Chapter 9
As I wandered around the village, taking in the sights, time passed before I knew it, and the sun was slowly setting.
If I stayed outside without doing anything, I'd inevitably end up sleeping rough, so I needed to find somewhere to stay quickly. Fortunately, since the village itself didn't see that many visitors, it wasn't as though every inn was full.
When the Hero, who had reached an inn with vacant rooms, told me to wait a moment, I shook my head.
Sitting around waiting was boring, and we'd be going upstairs together once we got the room key anyway, so why insist that I sit down?
He seemed unable to understand why I was insisting on going with him, but soon seemed to give up.
“Could we have two rooms?”
Huh?
Two rooms?
Why bother?
I looked puzzled as the Hero tried to book two rooms. We could simply take one room and have me sleep on the floor, so I wondered why he would spend extra money to get another one.
I grabbed the Hero by the collar.
“Oh, Lumia?”
I shook my head.
I shook my head again and raised a single finger.
Money was best saved whenever possible; it made things easier later. Especially since what if he spent money recklessly because they promised a bounty, only for them not to pay it? Why waste money like that?
It was better to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances.
If we spent twice as much just because one night's stay was cheap, what would we do if we needed that money tomorrow? Where would we get it?
I couldn't stand by and watch the Hero start slinging money around already, so I made it clear that I strongly wanted him to rent only one room. Perhaps the innkeeper understood my frugal spirit, because she nodded.
“I'm sorry, but all the rooms are occupied.. We only have one left.”
“Huh.. But why were there people downstairs..”
“Oh my. I suppose they've all gone to bed.”
The Hero's expression turned complicated.
Fortunately, the innkeeper took my side.
Normally, if someone asked for two rooms, she would have welcomed it as a chance to make more money, but she was considerate of our finances and even played along by pretending not to notice.
Perhaps she couldn't bear to watch us waste money.
“Um.. No..”
After appearing to hesitate for a long while, the Hero looked at me as if asking whether this was really all right.
Well, what problem could there be with getting the same room?
Of course, if you went crazy and tried to pounce on me, I could punish you thoroughly with magic. Considering how strong the Hero had seemed earlier, that might be a little dangerous, but what could a guy who looked like he hadn't even lost his virginity do by pouncing on me?
It was a pointless worry.
Well.. I hadn't lost mine either..
In any case, he had the personality of a kind-hearted eunuch, so sharing a room with him wasn't going to put my virtue in danger. It was a shame to lose my private room, but unlike in my original world, what use was a private room here anyway?
Well.. I was curious about this body, of course, but getting another room just to do something like that would be terribly inefficient and a waste of money. Besides, I didn't have the luxury for anything of the sort anyway, so if we were only using the room to sleep, this was the right choice.
Once we'd received the key, we headed upstairs, following the innkeeper's directions.
When the innkeeper told him not to make too much noise, the Hero nodded with a bewildered expression. We were only going to sleep once we got inside, so there shouldn't be any reason to make much noise.. Unless she thought other people might come in and start running around?
It wasn't particularly luxurious, but neither was it a cheap, filthy inn, so there was at least a place inside where we could wash. Perhaps mistaking my gaze at the shower room for a desire to wash, the Hero told me I could do so if I wanted.
“Um.. Maybe we really should have gotten separate rooms..”
Hmm..
Seeing the shower room did make me think that way a little, but I couldn't exactly go back downstairs right now and ask them to split us up again. Washing shouldn't be a problem as long as we were considerate of each other, right?
Probably.
I shook my head.
“Um.. You can go wash first..”
The Hero said it awkwardly.
Why did he keep acting so awkward..?
He kept being so awkward that I couldn't help feeling awkward too.
I wanted to escape this atmosphere, at least for now, so I said I was going to wash and went straight into the bathroom. Once I got inside, though, it was incredibly inconvenient to wash, as one would expect from a place where fantasy and the Middle Ages had been mashed together.
Yeah.. This is fantasy..
I wondered how I was supposed to heat the water, but apparently they used household magic for that.
Well, this was another world where even ordinary people could use basic fire magic, so it wasn't that strange. Still, there was a limit to the irresponsibility of providing nothing but a device that created water and leaving the hot water to us.
Well.. I suppose that was normal in an inn like this.
I looked around and found a place where I could hang my clothes.
I could leave my clothes there.
After looking around for a moment, I carefully took off my clothes.
Actually, it was my first time being naked in Lumia's body, so I felt a little nervous.
Still, the good thing was that there wasn't a mirror here.
I wondered for a moment whether the lack of mirrors was part of the setting, as befitted a fantasy world, but having no mirror seemed to help me feel less self-loathing, so I let it go. For the sake of my mental health, it was better not to think about the small mounds and smooth skin visible after I took off my clothes.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't curious.
Even before coming here, I hadn't been much of a fan of erotic things, but I'd played this game because of a friend who kept recommending it, saying it was so much fun that I had to try it. I'd called the Hero a virgin and a complete innocent, but that meant I was no different.
At least that guy had an insanely handsome face.
I didn't even have that.
I sighed and finished throwing off my clothes.
Don't think about it.
If I think about it, I lose.
I'd seen all the other girls naked, but before Lumia regressed, she had been so difficult to romance that I'd assumed she was an impossible-to-romance character and never pursued her. I'd seen plenty of scenes where the others did that sort of thing, but not Lumia's.
Though it would be better to say I hadn't seen them.
...
Was this what it meant to feel nothing down there..?
The space between my legs felt strangely empty, and nothing got in the way when I walked.
A stranger might have thought that meant I'd become more comfortable, but I felt the emptiness far more strongly than the comfort.
Damn, I want to go back soon.
Thinking that, I used magic.
The water came out on its own, so once I filled the tub, I could heat it with my magic.
I began my bath.
.
.
.
.
H-how did things end up like this?
I stared at the door, with the constant sound of water coming from behind it, and let out a deep sigh.
It felt as though we were both washing before doing the deed, which made the situation feel even stranger.
Lumia and I weren't in that kind of relationship.
Lumia valued efficiency, so she must have suggested one room because she couldn't stand wasting money by getting two. Even before the regression, when we'd all gone to an inn together, Lumia had once asked why we didn't just get a four-person room instead of unnecessarily splitting up into a three-person room and a single.
That was probably her reason too, but I had already started seeing Lumia as a woman—and, for the sake of the future and to save her, needed to make her fall for me somehow—so this was both an unbearably burdensome situation and an opportunity beyond compare.
But the other person was Lumia.
There was no reason to feel strange about sleeping in the same room as someone who had no feelings for me.
In other words, getting closer to her would be difficult.
I tried banging my head against the wall to drive away all the troubling thoughts that kept surfacing in my mind, but it did no good.
I felt conflicted, as if I'd become a bad person.
“Phew.. Hold it..”
From her perspective, it was simply a way to act efficiently, but from mine, even if she didn't mean to, this was no different from seducing me, and I couldn't help feeling resentful toward her. Still, we couldn't both sleep on the bed, so I had no choice but to lie down on the floor.
I sat there meditating, trying to drive away my troubling thoughts.
When someone is bathing in the bathroom, you normally hear something like singing, but since she couldn't speak, not a sound came from inside.
But why was that?
Why did that make this inexplicable feeling even stronger?
I felt like I was going crazy.
I endured it with the single-minded resolve that I didn't want Lumia to hate me.
As I spent time waging a battle inside me that no one else could know about, the sound of water coming from the bathroom stopped. Had she finished bathing? I kept my eyes closed while quietly waiting to see when Lumia would come out.
Eventually, the door opened, and Lumia stepped out with her hair thoroughly wet and her face flushed.
It seemed to be because she'd just been in the hot bath.
...
Lumia looked at me for a moment, then gestured toward the bath behind her as if telling me to go in, before sprawling out on the bed.
I wanted to wash quickly and feel at ease, so I went straight into the bath.
And then,
...
I found the bathtub still full of water.
It was definitely the water Lumia had been soaking in just moments earlier.
Hygienically speaking, it was dirty, but it didn't look particularly dirty..
No, of course it wasn't strange that we'd need to conserve water, but..
It isn't strange..!
“Aaaah..!”
I clutched my head as my troubling thoughts grew even stronger.
I'm seriously going to lose my mind.
This won't do.
I decided to come up with a countermeasure.