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Volume 11 Chapter 3 Part 5

「Ah, master, if it’s alright with you, can we put something different into the bath today?」

While we were going through the shops, I wanted to buy some more lemons, buy Vesta stopped me this time.

I am buying them all the time, since lemons are meant for bathing, so what that might be about?

Does she don’t want to get in the bath with lemons in them that much?

「Is there anything else that you would like me to buy?」

「I heard that adding herbs is good for the body. I can even prepare it.」

So she really wants to do something different this time. And come to think of it, I do remember her saying that she would like to put different things into the bath sometimes.

「Alright, we can do that.」

「Thank you very much, master.」

I wonder if she wants to do it as an act of gratitude? Well, everything’s going to be fine just as long as she will still be willing to take a bath together with us.

I have heard about herbal baths, like the bath with iris petals in it, for example, so I wonder if Vesta wants something similar to that, since up until now we have been using baths with lemons with hot water instead of baths with yuzus and hot water.

Personally, I would not have anything against a bath with herbs and hot water.

「Who told you that herbal baths are good for you?」

「The lady at the hardware store.」

「So it was our landlady, huh?」

In other words, the lady from whom we got our current house. Turns out that she might actually be more than just a landlady.

I know that she occasionally engages in some small-time gossip with Roxanne and the other girls whenever we come to her store to buy something, but I just hope that she won’t start filling the girl’s heads with some strange ideas.

「When master did not add lemons to the bath that one time, I have admittedly felt a little sluggish the next morning after that bath, so it seems that adding things to the bath produces some genuine effects, so I want to test it out.」

Since Vesta is a member of the Dragonkin tribe, she needs to maintain a stable temperature of her body at all times. If for any reason her body’s temperature drops or she’ll be feeling too cold, it is going to have a negative effect on her, causing things like extreme drowsiness in the morning like that one time before. Warming her body up in the bath is one of the best method of countering that peculiar affliction of her race.

She is the one who is aware of the benefits of the baths more than any of us, so that means that I have been greenlit to experiment with adding various things to our hot bathwater.

This is amazing, since up until now I was not really adding lemons to the bath for reasons other than I was curious about it at first and then it developed into a habit… but now I hear that it was actually pretty effective?

Nd not only that, Vesta is actually going to be able to tell the difference depending on what I am going to add to the bath?

「Alright. From now on, we shall try adding various things to the bath.」

「Yes, thank you very much, master!」

We then go back home where I started preparing the bath.

I have a lot of my MP ready to be used to heat up the water, so I boil it repeatedly with Fire Magic, and while I was doing that, Vesta brought the herbs for us to try.

She brought a genuine bundle of them. It’s like a bouqet garni in her hands.

They look like they could all be deliciously cooked.

When the nimble rabbit dies, the cunning dog is cooked.

Cooked in the restaurant of many orders.

Well, even if the Labyrinths won’t die anytime soon, I am still going to be partaking of my delicious girls.

「Alright then, let’s put this in now.」

「Yes, please do so.」

I dumped the herbs Vesta brough into the bath, and they float onto the water’s surface. Somehow, this is really starting to feel like a bath with iris petals, or as if I was about to enter a river full of nature somewhere in a place where an abundance of aquatic plants was growing.

Maybe this bath right here is going to have a mental relaxation effect? And if so, then what kinds of other effects can we possibly expect if I add other things to the bath?

「It seems like you can even put Shell Powder into the bath.」

「Shell Powder? Like the one we are using for cleaning?」

「Yes, the very same. What else…? Because it is citric acid, if you put Shell Powder on a piece of freshly squeezed lemons, it is going to produce a lot of fine bubbles, which can also be used in the bath. I remember doing something like that before in the bath as a part of a science experiment either in elementary or middle school.」

Yeah, this is one of the school memories that I have. You can make carbonated water with that, or in other words, you could turn the bath into a carbonated spring with that.

「Heee, is that so?」

「I have never tried it here before, so I don’t know the exact amount of Shell Powder we would need though. We are just going to have to try various different things.」
「Yes, we are going to try them.」

Now that the herbs are floating in the bath, I can finish preparing it. Now that it is ready, we can leave it for a while and go have dinner first.

We are not having fish for dinner today, and that is because…

「The initiation ceremony for the Empire Liberation Society is going to be held tomorrow, so we will only be going to the Labyrinth in the early morning after which you can have the rest of the day off for yourselves.」

During the dinner, I announce tomorrow’s schedule.

I heard from Baron Ester that the appointed day for the initiation ceremony would be tomorrow. The initiation ceremony itself doesn’t require anyone but me to be present, so
it’s better for the four of them to take a day off instead of having them wait for me.

「Thank you very much, master. We will be sure to make the full use of this day off.」

「That’s good to hear, even though it is going to be like half a day off, really. But anyway, what do you want to do, Roxanne?」

「What do I want to do…」

Roxanne was brooding over the matter with a serious thinking face, but I can already guess that she’s going to say that she wants to go to the Labyrinth so that she could continue to practice her evasive abilities by avoiding the attacks of monsters, and she is probably thinking about which monster would be the best for that purpose.

Refreshing yourself by fighting monsters in the Labyrinths… only Roxanne is someone capable of doing something as unorthodox as that.

「As for Sherry, it must be the library or the Empire Liberation Society’s reference room, right?」

「Yes. It’s rare, so I would like to go to the reference room, I think.」

「And Miria will be fishing?」

「Yes, desu.」

I didn’t even need to hear from these two. Miria’s face is gleaming already. She seems to want to go fishing right away. In other words, we are going to be having fish for dinner tomorrow.

「Excuse me master, but what’s this 「day off」that you are talking about?」

Vesta asked me a question while looking at me with confusion, which reminded me that this is going to be our first day off since Vesta joined us.

「Tomorrow, we will be going to the Labyrinth before the breakfast in the morning, after which you will be able to spend the rest of the day freely.」

「Such a thing… Is it really going to be alright for us to have that?」

「It’s necessary to refresh yourself every once in while, so yeah, it will be fine.」

「Thank you very much then.」

Vesta bows her head to me.

「Although it will only be half a day, please do whatever you like to do during that time.」

「What I like to do? Then it’s very good that we’re going to have such an occasion.」