Bathing
The next day.
As soon as morning came, I left the inn and headed toward the bustling district in search of a decent lodging house.
Where should I go? Something like this really ought to be picked based on recommendations.
For now, though, the only thing to do was judge by appearances. I still had plenty of time today, after all.
Then it struck me: since it was morning, plenty of people would be coming out of the lodging houses.
So I could just watch them. Their faces would tell me everything I needed to know.
I’d be able to tell whether they were satisfied or dissatisfied.
Thank goodness I had the bamboo hat and face veil on.
Standing around and staring at an inn from morning till noon would’ve looked a little ridiculous.
Like some couple-lover watching the motel entrance to see if an affair partner comes out.
After checking two or three places that way, I found a lodging house that looked decent and went inside.
Oh. Not bad. This works. All that effort this morning was worth it. See? A person really does need to use their head.
Maybe because I’d asked them to prepare a bath when I paid the silver, the maids came and filled the tub with water.
Warm water, rising in soft waves of steam.
Once they’d finished, the maids explained a few things, bowed politely, and left.
So now then. That means I can wash, right?
I went out and secured the door. The lodging house was on the fourth floor. No one would be able to see in through the window.
Perfectly private.
Just thinking that made my heart start thumping for no reason.
Weird. It was only a bath.
I took off my martial robe.
It was only me taking it off, one layer at a time, but somehow that felt incredibly embarrassing.
It felt like I was doing something bad. Like I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing.
So as soon as I was naked, I hurriedly wrapped my body in the prepared linen cloth.
It was only a momentary glimpse of nudity, and it was my body anyway.
Even so, seeing it somehow made me feel strange.
I stepped into the bath of warm water.
The water level rose higher than I expected. Even so, once my whole body was submerged, it didn’t climb all that much.
"Haaah."
As soon as I sank in completely, a sigh slipped out on its own.
Ah. Nice. Really nice.
Only then did the old-man part of me start surfacing, at least a little.
Well, my original age was still too young to really call me an old man.
Twenty-five isn’t an old man, is it? That’s just the kind of joke people make online.
Ah. If you’ve done your military service, maybe it does count?
What a strange feeling.
At twenty-five, I was sitting here in a woman’s body, wrapped in linen cloth, soaking in hot water.
The linen clung tightly where it was soaked through. Thanks to that, my figure was laid bare for all to see.
Especially my chest. That was the problem. It was attached to my body, all right... but honestly, it was kind of sexy.
I should’ve been looking at this from the other side, as a man.
Who knew I’d end up seeing it from this angle?
How long am I supposed to stay here?
The Demon Lord of the heretical sect, the Blood Cult leader, the Heavenly Demon General.
They’re not the sort of opponents I can easily defeat. No matter what I did here, I might still fail to beat them.
In that case, I’d probably have to get used to this body eventually, wouldn’t I?
But even after all this, I still wasn’t mentally prepared.
This was hard. I didn’t know it would be so hard to accept.
So first, I decided to do something about my hair.
Even tied up high, my white hair still fell all the way to my waist.
Because of that, once I got into the water, it floated and swayed on the surface like seaweed.
What was that painting again? Women Bathing During the Dano Festival?
The one where women are shown secretly bathing and swinging on a swing.
Like the women in that painting, I gathered my hair to the left and slowly swept it down.
It was fine and soft, though a little stiff, so it never tangled.
When I gathered it and lifted it, water had soaked deep into it and began streaming down in little rivulets.
Geez. How am I supposed to wash and dry this every time?
I’d heard women’s hair wasn’t easy to dry.
Well, now that was my problem.
But there wasn’t even a hair dryer here, was there?
This was going to be a pain. How am I supposed to dry all this? No wonder people can’t wash their hair often.
I needed to wash my body, but my hands just wouldn’t move.
I was still a little short on courage.
So I leaned back for a moment and thought about what I had to do next.
That man—no, the elder. Right. Byeokunja.
I’d been terribly misunderstood. The problem was that if I kept getting misunderstood like that, I’d have no way to explain myself.
So the best thing would be to meet the woman from that North Sea Ice Palace in person.
Then the misunderstanding would be cleared up. And I’d be able to return the manual of the Ice Soul Divine Art I was carrying.
The problem was that even if I wanted to find her, I had no way to do it.
So I needed to change my approach. It would be much easier to make her come looking for me.
If she’d come all the way from the North Sea Ice Palace to a place as far south as the Central Plains, she had to have considerable ability.
At the very least, she’d have a much easier time finding me than I’d have finding her.
In that case, I needed to spread the word. I had to keep using the Ice Soul Divine Art until news of me spread everywhere.
Rumors like that would spread fast, wouldn’t they?
The biggest flaw in this plan was that it amounted to impersonation.
So I’d have to conduct myself carefully. Make sure it didn’t cross into real impersonation.
And even if she did come looking, I had to avoid making things awkward enough to leave us both red-faced.
I was already struggling because even the strategy guides I knew were fading from memory, leaving me no idea what I was supposed to do.
Still, this was good. It solved several problems at once.
With that settled in my mind, I finally got back to bathing.
First, let’s wash this hair. Might as well use what the maids told me about earlier.
I had no idea what the ingredients were, but it was a black, oily lump with a faint herbal scent to it.
I used that to wash my hair. It didn’t lather up or anything, but it did feel like it was cleaning.
After washing all of it, I grabbed my hair and wrung it out as hard as I could.
Water streamed down in a rush. Hmm. With this much strength, I really could squeeze the water out well.
Once I’d gotten out as much moisture as possible, I wrapped it in the linen cloth and somehow managed to pile it up on my head.
I’d seen women do something like this before. Ah. Yeah, that looked roughly right.
With my wet hair pinned up, I turned to washing my body.
Hoo. It’s fine. It’s my body. No, it isn’t my body, but right now it’s my body.
Ah. I don’t know. Even thinking like this makes me feel pathetic.
So I unwound the damp linen cloth and scrubbed myself down in the water.
And when my own hand brushed my breasts, I felt something truly indescribable.
To feel the pleasure of touching and being touched at the same time... good grief. That was bizarre.
When I washed below, I couldn’t help letting out a sigh.
Still, I clenched my eyes shut and kept going, and in the end I was able to wash everything thoroughly clean.
Ah. Exhausting. I didn’t know a simple bath could be this tiring.
Still, I probably wouldn’t have to suffer like this forever. They always said the first step was half the journey.
Since I’d scrubbed every inch of myself, my body didn’t feel nearly as awkward anymore.
That made me feel more at ease, too. And thankfully, there was something here that looked a bit like a chamber pot.
It was lined with all sorts of sawdust-like stuff inside.
I thought for a second it was like cat litter. But this was at least better. Better than that filthy latrine, anyway.
Thanks to that, I could finally lie down on the bed in light clothes, body and mind both washed clean.
Hoo. I’m alive.
I couldn’t do this every day, but I should probably make a habit of it sometimes.
If I just had a mattress now, I wouldn’t ask for anything else... but let’s be patient. That kind of thing wouldn’t appear for several hundred years yet.
Facing the things I’d been unsure about and settling them head-on had definitely been the right choice.
I couldn’t keep avoiding them. And I couldn’t just pretend not to see them either.
So I was going to have to live in this world while looking straight at my own reflection.
This face. A face that could honestly be called beautiful.
There was no need to hide it or keep it covered all the time. If necessary, I’d need to reveal it, too.
Acting like a woman? Of course, that still wasn’t easy. The resistance hadn’t completely disappeared.
But even so, there was something a little strange about having my body become female while my manner of speaking stayed exactly the same as before.
I wasn’t going to turn into some shameless little vixen. Absolutely not.
But I would probably need to behave a little more like a woman. Naturally, without forcing it.
Honestly, this was something I should’ve been doing from the moment I got here. And I was only getting around to it now.
Anyway, with a much lighter heart, I finished drying my hair.
My hair was still damp. Enough that I had to think seriously about how on earth to dry it properly.
As I looked around the lodging house with wet hair, I found a comb.
So I sat on the bed, tilted my head to the side, and slowly began combing through my hair.
It felt strange. But not awkward, and not alien either.
It was something I’d have to do until I was sick of it.
Something my hands would eventually do on their own without me even thinking about it.
Maybe because of that, brushing my hair made my mind feel calmer, too.
Was this really the kind of thing that soothed you so much? I found peace in a weird place, didn’t I?
With each stroke of the comb, my hair became more and more orderly.
Maybe that was what I liked about it. Neatness. The way disorder could be set right.
Then, suddenly, I thought of the Ice Soul Divine Art I possessed.
Ice Soul Divine Art creates cold, right? Then maybe it could lightly freeze wet hair?
Worth trying. It’s not like I’d lose anything by testing it.
The cold that came out of me was still only faint, but I wrapped it around both hands and ran them through my hair.
Then only the wetness on the surface froze slightly, and when I gave my hair a shake, little flakes of ice pattered down to the floor and melted away.
It actually worked. But was this bad for my hair? Wasn’t this kind of thing really terrible?
At least on the surface, it looked fine... so I kept going. And as I did, my hair dried much faster than I’d expected.
The dampness didn’t disappear completely, though.
I’d just used my martial art in the strangest possible way. Still, wouldn’t a martial art that produced heat be even better?
Some kind of solar yang art? What else was there? I couldn’t remember any other techniques.
Then that would basically make a hair dryer, wouldn’t it? No, wait. What was it? That tool for curling hair.
Ah! A curling iron. Would it become a curling iron? Could I even make a perm with it?
Thinking that, I couldn’t help snickering.
Honestly, I really had adapted to this world far too easily.
Fortunately, that was a good thing.