Chapter 42

Seeing me look surprised at the man’s face, Miel asked carefully.

“Armien, do you know him?”

“No.”

He was a complete stranger. What shocked me was the fact that the guy knew me, coupled with his face. He was so drop-dead handsome at first glance that it made my eyes rot. Just imagining him using that damnably handsome face to pick up women made me instinctively want to punch him right in the jaw.

“If it’s not too much trouble, might I ask who you are? I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t the slightest idea who you are.”

At my words, the man flashed a smile tailor-made for seducing women—a professional working smile deployed by someone fully aware of his own good looks.

“Haha, I am the genius mage, Ahel de Velia. A pleasure to meet you, beautiful Lady Armienne.”

Ahel de Velia!

Um, who was that again? It felt like it should ring a bell, but my mind was completely blank. With a guy this gorgeous, I surely would have remembered him out of sheer spite.

Anyway, that playboy-esque smile really didn’t sit well with me, so I gave him a cold reply and stepped inside the room.

“I see. Well, do have a wonderful time, Mage Ahel.”

Ahel seemed to say something in response, but I tuned it out since I couldn’t hear him anyway. Just chatting with a guy like that was unpleasant enough as it was. Damn it, he looked like a walking public enemy of all men. Who knew how many women had been swindled by that face alone?

Miel let out a soft chuckle and looked at me.

“He said we’ll be seeing each other later, you know?”

“What?!”

What kind of terrifying words were those? For a pretty boy—not even a beauty—to cast a curse saying we’d meet again later made me feel like I needed to go sprinkle salt right this instant.

“Well, let’s just head into the hot spring for now.”

Perhaps feeling cheered up by the trip, Miel spoke in a lighter tone than when she first announced she had run away, and began getting ready to enter the hot spring.

Yul was slowly and meticulously wiping down his prized, top-of-the-line all-purpose camera, while Aria was holding onto a swim ring covered from top to bottom with snacks she must have gotten from Miel, wearing a diving mask and a snorkel on her face. It sometimes made me wonder where on earth she pulled out all these random items.

“Y-Yeah.”

“Mommy, are you cold? Why are you shaking like that?”

Am I trembling?

Only at Aria’s words did I notice that I was shivering like a willow branch in the wind. To be completely honest, I was nervous. Washing my own body alone every day meant I had no choice but to see myself, so I was used to it by now, but the only bare bodies of other women I had ever seen in my life were the ones on computer screens and my mother’s body when I was little.

And now, a person like me was about to step into a hot spring alongside Miel, Aria, and Yul.

“Um, maybe it’s because I’m wearing thin clothes. I’m a little chilly.”

“Hehe, then let’s hurry up and go, Mom.”

There was no turning back now. I hardened my resolve. To marry Miel in the first place, I should have been prepared to do crazier things than this. If I was going to back out after coming all this way, I might as well have dated Carusien, who hated my guts.

“There are supposedly four different kinds of hot springs in this inn. I’m so looking forward to it.”

“I’m really looking forward to it, too.”

Rather than the hot springs, I was looking forward to Miel’s gorgeous figure. With those thoughts, I entered the changing room together with everyone else, and the moment I laid eyes on the layout of the changing room, I despaired and cried out in an aggrieved voice.

“Why are they all individual partitioned stalls?!”

The hot spring, which I had expected everyone to enter together in the nude, turned out to be a place where people wore swimsuits because men used it too, and the changing room consisted of individual stalls meant for only one person at a time.

Could it be that this wasn’t an R-19 romance fantasy, but a general-audience one instead?

“Ghk! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Selecting a swimsuit that fit my size from the options laid out in my private stall, I banged my fist against the wall of the changing room.

To think they’d enforce age ratings in weird places like this. If I could only meet the author who wrote [Harmiel], I would grab onto the hems of their pants and beg them to change the hot spring inn settings.

While I was drowning in shock, the others must have finished changing into their swimsuits, as Aria’s cheerful laughter drifted in from outside.

“Teehee, I like Auntie so much.”

“I like Aria a lot, too. By the way, Armien is cutting it a bit close.”

“Mommy is only saying that because she’s gained weight. She lies in bed all day every Sunday.”

Huh?

Startled by Aria’s sudden remark, I quickly double-checked my swimsuit and stepped outside. Even if I could take it from anyone else, I couldn’t let Aria—someone who did nothing but eat and sleep all day long—say something like that to me.

“Aria! How dare you talk behind your mother’s back, you’re asking for—gasp!”

However, the moment I stepped outside, the scenery before my eyes forced me to cut myself off. I had half-expected that Miel, who loved pink frills, might wear some childishly cute swimsuit here as well, but she was instead wearing a sky-blue bikini that went wonderfully with her blue hair—a sight far too stimulating for my unprepared heart.

Ghk! I can’t die of a heart attack right here.

Clutching my chest, I managed to hold myself together before getting hit by Aria’s second wave of attack.

“Mom, does Aria look cute?”

“C-Cute.”

It was the truth. If Miel’s reveal was unexpected sexiness, Aria had taken her usual cuteness and dialed it up to eleven by wearing a swimsuit. Wearing a dark purple one-piece swimsuit, Aria was still sitting inside the swim ring she had brought earlier, with a diving mask perched on her forehead—a sight so adorable it made me want to nibble on her cheeks right then and there.

“Young Lady, if you stand around like this for too long, you might catch a cold.”

As for Yul, her swimsuit was a plain, unremarkable bikini that stayed well out of the spotlight.

Me? I had no other choice. None of the other sizes fit my chest. It was a black bikini that matched my silver hair nicely.

“She’s right. I’m starting to feel a bit chilly myself. Let’s hurry inside, Armien.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

It was a little disappointing, but I decided to make do with just getting to gaze at Miel in a bikini. Besides, just looking at her bikini-clad form was already making me dizzy; I wasn’t sure my system could handle seeing all of her just yet.

“Ooh, it tastes salty.”

“That’s because it has salt in it.”

The first hot spring we entered was a salt spring. Containing dissolved salt, this spring was said to have positive effects on the digestive system… or so the explanatory plaque read.

Salt springs didn’t seem very popular, as there wasn’t a single soul around besides us. Which, in a way, was a relief.

If any other men had been here, they wouldn’t have been able to stop themselves from getting worked up after laying eyes on Miel’s gorgeous body. If that happened, I would have had no choice but to take that guy out. I just prayed the other baths were equally empty.

“Kya! This is amazing.”

True to Miel’s words, the hot spring wasn’t half bad. Submerging myself in the warm water naturally washed away my fatigue and drained the tension from my body. Just then, Aria popped her head out from the water where she had been diving, pouted her lips, and rubbed her tummy.

“Mommy, Aria’s starting to get hungry already.”

Well, the guide did say it had a good effect on the digestive system, but I didn’t think it would kick in this fast. Was it because Aria was a dragon?

No way that’s it.

Aria just ate a lot. Sometimes I honestly couldn’t tell whether I was raising a dragon or a hippopotamus.

“Why don’t you go buy some roasted eggs to eat?”

“Okay~!”

Since billing was deferred anyway, Aria sprinted out of the hot spring in her swimsuit and dashed right back holding an entire carton of eggs. Looking at that, I couldn’t help wondering if even that would be enough for her.

With a look that screamed she would never let anyone take her food, I lightly smacked the palm of Aria’s hand as she tried to guard her eggs, then picked up a few and handed them to Miel and Yul.

“Here, Miel, have some.”

“Thank you, Armien.”

“Don’t mention it. And for you too, Yul.”

“I’ll gladly accept, Young Lady.”

As I peeled an eggshell, I couldn’t help but wonder. By now, they probably would have found the letter I left behind. I had only jotted down the bare minimum in my rush to leave, so I wondered how they were taking it.

[I’m running away. Don’t look for me. - Armienne]

“Surely they won’t go as far as issuing an emergency alert, right?”

Figuring that nobody in their right mind would do such a crazy thing, I popped an egg into my mouth.

Afterward, we moved on to the next hot spring. The next one we visited was a germanium spring. Just like the salt spring, it only featured a brief description stating that germanium-infused water was popular among women.

“Ah, this one is amazing, too.”

“Splash splash!”

Much like the salt spring, there was no one else here, allowing Aria to happily splash around and polish off another full carton of eggs. She was truly a dragon with the worst cost-effectiveness in existence. She couldn’t even use magic properly despite being a dragon, meaning she was utterly useless for anything other than being cute.

“Next hot spring.”

“Yes.”

Feeling like we’d enjoyed the germanium spring enough, I stood up, and Yul followed suit. Miel looked like she wanted to linger a little longer, but she soon trailed behind me.

The next place we headed to was a sulfur spring, but the smell was so atrocious that we decided to skip it entirely. In fact, Aria almost threw up, so we nearly had a disaster on our hands.

The final hot spring we visited was a carbonated spring, which was apparently drinkable. I had been worried that Aria might end up drinking all the water, but the moment we arrived at the carbonated spring, annoyance washed over me instead of worry.

“Hah.”

Now I understood why there weren’t any customers at the other springs. Particularly for the germanium spring, it was strange that no one was there despite its popularity with women—because every single guest was gathered right here.

“Kya! So cool. Sir Ahel.”

“Haha, this is nothing special for a genius like myself.”

Before long, my eyes locked with Ahel, who was showing off and messing around using magic, and he greeted me with that signature playboy smile of his.

“We meet again, Lady Armienne.”

Ahel de Velia.

I had this nagging feeling I’d been stuck with a real pain in the neck.