Chapter 25
The saying that hardships in one's youth are worth paying for is nothing but bullshit, but it seems there really is some truth to the idea that a higher pain threshold builds stronger mental fortitude.
So Francesca must have been able to dismiss the sewer scouting request that had left me with hellish trauma as merely ‘one of the unpleasant memories she'd experienced in life.’
I couldn't believe she'd gone back to work in a sewer I didn't even want to look at for the time being. I could only admire her mental strength.
“Gwaaaaaaagh….”
“Hweeeeeeeeeee….”
But Francesca, caught giving off a terrible stench, and I, whose PTSD had resurfaced, ended up making a disgraceful spectacle of ourselves in the inn.
“What are you two doing?”
The innkeeper sighed as she watched us make a commotion at the entrance to her establishment.
“Frang. I'll lend you the bathroom, so go wash yourself.”
“Y-yes! Thank you! Mr. Nord, please wait a moment!”
Francesca hurriedly ran toward the back of the inn. Did this inn offer bathing facilities too? No, she was probably just lending Francesca her own bathroom.
“And you said you're Frang's friend, right? Then wash this girl's clothes too. You have nothing else to do while you're waiting.”
“Huh?”
It was an utterly bizarre line of reasoning, but my mental strength had been depleted by memories of my rendezvous with the katydids, so I couldn't even refuse and was dragged along at the innkeeper's command.
─Splash, splash.
So there I was, in the middle of doing laundry.
“Ugh, it's cold.”
The season was autumn, with the harvest approaching. It was the time of year when well water drawn from underground grew cold. It was a terrible season for doing laundry.
The laundry I had been given was Francesca's beloved gray robe. There wasn't any underwear or undergarment at all. I hadn't expected anything to begin with, but I still couldn't help feeling a harsh sense of anticlimax.
“Here's some water heated over the hearth.”
“Ah, thank you.”
The innkeeper's husband brought me heated water, which saved me somewhat. It was boiling hot. If I used it as-is for the laundry, by the time I finished, broth rendered from my hands would have seeped into the clothes.
So I mixed the heated water with cold well water to get the temperature right. In this world, that was how you controlled water temperature precisely.
Splaash─.
I scrubbed the poncho here and there with laundry soap. The stink soaked into the clothes didn't come out easily, so it was fairly tough.
“Gnnngh.”
Fuck. I wanted to use Beast Regression. With that, laundry would be nothing. Since it also made me resistant to the cold, I could have used even ice-cold water without a problem.
Still, I couldn't use Beast Regression. I had no idea what kind of problem it might cause with my dick next.
I was afraid that every time I used it, my dick would grow until it eventually exceeded fifty centimeters, forcing me to wrap it around my waist like a Saiyan tail.
I imagined myself with my dick wrapped around my waist like a belt and shuddered in fear. If I got punched in the stomach in the middle of a fight, the dick wrapped around my waist would snap right in half.
─Splash, splash, splash, splash!!
I moved my hands faster to drive the horrifying image from my mind.
When I first started doing laundry, I wondered why I had to be doing this, but once I actually tried it, it wasn't so bad. When you move your body, you don't have room for distracting thoughts. I remembered a friend who was dieting saying that working a part-time job was nice because he never felt hungry while he was working.
Squeeeze….
I pressed the poncho firmly into the hot water with all my strength.
Splaash….
Splash.
But when I lifted the waterlogged poncho, I heard water sloshing outside the washbasin as well. I blinked in the middle of doing the laundry.
“Huh?”
“Eek?!”
A voice answered mine immediately.
It was Francesca.
“M-M-Mr. Nord?! Are you there?!”
“Ms. Francesca? Uh... was this the bathroom?”
The sheer bewilderment in Francesca's voice came through clearly. The voice was coming from a window in the wall.
Was the bathing area beside the inn's well? Perhaps, when the building was designed, they had figured it would be easier to move water if the pipes were installed near the well.
But because of that, I was suddenly in danger of being regarded as a fucking perverted peeping-tom bastard. So I quickly explained.
“I'm sorry. I didn't know the area beside the well was the bathroom. The innkeeper told me to wash Ms. Francesca's clothes, so I was doing the laundry.”
“M-my clothes?! Why?!”
Exactly. I wanted to know too.
“Don't worry. It's nothing improper, just an outer garment. I'm quite good at washing clothes, so you don't need to worry about them being torn or damaged either.”
I had once been a 100-percent genuine, natural-born slave. I had done laundry plenty of times.
‘Come to think of it, I first really got to know Dana because of laundry too.’
My fellow graduate-student slave, Dana.
That scatterbrained master's student had accidentally put her underwear in the communal laundry. Our relationship began when she found me doing the laundry while cursing, wondering what shameless middle-aged woman had put her panties in there.
She was unusually conscientious for an otherworlder. She couldn't bring herself to blame me, but, unable to pretend to be unfazed because she had no experience with men, the torrent of nonsense from that perpetually single, scruffy-haired woman was still vivid in my memory.
“No, that's not it! I mean you don't have to wash my laundry or anything, Mr. Nord!”
The voice, almost a scream, brought my reminiscing to an end.
“Ah, I see. I can understand why that might have made you uncomfortable.”
A woman would probably feel offended or embarrassed if a man she wasn't close to touched her clothes. Since the woman who had dumped this chore on me was also a woman—the innkeeper—I hadn't thought much of it.
“I mean, it's not that I feel uncomfortable or anything…. I feel bad that you're doing this….”
“I don't mind. If you dislike me touching your clothes, you can just say so. But since you've treated me to a drink, I'd at least like to do the laundry for you.”
“…Ugh. All right. Then please do it.”
After I said that, Francesca finally gave me permission. Then she muttered in a small voice:
“The innkeeper… why would she play such a mischievous prank….”
She wasn't saying it outright, but she was embarrassed after all.
Should I move somewhere else? That seemed like the better option.
Another man was washing his own clothes with only a window and a wall between them. If I stayed, things would only become more awkward. It would also make it difficult to ask her to alter my clothes in a little while.
“U-um, Mr. Nord. What brings you here today?”
But Francesca spoke to me first. She was trying somehow to defuse the awkward atmosphere. I stood up awkwardly, then sat back down.
“Something came up that I'd like to ask you to do. I'll pay you, so could you make a few alterations to my clothes or mask?”
“Yes? Uh, I think I can. I made a few things like that as a pastime before.”
Could making clothes really be considered a pastime? Even tailoring wasn't something one could do easily. As though anticipating my question, Francesca continued.
“I've gone from job to job since I was young. All I've gained from it is a collection of odd skills.”
“Ah… you must have had a hard life.”
I had nothing else to say. Other people's hardships and misfortunes were difficult subjects to respond to.
“Not at all. It's all in the past now. Back then, I desperately worked hard at everything, hoping to be recognized. Though, to be honest, I'm still like that after becoming an adventurer.”
“Yes. You do seem that way. You went out on a request today after doing one yesterday too, didn't you? And it was in that sewer, where you had such a rough experience.”
“Yes. After we reported it, the Adventurer Guild and the guards apparently carried out a major extermination of the giant roaches. This time, it was a cleanup request afterward.”
“Wasn't it difficult? To tell you the truth, I was quite exhausted after handling the one before last and the last one back-to-back.”
In the sewer, I had been chased by an out-of-season swarm of katydids, and in the ruins, where I'd expected to coast through an easy standby shift, I had been tormented by green brats and Nefertiti.
Even Beast Regression, which I had thought would help me, had become a malicious virus that caused bugs in my dick starting today.
Yet Francesca, who had suffered through the same things as me, had gone out to work again today and returned as though nothing had happened.
I hadn't shown my face at the guild because I planned to write my paper, but if I hadn't had that excuse, would I have gone out to work too?
Probably. Probably I would have taken at least today off.
“I'm fine. Maybe it's because I have dwarf blood, but physical exhaustion is much better than mental exhaustion for me. I'll be fine after sleeping soundly for a day.”
“Heh heh. You're much healthier and sturdier than me, both mentally and physically. Won't you be back in Bronze class in no time?”
“Hehe. That would be nice.”
Splash─.
Francesca must have moved in the bathtub, because I heard water splashing. She spoke in a bright voice.
“As for me, after I become Silver class, I want to become a member of the Audumra Guild.”
“Huh?”
Of all the careers and guilds she could choose, why did it have to be those?
I automatically thought of Shit Audumra and its shitty small-time ways. The Adventurer Guild receptionist job might offer prospects and job security, but the work itself seemed like pure hell, making it a hellish corporation. Among companies that worked their subcontractors to the bone, I'd hardly ever seen one that treated its own employees well.
So, aghast, I asked her:
“Um, you know. Since you're doing this anyway, wouldn't it be better to go in a direction that makes use of your manual skills and talents?”
Dwarves were also called a race of artisans. Their innate abilities made them well suited to creating things.
Eyes that could discern an object's temperature and delicate, nimble hands were perfect for blacksmithing. Add patience and toughness, and they were practically natural-born blacksmiths.
They also had immense potential for any work that made use of manual dexterity, no matter the industry. Their aptitude for magic was similar to that of humans too. More than 90 percent of the specialized equipment at Carmine University, where I studied, was made by dwarves.
So there was no need for her to specifically choose a position as an Adventurer Guild receptionist. That was the meaning behind my question.
“…Artisan trades don't seem to like people without connections.”
Francesca answered me amid the sound of splashing water.
“I left my hometown and spent nearly ten years moving from place to place, but everywhere I went, I was branded an outsider. Seamstresses and blacksmiths treated me as a laborer who was good at odd jobs, but they never taught me their skills the way they taught apprentices.”
“…Discrimination based on where you came from. There are many regions in Britannia that are hostile to outsiders.”
“Yes. I suppose so. Though, in truth, it's probably the same everywhere.”
“I understand. I've experienced it myself.”
I presumptuously began to pity Francesca. I was the one who had cursed the workplace she wanted to join as a shitty company and said she should cut ties with it.
But I couldn't help thinking that way.
Because the two of us were the very definition of shared suffering.
Francesca had lived while being tormented by shameless garbage otherworlders like the quack bastard at the smithy today.
And I had been thrown into this damnable otherworld, served a slave sentence despite having done nothing wrong, and had my thesis ninja'd after spending three years writing it.
We were foreigners who had left our homelands and washed up in a strange land, where we were worked to the bone by others. That was what we were.
“Hehe. That's why I'm going to challenge myself to become a guild member this time. Even if I fail again, I think that if I keep working this hard, I'll eventually be able to find a new home~.”
“A life of challenges is a beautiful thing. I'll be rooting for you.”
“Thank you. Hearing you say that gives me strength.”
From a practical standpoint, my encouragement would be of no help to Francesca.
But I knew that a small word of comfort and a smile could provide great solace to someone living a difficult life.
“Mr. Nord, do you have a dream?”
Just then, Francesca asked in a cheerful voice. I stopped my hands in the middle of doing the laundry.
“A dream?”
My dream.
Obviously, my dream was to find a way to return to Earth. But that would be difficult to explain, and it might expose my degree and my past.
It wasn't that I didn't trust Francesca, but it wasn't a suitable subject for such a casual conversation. Even learning someone else's secret without wanting to would only leave you feeling burdened for no reason.
“Hmm….”
“Ah, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to force yourself.”
“No. It may not be a dream exactly, but I do have goals.”
I had several other goals besides finding a way home.
My immediate goal was to reset the illegal patch afflicting my dick.
But fuck, that was even harder to talk about than my original goal. Saying that my dick had grown was embarrassing enough, but saying I wanted to return it to normal was a fucking ridiculous goal even to me.
Then what else could there be?
Building up my strength and raising my rank as an adventurer was a goal too.
But that wasn't an answer to her question either. Most adventurers wanted to rank up. That answer would be like being asked what you did for a living and replying that you worked to earn money.
“Really? What kind of dream is it?”
Francesca asked expectantly. Maybe it was because we'd worked together these past few days. I could easily imagine what expression she was making.
“I see. My immediate goal is….”
Something I absolutely had to do to return to Earth.
Paradoxically, it was─
“Polygamy.”
─Obtaining several wives.