A Secret Operation with the Butler (6)
A Secret Operation with the Butler (6)
#
"You gotta go to the bathhouse!"
"Huh? What do you..."
"New people always gotta wash together! The master said so!"
"...Excuse me?"
A chill ran down the nape of Rebecca's neck. Was this man actually bathing with children like these? Using his position as their employer to force them? And if so, did that mean Rebecca would have to bare herself to him as well?
Just imagining it made Rebecca feel sick to her stomach. No—perhaps it wasn't merely bathing together. He might demand even more than that...
Not "might." There was clearly no reason for him to summon them to the bath other than to sexually molest them.
'Should I just kill him right now?'
Rebecca began seriously considering the possibility of assassination.
As it happened, they were currently under the Polymorph, so if they fled and released the transformation, no one would be able to find them. And Sivter had said he'd sent away all the guards... The more she thought about it, the more killing him and running seemed like the reasonable course of action.
Yes.
This was the perfect opportunity to execute the other plan she'd been considering ever since she realized Sivter was scheming to swallow Ariel's family whole. The opportunity was now.
"...Becca... Rebecca! Hey!"
"Hah!"
Yoo-jin jabbed Rebecca in the side, and Rebecca nearly snapped his finger on pure reflex.
"The bath! What do we do!"
Yoo-jin was just as frantic. Rebecca hardened her resolve. Mary, conveniently, had gone off somewhere and wasn't present.
"Yoo-jin. It seems best that we deal with him now."
"What? Deal with him—what are you talking about?"
When Rebecca drew a finger across her throat, Yoo-jin recoiled in horror.
"Are you insane?!"
"If he is laying hands on children like this... I can no longer stand by. And surely you don't want to be subjected to it either!"
"W-what would I be subjected to?!"
"To his sexual advances—"
"What?!"
"Didn't he summon us to the bath! Clearly he intends to—"
Yoo-jin's face went blank.
"What kind of nonsense are you spouting. We're bathing by ourselves."
"...Pardon?"
"We're washing up, just us! No—not just us, but anyway, we're supposed to wash with the maids!"
"...Is that so."
Under Yoo-jin's exasperated gaze, Rebecca felt her reason returning. Thinking about it with a cooled head, assassination was out of the question. He'd dismissed his guards, but there was no way a mansion of this scale lacked security measures.
She could kill him—but actually killing him would create a tangled mess of problems afterward.
"That's a relief."
"A relief, my ass! I have to go into a bath full of girls!"
"Why is that a prob—ah."
Right. Yoo-jin was a man. His outward appearance had briefly made her forget.
"Didn't you hear what that kid said earlier."
"...My apologies. I had something I needed to think about."
Yoo-jin sighed and recounted what he'd been told.
"Apparently from now on, we have to bathe in the Great Bath at least once a day."
"Then it needn't necessarily be right now."
"...Where did you leave your brain?"
Yoo-jin said that Sivter had demanded they do it immediately.
'Or perhaps it is you who wants it?'
Rebecca barely managed to swallow those words.
Even by her own reckoning, she'd committed far too many verbal blunders already. And looking closer, Yoo-jin didn't seem particularly pleased either. Even from a purely pragmatic standpoint, there was no reason to accept the risk of exposing their naked bodies to others here.
Rebecca clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them.
"...Understood. Let us go in."
#
The Great Bath.
In the center of the bathhouse stood an enormous communal tub, and behind it, a mirror that filled an entire wall. To the left and right were small faucets for washing oneself.
'Something is strange.'
Rebecca quickly identified the source of what felt wrong. Unlike the rest of the mansion, the bathhouse was maintained quite immaculately. How? These were maids she doubted could even look after themselves. And they kept a bathroom of this size spotless?
Looking around, Rebecca realized the reason. Magic stones engraved with Cleaning Magic had been placed throughout the room. These were clearly high-value items. Using magic stones of this caliber just for cleaning?
"Damn it all. There's no one here but kids."
Rebecca's train of thought was broken by Yoo-jin's voice.
"You said you wouldn't look!"
"No—I meant to, but the floor's slippery! I'm still not used to this body, I'll hurt myself at this rate!"
Rebecca barely managed to keep her mouth shut. It was true—his movements were still clumsy. If he were to slip and fall, the towel covering his body would come off, and then his identity would...
"...Take my hand."
"Fine..."
And so, with towels wrapped around their bodies, Rebecca and Yoo-jin entered the bath.
Inside, maids were scattered here and there washing themselves. Mary, seeing them enter, nodded. It seemed Mary was serving as something like Sivter's personal attendant. In that case, it would be best to quietly do as they were told.
Yoo-jin, apparently sharing Rebecca's sentiment, spoke in a somewhat weary tone.
"Now that it's come to this, let's just wash quickly and get out..."
"...Understood."
...
"Hoo..."
After wetting herself lightly over the towel and sinking into the tub, Rebecca couldn't suppress a sigh. A great many things had happened, but at the very least, the bath itself was genuine.
"This is nice..."
"It is."
Yoo-jin had settled into the spot beside her.
'He's a man—how can he look so...'
Seeing the nape of Yoo-jin's neck, Rebecca struggled to shake off the strange feeling welling up inside her. Yoo-jin had transformed into an even younger age than when he'd first used the Polymorph, and perhaps because of that, the nape of his neck was unbearably slender. He'd said himself that being younger made him easier to overlook, but as far as Rebecca could tell, Yoo-jin was enjoying the attention. And it was understandable. Even Rebecca found his appearance alluring.
Rebecca forcibly tore her gaze from his neck. She needed to focus on other matters right now.
In any case, having come this far, she was already halfway to success.
If she could recover the Ionia family's assets, then first she would start by renovating the Great Bath...
Thinking such thoughts, Rebecca sank into languor.
...
"You okay there?"
"Haah."
Before she knew it, Mary was sitting in the same tub. She'd entered just as Rebecca was on the verge of dozing off. And Yoo-jin?
Yoo-jin was dozing as well... and his towel was on the verge of coming undone!
Rebecca shifted her body to shield Yoo-jin from view.
"You must've been real tired, huh?"
"Ah, no. I'm fine. The water was just so pleasant that I..."
"Huhh..."
Under Mary's curious gaze, Rebecca felt she needed to take the initiative. She'd managed to deceive Sivter, but she didn't know if she could pull off the same with Mary.
"By the way, what sort of work will we be doing in the mansion?"
"Ah! Well, that's..."
Mary launched into an explanation of the mansion's affairs. Rebecca listened to her chatter for some time when a sudden movement stirred from behind. Yoo-jin had woken up.
Yoo-jin, having grasped the situation, hid his body behind Rebecca's back. And Mary's unnecessary prattle continued. In the end, Mary only took her leave when Rebecca was nearing exhaustion. Rebecca let out a sigh of relief and turned back to Yoo-jin.
"...You can get up now."
But Yoo-jin didn't move. There was a distinctly sheepish air about him.
"Uh, no. Just—just hold on a second. Let's stay a little longer."
"It's already late. If we're to get a grasp of the mansion, we need to start moving now—"
"No, just a second's all I need. Just wait a little, I said."
For some reason, Yoo-jin had his thighs pressed tightly together. Why in the world...
"...!!"
Rebecca spotted a distinct bulge beneath Yoo-jin's towel.
#
"You... even at a time like this—and toward children like that!"
At Rebecca's growling whisper, Yoo-jin protested desperately.
"No! Damn it! It's—it's because of you! I wasn't aroused by the kids, I was aroused by you! Goddammit!"
"Because of me—what absurd nonsense!"
"You were half-naked and pressed your back against me like that—what, you think it wouldn't happen?!"
Grrrrk...!
As expected, he was a man utterly impossible to harbor any goodwill toward. Surrendering to his desires even at a moment like this! Did the word restraint simply not exist in his vocabulary?
"...Give me a moment."
Yoo-jin, now aware of the gravity of the situation, didn't make any further fuss. Rebecca found herself scanning his lower body, wondering how long it would take for his arousal to subside.
"Hah..!"
Rebecca choked on her breath. He had transformed into a boy, yet for some reason, his member was of a hideously monstrous size. Was this normal?
"...How long until it subsides."
"Quiet. It—it's not like I can just turn it on and off at will."
Yoo-jin closed his eyes and kept muttering something under his breath. Something about ocean water... and mountains, some kind of melody.
"Ah, the new folks!"
Suddenly, Mary called out toward them.
"You should prob'ly start headin' out soon. It's gonna be about time for a whole bunch of the others to show up."
"...Pardon?"
"Gonna get real busy in here!"
The other maids were going to come swarming in?! Then Yoo-jin's identity would—!
"C-can't you make it go down faster?!"
"I—I heard you, so shut it!"
Yoo-jin was panicking and fidgeting as well, but what lay beneath his towel showed no sign of subsiding.
'What... what should I do?'
Rebecca racked her brain frantically, and the instant a thought surfaced, she put it into action.
"Hah! Wh-what are you doing!"
"Stay still! Would you rather be discovered?!"
Rebecca gripped Yoo-jin's member in her hand and whispered urgently.
Once she got him off, his member would go down.