/
Chapter 41- Dinner and Bath
“Thank you, that helped a lot.”
I thanked the sorcerer Adventurer.
“Don’t mention it. You’ve helped us more than anyone.”
“Aye, it’s because of you that we didn’t have to sleep outside yesterday. And today we’ll be able to take a bath.”
“I was prepared to only be able to bathe a few times a year!”
The Adventurers said.
I thanked him again and then took down the blankets and returned to the house.
When I was folding them inside, I heard buzzing coming from the bathing house.
“Woah…”
“Amazing.”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
Even Kelly’s smug voice could be heard.
“It looks like Fio and the others have finished bathing.”
“Kyuo.”
And so Hippolius and I ran to the bathing house.
There, we saw a much cleaner Fio.
Her tangled, messy hair was now smoothly combed, and her tail and ears looked fluffy.
She was also wearing proper shoes and clothes now.
Fio finally looked like a normal child.
“Fio. That suits you very well.”
“Wuff.”
When I patted Fio on the head, her tail wagged happily.
“Thank you, Kelly.”
“Tank you!”
“Don’t mention it! The clothes and shoes were leftovers.”
Kelly and Fio seemed to have become good friends.
“And Shiro…”
“Wou!”
Shiro was sitting politely and looking at me.
The Adventurers were probably the most surprised when seeing Shiro.
I could tell this immediately. That was how much he looked like a great wolf now.
“Your coat looks so much better now, it’s amazing.”
“Wuff.”
While he was still a little thin, he looked like a great demon wolf indeed.
Even if he was a wolf cub, Shiro was still 1.5 meters long.
And now his coat was no longer a filthy white, but a beautiful platinum white.
I petted Shiro’s fur gently.
“Shiro. Your fur is more silver than white, isn’t it?”
“It looks like it! That was a surprise for me as well!”
It seemed that they were white near the roots, but closer to silver near the tip.
“Due to all the dirt, the white looked like a filthy gray.”
“Maybe Shiro is not really a subspecies of demon white wolf.”
“Oh?”
“I can’t be sure yet, but… Perhaps Shiro is a higher ranking type.”
As Shiro’s fur was so nice, I couldn’t help but wonder.
After that, I taught Victor and the Adventurers how to use the bathing facility.
Once that was done, the women went in first.
In the meantime, we prepared to make dinner.
And while we worked, I questioned the geologists.
“Do you think there might be places to mine metal around here?”
“Metal? What do you need?”
“I want to make pipes. And so I need a lot of iron.”
“Hmm. Iron is a popular substance. I don’t know if there is a lot, but I’m sure there will be some if you look…”
If I only needed a little, I could just gather iron sand from the river.
However, that would not be enough at all.
“It would be best if there was a place where I could mine ore, like iron pyrite or magnetite…”
Currently, I had found no such places in the area.
“Perhaps I really have no choice but to gather iron sand from the river?”
“While there would be some iron there, it will be very difficult to get a lot of it, you know?”
“Hmm.”
“Well, perhaps it won’t be too hard to gather it with your skills, Theo.”
So saying, the geologist tried to think of a solution.
The relative density of iron was high. And so if you knew how, you could separate it from sand.
“It would be best if we could find granite, which contains a lot of iron sand, upstream…”
Apparently, there was a way of separating iron sand and normal sand by crushing granite and letting it flow downstream.
Additionally, if there was already granite near the river, then iron sand would naturally collect near the bottom of the water.
“Because iron sand is heavy.”
“I’m glad that I was able to hear this. Tomorrow, I think I’ll travel up the river and have a look.”
“Can you tell granite apart from the other rocks?”
“I have the appraisal skill, so it should be fine.”
“I see. As the crafting and taming skills drew so much attention, I had forgotten.”
As I talked with the geologist, we finished preparing dinner.
And then all of the women came out from the bath.
Once everyone had eaten, I took a change of clothing with me and went to the bath house with Victor and the other.
“I’m sorry, Hippolius.”
‘It’s okay.’
“I’m really sorry.”
Hippolius was too big to go inside.
And while I felt bad about it, I washed up and entered the bathtub.
And then Victor, who was already inside, said,
“It would be nice if there was one big enough for Hippolius…but I suppose that is too difficult.”
“Indeed… Maybe if it was an outside one…”
However, that would require a lot of space. And it would consume a lot of hot water as well.
Even with the help of the magic tool to make hot water, it would likely cool down before it was filled with water.
“It would be very difficult indeed…”
“Now that I think about it, Fio and Shiro said that there was a natural hot spring not too far away.”
“Perhaps Hippolius will be able to bathe over there.”
“However, they also said it was a demon bear’s territory. So we’d have to be very careful about agitating it.”
“Hmm. That is true.”
As I talked to the Adventurers, I soaked comfortably in the bathtub.
And once my body was warm enough, I got out of the water.