The Bath
"……."
Ugh. This really is mortifying.
Evelyn is naked, same as I am, but I'm so embarrassed that the fact doesn't even register. I've never shown my bare body to any woman besides my mother, and I have absolutely no immunity to a situation like this.
If I'd been watching from the far side of a monitor, of course I would've been cheering and loving every second of it. Her body, honed through long years of hunting, was unmistakably well made, and her face—a little wild in atmosphere, maybe—was still, at its core, a beautiful one.
But as I always find, the immediacy reality dumps on me is far too violent. If anyone else saw me now, they'd probably call me a hopeless idiot and ask how I could call myself a man. What am I supposed to do, though? I can't even meet her eyes. And right now, I'm not a man anyway.
So there I was, sunk in the water almost to my nose, blowing bubbles with my mouth.
I was already in. Nothing to be done about it. Finish fast and get out...
I'd been at it for a good while when Evelyn came up behind me, looking worried, and set a hand on my shoulder.
"Ira, I'm sorry for staring so hard earlier. I was just... a little startled, that's all."
She must have been quietly holding on to the remark I'd blurted out when I couldn't stand her staring any longer. Well, it wasn't really her fault.
"...I understand."
I looked quietly down at my own body and frowned.
These scars...
"Of course you'd be surprised. I was surprised too..."
Honestly, I really do find the scars pretty grotesque myself.
So why did I put them there? Wasn't this a character I made?
Well... because I didn't know.
The truth is, when I created the character, I left every preset untouched—including the scar options—and that's how it ended up like this. So please, don't misunderstand. I didn't slap those hideous scars onto the character because I have some weird taste. I'm a victim here too!
By the time I learned the scars existed, I'd already spent an entire day leveling the character. Only later, when I tried swapping outfits, did I discover that the parts hidden by clothing were crammed with ugly scars.
Starting the character over would've meant throwing away all the time and resources I'd already invested. I was only playing to farm gold, and burning an appearance-change ticket on a game like that felt like a waste, so I just left it... This is way too cruel!
If I'd known I was going to possess this body and have to live in it, I wouldn't have been so stingy with that ticket!
Anyway.
"So it's fine. I understand."
Evelyn being startled is only natural. I'd just been embarrassed that she kept staring so openly.
And then, all of a sudden, Evelyn strode right up and seized my shoulders.
Wait—what is this?
"...What's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter at all. Your body is beautiful."
"...P-pardon?"
She just closed in and said what, exactly? My scars aren't strange? They're beautiful? Don't tell me that's your type?
Faced with a situation I simply could not believe, I barely managed to get my mouth open through the shock.
"Y-you... like my scars...?"
"Of course. You're a beautiful person. So—"
????
I was completely lost. Beautiful? That? She actually seemed sincere.
This person really was strange!
Maybe I needed to run, right now—
As I tried to cover myself and pull free, Evelyn went on even more firmly.
"You don't have to hide like that from me."
"—!"
Hide what! What, exactly, am I not supposed to hide!?
No wonder she'd been so nice to me! And bathing together—I'd thought it was strange from the very start—!
Evelyn was a pervert!
I immediately started thrashing to escape her grip.
And then—
"Ah!"
"Ira! Look out!"
Splash—!
Once I understood that Evelyn hadn't been trying to have her way with my body—that she'd only wanted to give me a little confidence—I quietly entrusted my head to her hands and watched the stream slip by.
"I'm sorry..."
"It's all right. Just don't move so suddenly in the water, okay?"
"Okay..."
I had nothing to say for myself. Misunderstanding everything on my own, overreacting, panicking, and falling over—what kind of disgrace was that? I'd nearly drowned in water that only came up to my waist.
What on earth must Evelyn think of me?
Of course, I'm not actually in any state where drowning is possible. Still, if I passed out stark naked, drifted down the stream, and got found by strangers, I think I'd count that as worse than death. So Evelyn is, in any case, the hero who saved me from social death.
And here I am making that hero attend to me in the bath. I do feel a little bad about it. Can't be helped, though. I don't know how to wash this hair.
Speaking of which, once it drinks up water, this hair gets ridiculously heavy. I'd had my whole head submerged for a while, after all. For a second I thought someone was yanking me from behind. If not for that, I never would've fallen in like such an idiot.
With my head left in her care, Evelyn carefully poured water over it as if she were combing it down, working her fingers through the strands to loosen them.
"I've been thinking it this whole time, but your hair is really lovely, Ira. Were you born with it?"
"Th-th-thank you..."
After forcing out that single line, I shut my mouth again.
...Compliments are so awkward. Especially compliments about my appearance—the kind I've never once received—so I have no idea how I'm supposed to react.
When the silence began to stretch once more, Evelyn spoke first again.
"Are you looking forward to the festival?"
"I don't know..."
If she asks whether I'm looking forward to the festival... well. Honestly, I'm not sure. Even in my previous life, I never went looking for performances like that unless my parents dragged me along. So when someone says festival, I don't even know what I'm supposed to look forward to.
"I don't know. I don't even really know what people do at a festival..."
At that, Evelyn's hands paused as if she were thinking, and then she went on with a small laugh.
"Hehe. Right. Food, dancing, singing... none of that really gets you excited, does it?"
I nodded at once.
Food, dancing, singing? Is she kidding? What is this, a college retreat? Call it delicious food all you want—there won't be a single thing there that I think of as food. I dance horrifically and have no interest in it, and I hate singing, obviously. If I go, the whole program is already written: I'll stand there stiff as a borrowed sack of barley, clap like a board, and come home.
Ugh. Did I agree to go for nothing? Should I say I'm not going, even now?
Just as I was thinking that—
"Are you interested in peddlers, maybe?"
"Peddlers?"
Peddlers? Those bundle merchants who bring goods in from outside and sell them?
Honestly, I'm not completely uninterested. Maybe because what I used to do was gold farming—a kind of professional curiosity toward people in a related line of work. Not that I have any particular plan to farm gold off price gaps the way I did back then. There's nothing to do with money here. No games, no comics, no delivery food, no internet. So I don't even feel the will to earn any. What would I spend it on? I can barely hold a proper conversation with people. It's not as if I can go out and fool around with women.
Ah—wait. With this body, I couldn't fool around with women in the first place, could I? Walk into a place like that looking like this, and I'd get turned away at the door for any number of reasons.
So the interest I have is genuinely pure: simple curiosity about what those people could possibly be selling that brings them all the way to a tiny country village like this.
"What do they sell?"
Evelyn seemed to think for a moment, then went on.
"Hmm, well. Lots of curious items you can't see in our village, I'd imagine? You might even be able to buy something like a cute doll."
"...A cute... doll?"
A cute doll... Oh, come on. Who does she think I am, a child? A doll!
There had better be something more interesting than that. A glowing crystal slate that connects to the internet, say. If something like that actually existed, I'd sell an organ to buy it.
...Which, of course, it doesn't.
I was scoffing to myself when Evelyn—perhaps thinking the curl of my mouth meant I liked the idea—went on in an even brighter voice.
"And this year, they invited a famous circus troupe from outside. It'll be fun."
"A circus?"
A circus? The kind where strongmen do stunts and trained animals leap through rings of fire?
Hmm...
That might actually tempt me. This, I could say with confidence. I'll admit it. Until now, the highest-dopamine spectacle available to me had been Unit 3's no-holds-barred documentary of a mansion-garden plant-growing race, and a circus would absolutely crush that mind-numbing repeat content.
Evelyn had, in the end, persuaded me brilliantly.
The moment I showed interest, I felt her strangely warm gaze settle on my face.
"Is there something on my face...?"
"...Pfft. No."
She laughed softly and shook her head.
"Oh, and you'll get to see Mari, too."
"Huh?"
Who?
When I put on a face that said I genuinely had no idea, Evelyn answered.
"Mari. The child you saved."
"Ah."
That kid. I wonder if she's been all right since that day. I am a little curious.
The festival, which until now had been nothing but a vague worry, suddenly has a purpose of its own—and bit by bit, even I'm starting to look forward to it. The way things stand, I might actually be able to enjoy it.
That was when—
"Oh, and one more thing."
What? It's not over?
"Actually, the inn is preparing all sorts of things specially this time."
"The inn? What kind of things?"
"Well..."
Evelyn smiled faintly.
"It might be all right to look forward to it, just a little."
No—look forward to what, exactly? So what is the inn plotting? Don't tell me. It's not actually that, right? We cleared up that misunderstanding earlier. Right?
I carefully wrapped my arms around myself.
Evelyn, for her part, only thought I was cold.