The Lazy Young Master Is Too Competent (3)
Hershey chattered away in high spirits, mostly about the Countess. Luid listened, lazily stuffing his face with his lunchbox as she talked.
“…And that's what happened? Honestly, holding back my anger was the absolute limit of what I could manage in there. I can't stand the Countess, and I can't stand the commoners either.”
Luid recalled how the original novel had depicted the Countess as an oinking pig.
So that part matches, huh.
“It looks like she's going to keep stirring up trouble, so wouldn't it be best to push her aside?” Hershey added, just in case. “If it becomes too much of a burden for you, Luid, I could even call on my family's influence.”
“Leave her be.”
The Countess was a character destined to earn the vast majority of the world's hatred someday. Having a few figures around to take the blame was no bad thing. From time immemorial, the fastest way to unite two feuding groups was to give them a common enemy.
“Everything has its uses.”
“I see.”
Hershey nodded obediently.
If only everyone were like Hershey. She was docile. She never once talked back. What if the whole world were full of Hersheys? He could conquer the world with ease.
“Still… there's talk of resistance. I hope I'm mistaken, but.”
“I don't think you'd ever mistake something like this. Though I am curious. Is washing themselves really worse than dying for these people?”
Luid's real goal had never simply been “Let's make the commoners bathe!” The plan was to teach them proper etiquette so they'd draw less hostile attention from the nobles, and ultimately to ease the simmering conflict that ran rampant throughout the Academy. Yet merely mentioning bathing had provoked this kind of backlash. Etiquette lessons, correcting their speech and mannerisms — he doubted they'd even dream of getting that far.
“I actually looked into it because of that. There's a reason the commoners don't wash.”
“Which is? Tell me in detail. This is a pretty important matter.”
“…First of all, commoners are deeply superstitious. They believe that washing your body washes away your good fortune.”
Hershey laid it out point by point.
“Second, it's sheer defiance. They've never felt any real discomfort from not washing, so they resent being told what to do now.”
“And last, the third — this is probably the biggest problem of all. To commoners, bathing is a luxury. They see water as something you drink, and washing takes many times the water you'd need for drinking.”
“…What do they even learn magic for?”
“Your mana is on another level entirely, Luid, but for an ordinary person, conjuring water for a bath would eat up more than half their total mana. Investing that much just to get clean is a waste, in their eyes.”
“Don't the dorms have plumbing?”
“Plumbing is quite the high-end facility. You can't install it somewhere that houses as many people as the dorms. Instead, there's a water reservoir, as I understand it. Supposedly it's well stocked, but it's quite a distance away. I imagine the walk back and forth is simply too much of a bother.”
Huh. That's news to me.
Luid was high nobility himself, after all. Water shortages had always been somebody else's problem — a story from a faraway country. But it didn't sound like the commoners were destitute to the point of impossibility either.
Which brought it all down to one thing: What do I get out of bathing? The commoners were operating from a fundamentally different set of assumptions. If you started lecturing them about disease rates from poor hygiene, the reply would come immediately: Yeah, well, I've gone my whole life without washing and I'm still alive. My grandmother's alive too. That's a load of crap. Besides, nobles seem to die awfully young, don't they?
And there'd be nothing to say to that, because plenty of nobles really did die young — granted, from stress and assassination in the endless games of hierarchy rather than from grime.
From a merchant's standpoint, it's just not worth it.
The conclusion was clear: the key was explaining the benefits of washing in terms they understood. Then a thought struck Luid, and he voiced it.
“Come to think of it, Hershey.”
“Yes?”
“You said you get confession proposals all the time, right?”
“…Yes. I have no fiancé, after all.”
“Do commoners confess to you too?”
“Not knowing their place is the commoners' specialty. Quite a few of them do, actually. Moths flocking to a flame.”
Apparently, matches between commoners and nobles happened more often here than one might expect. It had happened now and then even in real-world medieval societies, and this was a world where the classes came into frequent contact besides. Still, Luid was genuinely astonished that it extended to someone of Hershey's exalted standing.
“…In that case, this method might actually work.”
“What method?”
“Mm. A way for the commoners to take the etiquette classes without a fuss. Could you help me with it?”
“Of course I'll help, but… I don't understand why you go out of your way to think of the commoners, Luid.”
Hershey rarely offered her own opinion, but she did now.
“You're too kind, Luid. The notion that commoners are kind-hearted is a misconception. You have no idea how wicked those people can be.”
“I've never once thought commoners were kind?”
“You… haven't? Then why would you help them?”
Hershey stared at him, plainly baffled.
“Even if you do decide to help them, all you need to do is give the orders, Luid. If they refuse to follow, then the commoners are the ones losing out on the benefits that come their way.”
He could, of course, have simply used force. And that approach would have worked quite well, too. Luid possessed considerable power — more than enough of it. One word to Sherry, even, and he could unleash a fragment of Windsor's might.
“Hershey, do you know the secret to being happy?”
“What is it?”
“It's simple. Never argue with fools.”
Luid meant it with all his heart.
Fox, you listening?
[Yep!]
Let's go with that girl over there.
Luid glanced sideways at the girl who was blushing crimson at the sight of him.
Courage times one hundred. Charge—
[Yes, sirrr!]
Miho scratched at the top of his head with her soft fur. White wisps of it caught the breeze and drifted toward the girl.
“Hachoo.”
The girl sneezed, then her eyes flew wide open. A moment later she clenched her fist and muttered something to herself. Around her, Luid could hear the other students hissing things like “Are you insane?”
Luid waited patiently for the girl to make her move.
“U-um, excuse me.”
The shy commoner girl stood before him, head bowed, fidgeting.
“I-I'd like to get to know you! W-what's your ideal type?!”
Luid answered without a beat of hesitation.
“A girl who washes properly.”
He patted her on the shoulder.
“That took real guts. If you just wash properly, you might actually have a chance. Good luck.”
Meanwhile, Hershey was moving through the crowd in much the same fashion.
If it weren't for Luid, I would never, ever be doing this.
She sighed. Hershey hadn't even needed the fox.
“I'll give it a try.”
“Good luck.”
Confessing to Hershey and getting shot down was — practically a popular pastime at the Academy by now. Some male students confessed on purpose just for the pleasure of being berated by her.
“U-um, excuse me…!”
“…….”
“My name's Latin! I'm in the Common Class, a commoner, but…! I'd be a great one to toy around with for a semester and then throw away! P-please! Go out with me!”
Hershey leveled an icy stare at the boy.
He'd worked up some courage, apparently, but his face was red as a tomato and his eyes were glued to the ground. If he was going to show such a spineless display, why attempt a confession at all?
Hershey found him pitiable. The boy wilted under her glare and ducked his head — but then, letting out a small sigh, he steadied himself, calling Luid's words to mind.
—Refuse them by saying you like a man who washes properly. But the important part is to leave the door open. Like, “Hmm, all you'd have to do is wash, though…?”
Choking down her disgust, Hershey spoke.
“I'm sorry, but I like a man who washes properly.”
Getting the commoners to bathe. Professors had pushed for it time and again down the years, and every single one of them had failed. Even when something finally stuck, it reset the moment a new class of commoner students enrolled.
Who could have guessed that two students — one boy and one girl — would pull it off?
And so, astonishingly, a wind of revolution swept through the Academy. The reason was exactly one:
The rumor that Hershey and Luid liked people who washed properly!
“Who knows? You might end up as his seventeenth mistress.”
“Did you not hear? Normally Hershey would blow you away with her wind magic, but she actually sighed and appealed to the whole courtyard that she likes a man who washes!”
The two of them were among the most popular students at the Academy, male or female — and with good reason. When the question “Who has the finest looks in the Academy?” came up, the answer was Luid for the men and Hershey for the women.
Luid's flaw was his youth, but his ethereal presence more than made up for it. Hershey's flaw was her difficult personality, but her stunning looks more than made up for that.
Naturally, some students began imitating the pair. One boy was so devoted that he carried a pillow around everywhere just to copy Luid (the girls looked at him like he was a bug).
In short, the two were objects of admiration — and trendsetters.
“I suppose it can't hurt to give it a shot…”
“If you copy that Luid guy, maybe the girls will actually notice you.”
“I want to be just like Lady Hershey…”
Luid knew he had to row while the tide was high. He arranged for luxury soap to be stocked permanently in the commoner dorms, and it captured even the hearts of students who ordinarily couldn't care less about fashion.
“Th-this stuff's insanely expensive, isn't it?”
“Should we try it once?”
“It's a pain, but…”
“I've got mana to spare. Honestly, saving up for bathwater isn't that bad, is it? Just fill it up a little at a time, day by day.”
A bath every five hundred days is a bit much, don't you think…?
Luid, who had been observing the situation under an invisibility spell, let out a sigh. But not everyone was lining up to wash, of course.
“Honestly. Falling for such an obvious trick?”
“What, you wanna end up like a white pig? A real man wears his grime with pride.”
“Ugh, pretending to be clean is so gross.”
There were commoners who dug in their heels and refused to wash, full stop. Luid decided to write those ones off entirely.
But then — an unexpected windfall.
“Huh? What is that smell?”
It had been one week since the policy began.
“Hey, doesn't something weird stink off that guy?”
“Right? What is that? Smells like something that's been rotting in a sewer for three years.”
The commoners who had begun washing, even a little, had started to actually smell the stench of their unwashed brethren!
Smell is a thing one adapts to — the very proof being that you can't smell your own body odor. But once the smell of their own bodies vanished with regular washing, the odor of the commoners who still refused to bathe began to feel unbearable.
“Ugh, just go wash already.”
“Filthy, seriously.”
“Ew, look at all that grime on him.”
The commoners who had washed even a handful of times watched a lifetime's accumulated filth slough away, and slowly began to notice the difference themselves. Some even went around preaching the gospel of bathing to their peers.
And so, Luid's first objective — Operation: Make the Commoners Bathe — ended in resounding success.
Luid gave Hershey a thumbs-up.
“It's a success. All thanks to you, Agent Hershey.”
“What's an 'agent'…?”
Hershey looked a little worse for wear.
“…Thanks to you, Luid, the number of commoners confessing to me has doubled. I've run out of rejection lines and started blowing people away with wind magic, and now I've been docked points for illegal magic use.”
“Your resourcefulness deserves it. Ten points to the shop.”
“…Are you sure you should be handing them out so freely?”
Luid asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Who's going to say anything about it? To me?”
But that simple-minded attitude was about to spark a whole new wave of reaction.