21

The moment Rubelmel passed by his side, Darius immediately turned his face away in the opposite direction from her.

When Rubelmel entered the bath, he heard the sound of the water sloshing, and Darius froze where he stood.

Darius stood there unable to move, while Rubelmel soaked in the bath.

A long silence continued in the bathroom with only the two of them there.

To Darius, that silence, combined with the fact that he was still clothed amid the rising steam, was deeply uncomfortable.

“…Heh heh, I may have teased you a little too much. I’m bathing with my back turned to you, so please relax, Darius-sama.”

Hearing Rubelmel’s relaxed voice, Darius cautiously turned his eyes toward the bath.

Just as she had said, Rubelmel was soaking with her back turned toward Darius.

“This is indeed the sort of place for men and women I mentioned earlier, but that is precisely why the price is cheap. We do need to soak and calm ourselves, but that does not mean we can afford luxury.”

“…That is true enough, but…”

“To begin with, boys under the age of adulthood are not within my range of interest, so I am not going to pounce on you. …Though if you insist, I could at least teach you the basics, but I am aware that even my own experience is hardly what one would call ordinary by society’s standards, so for Darius-sama—”

“I get it, so be quiet.”

Darius cut her off halfway, narrowly escaping having to hear a detailed account of Rubelmel’s personal experience.

“My apologies.”

Rubelmel did not sound remorseful in the slightest.

Realizing there was no helping it, Darius steeled himself and finally began taking off his clothes.

Along the way, Darius stayed on guard in case Rubelmel suddenly turned around, but fortunately that fear proved groundless.

Walking barefoot slowly toward the bath, Darius touched the water with his hand to check the temperature.

As expected of a bathhouse that actually charged money. It was not too hot, and the water had been adjusted to the perfect temperature to thoroughly loosen the body.

“I’m getting in, but do not turn around under any circumstances.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”

From where Darius stood, all he could see of Rubelmel was the back of her neatly trimmed head and a little of her shoulders.

Darius slowly lowered himself into the bath, starting with his feet. By the time he had submerged himself to about his abdomen, the water overflowed from the tub.

Darius had been tense, but once he sank in up to his shoulders, it felt as though his body were melting into the water, each strand of muscle fiber relaxing one by one.

His shoulders in particular were the most noticeable.

His shoulders, which must have been unconsciously stiffened quite badly, relaxed back into a gentler state.

Feeling his muscles loosen even himself, Darius could now understand Rubelmel’s words that haste would only lead to failure.

He did not know how far they would go, but from here onward it would be a long journey. And not a simple one, either. It would be a long trip as wanted fugitives, staying on guard every moment of the day. He could already foresee that it would put a heavy strain on both mind and body.

If he had begun the journey without soaking in the bath, Rubelmel likely would have been fine anyway, but Darius surely would have broken down along the way, mentally or physically, or perhaps both.

I should be grateful to her, Darius murmured inwardly, and just then Rubelmel suddenly spoke to him.

“How are you feeling?”

Feeling as if she had once again peeked into his thoughts, Darius reflexively straightened the upper body he had begun to relax.

When Darius sat upright, the surface of the water rippled.

Because of that, just below Rubelmel’s shoulders, parts of her back came in and out of view between the waves.

“…!”

Darius was flustered at the sight of Rubelmel’s skin, but his eyes immediately fixed on something unfamiliar there.

“…Hey, Rubelmel, what are those lines running from your back to your shoulders?”

They did not quite look like scars, but instead winding, meandering curves.

“Oh my, even though you told me not to look at you, you were looking at my skin? You are more sly than you seem.”

“That does not matter. That thing on you, it is not an injury, is it?”

“Ordinarily, no one would understand if you only called it that, but in this situation I can tell what it is you are referring to, Darius-sama.”

Right in front of Darius’s eyes, Rubelmel rose to her feet, exposing everything above the hips that had been hidden by the water.

“!?”

Without waiting for Darius, who could not even find words, Rubelmel turned around.

Darius stared blankly at Rubelmel with his mouth slightly open, his gaze moving from her neck, to her chest, to her stomach, to her legs, and then climbing back up again until it returned to her face.

Droplets of water fell from Rubelmel’s body, tracing along her womanly fullness and curves. The drops slid over her fine skin, trailing downward in obedience to gravity.

Rubelmel stood directly facing Darius. Naturally, Darius was forced to see the distinctly feminine swell of her body and the curve of her waist.

Darius, too, had the awkward embarrassment of a boy his age, but what held his eyes now was not Rubelmel’s femininity.

“…You, that…”

“My sorcery… no, that is not quite right. After seeing your ‘sorcery,’ Darius-sama, and Ains-sama’s as well, I understood it. I said that my magic is somewhat troublesome, but this is what I meant.”

Rubelmel spread both arms and spun around once in front of Darius.

Across her skin, black winding curves ran upward and downward, across front and back, as though drawing a pattern over her body.

Presented with the naked body of the opposite sex before him, Darius was far too focused on those markings for anything else.

“I am very poor at controlling the mana I possess myself, you see—or rather, I am hopelessly incapable of it. That is why I ordinarily cannot use magic.”

“But you, just now…”

What Darius meant was her confrontation with Seidel in the archive.

“Yes, I used magic. I manifested magic that I ordinarily cannot manifest. That is what ‘this’ is for.”

“What is this?”

“These black lines are a spell formula. All of these black lines together form the spell formula for a single magic. I myself constitute the spell formula of ‘Antagonism.’”

Smiling, Rubelmel continued, “That is why I can only use the magic of ‘Antagonism.’ As for anything else, not to mention advanced or even intermediate magic, I cannot even manifest a basic fireball.”

“…You yourself are a spell formula for magic…”