Bath Part 2

Part 7

It's nice to have enemies that won't give us any trouble, but I think we should

get a little more hang on fighting against Minos, since the Floor Boss of the

fourth floor is going to be a bigger, stronger version of them if the pattern

that has repeated itself up until now is to be believed.

「Alright. Where is the next group of enemies?」

「It's over this way, master.」

Steeling my resolve to fix the problem f the lacking vanguard members as

soon as the opportunity for doing so arises, I proceeded to go deeper into the

fourth floor under the guidance of Roxanne's nose. Anytime when there was

only one Mino in the group of monsters we had to fight, we generally agreed

that Roxanne is going to be the one who will be taking care of it. Anytime I

see her avoiding its charge attack and not having a single scratch on her no

matter how tough or rough the battles seemed to be getting, I couldn't stop

myself from being amazed at how skilled she actually was. It seemed to me

like for her, every opponent who relied on physical attacks as their main

offensive tool was trivial to fight. That being said, every time a pair of Minos

appeared, there was now a part of me that was instinctively scared of

engaging them, but nevertheless, as long as I kept myself calm, I could fight

them. As long as this subconscious fear of getting hurt does not develop into

something more serious, I am sure I will get used to it as long as I continue to

work hard and get stronger.

Now that we have conquered the third floor of the Labyrinth in Veil, we

concluded that the most sensible thing will be to do the same with the third

floor of the one in Quratar, and that is where we decided to go on the

morning of the following day.

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「Is it just me, or do there seem to be more people here on the third floor than

they were back on the second floor?」

This can be potentially problematic, since I would rather not be seen fighting

with Durandal here, and with the increased number of people, there is no

telling what might happen or who might catch a glimpse of it purely by

accident or when they will be passing by.

「That's right. It is because the number of Kobolds on this floor is decreased,

making it a better place for hunting monsters than the previous floor, where

the possibility of happening upon them was still relatively high. Because of

that, either this floor or the next one should have the biggest number of

people on it so far, but after that, I am positive that it should start to gradually

decrease again the further up we go.」

「Ah, I see.」

I guess that makes sense since no one wants to fight weaklings that won't

give them good drop items or much EXP, but I just hope it won't come back

to bite us in the asses somehow.

While going through this floor, we passed by a number of people, though

thankfully not as many of them as back on the first floor. I don't wan any of

them to see that I am fighting with or even carrying Durandal with me, so

while we are passing by other Parties, I try to do everything I can to keep it

out of sight while also trying not to look suss to them.

The enemies native to the fourth floor of the Quratar's Labyrinth are called

Spi Spiders, and just as the name implies, they are spiders. However, they are

not your ordinary, small-ass spiders that crawl on the floor and walls looking

all gross but nothing else besides that, oh no. You see, the smallest Spi Spider

is actually the size of a large dog. Yeah, now let that thought sink in. Having

your skin crawl yet? Do not worry, I also feel extremely unpleasant while

fighting them, especially with all those eyes of theirs darting in all directions

as they try to jump up on us and attack with those creepily-thin legs of theirs.

The only saving grace with them is that, just like pretty much everything so

far, they are defeated by only a single blow from Durandal, so at the very

least I do not have to look at their monstrous physiques for too long before

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they disappear. On tha account, I guess even Minos should not be all that

scary since they also should go down in one strike of Durandal. Moreover,

when it comes to Spi Spiders, they are just uncomfortable to look at… but

nothing else. Unlike with Minos, I do not have that dreadful feeling that "I

will be killed if their attacks manage to reach me". Maybe its because I am

slowly adapting to the way of life and doing battles typical for the inhabitants

of this world? After all, I have spent quite a number of days here now, so I

guess it would be about time for me to start getting accustomed to it, right?

As for Roxanne, ever since she became my slave and a member of my Party

she was fighting whatever the Labyrinths threw at her without saying as

much as a single complaint, and… and she even looks like she is happy to be

risking her life on the frontlines like she is now. Doesn't she feel repulsed by

having to do battle against such disgusting creepy-crawlies? I though that

since she is a girl she will have at least some reservations about doing it, but

it does not seem to be bothering her one bit.

The Floor Boss on the third floor here in Quratar is Spy Spider Lv.3.

Although it is one size larger than the regular Spi Spider, Roxanne took the

position in front of the boss, just like always. My role in this battle was once

again to go to the boss's behind and wait for the right moment to strike it

with Durandal.

Surprising nobody, Spy Spider collapsed onto the ground after one hit. So

even a Floor Boss of the third floor that's Lv.3 was still no match for the

1HKO power Durandal has, huh? In this particular case, since the said Floor

Boss was a giant spider, I am perfectly okay with that.

When the Spy Spider disappeared in a puff of smoke, the item it left behind

was a bunch of small, round objects. I went and picked one of them up and

used Identify on it, revealing that it was pepper. Black pepper. Kind of a

strange thing for a Spy Spider to drop, don't you think? I always assumed

that an enemy named Spy Spider would drop something… well, I don't

know, spy related?

「Ah, its black pepper! I am sure that it must be worth a pretty hefty sum in

gold, right?」

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「I am afraid not. Black pepper is a pretty ordinary spice, and therefore it is

not all that expensive.」

So, it would seem that black pepper being a costly spice was nothing but my

own selfish wishful thinking. But now that I think about it and recall the taste

of the dishes I have eaten here so far… then yeah, I guess black pepper is

being used quite a bit in meat-based dishes, and since it's not a special item,

but a common one that drops after you kill the Floor Boss of the third floor

here, then it would stand to reason that the local shops would have an

overaboundance of it.

With the Floor Boss out of the way, we moved on onto the fourth floor.

「How crowded is this floor?」

「Let me check… *sniff sniff* … hmm, it seems to be a little less crowded

than the third floor, but we won't find any monsters to fight unless we go

further in.」

「In that case, should we halt our progress here and switch to Veil's Labyrinth

instead?」

Personally, I would like to see what monsters live on the fourth floor of

Quratar's Labyrinth, but it's an undeniable truth that fighting in a crowded

place where we might bump into someone at any given moment is not an

ideal scenario for us, so we should not try to bite off more than we can chew.

Making progress is important, but not overdoing things just for the sake of

overdoing them is even more important in my book.

We moved to the Labyrinth of Veil and explored its fourth floor next. This

time our goal was to explore while also getting me more used to fighting

Minos, and I think that little by little, such an approach began to bear fruit,

since after an hour or two of fighting them I noticed that I am not finding

fighting them as big of a deal as I did during my first few encounters with

them. I just have to fight them calmly and without panicking, and everything

is going to be okay.

Part 8

One part of my current training was to focus on being attacked by Minos on

purpose so that I could get a hang of how strong their attacks were exactly.

Their attacks are indeed painful, but not to an extent that could not be

endured as long as I clenched my teeth to power through it. Worst case

scenario, I 'm going to have a few bruises or cuts left from the Minos's horns,

but any injury that looks like it's a more serious one can be quickly recovered

thanks to my HP-regenerating abilities from Durandal and my Monk Job.

When three of them appear in a single group, things are naturally getting a bit

more hectic in comparison to fighting with only one or two Minos at once,

but it's all down to getting the timing of my dodges down perfectly. And

speaking of avoiding…

As usual, Roxanne does not have a problem with avoiding incoming attacks

even when she is facing all three Minos at once, even though having to face

off against three massive opponents at once required significantly more

movement and manueverability than the battles against smaller opponents. I

guess this is one of the downsides to our current exploration strategy: even

though Roxanne can locate groups of enemies thanks to her keen sense of

smell, it cannot tell her exactly how many enemies there will be and what

they are. Running away from the encounters that seem to be too much for us

to handle is always an option, but I don't want to issue an order to retreat

from the battle because it might create a situation where we will flee from the

enemies and they will simply chase after us, possibly creating a situation

where we will be unable to properly respond to any case of emergency that

we might end up getting ourselves into if one or two groups of monsters will

combine into a bigger one to get us.

Rather than allow that to happen, what we need is an aggressive approach. I

realize that fighting every battle regardless of how disadvantageous our

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positions might be is a risky thing to do, but it's actually a high risk, high

reward thing: basically, you can earn much more items and EXP by defeating

as many enemies as you can.

However, even if a group of three Minos was best for us EXP-wise, then

naturally we were not encountering them all the time. This is a dungeon in a

game after all, so just as one would expect, the enemies we were

encountering were most likely generated randomly, and I think we all know

that whenever a player wants something particular, RNGezus will make sure

that they will not get it. And so, we fought against quite a few groups of only

two Minos, or two Minos and a Kobold. Kobolds were always first to die,

and after a while, I think I even stopped noticing them when I was using Fire

Storm as my opening attack. There was also a combination of a Mino and a

Green Caterpillar, but Roxanne does not have any problems dealing with

them at once. In the end, neither Mino's nor Green Caterpillar's attacks

scratched her even once. She dodged them all gracefully and lightly like a

sheet of paper dancing in the wind. I know that this metaphor is a pretty

strange one to be using to describe a person's ability to dodge incoming

attacks, but at the current moment it is the only one that comes to my mind as

the one to most accurately describe what is now happening before my eyes.

「You know what Roxanne? At this point your movements are so amazing

that even though you are my model for when it comes to learning how to

dodge, but on the flipside they are so incredible that I kinda gave up on trying

to understand how exactly do they work since I cannot imitate them for the

life of me.」

「If we're talking about just this degree of movement, then I think that this is

something that even master could master with just a bit of patient practice.」

(No no no, no way in hell. That's absolutely impossible.)

I know that Roxanne didn't mean to mock me with her words, but that does

not change the fact that her advice was less than helpful here.

The next three groups of enemies that crossed our path were also made out of

three enemies, but they were not all Minos. They were two Minos and a

Green Caterpillar. In order to gain as much advantage over them as possible,

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I released three consecutive Fireballs, one after the other as soon as the

cooldown period was finished.

「Roxanne, go!」

「Right, master!」

Almost immediately after I finished casting the third Fire Storm and send

Roxanne out to the front, the Minos broke through the clouds of raging fire

and attacked us. Roxanne bought the attention of the first one by slashing at it

with her Scimitar while evading its charge attack and the subsequent attempts

to slash and pierce her with its horns. Not wanting to be left behind, I pulled

out my own sword and attacked the other Mino while dodging it as Roxanne

briefly slashed it with a horizontal slash when it was rushing just past her. I

also did my best to block the body blow from the Green Caterpillar that must

have survived being hit with one of the Fireballs and was now coming

towards me from the left. When I was trying to think of the best possible

move to make next after stopping the Green Caterpillar in its tracks, an

orange magic circle suddenly appeared under it.

「Web Spit attack incoming, master!」

Roxanne shouted her warning out to me. That's right, the orange magic circle

under the Green Caterpillar's body means that its going to launch its special

Skill, Web Spit to try and bind me in place. If I allow it to do so, that is!

Earlier I might have been scared shitless when I saw that magic circle, but

right now I do not care about it!

(Fire Storm!!!)

I shot a fourth spell at it. The Green Caterpillar won't be able to use its Skill

if it will be dead before it can cast it! And if it manages to cast it anyway, the

thread itself is most likely going to disappear. Probably. I never managed to

actually kill a Green Caterpillar mid-Skill casting so I do not know for sure.

At nearly the same time as the Green Caterpillar began releasing the threads

from its mouth, Roxanne jumped away from the place where she was still

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battling against the Minos. Second after she jumped to the safe place, the area

where she just stood has been covered by the sparks of the Fire Storm that

erupted into a series of explosions.

As the sparks exploded one after the other, the white sticky threads spread

and stretch widely before getting evaporated and covering the ground with its

remains, a few of which ended up getting on my arm. Damn, I hope cleaning

it up won't be too much of a pain in the ass.

When the Fire Storm ran its course and disappeared, so did the three

monsters. They disappeared in puffs of green smoke, and the remains of the

Green Caterpillar's threads melted into the air.

「Phew… I'm glad that this battle's over. I never would have expected that

Green Caterpillars would still be so problematic, even though it was kind of a

given now that we are on the higher floors.」

I exhaled a heavy sigh and lowered the Wand which I was still holding up

just in case another monster would try to get a jump on us now that our

guards were lowered after just finishing a battle.

「That's certainly true. While we are on the subject, allow me to apologize,

master. I was careless when I was dodging Minos's attacks, and as a result of

that I ended up putting you in the place where you were vulnerable to Green

Caterpillar's Skill attack.」

When she warned me that the Web Spit attack was coming my way, she

immediately jumped back to get back to me, and as a result, we ended up

right next to each other when the threads and my Fire Storm collided with

one another, but it seems that none of the thread remains got stuck onto her,

unlike me. I wonder if she also dodged them, or was she completely out of

their splash zone and I was the only one unfortunate enough to get that sticky,

white stuff all over my hand?

「Don't worry about it, Roxanne. These guys can be defeated with magic

alone, so it's not like they will be posing any real threat to us now. We were

just unlucky that they appeared with those two Minos that absorbed our

focus, that's all.」

Part 9

「Thank you for your kindness, master.」

「Don't mention it. By the way, it's great that you managed to avoid the

remains of the Green Caterpillar's threads, but what would you have done if I

wasn't able to use magic or if that last Fire Storm was late by a few

moments? Wouldn't that put you in quite a pickle?」

「How so? The enemy was defeated and its threads disappeared in the idle of

an attack so there is no point overthinking it, but in the case that it did not

happen and the threads would still be there, I was simply planning to dodge it

once more, but this time even further back.」

She was planning to jump even further back, despite the fact that the dodge

she made just now was already over some pretty crazy distance? Is there no

end to how amazing this girl is?

「I guess you're right with that. And it's not like I could do much else on my

end either, since here on the fourth floor I need four shots of spells to defeat

our opponents.」

「True, but even when we are fighting against a group of three enemies, as

long as master's magic is able to kill one of them, that is already a huge load

off my own shoulders, since fighting against two enemies at the same time is

much more manageable than fighting with all three of them at once.」

For someone like me, who still has to put an actual effort into dodging

instead of doing it instinctively, fighting more than one enemy at the same

time is still problematic, but as long as Roxanne says that she is fine with it, I

guess I have no reasons to complain.

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By the way, after getting some more levels I tried to do an experiment where

I tried to equip myself with a Sixth Job and filled that slot with the Job of a

Merchant (which I apparently aquired after interacting with the people who

already had it, but when exactly was it, I honestly have no idea) that has an

effect of slightly increasing the user's INT stat and then round it up with a

Herbalist Lv.10, but even after doing all that, I still needed four shots of

magic to defeat the monsters dwelling on the fourth floor, so ultimately it was

a useless endeavor on my end.

However, if there's one thing that I am certain of now, it's that increasing my

INT stat as much as possible will definitely have an effect on the overall

power of the magic I am using, and that Merchant and Herbalist Jobs did just

that: they made my magic stronger with their INT bonuses, it's just that those

bonuses were simply not big enough to have a visible effect on the number of

times I had to cast a spell to defeat the monsters here on the fourth floor. It

also might be that my level is still too low for the spells to be stronger, and

that's one of the reasons why I decided that I will fight every battle instead of

running away from them. Unfortunately, my eagerness is not enough to

change the fact that the process of gaining levels while having multiple Jobs

set up is still more than a little tedious, even when I am using my Bonus

Skills to give myself multiplicators to the gained EXP and lower the amount

of it required for a Level Up. That being said, from the purely practical

standpoint, the Jobs I should be focusing on the most right now should be

Hero and Mage, and while I am at it, maybe I should also fill my Magic

Crystals more by using Crystal Acceleration Skill. After all, filled Magic

Crystals can be sold for a lot of money, and you know how badly I will need

those if I want to buy me some new slaves for my har… I, I mean for the

front lines of my Party!

For the time being, I will continue on with the following setting of four Jobs:

Explorer, Hero, Mage and Monk. That way, I should have a pretty nice

balance of magic and offensive capabilities rounded up by some healing

abilities in case things ever got especially dire.

On the day when the bathtub we ordered was supposed to be completed, we

have arrived at the Veil Labyrinth's fourth floor's Boss Room. The Floor

Boss for this floor was Hachinosu Lv.4 (TL Note: To those who might be

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confused why the hell is the Floor Boss called Hachinosu when the

regular enemies on the fourth floor are called Mino: it's basically a kind

of a Japanese pun. In Japanese, the word Mino means the first stomach

of a cow, while Hachinosu is the second stomach. See what they did

there?) It is the same kind of bull/cow as Minos were, but obviously it's way

bigger and much more muscular than them. I'm not gonna lie, I am getting

genuinely scared here. I mean, just look at how big this thing is! I barely even

had the time to get used to the size of the regular Minos, but this guy's

humungous size is on a totally different level. It it hits me with those giant

tree trunks-sized horns of his, there's no way for me to survive that! I will

definitely be finished! Is this really what we are going to go against here?!

Isn't that kind of an overkill, even for a monster with a Floor Boss status?!

I might have been bewildered at first, but it has only now occurred to me that

since there is only one enemy here, then we will be able to employ our usual

strategy of having Roxanne keep the boss busy from the front while I will go

to its back to molest it with Durandal. It should be as easy as always…

… or at least that's what I thought, but then it tried to kick me in the head

with its hind legs, scaring the living shit out of me! God damn it, if that giant

hoove hit me, it would easily break at least a dozen of my bones!

Doing my best not to go right into a panic attack, I slashed at Hachinosu's ass

from the right, then from the left, then from up to down and down to up and

then from upper right to lower left and lower left to upper right.

The entire battle was more chaotic then I would have liked, but thankfully my

barrage of slashes was enough to kill the Floor Boss, granting us free access

to the next floor. I guess this was just another case of a Floor Boss looking all

big and scary only actually be easy to defeat once you get the hand of its

attack patterns down or have a Party member occupying its attention from the

front while you hack away at it from the back.

Even after such an intense boss battle, Roxanne was, as one would expect,

completely unscratched and looked to be totally unfazed both by the

Hachinosu's size and its ability to attack those who would stand behind it. I

have to keep it a secret from her that I was scared the whole time, or else she

might think that I am a lame master.

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When we reached the fifth floor, the first group of enemies we encountered

were Minos Lv.5. I slashed one of them with Durandal, but much to my

surprise, it was not defeated with a single strike. I have to say, I am

impressed that it was able to one-shot pretty much every enemy throughout

the first four floors, but I also think that it was about time for the difficulty

bar to be raised higher, since there was no way for things to always go too

smoothly for us. Having accepted that inevitable fact, I defeated a Mino that I

was facing against with Durandal's second slash.

The next group of enemies we have encountered after Roxanne guided us to

it was made entirely form the new type of monsters, the ones native to this

particular floor: Cheap Sheeps. Even though they looked all fluffy like

regular sheep, their attitudes were not friendly at all. They were quite

ferocious and looked like they were ready to bite your face off if only you

allowed them to do so. They also have horns, but unlike those of Minos, the

ones belonging to the Cheap Sheep are not straight and sharp, but thick and

curved in a shape that resembled a spiral. Being hit with that will definitely

hurt, but they do not look as terrifying as the horns of the Minos that were

like small spears.

I shot the one before me with Fireball while Roxanne focused on the other

two and slashed away at them with her Scimitar.

Part 10

The battle ended shortly after without any major difficulties.

「So that is what the monsters of the fifth floor of Veil's Labyrinth are like,

huh? I have to say, after Minos on the fourth floor, I kinda expected

something even more scarier, but they turned out to be… pretty

disappointing, all things considered.」

「I wholeheartedly agree. Their movements were exceptionally slow in

comparison to Minos. It's like they were actually moving in slow-motion

throughout the entire battle.」

Roxanne, don't take this the wrong way, but when faced with you, I think

everything looks like it is moving in slow motion. I wonder if the upper

floors of the Labyrinths will have monsters that will give her a run for her

money when it comes to speed? On second thought though, maybe it would

be better if there were no such enemies. Having to fight something that even

Roxanne could not dodge or keep up with is definitely not something that I

would like to do, not now, nor in the near or far future.

「Let's fight here a little bit more and then we'll go back home. Today is the

day when my order from that wood-worker should be arriving, so I don't

want to miss the messenger with the finished product.」

「Okay. As you wish, master.」

After fighting a few more groups of Cheap Sheep on the fifth floor we

decided to call it a day and go back home. The most important thing we have

learned during this round in the Labyrinth is that even though I can

apparently no longer defeat enemies with only one hit from Durandal, I can

still fight them effectively since all I need is just one more strike.

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When we got back home, it didn't take long for the messenger from the

wood-worker's shop to arrive with my requested order. And it took him

exactly five days to prepare it, just like he said.

「Oh, is that the thing you have requested, master?」

「Yes. It has finally arrived!」

Not waiting for the wagon to arrive, I left the house in excitement to meet the

messenger outside.

「Here's your order, as requested.」

「Thank you very much for delivering it so fast, We will be taking care of it

from here.」

After confirming everything, the messenger moved to the back of the wagon

to get the bathtub off of it. The first thing that I noticed about it was…

「Wow, this thing is huge!」

I knew it was going to be big because I ordered it as such, but the sheer size

of it blew my mind. Looking at it from up close, this thing was even bigger

than what I was imagining when I was looking at other tubs back in the store,

the ones that I used as the base for what I was requesting.

A large, perfectly circular tub was placed vertically on the loading platform

of the carriage that was being drawn by a single horse. The overall size of it

is… I think it is three meters in diameter. About half of the basin sticks out

from above the carriage, making it look like it was something that would be

hard to transport with just one horse, and yet here it is, right on our very

doorstep.

If this thing was any bigger it would be difficult for me to call it a proper

piece of furniture, but even as it is now, I think this bathtub emanates an aura

of strangely imposing intensity, but since I was the one who ordered it to be

made in such a way, wide enough for two people and with the depth going

above the height of an average person, I have no one but myself to blame for

how it turned out.

「This is the item that you ordered to be custom made, master?」

「Yeah, the one and the same. Now, let's see… hmm, all the boards look like

they are thick and sturdy, and they all look like they can hold their fair share

of weight…」

Maybe that's how the bathtubs are supposed to be made, but the boards that

make the tub's floor are even thicker than the rest of them. I looked at

Roxanne, hoping that she will be able to offer me an explanation to this

particular riddle.

「The bottom boards have to be thicker than the rest, because if they were to

be too thin, then the whole bottom would immediately break when it would

be exposed to too much water. By making them in such a way, we can

prevent that from happening.」

But the one who answered me was the messenger guy instead. Here I was

thinking that he was just a simple deliveryman, but maybe he is actually

involved in the production process?

Anyway…

So, the bottom of the bathtub might actually break if too much water is being

poured inside and the bottom boards are not thick enough, eh? But then, how

much water can fill into this bathtub, exactly? Let me just think about it and

do the math (TL Note: Hoo boi, this is going to be good).

One liter of water is a thousand cubic centimeters and one centimeter x one

centimeter x one centimeter equals one cubic centimeter, so… one hundred

centimeters x ten centimeters x one centimeter equals one thousand cubic

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centimeters, meaning one liter, and since one meter is one hundred

centimeters, then if the length and the width of the entire bathtub are both one

meter and the depth is one centimeter, then that would mean that it can hold

ten liters of water… wow, that is a lot more than I expected. The surface area

of the bathtub's base is roughly Pi R squared, and since the radius is one

meter, then tha would be 3.14 square meters. If the depth of this thing is

about fifty centimeters, than that gives us 3.14 square M x fifty centimeters x

ten liters which gives us a total of… one thousand five hundred and seventy

liters? And since one liter is equal to one kilogram, then…

Oh… my… fucking sweet jesus!!!

No Michio, calm down and think about it once more. Cool that hot-blooded

head of yours and do the math again, just to be sure.

*Doing the math furiously*

After doing all of the calculations multiple times in order to be absolutely

sure that I did not make any mistakes anywhere, I arrived at a conclusion that

I did everything correctly and the end result checked itself out every single

time. Really? Does this bathtub really is able to contain 1.57 tons of water in

it?

That is… a tremendous amount of it, and I mean it in an unironic way. Also, I

didn't think that the day will come when I will be forced to use a unit of

measurement as big as tons in my daily life calculations. But I guess that

explains why the boards used to make this bathtub needed to be so thick: if

not, the whole thing would not be able to properly contain all the water

needed to take a proper bath without breaking the tub with its sheer volume.

And while we are on the subject of storing water in the tub, I wonder how

well it's going to be handling hot water and if the hot water itself won't be

cooling off relatively fast without having some means to constantly keep it

boiling?

「W-Well, for the time being, shall we bring it inside? 」

「Yes, my master.」

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Even though it barely fit through the door because of its sheer size, Roxanne

and I managed to bring the washbasin into the house without wasting too

much time to do so. You know what, no. I think that at this point there is no

point in calling this thing a washbasin, even if it was based on it and others

might think about it as a giant washbasin. Personally, I don't think that

calling it a bathtub would be sufficient now. For me, this thing here is a fullfledged wooden bath now.

「Roxanne, be careful not to get your fingers stuck between the tub and the

walls, okay?」

「Of course. I will be sure to be careful.」

The whole thing was too heavy for us to be carrying it indoors, but thanks to

it being all perfectly round we could move it around by rolling it on the

ground. The only time we had to exert a little bit more effort was when we

were getting it through the doorways, but other than that, we were perfectly

fine with just the two of us. We ended up putting it in the room next to the

kitchen, the one with a drain that I have secretly designated to be our

bathroom.

Part 11

Even though we only have this bath right now, I hope that we can decorate it

with more bathroom-appropriate furniture soon enough, because even with

the tub taking a large portion of the room, there was still a lot of space left in

it to fill up. If I were to hazard a rough guess then I would have to say that the

entire bathroom was about the size of eight tatami mats (TL Note: roughly

13.2 square meters, if anyone's interested.), so after settling the bathtub it,

we still have roughly ten square meters to fill as we see fit.

「Master, I know that this is the custom item that you ordered back at the

washbasins shop, but what are we going to be using a one so large for,

especially since we have already bought a larger washbasin for laundry

purposes?」

「Can't help it but to fill curious now that the thing has finally been delivered,

huh? Very well then, listen and be ready to be surprised. You see, this thing

here is actually a custom-made bathtub!」

I declared so to Roxanne, filled with pride. That being said, now that said

bathtub has finally arrived, it will have to be filled with water, and just that

process might be… more than a little pain in the ass. I have already

established that since I have the ability to use magic then we would not need

to draw water from a well or a river, but now that I actually started going

over the logistics of filling the bathtub with without the aforementioned

methods, it only now dawned upon me that in order to have just one bath a

crapload of water would have to be made with my Water Magic, and then I

would also have to use Fire Magic to heat all of that water up, and all those

things will likely eat through all of my MP in no time, causing me a lot of

headaches and plunging me into depression.

「A bathtub… you say? As in… something you use to take baths in?」

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「Yup, exactly. Just like you said, you use it in order to take nice, long,

relaxing baths. If you don't mnd, then I would like to start preparing one right

away.」

「Understood. Is there something I can help you with.」

「For the time being, why don't you bring some jugs in here? We can fill

them up while I will fill the tub with water.」

Unfortunately, I have no idea exactly how long the entire process of filling

the tub with water is going to take, but I will use my Water Magic as many

times as it takes to get it done as soon as possible. The fastest way to go

about it should be to use consecutive Water Wall's back to back and have just

enough MP left to use Warp so that I could go replenish my MP in the

Labyrinth when I will start feeling my mood worsening.

First things first, we took the entire bathtub and washed it until it was

squeaky-clean, and after that Roxanne brought a few jugs that were placed

inside of the tub.

「Could you place all of them a little bit farther from one another?」

That way some water is bound to be spilled outside of the jugs once they will

be filled to the brim, but that would only be a problem if they were placed on

the ground. Now that they are in the bathtub itself, we can spill as much

water as we need to without worrying about it going to waste.

(And now to raise the water's temperature… Fireball!!)

I threw a Fireball int one of the filled jugs to see how much warmer it would

make the water. It went from straight up cold to somewhat lukewarm.

(Looks like it'll need at least a second shot, huh?)

And I fired a second fireball into the jug. This time, the water was hot enough

not to need a third shot, so I repeated the process with the other jugs until

they had enough water in them. As for why am I going about filling the

bathtub in such a roundabout way, the answer to that is pretty simple: the jugs

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are made out of pottery which is somewhat heat-resistant, so no matter how

many Fireballs I will fire into the water that is being stored inside of them,

nothing bad should happen to them. On the other hand, since the bathtub

itself is made out of wood, so there is always the danger of the tub itself

catching fire and getting burned if I tried to throw Fireballs directly into it.

There are probably more effective ways of increasing the water's temperature

without risking doing any damage either to the bathtub or the surroundings,

but for the time being noting better than what we are currently doing is

coming to my mind. The other option available would be to pour the cold

water into the tub and then shoot Fireballs at it until it gets to the desired

temperature, but I have a feeling that it would take way too many spells to be

called cost-efficient, so until we won't figure anything better out, the method

of using water-filled jugs with Fireball-heated water and then emptying it into

the bathtub proper is probably our best bet. The rest is only a matter or rinse

& repeating the entire process as many times as needed.

However, the issue of finding the best method for filling the bathtub with

water was not the only one we would need to take care of: it seems that when

it comes to the water placed in the jugs, one Fireball only makes it lukewarm,

and the temperature that can be called just right is reached after adding

another shot into it. That is cool and all, but that only stays true for as long as

the water remains in the jug. We have multiple jugs that have to be filled and

then heated, meaning that when I will move on to take care of the second jug,

then the third one and so on and so forth, the water that has already been

heated in the previous ones will start to cool down, so it will most likely

require two more shots of Fireball to be heated back to the desired

temperature…. No, that sounds like more of a hassle than it is actually worth,

not to mention that it would also take a long time to fill in such a way. Hmm,

what to do, what to do indeed… maybe it would be better to lower the overall

temperature by diluting it all with water form another Water Wall at the very

end?

No matter what I am going to decide to do in the end, it won't change what I

have to do now: go to the Labyrinth in order to get back all of the MP that I

have used up to filled all of the jugs with water.

It is hard. I have to admit: filling the bathtub with hot water proved to be a

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much more of a difficult task than I ever imagined. And to add to the list of

gripes that I already have, the process of recovering MP might also not be as

efficient as I would have liked because we are in our house in Quratar, and

the place where we are going to get my MP back is the Labyrinth in Veil,

meaning that a trip back and forth is going to deplete my MP anyway.

Currently, the quickest way to prepare a bath for me and Roxanne looks more

or less like that: first, I use almost all of my MP up to create water with Water

Wall that's going to be used to fill the bathtub, and then I use as many

Fireballs as needed in order to heat up the water stored in ceramic jugs. When

that part is over, I have to make sure to have just enough MP left to go to the

Labyrinth, get back all of my MP, make the trip back and then repeat the

entire process until I run out of MP again so that the cycle could continue. Do

you see the picture that I am trying to paint here?

However, whether we like it or not, the Labyrinth of Veil is the only place

where we can go to do things like that because of how deserted its lower

floors are. That is one aspect in which Veil's Labyrinth is a much more

convenient place than Quratar's Labyrinth, where even the first few floors are

almost always crowded with people no matter what time of day you would

try to go there. That is why even though this is a closer, much more efficient

option, we cannot go and use it.

Part 12

Why is that? I know it might sound stupid from me because I already told

that a number of times, but it is an option that we simply cannot allow

ourselves to take, because with that many people around on every floor (the

higher floors might have less people, but at this point in time this is purely

my speculation and not a confirmed information) there will always be the

danger that someone might see me either using magic or swinging Durandal

around, and we cannot afford to go to the higher floors where there would be

less of them too fast without proper preparations. Should we try doing that

after all and take the risk? Or should we stop and continue at our current pace

that is relatively safe and risk-free?

Putting that musings aside for the time being, we made a round around the

Veil Labyrinth's lower floors where I got my MP back after taking out a few

Kobolds and Green Caterpillars. Since I have my Bonus Skills that give me

more EXP for defeating enemies and lowers the amount of EXP required for

Level Ups, then maybe if I gain enough levels with the Mage Job, I will get

so much MP that what we are doing right now will no longer be necessary?

Well, I guess I will just have to wait and see, and remain patient until then.

Another thing that I sincerely hope will improve with time, would be my

speed of switching between sets of equipment whenever I reset my character

from a Durandal-focused build to a magic-focused one, because I have to do

it every single time whenever there might be people around in the Labyrinths.

All for the sake of keeping my abilities and OP sword a secret from others.

That being said, did my Bonus Skills list contained something like a Skill that

allowed you to keep like two sets of different items that could be switched

between at any time? Because I don't think it did, which is a kind of a shame,

because that would be very useful in our current situation, not to mention that

it would be pretty neat to swing Durandal at one moment only to change it to

wand and magic on the spot.

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「Ugh, if it'll always take so long to prepare, then I am afraid we will be

forced to only take baths once a week at best.」

「"Once per week"? What does that mean, master?」

「… It means once or twice every ten days.」

「Is that a big issue?」

「Not as much an issue as… you know what? Nevermind.」

That was a small conversation that happened between us when we went to the

Labyrinth so that I could recover my lost MP for the second time. Well,

instead of a conversation, I guess it would be mor accurate to say that it was

just me complaining while Roxanne listened to me without saying as much as

a word. As such, I am sure that even though she would never have said that

out loud, Roxanne is probably thinking that I must be some kind of unhinged

weirdo who uses incomprehensible words that no one besides me

understands. It's a good thing that she bought my story about me hailing from

a distant eastern country (which is not technically wrong, by the way, since

back in my old world, Japan was an eastern island nation), because I can

always explain it by saying that this is how the people of that land to the east,

whatever that land can actually be, talk during their everyday lives. Also, this

exchange of ours allowed me to discover an interesting tidbit of information

about this world: even though they have something akin to a calendar that

allows them to track down the progress of time needed to know things like

when will be the day of collecting taxes or when the first day of spring will

arrive, there seems to be no concept of a week here, which admittedly is

pretty weird, but ultimately I guess it should not hinder any of my plans for

living here all that much.

When we got back home and resumed the process of filling the bathtub, the

temperature of the entire room began to steadily rise, until at one point the

entire bathroom was basically turned into a sauna, that's how hot and steamy

it actually got, to the point where it was getting a wee bit difficult for me to

breathe. For the time being I asked Roxanne to wait outside of the bathroom

since I didn't want her to get affected by the heat, since just by staying in that

steaming hot room for a while I have become so drenched in sweat as if it

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was a scorching-hot summer day. I worked on filling the bathtub like that

until I almost ran out of MP again.

「Here you go, master. Have yourself a towel to wipe all of that sweat off.」

「Thank you, Roxanne. You're just too kind.」

When I left the room to avoid turning into a dried-up, shriveled mummy,

Roxanne was already waiting for me outside with a clean towel in tow. I

gratefully took it from her and used it to wipe the sweat off my face.

「What do you want to do now, master? Are we going to the Labyrinth one

more time?」

「Yeah, you got that right. We are heading to the Labyrinth alright.」

With the washcloth that she gave to me, I wiped the sweat off my face and

neck. I probably have some of it on my back as well, but there's no time for

me to be worrying about something so trivial when we need to go to the

Labyrinth again. Come to think of it, how long have we been repeating the

cycle of me filling the jugs with water, heating them up, filling the bathtub

until I run out of MP and going back and forth between our house and the

Labyrinth to replenish it? Was it an hour, two hours or even longer? I don't

really know, but I do know one thing: if I am willing to go to such lengths

just to have a bath with Roxanne, then it has to mean that I am a huge pervert.

But you know what? I am perfectly fine with that. If having a willpower of

steel and determination to go through with anything that is necessary to

complete the goal you have set out to do makes you a pervert, then I will

gladly become one.

After going back from the MP recovering trip I continued the work of filling

the bathtub, until finally it looked like there was enough water in it for us to

have a nice, long soak. It took way more time than I would have liked it to

take, but hopefully the end result is going to be well worth it. All that is left

to do now is to prepare a few spare jugs with hot water, just in case that the

current amount of it was not enough after all.

「Alright… I think… I think it is finally ready.」

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I declared with a triumphantly panting voice after walking out of the

bathroom. Right now, the bathtub is filled with hot water in about ninety

percent, give or take, resulting in the entire room being filled with piping-hot

steam. It's a shame that this room does not have a window or any kind of

ventilation shaft in it, because that way we might end up getting light-headed

in no time.

「Thank you for your hard work, master. You look tired, are you sure you

don't want to rest for a bit?」

「Thank you for worrying about me, but I'm fine. Since we still have some

time, let's use it to go to the Labyrinth one more time and then have dinner

once we return. And once we are done eating, then we can have a bath

together.」

I got another washcloth from Roxanne and wiped the sweat off of me once

more. It only occurred to me in the middle of it that I could have not done

that since I am going to enter the bath in a few moments. But first we have to

eat dinner. Only then after we finish eating we will enter the bath. The

bathtub should be able to keep the water heated for some time, so we do not

have to worry about arriving in the bathroom after dinner only to find an icecold bath.

「Uhm… Are you sure it is okay for me to take a bath together with you,

master?」

「Of course it is okay for you to do so, Roxanne. After all, I have ordered this

bathtub to be made the way it is made with exactly that intention in mind.」

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Chapter 3: Bath, Part 13

I wonder if she asked that because she dislikes taking baths and that was her

way of being subtle about it because she did not want to hurt my feelings

after I poured so much time and MP into preparing this bath just for us? Even

if she herself does not want it, then I guess just this once it would be okay for

me to use my authority over her as her master to order her to do it. It would

leave a foul taste in my mouth, but that might be the only way here. Unless…

「You don't want to take a bath with me, Roxanne?」

When in doubt, always ask directly instead of taking wild guesses.

「It's not like that, master. Usually the only ones privy to taking baths are

nobles and aristocrats, and you told me that I should wait outside instead of

going in with you when you were still pouring water, so…」

「I only did that because I didn't want you to get sweaty because that whole

room is now filled with steam. You saw how sweaty I was when I walked out

of there, right?」

「Is that so? And here I was thinking that this bathtub was another special

thing that you wanted to keep a secret from everyone else and that's why you

wouldn't want me to look at it and use it.」

Did you thought I would be so petty as to do something selfish like that? Oh

Roxanne, my sweet Roxanne. I really think that she is still taking our masterslave relationship way more seriously than she needs to.

While returning the washcloth back to her, I gently stroked her doggy ears.

「Well, you're right about it being special. This bathtub is special to me,

because I ordered it with the thought of the two of us taking a bath in it

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together.」

「Oh, uhm, well… in that case, I guess there is no reason for me to say no to

this proposal, is there?」

「Yes, I definitely want you to enter it together with me, Roxanne.」

「Yes, of course. Thank you, master.」

Good, my persuasion attempt turned out to be successful. Looks like

Roxanne is going to bathe together with me of her own free will. If she

refused me to the very end, then she would not know what kind of luxury she

was missing, so I am glad that she made the best choice possible in this

situation.

After finishing all the work for the day and eating dinner, we could finally

take a bath. Admittedly, the water inside was a little bit too hot for comfort,

so I used a few Waterballs in an attempt to cool it down for even a bit, but I

can already see that precise adjustments of the temperature with magic alone

will be quite difficult. At times like these, I really am missing the greatness of

the modern-day technology.

I put my hand into the water and began to stir it in circular motions. Will this

be enough to help cool it down a bit? I don't know about here, but usually it

tended to work with the bath I had at home back in Japan.

I also figured out how long it would take to make hot water, so from the next

time onward, I will be able to save time by heating the water in the tub

directly with Fireballs, which should make things a little easier for me. But

just a little. Will it be a little easier if my level goes up? Hard to say at the

current moment, honestly.

Lemons are also floating in the bathtub after I threw some of them there. I

don't know if it's exactly the same as the lemons I am familiar with, but they

are probably lemons because their name was translated as lemon. I would

have preferred the yuzu fruits instead of lemons, but in a pinch they are a nice

enough substitute. They have a nice scent, and it should not be possible for

them to be dissolved in water.

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Roxanne sets a lantern in the corner of the room and begins to undress

herself. She washed herself lightly, and then she finally entered the bath

where I was already waiting for her in anticipation.

It feels good.

Warm water wraps itself around my whole body as I lazily spread out my

limbs.

Because of how big this bathtub is, it feels like I am in an actual hot spring.

It's not a cypress wood one so it doesn't have a mellow woody scent, but it's

still wonderful nonetheless.I placed a towel on the edge of the basin, put my

head on it, and laid down with my eyes closed. Roxanne also laid down next

to me. She stretched out her arms and hugged herself briefly before assuming

a totally relaxed posture. Her thin and supple body is right next to me.

Thanks to their buoyancy, I was able to see her breasts floating above the hot

water's surface and have a nice long look at her seductive legs.

Roxanne's skin is so wet and silky smooth when she's wet, just by looking at

her like that I could feel a certain part of me getting hot and bothered already.

「Aaah, this is the best.」

「Yes, soaking like that does feel really good.」

I feel like we both meant different things by what we have said just now, but

Roxanne seems to be happy about this, so I guess it does not matter all that

much.

Then, I felt something rubbing against the inner sides of my thighs. What a

comfortable feeling. Curious to see what it was, I grabbed it with my hand.

It was Roxanne's plump, shapely butt, and her tail that grew out of her back

slightly above it. The hair that made her tail is spread in the water like some

kind of exotic aquatic plant. She rubbed herself against me, and in turn I also

slid my hands around her soft body that was flushed pink from the heat of the

water that surrounded us.

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This is truly a surprising discovery.

「Roxanne, your tail is really pleasant to the touch.」

「Is that so? Thank you very much for the kind words.」

To show her appreciation, Roxanne started moving her butt and tail right next

to me, sending a series of gentle ripples along the surface of the bath's water.

I never had a dog myself, but I am sure that this ticklish feeling is how it feels

to have your pet wag its tail against your skin. It was a fluttery feeling that

calmed the heart.

Since she possesses certain dog qualities like her droopy ears or the tail, I

thought that she might try to avoid getting those parts of her body wet, but

apparently it didn't bother her in the slightest.

Taking a bath with her is even more wonderful than I could have ever

imagined. It's a shame that we cannot do this every day because of how butthurtingly long the entire process is, but if at all possible, then I would like to

do this with her every ten days… no, once a weak… no, every five days! Or

you know what, screw it, make it every three days!

She continued to gently rock her body to the sides, causing her tail to brush

against the entirety of the lower half of my body, sending jolts of pleasurable

sensations all throughout it. In the meantime, I continued to use my fingers as

a comb to keep the hair of her tail from getting all tangled up with one

another.

At one point I have submerged myself in the water entirely and then quickly

emerged back while pushing my wet hair back with my fingers.

「Master?」

「Ahh, there's no better feeling than getting your hair nice and wet when they

get all sticky and dirty. You should try it out as well, Roxanne.」

「Yes, gladly.」

And then Roxanne lowered herself down into the water, submerging herself

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completely. Since a bit of her hair were sticking out above the surface, so I

stretched out my arms towards them and washed them for her together with

her doggy ears. The feeling of the hair on her head was vastly different in

comparison to the fur of her tail, but it still got entangled with my fingers in

the hot water like normally.

(Shouldn't she be out to catch her breath right about now though?)

I didn't measure it down to every last second, but by my rough estimations

Roxanne has been submerged underwater for about a minute now. But just as

I was about to start seriously worrying about her, she emerged from

underwater with a loud gasp, splashing water everywhere around her, and her

two bountiful hills were displayed right before my eyes in their full glory.

「Puaaaaah… you were right, master. That felt truly refreshing!」

Baths are truly great. No, great is too small of a word to properly convey how

amazing they are. The baths are well and truly the best thing under the sun!