Less than five minutes later, outside of the ladies' changing room…

Cycelia peeks her face out into a hallway through a curtain stating lady only. She looks left and right down a long hallway. With the one leading into the changing room and one next to that, there are five doorways, three of which are across the wooden hall. She tentatively steps out, wearing only a white towel wrapped around her body from below her armpits down to a little past her hips. She adjusts it by tugging it a little lower.

「Nhh… This towel is too small for me… I should have taken two…」

She mumbles to herself, furrowing her brows down at her almost entirely exposed thighs with her cheeks flushed softly.

「…No, that'd be rude. Someone else might end up naked then… That'd be terrible.」

Cycelia shakes her head and banishes the thought of taking one more towel to wrap it around her waist down. She peeks left and right again, then decides to walk up to a blue curtain with white characters painted upon it, right between two other doorways. She cautiously peels it away and looks inside the room.

「Ah. This must be the bath?…」

She remarks as some of the steam immediately pours out through the gap she exposed, disappearing into the hallway and making the air even more humid, even if by just a little.

「…Hellooo?」

Cycelia calls out into the thick steam with a quiet voice and waits for a response. She can hear indistinct chatter from somewhere, both male and female, and slinks into the steam to hide.

Tugging the towel a little lower, her large chest bounces within while she ensures it doesn't come unfurled by accident. With wet footsteps, she walks further into the steam.

Splishblopblopblop…

「Ah.」

As she walks through the steam, Cycelia finds a pool of water, roughly deep enough to submerge most of her body to her chest if she sat down. The faintly blue, softly shimmering waters flow gently away from where she stands, making tiny waves. She traces the waves with her emerald eyes, and through the steam, realizes that the wall at the far end of the room is, in fact, not a wall. It's just an empty space with a simple wooden balustrade. Though it's already dark outside, Cycelia can see the glow of cities below.

「Wooooooow…」

Her head slowly perks up at the sight. A cloud moves side to side some distance away, slowly sailing past like a hailing boat at a dark sea. The mountains dotting the land make for obscuring spires, nearly entirely black, but lit softly by weak moonlight from the east, visible mostly due to the way in which they abruptly obscure the red and orange lanterns shining far below. Cycelia is briefly stunned, and simply stares into the distance below. Her eyes jump from one point the next, blinking in awe.

「…It's empty? Maybe the girls just went looking for Straf… Or they're sightseeing. I better get in the water before someone else comes.」

…Plap-plap-plap-plap…

Cycelia remarks, tilting her chestnut head at the completely empty pool before her, left all to herself. She blinks at it for a moment with a confused grimace, then turns and hops away with wet footsteps towards the wooden stools and simple buckets by their sides. She takes one more worried peek at the curtain to the bath, then peels her towel away and sits down in the fog.

「Hm? A spigot?… Like in a barrel?…」

She tilts her head at the misty, blurry faucet of wood with a horizontal handle on top tempting her to turn it.

Furrowing her brows, Cycelia grabs it between her thumb and finger and hesitantly pulls it towards herself.

Sploshsploshsploshsploshsplosh…

「Eep!」

…Splosh- Crrkkk.

She jumps up at the sight of rapidly flowing water pouring out from the faucet and getting the smoothed cobblestones at her bare feet wet. Cycelia quickly pushes the handle back the other way, and the wood gives out a grating creak as the water suddenly stops. She pulls her dainty hand away up to her chest into a loose fist, and blinks at the wooden spigot sticking out of the wall with a tight-lipped grimace on her face.

「…How did they get the water to come out of the wall? Magic?… I don't see any water rune here…」

Confused, she furrows her brows and examines the quite mundane spigot from both sides, bending forward a little. Her breasts squash against her thighs, and she ends up at a loss.

「…The buckets are empty, so this must be where you're supposed to wash yourself first?」

Cycelia looks at the buckets at her sides, and only now realizes that they are not filled with water as she'd expected. She grabs the one on her right by its wooden handles cut out into its rim and places it underneath the spigot, then turns it towards herself again, albeit with a forceful tug this time as it refuses to budge otherwise.

Sploshsplosploshblublublublublublub…

Cycelia stares and waits for the bucket to fill. The spigot does its work at its own pace. When roughly past partway full, she pushes the handle away, this time with less force.

「Is there a rag?…」

She looks around but finds no rags around her, and only her towel folded on the small wooden ledge jutting out of the wall in front of her.

「…Nhh… I don't want to use my towel if I have to cover myself with that later…」

Cycelia grumbles, and decides to cup her hands into the bucket.

「…Warm?」

She briefly perks up in surprise at the surprisingly warm water pooled in her hands. Much, much warmer than the one in the fountain below.

Splosh…

She decides to splash it on her chest, right between her breasts before the cold pouring in from the room's balcony side claims its warmth.

…Splosh… Splash…

Cycelia continues splashing the water onto herself, rubbing her hands everywhere where it pours.

…Splosh… Splash… Splosh…

After doing her best to wash her back she realizes that to genuinely put in actual effort into cleaning it, someone would have to help her, or she'd have to splash the bucket on herself.

…Splashhh!

Cycelia lifts up the half-empty bucket and splashes it over her back, getting some of her already damp hair wet in the process. She lets out a contented sigh as some of the accumulated cold is washed away by the warm water. She then sets the bucket back down next to her stool, takes the towel into her dainty hands, and takes a look at her hair strewn over her bare shoulder.

《…People trying to kill Straf aside, I need to do something about this. I can't be rude, it's unbecoming of my position… He said no hair or towel in the water, so how do I?…》

She ponders for a moment, grasping a handful of her hair and looking at it with a pensive pout. Her emerald eyes drift upward.

「…Ah! What if I just?…」

Cycelia perks up and unfurls the towel, folding it a little less, resulting in a slightly larger rectangle. She then takes the bulk of her hair with a hefty portion of it wet, and places it on top of her head without giving it any effort to tie it, or otherwise do anything else with it. Cycelia then sets the towel down on her hair tips, weighing them down with the towel. At the back of her head, her hair drops down, bends, then loops back around underneath the towel, as if forming a chestnut wave.

「…There! Now I just need to be careful not to drop it.」

She remarks with a smile and stands up, turning for the pool of water and wading through the steam.

「Vrrrr… Windy…」

Cycelia shivers as a weak, chilly gust of wind blows some of the steam billowing out into the air outside back into the bath. She approaches the misty pool surrounded by large, rounded rocks all around its edge, and cautiously lowers herself in.

Splosshhh…

「…Ahhhhhhhhhh… So nice and warm… This is the best…」

As soon as Cycelia lowers herself into the water, she lets out a long and contended sigh of pleasure, practically melting with an overjoyed grin on her face while she leans back.

「…It feels kind of gross, though. It's sticky?…」

After a moment, she furrows her brows and lifts some of the water up in her hand. She clasps her hand around it and feels for its texture, but as soon as she does, it flows out of her hand just like normal water. Though it feels sticky to the touch, the water itself leaves no residue of any kind, and perhaps paradoxically leaves a slick, wet trail. She shrugs her bare shoulders and leans back against the bare stone face behind her.

「…It's weird, but nice too?… I hope nobody had done something gross to it…」

Cycelia quietly remarks to herself, raising her arm out of the water and watching the water drip from it just as expected.

…Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud…

Cycelia hears prominent footsteps outside the curtain, and her head snaps to it with her emerald eyes wide open.

《Oh no! Someone's coming!?… It's going to be so embarrassing if it's a stranger! I should have asked Stripe how to tell people that I don't speak their language!…》

She turns her face downward, lowering herself in the pool down to her cold shoulders, which are pleasantly warmed by the soothing water.

《…I hope it's the girls, and not some random woman!… I don't want someone I don't know to see me naked! I don't even let the maids dress me!…》

Already blushing, Cycelia's mouth wobbles in preemptive embarrassment. She shrinks with her dainty hands in loose fists on her submerged lap, accidentally squeezing her breasts together.

Fwap!… Plap. Plap. Plap. Plap. Plap.

Cycelia winces when she hears the curtain get thrown aside with considerable force, and wet footsteps approach the pool behind her.

《…She's coming here!? Without washing herself first!? Filthy woman!-》

She thinks, and continues making herself small while hiding in the steam, hoping to be unnoticed.

「Ah, Lia?… What are you doing here?」

SPLASH!

Straf asks, jumping into the pool right beside Cycelia.

Tfwap.

Cycelia blinks at him with her mouth agape. He casually throws his folded towel over his shoulder, right onto the floor just outside the pool.

「S- S- S- S- Straf!? Wh- Wh- Wh- Wha- What- What do you mean what am I doing here!?…」

Cycelia jitters and trembles, turning away completely red-faced while stammering heavily. With his elbows on the floor behind him, Straf raises his brow at her.

「What? It's a completely valid question. Twerp and the eastern water carrot can hang out with those baldies in the men's bath, and I think it'd be a little excessive if I went to the female one…」

Confused, Straf narrows his eye as he replies, nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders. Cycelia covers her breasts with her arms while her mind blanks.

「…So I thought I'd visit the mixed bath, in case the cat or Nona want to join me…」

He tilts his head and briefly shrugs his hand, casually placing one of them on the floor behind Cycelia.

「…Though with Nona it'd be more like swimming in shark-infested waters… Anyway, why are you in the mixed bath? Are you trying to trigger an event? Bad kind of cliche, Lia.」

Straf adds, looking at her bare back with a softly ridiculing smirk.

《…I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!-》

「…Huh? Mixed bath?」

Cycelia suddenly perks up and stops jittering. She blinks her confused emerald eyes at his bored face.

「Yeah. Didn't you read what it said on the curtain? Mixed bath. Girls only is further down the hall. Did you seriously wander in here by accident?…」

Straf nods and points his thumb over his shoulder at the curtain while looking into her giant green eyes as he explains. His face gains an amused, patronizing smirk as he asks.

Instead of replying, Cycelia gains an extremely awkward tight-lipped grimace on her face and blinks at Straf in something akin to an undecipherable code.

「…Liaaa… Seriously. What would you do if like five fat bald old men came in, and none of them had a visible face? Didn't I warn you at the beach?」

「Huh?」

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Splosh.

「…Then again, it was a while ago, huh?… Whatever.」

Straf remarks while rubbing his handsome, steam-shrouded chin with his wet hand, leaving a trail that shines from the lantern lights hanging on the walls.

《Straf is gonna see… And I'll see Straf…》

Cycelia thinks as she lowers herself deeper into the water up to her armpits, jittering faintly. She looks at where Straf's groin should be, but the murky water obscures it, and she's only able to see a very faint, dark silhouette of his legs lazily stretching out towards the center of the pool. Ashamed of herself, she peels her eyes away.

《…M- Maybe it's fine.》

She lowers her arms, placing her hands back in her lap, but remains hidden in the water.

「Ahhh… This water's kinda weird, isn't it?」

Splosh!…

Straf lets out a pleased sigh, then dips and lifts his hand out of the water, feeling for its texture or lack thereof.

「Ah. Yes, that's what I thought too! Straf, do you think it might be…?」

Cycelia perks up, nodding along with her brows raised before furrowing them in worry. Straf looks at her, then his eyes escape up and aside.

「Ah. That explains it…」

He remarks with an enlightened nod and his mouth aslant.

「Wh-? What does?」

Cycelia perks up again with a mix of anxiety and anticipation, staring at Straf's bored face with a tight-lipped grimace on hers.

「…It's a manaspring. I thought it felt weirdly good. A lot better than a hot bath is.」

Straf replies with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

「It is!? Ahhh… I'm glad… I thought something horrible happened here…」

Cycelia's brows shoot up in surprise, and she lets out a greatly relieved sigh as her naked shoulders slump into the water. A small, slightly awkward and tilted smile appears on her face.

「What?」

「N- N- No, nothing…」

Splosh!…

Straf asks, and Cycelia quickly shakes her head with care for the towel while waving her hands in front of her face.

「What? I'm glad I checked, 'cause when I got in, for a moment I thought someone had a little too much fun here, and the event had already triggered… Eugh…」

He asks again, then turns his face bearing a somewhat disgusted grimace forward.

「What event?」

Cycelia asks back with a worried gaze.

「…[Ultra Fresh] or not, I wouldn't want to bathe in that shit, y'know? Gross.」

Straf adds, turning his disgust-filled smirk towards Cycelia.

「…In what!? Straf, in what!?」

Cycelia asks insistently, but Straf only shakes his head while looking ahead with the disgust frozen on his face.

「Forget it, Lia. It's just a manaspring… What happens in an erogame, stays in an erogame.」

「What?」

Straf dismissively waves Cycelia's question off, only adding to her confusion. She turns her perplexed emerald gaze to the rippling water, blinking at it with an uneasy face.

「…Kind of a shame the mixed bath is in between the two others, huh?」

He remarks after a prolonged moment of silence while staring at the two walls of planks at the sides of the room.

「Huh? Why?」

Cycelia furrows her brows and tilts her head.

「'Cause no one can drill a hole to the other side to peek… Well, they can, but what's the point? You can just… Come here, I guess?」

Straf replies, shrugging his hands with his elbows still resting on the floor outside the pool, grimacing slightly.

「…Why would you want to peek?」

Cycelia asks with an angry frown slowly appearing on her face.

「I didn't say I want to. I'm just saying it's a cliche, y'know? I guess you could peek over that balcony there…」

Straf rolls his eyes and casually defends himself, then turns his gaze to the wooden balustrade ahead.

「…If you're really desperate. A hit with a bucket would probably result in a very awkward conversation with the bimbo.」

He adds while looking at the wall's last plank splitting the separate bathing rooms, and the low balustrade.

「Huh?… Do you mean Mercia?」

Splosh…

Blinking her emerald eyes at him, she tilts her head and cautiously readjusts her towel. Straf's brow rises as his eyes turn to the large, dark, round silhouettes in front of her in the water.

「I mean the murderous bimbo, but I guess you call her that around here…」

He replies with a nonchalant shrug and his mouth aslant.

「…Hey, Athea! The cat's out of the bag anyway, why don't you join us? I know you're watching, you sicko!… The water's great!…」

Straf calls out to the ceiling with his voice raised, spreading his arms wide on the floor.

「…Yeah, she's been ignoring me like this for a while now. Well, she did show up to my room in the inn…」

He adds with a resigned sigh and a shrug of his shoulders, slumping down in the pool.

「S- She came to your room!?」

Cycelia asks with her emerald eyes abruptly snapping wide open.

「Heh. Yeah… Asked me if I wanted a therapy session…」

Straf scoffs with an amused smirk and leans back, resting the back of his head on the floor while staring at the ceiling and its supporting horizontal beams.

「…I don't want a fuckin' therapy session… Unless it involves the bed making repetitive creaking noises.」

He adds, and starts cackling quietly with a grin on his face while covering his eyes with his wet forearm. Soon after he lets out a throaty, weary sigh, and the laughter stops.

「Straf… Are you okay? In general, I mean…」

Cycelia asks with her brows furrowed in worry before lowering her eyes to the water, shrugging her shoulders.

「No, Lia… I'm fuckin' losin' it…」

Straf takes a deep breath and returns to his relaxed pose, placing his elbows back on the floor as he lets out a large sigh with his face still locked into an amused grin.

「…I'm the type of guy that wraps everything in humor or anger, 'cause my biggest pet peeves are sappy shit, and big, cool, epic lines that just come off as trying too hard…」

He says with his grin slowly fading into a weary face while blankly staring ahead. Cycelia looks at him with concerned green eyes.

「…If you're trying to hang a picture on a wall, don't use a fucking sledgehammer… Where's the subtlety? Where's nuance? Fuck…」

Straf adds, and lets out another sigh as he very weakly throws his hands up, barely getting them off the floor, leaning his head back again.

There is a prolonged silence, and Straf simply lets the hot water soothe him with his eyes closed and his mouth scrunched to the side in frustration. Cycelia looks at Straf, fidgeting with her fingers under the water, grimacing in discomfort with her gaze lowered to the water towards nothing in particular. She turns her gaze towards his face again, blinking a few times.

「…It's a nice view from up here, isn't it?」

Cycelia quietly remarks with her head lowered.

Splosh.

「Huh?…」

Straf perks up, staring at her with a dazed face of a man who wake up just half a second ago.

He turns his eyes to the steamy balcony and blinks a few times like a man who just woke up five seconds ago. His brows furrow slightly.

「…Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.」

Straf nods with no discernible expression on his face, and only slightly narrowed eyes as he looks at the distant landscape. Men with black, conical hats are patrolling the perimeter of a fortified palace up on a mountain with lanterns in hands. Elsewhere in the distance, a city glows. Clouds leisurely roll by, the cratered moon is up, and the ocean beneath it glitters like shifting glass. Straf grimaces slightly in faint approval, nodding again.

While Straf is staring outside, Cycelia is looking at his face that's bearing an expression difficult to distinguish, perhaps because it's trying to be too many things at once. She covertly skitters closer to his side, fidgeting heavily with her hands, then shifts closer again, taking a peek at his face to see if he noticed. When she's certain that he didn't, Cycelia leans over onto his chest.

「…Hm?…」

Strat hums out and gently furrows his brows at the white towel in light confusion as he feels something soft press against him in the water.

「…You alright, Lia? Are you feeling sick? You shouldn't spend too long in here-」

「I'm fine… Do you mind?…」

She returns a gentle shake of her chestnut head, interrupting Straf. He raises a brow at the towel on top of her head.

「…No, not really.」

Straf replies after a pause, and places his hand on Cycelia's bare, wet shoulder while she's resting her head on his chest.

「…Can we stay like this for a moment?」

She asks while she wraps her arms around his neck.

「…Yeah, I guess.」

Straf returns a shrug with an indifferent grimace, turning his eyes back to the open space ahead.

Both Straf and Cycelia remain silent while he watches the interior of the palace move about like an anthill. He turns his attention to the untamed wilderness on one of the mountains picked by his gaze at a whim, and looks for random animals in its dark forest with his bored gaze, but Cycelia's soft breathing distracts him.

He looks down at her. Her chestnut head is just barely peeking out from beyond her towel while she's hugged into Straf with her eyes closed. Straf gets an inexplicable urge to pet her, and his hand moves practically by his own, softly stroking her hair. Its texture distracts him from anything but fleeting thoughts, which quickly disappear. The hot, mana-packed water fills Straf with an intensely soothing feeling, which is only deepened by a naked, beautiful woman hugging into him.

「I could fall asleep like this…」

Cycelia utters out quietly in a voice just louder than a whisper.

Straf returns his eyes to the landscape ahead, and simply stares at nothing in particular with no grimace on his face of any kind, simply furrowing his brows ever so slightly.

《…Honestly, maybe this world isn't so bad-》

SPLASH!

「Straf!?」

Cycelia perks up, suddenly jolted awake by Straf abruptly standing up with his eyes wide open, and angry scowl on his face.

「Son of a fucking bitch!」

Splash!

Straf exclaims, then steps out of the hot mana spring and stomps away with his fists clenched, completely naked.

Plap! Plap! Plap! Plap! Plap! Plap! Plap!…

「S- Straf!? What's wrong!?- Straf, what about the towel!?」

Splosh!

Cycelia asks, shouting towards Straf and pointing her finger at his abandoned towel with her eyes wide open. He continues stomping towards the curtain.

Clunk!… Tfwap!

Without missing a beat, he picks up a bucket by the entrance and places it on his groin, then angrily throws the curtain aside as he steps out.

Wrapped in a towel, a young girl with dark brown hair covers her mouth in shock, staring at Straf stomping towards her with a scowl and only a wooden bucket shielding his dignity, which bounces with each stomp. He glares at her with an extremely sour face. She hugs the nearby wall with her back, quickly skittering away to let him pass.

「What!? It's an onsen!」

Straf barks at the young girl, walks a few steps past her, then turns a corner towards the rear exit.

Too stunned to move and still covering her mouth, the girl's wide-open eyes drift down to the floor…