentially assault her.

"Y-You'd never do something like that, w-with that human g-girl around!" she stammered.

Human girl? Does she mean Yenna?

Wait... Is that true?

... Huh, she's probably right.

I'd probably be killed if I tried.

"... Well, I personally don't care. If you want, I can keep you around, but you should talk to your master about such insecurities, instead of bottling them up. That idiot will listen. He won't know what to do, but he'll listen."

Actually, I doubted I could just keep her in the village. Not only is she a fey with a weird tail, she's a dark fey with the ability to see ones desires. How would humans treat this girl? If she's under my protection, they'll probably overlook her, but she'll still be ostracized... I honestly don't know what I'd do with her.

Maybe I could keep her in a cave somewhere, but it'd be a drag to feed her. I just got a new pet I need to feed every few days—come to think of it, I haven't fed her since I captured her, have I? I always was a bad pet owner.

So having her go back to talk things out with Aniel is better.

But, for a slave—a former noblewoman no less—to be so docile and submissive to this boy, to the point that she's willing to be left behind to keep from slowing him down...

It's kinda amusing.

"He won't listen," she insisted.

"And so you want me to snatch you away?" I said as I walked towards her with a grin, and placed a finger under her chin, before bringing her up to face me in the eye.

"Girl, what is it you want? Tell me, and perhaps I'll offer my blessing," I said.

—"Do you wish to not be a burden to him? Or..." I let my words trail for a second, as she looked at me with those gradually widening eyes.

She knew exactly what I had in mind.

—"... is what you really want his heart?"

It might be a bit mean, but starting some love drama around that Aniel might be a bit funny.

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Author Notes:

And there's this. I would like to consider this the end of "Volume 1", but really this is hardly an ending type of chapter. By next chapter, Aniel's group would have already been gone, as they intended to leave immediately after the attack. Well, I think a few more chapters are needed to wrap up this Volume, considering there's still one more... issue to handle, and that'll take a few chapters to cover.

Anyways, I'm wondering if I should bother going back to add "[V1]" to all the previous chapters, and just restart the counter for [V2], once I get there. Probably too much work (see: not much work at all) so I'll probably just keep counting up into infinity.

Anyways, as always Feedback and Suggestions are appreciated and encouraged.

If you like/hate this story, please leave a review so my ego can further inflate.