What the Hell Is a Bath?
What the hell is a bath supposed to be, anyway?
“…Saintess?”
The hero candidate had arrived. So Cassian had finally shown up. In the original story, he was the one who became the hero of our church, after all. Considering it took at least a year to go from hero candidate to officially recognized hero, that meant we still had at least a year before the main plot kicked off. Of course, I couldn’t let my guard down completely—he might have already started pulling strings while he was still just a candidate.
“Saintess Beatrice!”
“Whoa—huh? Did you call me?”
I flinched at Grand Priest Bartholomew’s booming voice and stammered like an idiot.
“…Are you feeling alright? Your face is terribly pale.”
“Uh… I’m fine.”
“Your face looks like a blank sheet of paper. How exactly is that ‘fine’?”
The old man stared at me with a deeply worried expression.
“Don’t make such a fuss, old man. I was just a little startled by the news that the hero candidate was coming, that’s all.”
“Hmph.”
Grand Priest Bartholomew ignored my words entirely and began channeling holy power to examine my condition.
“Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong. I’m surprised, though. To think the news of a hero candidate would fluster you—this is quite girlish behavior for someone your age.”
“What are you even talking about, old man?”
“Given your usual behavior, I always assumed there was a thirty-something man living inside that body of yours.”
“…Guhk!”
I was so shocked I accidentally bit my tongue and let out a weird strangled noise. Damn, that was sharp. I’d felt it before, but this old man really had frighteningly good intuition.
“Tsk. Haven’t I told you not to make such undignified sounds?”
“It’s your fault for saying weird shit.”
I healed my bitten tongue with holy power and sank back into thought.
How the hell am I supposed to deal with Cassian?
It was a question I’d been wrestling with ever since I first entered the church. I had no idea how he’d taken control of the church in the original story. I didn’t even know how strong he was. In the worst case, he might be so powerful that even my current self couldn’t handle him. After all, heroes were said to possess power and potential that far surpassed ordinary humans.
A man whose name and title were the only things not shrouded in mystery. Naturally, there was no way to prepare a proper countermeasure. So the path I chose was simple: become strong enough that no one could trample me, and make sure our church’s full military power was preserved or strengthened so it wouldn’t crumble easily.
As I’d said before, my preparations were perfect. Among the seven great holy orders, our church boasted the highest combat strength.
“Saintess!”
“Uh… yeah?”
Grand Priest Bartholomew’s thunderous voice yanked me out of my thoughts again. He shook his head at my dazed reaction.
“Haa… I’ve called you several times and you keep missing it. Is something really wrong?”
“No, there isn’t?”
“Then let me rephrase the question. What exactly did you discuss with the Goddess?”
Thanks to the old man’s question, I remembered something I’d momentarily forgotten because of Cassian’s arrival. Right. I needed to talk about the bath. The Goddess had specifically told me to tell either the old man or the Pope.
“The Goddess told me to take a bath.”
“A… bath, you say.”
The old man frowned at my words. Yeah, I guess it would sound ridiculous to him. I was someone who kept herself ridiculously clean on a daily basis.
“I see. In that case, the hero candidate is no longer the priority.”
“The hero is ‘no longer the priority’?”
“Correct.”
What? No matter how much of a bastard Cassian was, a hero was still a vital asset. In the original story, the protagonist—who started out as nothing more than a novice holy knight—grew strong enough to surpass fully ordained holy knights the moment he began real training and combat experience. Not to mention the sheer symbolic weight the title of hero carried. It wasn’t something you could just dismiss with “no longer the priority.”
“I never thought I’d hear you call a hero ‘no longer the priority,’ old man.”
“Didn’t I teach you how to prioritize tasks when multiple things pile up at once?”
Out of nowhere, the old man answered my question with something that sounded like a Zen koan.
“You said to handle the important things first, right?”
It was a lecture I’d heard so many times that the answer popped out automatically.
“You remember well. Therefore, the bath comes first.”
“…Yeah, but I still don’t get it at all.”
Was taking a bath really that important? Of course, knowing Cassian’s future actions from the original story, I could understand calling him “no longer the priority.” The path that bastard took was about a million light-years away from a hero’s true duty of slaying demons and monsters to protect and save people. But hearing those words from the old man—who didn’t know any of that—was different. It meant that whatever this “bath” was, it was important enough to make even the word “hero” sound trivial.
It was probably nothing like the normal bath I was imagining. There was a high chance the word was being used as a metaphor for something else. Honestly, the word itself made me want to crack a dirty joke, but seeing the old man’s deadly serious expression, now clearly wasn’t the time. …Plus, both the Pope and the Goddess had asked me not to keep stressing everyone out.
“Return to your room, purify your body and mind, and wait. I will prepare the bath together with His Holiness the Pope, so please, for the love of the Goddess, behave yourself.”
“…Got it.”
The old man didn’t even wait for my reply before rushing off somewhere in a hurry.
“A bath must be a really big deal, huh? The same old man who treats running in the hallway like a cardinal sin just sprinted off like that.”
I muttered to myself in bewilderment as I watched his retreating back, then returned to my room and waited quietly.
…And so time passed. It was already evening.
I had flopped onto the bed and spent the wait repeatedly dozing off and waking up. When I finally came to my senses, darkness had already settled outside the window.
“What the… Did he just phrase ‘stay locked in your room like a good girl’ in a fancy way?”
I stared blankly at the darkness beyond the window and muttered to myself. I’d spent the entire day doing absolutely nothing—rolling around in bed, falling asleep, waking up, hugging the blanket and pillow while rolling around some more, then falling asleep again. After living like that all day, I somehow felt like I was committing a sin. Probably because I’d been living such a busy life until now.
Still, what exactly had the old man asked me to do…? What was it again? I couldn’t remember well after sleeping. Hmm… purify my body and mind… purify… purify… Oh, right. He told me to relax, didn’t he? Rolling around in bed all day definitely counted as relaxing. So I had done my absolute best to carry out the old man’s request. This should at least slow down the receding of his hairline.
The guilt completely vanished, replaced by a sense of proud accomplishment. I grinned.
But here was the real question.
“Just what the hell is a bath that it takes this long to prepare?”
Maybe this was the old man’s sneaky scheme to keep me quietly locked in my room now that the hero candidate had arrived. That actually made sense…!
I shot upright in bed and was about to storm outside to give the old man a piece of my mind when—
Knock knock—
“Saintess? Are you inside?”
“Mari?”
“May I come in?”
“Yeah, come in. What’s up?”
But my plan to go complain was foiled by Attendant Priestess Mari, who entered after knocking. In her hands were a white robe and a jar filled with fragrant oil.
“What’s that?”
“He said to apply the oil to your body, put on the robe, and then follow me.”
“…Did old man Bartholomew say that?”
“No, it was His Holiness the Pope.”
“Oh… I see.”
So the bath preparation really had taken this long? And the Pope himself had given the order? Just how important was this bath supposed to be? I swallowed hard and nodded.
“Then please undress first.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take your clothes off. How else am I supposed to apply the oil?”
“Can’t I do it myself?”
No matter what, stripping naked in front of another woman and letting her rub oil all over me felt a bit…
“Be quiet and take your clothes off, then lie down. We were told to bring you as quickly as possible.”
“Ugh…”
I obediently nodded. After she had meticulously applied the oil over every inch of my body, I slipped a single white robe over my bare skin and left the room.
“…This feels so weird. I feel like a pervert.”
Walking through the church corridors wearing nothing but a thin robe over my naked body felt incredibly strange. The way Mari was looking at me was strange too.
“What?”
“…It’s just a little odd hearing someone who walks around in Holy Vestments say that.”
“Shut up.”
Stating the facts like that is just mean, Mari. I pouted and continued following her.
The place we stopped was a rather secluded corridor of the church. When Mari touched one of the torches meant to light the night, a low rumbling sound echoed as a staircase leading underground revealed itself.
“…Whoa, the church had a secret passage like this?”
“This is my first time learning about it too.”
“Is there some kind of secret facility hidden down here? This is kinda exciting.”
The situation perfectly stimulated a man’s sense of adventure, and I couldn’t help letting out an impressed sigh.
“It seems so. I was told that the moment I escort you out of here, all memories of this place will be erased from my mind.”
“Wait, they’re going that far?”
It looked like there really was something here that couldn’t be allowed to become public knowledge. After passing through the strangely antique-feeling underground passage, we arrived at…
“A bathhouse?”
It was a bathhouse. What the hell? Did they really need to make a bathhouse this secretive? And why was it so ridiculously luxurious? Was this some kind of bathhouse built exclusively for the Goddess? She did descend to the mortal world in physical form once every ten years during the Descent Festival, after all.
“This is the bathhouse prepared for the Goddess.”
The Pope, who had been waiting inside the bathhouse, spoke to me as I looked around in open amazement.
“Wait, I was right?”
It had been a complete joke, but I’d guessed correctly. Maybe I was actually super smart?
“…Don’t tell me this is all holy water? Holy shit, how much did you pour in here?”
I had been quietly praising myself when I saw the silver liquid filling the bathhouse and my jaw dropped. A single small potion bottle of holy water cost as much as a commoner’s monthly living expenses. And right now, the entire bathhouse was filled with the stuff. In other words, it was like filling a bath with gold coins and bathing in it. …Maybe even more expensive than that. At any rate, the amount was so absurd I couldn’t even begin to calculate it.
“You may enter.”
“Naked?”
The Pope nodded.
“Ah.”
“A grown young lady should not be so shameless about undressing in front of a man, Saintess.”
I had immediately tried to strip off the robe, but the Pope stopped me.
“…But didn’t you tell me to get in?”
“Please enter the bath after Priestess Mari and I have left the room.”
The Pope lit an incense burner placed beside the bath. Silver mist began to flow from it.
“You must remain fully submerged until all the incense has burned away.”
I glanced at the incense slowly burning in the censer and nodded.
“Priestess Mari, let us leave her in peace.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
Mari and the Pope left the bath chamber. After removing the robe, I looked at the mirror on one side of the room. Reflected there was a sensual beauty wearing not a single thread.
“Hmm. It really is ridiculous, isn’t it?”
It had already been thirteen years since I started living in this body, so I no longer felt embarrassed or guilty looking at my own naked form. Besides, I hadn’t been thrown into it as an adult—I had watched this body grow from childhood, so there was even less reason for that.
“Of course, that only made it more annoying.”
Watching my body gradually become more feminine as secondary sexual characteristics developed had been pure torture. It was irritating because it constantly reminded me that I was now a woman. And the first time I experienced… that… it had been so mortifying I genuinely wanted to die.
“Let’s not think about that.”
How many days until my next cycle? Ah… damn it, it was next week. It hurt like absolute hell and I hated it. Having to suffer through that kind of dogshit pain once a month—women’s bodies were so unfair.
Grumbling to myself, I carefully dipped a toe into the bath. A strangely viscous yet soft sensation unlike normal water wrapped around my toes.
…Was it really okay to get in? It felt oddly repulsive. How should I put it? It looked like mercury, even though I’d never actually seen mercury in person. I recalled that one emperor in ancient China had believed mercury was an elixir of immortality, soaked in it, and rubbed it on his skin—only to die early from mercury poisoning.
…This was a medieval-like world. It wouldn’t be strange if they mistook mercury for holy water. Of course, that wasn’t the case. Holy water was created through careful blessing by high-ranking priests over a long period of time.
“Whatever, the Goddess wouldn’t tell me to do something that would actually hurt me.”
I hummed a modified version of an old advertisement slogan—Don’t drink holy water. Apply it to your skin instead—and slowly stepped into the bath.
“Ugh… this feels so weird.”
The way the holy water clung to my body even more stickily than regular water made me frown involuntarily.
“Damn, I really can’t get used to this.”
Oh, right. There was one more inconvenience that came with having a woman’s body. Every time I got into a bath, my ridiculously large breasts would float up due to buoyancy. They got in the way when I swung my spear, they were annoying in the bath, and they contributed heavily to my back pain. They had looked great on other people, but having them on my own body offered zero benefits. The ancient Amazon warriors supposedly cut off one breast because of inconveniences like this.
…Unfortunately, I didn’t have the courage to do that. It would hurt like absolute hell. If you’re going to reincarnate someone, at least give them a man’s body—preferably a handsome one with a great physique. That would’ve been so much better.
Complaining under my breath, I submerged myself all the way up to my neck. The silver mist rising from the incense burner had already filled the entire bath chamber. Being submerged in the warm holy water felt like being trapped inside a giant cocoon. Rather than feeling stifling, the first sensation that came was pure comfort. The cluttered thoughts that had filled my head melted away into a dreamy haze.
And so, cradled in the shimmering silver-white holy water, I slowly sank into a deep sleep.