R 06

Chapter 6

Lus answered immediately.

“I’m not planning to do anything. Nothing is going to happen, so don’t worry.”

“And you expect me to believe that lie?”

“Does it look like a lie?”

I met Lus’s eyes as he looked straight at me.

I was suspicious of him. But unlike Redan, he didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives.

His eyes were impossible to read. For a moment, they seemed deep and unfathomable. The longer I looked at them, the more I felt as though I might be drawn in, so I lowered my gaze slightly.

I could see his handsome nose, sculpted as though it were carved from stone. Beneath it were his neat, well-shaped lips.

As I stared at them, I even had the strange urge to take a little bite.

“Ellie?”

Gasp! What am I doing?

I quickly shook my head.

“Are you crazy? Use another room. Or give me another room to use.”

No matter how I thought about it, this made absolutely no sense.

That was why I was even more dumbfounded. How could he possibly intend to share a bed with me when we weren’t married or even lovers?

“……”

But no matter how red my face became or how sternly I glared at him, Lus didn’t budge.

“I’m not crazy. Anyway, we have to stay in the same room.”

He said it so calmly that it made me think of another possibility.

Could the room be expensive? Or does he have nowhere to sleep because he gave rooms to my friends?

In the end, the only compromise I could offer was this.

“I don’t mind sharing a room with my friends.”

The moment I finished speaking, Lus firmly shook his head.

“That won’t do. You have to stay in this room with me.”

Seeing how stubborn he was, I finally brought up the reason I had suspected at first.

“Is it because you have to keep an eye on me?”

“Yeah. Because I have to watch you.”

He admitted it, but for some reason, he looked rather displeased about it.

“Right. That’s it.”

So my first guess was correct after all. Of course it was.

I secretly sighed. I had managed to deduce the truth through my own reasoning, but despite that, I felt disappointed and strangely betrayed.

In the end, the choice I made was to take one of the pillows from the bed and return to the sofa.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t escape anyway. Where would I go and leave my friends behind? You sleep on the bed, Lus. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“On the sofa? That’ll be uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine. Even this sofa is better than the bed in my house.”

As I said that, I shrugged to show him that I really was fine with it.

I knew it was a little ridiculous to leave a perfectly good bed and sleep on a sofa.

But it was also true that this sofa was far better than the bed at my house.

“Don’t do that. Just use the bed.”

“Then will you use the sofa?”

“……”

Lus rubbed his forehead slowly with an awkward expression. In the end, he gave a small nod.

Now that we had reached an agreement, I sat down on the bed. The mattress was so soft beneath me that I immediately felt comfortable.

The difference between the bed and sofa was remarkable.

Now I understood Lus’s behavior. I hadn’t known how different they were until I actually sat on the bed.

I glanced at him. Lus was sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed, looking thoroughly displeased as he kept stealing glances at me.

Maybe he didn’t want to give up the bed because he knew how much more comfortable it was.

Come to think of it, Lus must have been tired too, so I had basically pushed him onto the sofa. Even so, I had no intention of changing my mind.

“Sorry for making things uncomfortable. Then, good night.”

Just as I was about to lie down, Lus’s question brought my actions to a halt.

“I’ve been wondering about this for a while, but are you really going to sleep like that?”

“…What?”

When I sat back up, Lus’s gaze traveled from my face all the way down to my toes before coming back up again.

Without thinking, I followed his gaze and looked over my own body.

“Eek!”

The next thing that came out was a scream, and I hurriedly wrapped myself in the cloak.

Oh, Divine One.

My face burned with embarrassment.

Earlier that day, Redan had thrown me into the barn, making me roll across the floor.

On top of that, my clothes had been roughly torn, and Lus had covered me with his cloak. Somehow, I had completely forgotten about it until now.

“W-What are you talking about? Of course I have to wash! Oh, what was I thinking?”

I hurriedly climbed down from the bed.

“A well, a well… Where is the well? Is there one downstairs on the first floor?”

Lus let out a small sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Why does he look so troubled just because I asked where the well is?

Lus stood up and opened a door on one side of the room.

“The bathroom. You can wash here.”

“The bathroom?”

A little bewildered, I followed his directions and entered the space he called a bathroom.

One entire wall of the bathroom was a large mirror. Unlike the ones we used in the secluded village, it reflected things with remarkable clarity, but I could tell for certain that the entire wide wall was made of mirror.

There was also a basin attached to the wall at about waist height. I could see a bathtub with something long and pole-like attached to it as well.

“Oh, so I can wash here.”

At the same time, I began wondering where I was supposed to get the water.

Do I have to fetch it from a well? If I’m going downstairs anyway, wouldn’t it be better just to wash there?

As I looked around, Lus walked over to the bathtub and pulled up the handle of the faucet.

Whooosh!

Water began pouring from the shower like rain.

Lus lowered the faucet handle as though demonstrating it for me. The water immediately stopped.

Then he raised the handle again and turned it to the right and left as he explained.

“This is the shower. Raise it and the water comes out; lower it and it stops. Turn it to the right for warm water and to the left for cold water.”

Lus then pointed toward the shelf.

Pretty containers decorated with blue flowers were arranged on it.

“That’s soap, that’s oil, and that’s toothpaste… You know what they are, right?”

“D-Do you really think I wouldn’t know something like that?”

When I asked indignantly, Lus opened the cabinet.

Inside were towels, toothbrushes, robes, and various other necessities.

“There. Now you know everything, right? Then…”

With those words, Lus closed the bathroom door and left.

“……”

Even though I couldn’t hear it clearly, I felt as though I could sense his sigh. It also seemed like he was muttering something to himself again. I pressed my ear against the door.

His voice was low and quiet, so I couldn’t hear everything, but I managed to catch part of what Lus was saying.

“Haah… This is the worst one yet. Was the secluded village really living in the Stone Age? I never thought I’d actually hear the word ‘well’ too.”

To put it in Lus’s words, I wasn’t merely a country girl who knew nothing about the world. I was practically a primitive human being.

“Haah……”

I stared at the shower.

“Did he really think I wouldn’t know that? It’s a shower. This is called a shower.”

Grumbling to myself, I raised the shower’s control lever.

Whoosh—

Water poured down like rain with a refreshing sound. Ellie lowered the control lever.

Drip.

The water stopped immediately.

“……”

When I raised the lever again, the rain started pouring once more.

Just as Lus had explained, I turned the control lever to the right and warm water poured out. When I turned it to the left, cold water came out.

This is fun.

It was fascinating and convenient at the same time.

“Ahaha… Ahahahaha.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

I spent quite some time repeatedly raising and lowering the shower’s control lever before finally loosening Lus’s cloak from around me.

Only then could I properly see my entire reflection in the large mirror.

“Oh, goodness. Divine One.”

My tangerine-colored hair, which had once been neatly combed and flowing beautifully, was now hopelessly tangled.

The left side of my cheek, where Redan had struck me, was red and swollen, and dried blood clung to the corner of my mouth.

My neck was mottled as though covered in soot. Dirt, dust, bits of hay, and other debris were stuck mercilessly to my exposed skin and crumpled clothes.

And around my chest, where Redan had forcibly torn my clothes open…

“……”

I cautiously touched the reddish marks that had splattered onto me and dried when Lus had swung his sword.

When I applied a little pressure, an unpleasant, grimy stickiness transferred to my fingertips.

Don’t act so haughty, Ellie!

Suddenly, Redan’s voice seemed to echo in my ears.

“……”

My heart grew heavy. I didn’t feel good at all. Just as I was becoming dejected while staring at Redan’s bloodstains, I heard Lus’s voice from outside.

“Are you all right in there? Is anything uncomfortable?”

“Ah, yes! I’m fine.”

I quickly finished undressing and stepped into the bathtub.

Whoosh—

As the warm water from the shower poured over me, I felt my unpleasant mood gradually ease.

The bloodstains, along with the dirt, dust, and bits of hay…

I let the traces of those unpleasant memories wash away with the water, then washed my dirty clothes and Lus’s cloak as well.

If I hang them somewhere suitable, will they dry before I need to wear them again?

After finishing the laundry, I thoroughly washed my body with soap. A gentle fragrance of soap spread throughout the bathroom.

The shower was over. When I looked in the mirror again, I gently touched the back of my neck.

I wondered if I hadn’t washed it properly because it was still mottled.

But when I looked more closely, I realized they were bruises in the shape of fingers.

“Haah.”

As the dizzying moment came rushing back to me, I let out a sigh.

I took a towel from the cabinet and wrapped it around my wet hair, lifting it up.

I lightly dried the water from my body with another towel and applied some oil as well. A fresh, pleasant fragrance soon filled the air.

Once my body was clean, my heavy heart seemed to feel a little lighter too.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror once more.

A few strands of my tangerine-colored hair had escaped from the towel wrapped around my head, making it look especially lush. Drops of water clinging to the ends of my wet hair trickled down my oiled shoulders and collarbone one or two drops at a time.

Perhaps because I had washed, the swelling on my face had gone down a little. From head to toe, my body had perfect curves and a smooth silhouette.

I found myself staring, completely entranced. Even to my own eyes, my beauty seemed to be on another level.

“Oh, I’m really pretty. So this is what my body looks like……”

I remembered bathing with my friends in the stream back in the secluded village.

Whenever they looked at me back then, they had always marveled at my appearance. They would tell me I was incredibly beautiful and pretty.

They had even said that they doubted whether a goddess sculpted by an artist blessed with divine talent could possibly be more beautiful than me.

But back then, I had assumed they were merely saying flattering things to make me feel good.

Because I had never properly seen myself.

There had been no full-length mirrors in the secluded village, after all.

In other words, although we could see one another’s bodies, it was difficult to know what our own bodies actually looked like.

My brief recollection was soon interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Ellie? …Are you almost done?”