Snow Blossom (2)
Belmonte Winterhaven truly lived up to its name, which meant “winter shelter.” It was a land of snow. Fresh fruit had to be rare here, so the moment word spread that a large shipment had arrived, nobles from all over came swarming in.
“It’s all sold out!”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“We made more than twenty times the original investment.”
The fifteen gold coins I had invested came back as three hundred and twenty. Half of that was mine, so I had earned one hundred and sixty gold coins while sitting in one place.
“Now I roughly understand how Miss Chris managed to gather so much money in just a year.”
“Miss Ruina. Invest more. I’ll make you a lot of money.”
“I’ll decide after seeing what you sell next.”
Blind investing always led to heavy losses. You had to examine every angle before committing. Chris was certainly good at business, but the risks were simply too high. Hadn’t she nearly gone under once before? If I didn’t want to lose my entire fortune, it was best to observe carefully before jumping in.
“Sir Leon! Drink as much as you like! Today’s on me!”
“You’re using that strange half-polite tone with Sir Leon now too? Sir Leon only drinks milk, so please keep that in mind.”
The place where we had unpacked our belongings was an inn that combined hot springs and lodging. It was quite fascinating. Of course Happy Mid-land had hot springs, but they were usually public spaces anyone could use. They were rarely integrated with lodging facilities. Even when inns were built near hot springs, they were simply constructed beside them rather than built to surround the springs. As expected of Happy Mid-land, it showed a different side from ordinary medieval lands.
“Miss Ruina. Did you see earlier? The room we took has a private hot spring inside.”
“If it didn’t, the price would have been strangely high.”
I suddenly became curious about who owned this inn. It was already said that hot springs themselves helped with healing, and there were even suspicions that the springs of Belmonte Winterhaven contained actual healing power. Was it acceptable for a private individual to monopolize something like that? Of course, the hot springs of Belmonte Winterhaven weren’t only here, but still…
Well, it made sense. Nobles couldn’t possibly share the same springs as commoners. From a lord or noble’s perspective, it might be better to manage them this way by turning them into luxury facilities. That would mean the owner of these springs was either the lord or one of his close associates. It seemed plausible.
“What are we doing now?”
“We should enjoy the hot springs, of course.”
I might have forgotten, but we had come here to find the Holy Grail. We needed to confirm whether the hot springs truly possessed healing power.
“Didn’t we come here to make money?”
“Of course not. Miss Chris, is your brain made of gold coins?”
“Miss Ruina. In the merchant world, that’s a compliment.”
“I did compliment you.”
The inn we were staying at had two types of hot springs: a large public one shared by many, and private ones attached to individual rooms. Since the public bath was the largest, I planned to use it for a proper investigation.
“Then I’ll head to the hot springs first.”
Feeling refreshed after replenishing my body with honey wine, I grabbed a change of clothes and entered the bath area. I examined the inn’s hot springs. There were three public baths in total, and the one in the center was the largest. That was where I needed to go.
I undressed at the entrance to the central bath, neatly folded my clothes, and stepped inside. The central hot spring was incredibly spacious, yet there wasn’t a single person in it. Lucky me.
I splashed water over my body to rinse off lightly, then carefully dipped my toes into the spring. It was very hot. That meant it was the perfect temperature to enjoy. Once I had lowered my lower body into the water, I stretched luxuriously and looked up at the sky.
In a modern city, it was hard to see stars even on the clearest nights. It wasn’t a problem of air pollution. It was the lights. With so many stars on the ground, the ones in the sky became invisible. But Happy Mid-land was different. With almost no artificial lighting, even in the middle of a village like this, the sky poured down with stars when you looked up.
Soaking in a wide open-air bath while gazing at the sky felt incredibly pleasant. It was on a completely different level from soaking in a tiny bathtub. I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation of the hot spring. The distinctive sulfur smell stung my nose, but aside from that, nothing else stood out. I couldn’t feel any healing power.
Another dud? Or did it require time? Since I wasn’t sure, I decided to submerge my head as well. I held my breath and dove straight into the spring.
That was when it happened.
Creak.
Someone opened the door and came inside. The newcomer splashed water over their body and lowered themselves into the spring.
“Haa…”
Whoever it was let out a long, satisfied breath, gazed at the star-filled sky, then closed their eyes and immersed their whole body in the sensation of the hot spring. Then they opened their eyes.
“Not this time either.”
“It’s too early to be certain. If the healing power were immediate, there would have been more precise rumors about it.”
“……”
The hot spring fell into silence. The person—Leon—suddenly noticed me popping out of the water and muttered in a trembling voice.
“Miss Ruina?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here…?”
“It seems this is a mixed bath.”
I patted Leon’s shoulder as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
“It’s fine. Relax.”
“……”
“This huge bath all to yourself… now it’s just the two of us. Anyway, it feels like quite a gain that only a small number of people get to use it, doesn’t it?”
“…Miss Ruina. I’ll leave now, so could you please look the other way?”
“You’re leaving already? Why not stay a little longer?”
“Miss Ruina.”
“I understand.”
I really was fine with it, but he was so shy. As Leon wished, I turned my body toward the opposite side of the entrance. There was the sound of water splashing for a moment, then the door closed.
I wiggled my toes while enjoying the hot spring, then slowly stood up. I should check the other springs too.
The room we had booked was quite expensive. It would make sense if I said it was twice as expensive as the others. That steep price included the cost of the private hot spring attached to the room, so not using it would be like throwing money into the air.
When I returned to the room, I went straight to the private hot spring and submerged myself.
“Haa…”
“Miss Ruina? Weren’t you going to use the public bath?”
“I did use that one too.”
Chris was already using the private hot spring. She was enjoying a half-body bath, soaking only her lower half. Looking at her like that, I narrowed my eyes. Something was strange.
“Miss Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“What exactly is that? Is it magic?”
“What are you talking about, Miss Ruina? They’re breasts.”
Chris adjusted her chest and tilted her head. I was the one who wanted to tilt my head. Where on earth had those huge things been hiding all this time? I was sure they had been as flat as a chopping board compared to my own body.
“Obviously I wrapped them with bandages. I was cross-dressing, remember?”
“You can hide that with bandages?”
It was truly a mystery of the human body. I stared intently at Chris’s pink eyes. More precisely, I stared at the strand of hair that slightly covered her eyes.
“Miss Chris. Did you dye that brown?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“There’s one strand of hair that’s still pink.”
“Ah. Looks like one strand didn’t get dyed. Yeah, that’s right. I dyed it. Pink is too noticeable, and it’s not exactly a masculine color, is it? If I didn’t dye it, the cross-dressing effect dropped a lot.”
“I see.”
It really hit me that Chris had gone through all sorts of hardships.
“Miss Ruina.”
Chris approached me with a suggestive tone. When I leaned against the wall of the hot spring and only moved my head to look at her, she continued.
“You know…”
“Yes?”
“How about doing a big business with me? With your magic, Miss Ruina, we could do anything.”
“I knew it. The real target was my body, wasn’t it?”
“The magic is the target.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s obvious it would take up a lot of time.”
I didn’t even have enough time to learn magic. I couldn’t afford to waste any on trivial matters.
“That’s too bad.”
“Isn’t what we’re doing now enough?”
“It’s not. It’s far from enough.”
For a moment, Chris’s eyes flashed with a golden light. It wasn’t actually glowing, but it gave that impression. It seemed her eyes had turned into gold coins along with her brain.
“What are you going to do after gathering that much money?”
“What are you going to do after gathering all that magic, Miss Ruina?”
“Use it, of course.”
“Same for me.”
If Chris craved gold coins the way I craved magic, I could roughly understand. I submerged myself up to my chin in the hot spring and relaxed my body.
“……”
“……”
“Miss Ruina. Then how about doing it as a side job? I won’t take up much of your time.”
“I think I’ll get up now.”
There were only two hot springs left that I hadn’t experienced yet: the women’s public bath and the men’s public bath. Leon would probably investigate the men’s one, so I decided to go to the women’s public bath.
When I entered the women’s public bath, I submerged myself in the warm water just like before. Maybe because I had gone back and forth between several hot springs in a short time, my body felt slightly swollen. It was probably just a feeling, and it was unlikely to actually be the case. It wasn’t because I was a mage—my body had always been like that. It didn’t change easily. Unless it was burned by fire, that is.
I enjoyed the hot spring with my whole body, but once again I couldn’t feel any healing power. I clicked my tongue.
“So the healing power thing really is just an empty rumor?”
“Isn’t that obvious? If an ordinary hot spring possessed healing power, recovery potions would have lost their usefulness long ago.”
At the sudden voice, I lifted my head. And at the sight that unfolded before me, I opened my mouth in shock.
Pink covered the entire world. A vitality that was hard to believe in the middle of a cold northern winter radiated with presence. Beneath that vitality. Under a peach tree. A woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties lay there completely naked, puffing on a long pipe.
When I blinked at that surreal sight, the woman who had exhaled a long trail of smoke slowly opened her mouth.
“Even if you stare like that, I won’t give you any peaches.”
“I didn’t ask for any.”