Chapter 9
Chapter 9
What Even Is This “Bath”?
“…Saintess?”
The Hero candidate had arrived. Which meant Cassian had finally appeared. In the original story, the Hero of our Order had been that bastard.
Considering it took at least a year for a Hero candidate to be formally recognized as the true Hero, that meant there was still a minimum of one year left before the original story truly began.
Of course, he could’ve already started scheming while still a candidate, so I couldn’t let my guard down.
“Saintess Beatrice!”
“Wah— y-yeah? You called?”
Father Bartholomew’s thunderous voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I flinched in surprise as I stammered out a response.
“…Are you alright? Your complexion is pale.”
“Uh… I’m fine.”
“You look white as a sheet. What part of that looks fine?”
The old priest studied me with a worried expression.
“Don’t exaggerate, old man. I just… got a little surprised hearing that a Hero candidate had arrived.”
“Hm.”
Ignoring my explanation completely, Bartholomew raised his divine power and checked my condition himself.
“At least there doesn’t appear to be anything seriously wrong. Still, I didn’t expect news of a Hero candidate to make you react like an ordinary girl your age.”
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about, old man?”
“Considering the way you usually act, it feels more like there’s a thirty-year-old man living inside you.”
“…Gweh.”
The shock made me bite my tongue, and an utterly bizarre scream escaped my mouth.
T-too sharp.
I’d thought this for a while now, but this old man’s instincts were terrifyingly good.
“Tch. How many times have I told you not to make such undignified noises?”
“That’s because you keep saying weird things.”
I healed my bitten tongue with divine power while sinking back into thought.
‘What should I do about Cassian?’
That was a question I’d been asking myself ever since entering the Order.
I didn’t know how he’d managed to place the entire Order under his control. I didn’t even know how strong he truly was.
In the worst-case scenario, he might already be someone even I couldn’t handle. Heroes possessed power and potential beyond ordinary humans, after all.
Other than his name and title, everything about him was hidden behind a veil.
Naturally, there was no way to prepare a perfect countermeasure.
That was why I’d chosen a simpler solution: become strong enough that no one could trample over me, and strengthen the Order enough that it wouldn’t collapse easily.
Like I’d said before, the preparations were perfect.
Our Order now possessed one of the greatest military powers among the Seven Holy Orders.
“Saintess!”
“Uh… huh?”
Bartholomew’s shout once again dragged me out of my thoughts.
Seeing my dazed reaction, the old priest shook his head in exasperation.
“…How many times have I called you now? Is something truly wrong with you?”
“N-no?”
“Then let me ask differently. What exactly did you discuss with the Goddess?”
His question reminded me of something I’d temporarily forgotten because of Cassian.
Right. I needed to ask about this “bath” thing. The Goddess had specifically told me to speak to either the old priest or the Pope about it.
“The Goddess told me I need to take a bath.”
“…A bath, you say.”
Bartholomew frowned deeply.
Well, of course he would. I was an exceptionally clean person by default.
“Right now, the Hero is irrelevant.”
“The Hero is irrelevant?”
“Yes.”
What?
No matter how much of a bastard Cassian was, the Hero was still an enormously important asset.
In the original story, the protagonist— wait, what was his name again? Whatever. Anyway, even though he started out barely at trainee holy knight level, once he experienced real combat and training, he became stronger than full-fledged holy knights in no time at all.
And if you considered the symbolic significance carried by the title of Hero, it definitely wasn’t something that deserved to be called “irrelevant.”
“I never thought I’d hear the words ‘Hero is irrelevant’ come out of your mouth, old man.”
“When several tasks overlap, what did I teach you to do first?”
Instead of answering directly, the old priest suddenly threw out a philosophical-sounding question.
“Handle the important thing first?”
At least that lecture had been drilled into me enough times that the answer came automatically.
“Good. Then the bath comes first.”
“…Yeah, but I seriously don’t understand.”
What was so important about a bath?
Sure, from my perspective—knowing what kind of monster Cassian really was—calling the Hero “irrelevant” made sense.
That bastard’s actions had been about a million light-years removed from a Hero’s duty to protect people and fight demons and monsters.
But for Bartholomew, who didn’t know any of that, to dismiss the Hero so casually?
That meant this “bath” was genuinely considered more important than the Hero himself.
Clearly, this wasn’t an ordinary bath like the kind I was imagining.
It was probably some sort of metaphor for something else entirely.
Honestly, I really wanted to joke about it, but seeing the serious expression on the old priest’s face, now definitely didn’t seem like the time.
…And both the Pope and the Goddess had already asked me to stop stressing him out so much.
“Return to your room, purify your body and mind, and wait there. I’ll prepare the bath with His Holiness, so please, for once, remain still.”
“…Alright.”
Without even waiting for my response, the old priest hurried off somewhere.
“This bath thing must really be important. Seeing the old man run through the hallway like that…”
I muttered blankly while watching his retreating figure disappear into the distance.
Then I obediently returned to my room and waited.
…And before I knew it, evening arrived.
I’d spent the entire day sprawled across my bed, repeatedly falling asleep and waking up. By the time I came to my senses, darkness had already settled outside the window.
“…Wait. Did he just tell me to stay locked in my room in a really roundabout way?”
I stared out at the night sky and muttered absentmindedly.
Doing absolutely nothing all day except rolling around in bed, falling asleep, waking up, hugging my blankets and pillows, then going back to sleep again somehow made me feel strangely guilty.
Probably because I’d spent my whole life constantly busy until now.
Still… what exactly had the old priest told me earlier again? I’d slept since then, so my memory was fuzzy.
Hmm… purify my body and mind…
Purify…
Ah, right. He told me to relax, didn’t he?
Well, spending the whole day rolling around in bed definitely counted as relaxing.
Which meant I’d perfectly fulfilled Father Bartholomew’s request.
Maybe this would finally stop his forehead from receding.
The guilt vanished completely, replaced instead by a sense of pride.
But one question still remained.
“What kind of bath takes this long to prepare?”
Could this entire thing just be some underhanded trick to keep me quietly locked away so I wouldn’t go meet the Hero candidate?
That actually… sounded plausible…!
I shot upright from the bed and immediately prepared to march out and confront the old priest about it.
Knock knock—
“Saintess? Are you inside?”
“Marie?”
“May I come in?”
“Uh, yeah. Come in. What is it?”
But before I could leave, my attendant priestess Marie entered the room after knocking.
In her hands were a white robe and a container filled with fragrant oil.
“What’s that?”
“I was instructed to apply this oil to your body and have you wear the robe before bringing you along.”
“…Father Bartholomew told you to?”
“His Holiness did.”
“Oh… okay.”
So the bath preparations really had taken this long?
And the Pope himself had given the order.
Just how important was this bath supposed to be?
Swallowing nervously, I nodded.
“Now then, please undress.”
“…Excuse me?”
“You need to undress so I can apply the oil.”
“Can’t I just do it myself?”
No matter what, stripping completely naked in front of another woman and getting rubbed down with oil was a little…
“Enough complaining. Hurry up and take your clothes off and lie down. I was told to bring you quickly.”
“Uugh…”
I obediently nodded.
After Marie carefully spread fragrant oil across my entire body, I left the room wearing nothing but a thin white robe over my bare skin.
“…This feels weird. Like I’ve become some kind of pervert.”
Walking through the Order’s hallways wearing nothing but a robe over my naked body felt incredibly strange.
And the way Marie kept looking at me felt strange too.
“What?”
“…It’s just a little odd hearing you say that while regularly walking around in those sacred ritual robes.”
“Shut up.”
Weaponized facts are evil, Marie.
Pouting slightly, I continued following behind her.
The place where we finally stopped was a secluded corridor deep within the Order.
Marie lightly shifted one of the torch holders mounted on the wall to illuminate the darkness of night.
Rumble—
With a deep mechanical sound, a staircase leading underground revealed itself.
“…Whoa. The Order 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? Why am I suddenly excited?”
The situation appealed directly to the male fantasy buried deep in my soul, and admiration escaped my lips without thinking.
“So it seems. They told me that after escorting you inside and leaving, I’d forget everything about this place.”
“…Seriously? They’re going that far?”
There had to be something hidden here that absolutely couldn’t become known.
We passed through the underground corridor, which carried a strangely ancient and elegant atmosphere, and eventually arrived at…
“…A bathhouse?”
A bathhouse.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Why the hell would a bathhouse need to be this secret?
And why was it so ridiculously extravagant?
Was this some kind of bathhouse made specifically for the Goddess?
After all, during the Descent Festival held once every ten years, the Goddess would descend into the mortal world in physical form.
“This is the bathhouse prepared for the Goddess.”
The Pope, who’d been waiting inside, spoke while watching me glance around in amazement.
“You’re serious?”
I’d only made that guess as a joke, but somehow I’d actually been right.
Maybe I was secretly a genius.
“…Wait. Is all of this holy water? What the hell? How much money did you people pour into this?”
My jaw dropped as I stared at the shimmering silver liquid filling the bath.
A single small vial of holy water cost roughly the equivalent of a commoner’s monthly living expenses.
And this place had enough to fill an entire bathhouse.
In other words, this was basically the same as filling a giant pool with gold coins and bathing in it.
…Actually, probably even more expensive than that.
Either way, the cost was so astronomical that I couldn’t even begin calculating it.
“You may enter.”
“Naked?”
The Pope nodded.
“Ah.”
“A grown lady should not be so unconcerned about undressing in front of men, Saintess.”
I’d immediately started to remove my robe, only for the Pope to stop me.
“…But Grandpa, you literally told me to get in.”
“You may enter the bath after Marie and I leave.”
The Pope lit the incense burner placed beside the bath.
Silver mist slowly began flowing out from it.
“You must remain submerged until the incense burns completely.”
I glanced at the slowly burning incense and nodded.
“Marie, let us step outside.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
Marie and the Pope left the bath chamber.
After removing my robe completely, I turned toward the mirror standing at the edge of the room.
A breathtakingly beautiful naked woman stood reflected there without a single thread covering her body.
“…Seriously, this body really is ridiculous.”
I’d lived in this body for thirteen years now, so seeing myself naked no longer filled me with shame or guilt.
And it wasn’t like I’d suddenly possessed this body overnight. I’d watched it gradually grow and mature since childhood.
Which honestly made things even more annoying.
“Though that just makes it more irritating.”
Watching my body slowly become more feminine as I grew older—developing secondary sexual characteristics and all that—had been absolute torture.
It felt like the world constantly reminding me: You are a woman now.
And the first time I experienced… that…
Seriously…
I’d wanted to die from embarrassment.
“Let’s not think about that.”
How long until the next cycle again?
Ah… damn it. Next week.
I hated it so much. The pain was unbearable every single time.
Having to endure that miserable suffering once every month really made female bodies feel absurdly unfair.
While grumbling to myself, I cautiously dipped a toe into the bath.
The holy water felt strangely different from normal water—more viscous somehow, smooth and sticky as it wrapped around my skin.
…Was it really safe to get into this?
For some reason, instinctive rejection welled up inside me.
I’d never actually seen it before, but somehow it reminded me of mercury.
Back in ancient China, there’d supposedly been an emperor who believed mercury granted immortality, so he’d bathed in it and coated himself with it until he died of mercury poisoning.
…Honestly, since this world was basically medieval fantasy, it wouldn’t even be shocking if people here had mistaken mercury for holy water.
Of course, that wasn’t the case.
Holy water was painstakingly consecrated by high-ranking priests over long periods of time.
“Eh, whatever. It’s not like the Goddess would tell me to do something harmful.”
Don’t drink holy water. Apply it to your skin.
I absentmindedly parodied a commercial slogan that popped into my head as I slowly lowered myself into the bath.
“Ughhh… this feels weird.”
The holy water clung to my body more thickly than ordinary water, making me instinctively frown.
“Seriously, I’ll never get used to this.”
Ah, right.
There was one more thing I hated about having a female body.
Whenever I submerged myself in a bath, those excessively oversized lumps of flesh would float upward because of buoyancy.
They got in the way when swinging a spear, they were annoying during baths, and they were probably responsible for half my back pain too.
Sure, they were nice to look at when attached to someone else.
But having them on my own body? Absolutely useless.
Apparently ancient Amazon warriors cut off one breast because of inconveniences like this.
…Unfortunately, I didn’t have the courage for something like that.
That would definitely hurt like hell.
If they were going to reincarnate me anyway, they could’ve at least given me a male body.
Preferably a handsome one with a great physique.
Still grumbling internally, I finally sank all the way down until only my head remained above the surface.
The silver mist pouring from the incense burner had completely filled the bath chamber now.
Submerged in the warm holy water, it felt as though I’d been wrapped inside a giant cocoon.
Yet instead of suffocating, the sensation felt strangely comforting.
The countless thoughts crowding my head slowly dissolved into hazy drowsiness.
And there, embraced by the shimmering silver holy water, I drifted into a deep sleep.