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Chapter 197: Laundry

「Wasn’t it too late last night? 」
「Mm. We arrived at midnight. I really wanted to take a bath, so it’s been hard on Noth. 」
I put the cream puff in front of Ash after breakfast; she looks a bit sleepy.

Az is happily splashing in the water, Green Circle bobbed up and down as he floated. Half of Blue Drop has melted on the water so I was a bit shocked. The trio seems fine so I also pour some water into my cup.

「Come to think of it, Noth mentioned you have a guest, right? Does that mean you can’t stay for long? Was it alright that we had breakfast together? 」
You can’t leave your house empty for long if you have a guest, right.

「Lilith is the guest — she’s the girl you met at the tailor. We’re good friends and besides, she’s still sleeping so there’s nothing to worry about. 」
Lilith huh, right, she’s the red-haired girl wearing a top that looked like a knight’s coat paired with pants. The one who gave me a ring and told me to look for her in case I run into trouble.

「Did she tag along because she’s worried about you? 」
「Mm. She was my best friend, but now she’s my stepmom. 」
「Huh? 」
「She’s set to marry Father. 」
「Er, isn’t she just a little older than you, Ash? 」
「Yeah, 2 years older. 」

Ack, I’m itching to comment, but right, I forgot, large age-gap marriages aren’t rare here; there are many of them. By the way, some of the aristocrats even got married right after they’re born, skipping the engagement all together… So they still stayed in their parent’s homes but they couldn’t get married to other people. And yes, that’s because they’re already married.

This is a world where stability in life and home takes precedence over love and romance. Actually, their top priority is survival, although it isn’t that rigid in places like Nalluahdid, the kingdom where the heroes are, places that are far from monsters and regions that hadn’t experienced war for a long time.

「What happened to your step brother? 」
「It was discovered that he didn’t have a single drop of Adelheid blood in him. He’s a spy from a neighboring hostile country, and it’s not just one or two people who infiltrated the kingdom, apparently. Many others also managed to get in, and their purpose was to sow discord. That country studied our kingdom very carefully and even made elaborate preparations. 」

I asked Ash if she can divulge some of the harmless details about what’s going on with her family. She told me that her father, the current head of the House of Adelheid, was insanely powerful when it comes to battle. He already devised a plan to eliminate the spies before war breaks out. Ash also made a name for herself just by being possessed by spirits. In short, they manage to drive their enemies away, apparently.

So the current head is far stronger than Ash, huh. He also hasd an outstanding adjutant with him when he’s at work.

Heh, does that mean they just have to ‘release’ the champion head (like a beast?) in case war breaks out and everything will turn out fine? Ah, but they’ll do that only in regions they want to annihilate?

「Mm, strawberries… 」
She delightfully started eating, so I stopped with the questions and poured her another cup of black tea.

After she was done eating, I sent the sleepy Ash home while telling her that we can talk again later. She woke up really early to see me, apparently, and she’ll go back to bed now that she’s seen me.

「Jean. 」
「Hm? 」

I promised her I’d see her again tonight, but just as she was about to enter the house, Ash stopped and turned back to me, her hand still on the door. I hesitated for a bit, then I opened my arms.

「Welcome home. 」
「I’m home. 」
I patted her back — ah, but it felt somehow as if the back of my head had been tousled hard — anyway, it felt like we exchanged a hug of deep affection before we parted ways.

Ash has become a bit more slender and she’s also soft. I don’t think I’ll wish for someone with a cutesy sweet aura like a manga character, but she’s more than enough for me. I went home, washed the dishes and cleaned the house while at it.

I pulled the covers of Daifuku’s cushions and stuffed them into a laundry bag. Went downstairs, poured water into the bath and kitchen and I was done. The water in the pipes evaporates when not in use so I do this to prevent that.

I went to the third floor and worked on furniture. I made a huge shelf with a simple framework. Maybe it’s time for me to buy more wood — maybe I should just get them myself? I still have to dry the wood so I won’t be able to use them right away but I can store them instead. Nice, I can make more things in the future if that happens.

Alright, let’s learn about the different kinds of wood and check which trees are the best sources of wood. I already went to a lot of places doing 【Appraisal】 on stones, but I only did a little bit with trees. If I go around checking the tables of the bigwigs of Nalluahdid, I might be able to know which wood is suitable for high quality furniture.

Based on Soleil’s story, those bigwigs usually compete with each other about who got the best furniture and clothes and what not. It’s probably a way to showcase that they’re not just for show, but they’re a company truly capable of handling magnificent items.

The buildings on the island are the same; those who used a lot of glass have the highest favorability. Once we start processing blue cloth, they plan to make flags and banners and hang them in several areas of the buildings, kinda like advertisements.

I’m fine letting Soleil run the business whatever way she wants to, but I did have some requirements for her. The countries she’s going to deal with should be stable first and foremost, and except for short term irregular dealings, the number of our clients shouldn’t surpass 10% for each region or place we’re doing trade.

My island has become pretty famous in Nalluahdid, but they don’t know anything about me. Even if they don’t approve of Soleil as the representative, once they learned that she’s the ‘feudal lord’ they’ll just think that the person in that position merely changed again. In the first place, talk about the feudal lord will come up from time to time, but they don’t delve into the details, apparently.

Soleil, Gold and Silver were puzzled about the interest in the buildings and items, but complete lack of it towards the proprietor and source. Seemingly, no matter how much of a fuss I make, or how flamboyant I was when making stuff, my evasion ability still far suprasses it. Yeah, I’m safe, I’m safe.

By the way, I’m diligently naming the spirits of the sea, wind, highwaves, whirlpools, tempests and thunderstorms. I request them to send a tempest when it’s the rainy season and calm stillness when it’s the season of great weather if the heroes came cruising southward by any chance.

I also told them to do that somewhere really far that the heroes won’t be able to spot them, like really high above the sky, or from the depths of the ocean. They don’t have to do it everyday, just frequently enough that no one would suspect a thing.

Actually, the heroes won’t come to the place where I am thanks to the effect of【Cut Ties】even if I didn’t request them to do that, and they won’t get any sort of information about me, but I still do it just in case. Besides, we never know when it might be useful, like when pirates attack, so maybe I should also ask them to make huge waves or bring some fog when an emergency strikes.

I asked Soleil about boat trips, and she told me about bug infested cookies and their friendly regular, the fleas. That’s when I understood that Sis won’t ever ride a boat. Me neither.

At any rate, I guess as long as they don’t get their hands on a person with 【Storage】, those three Japanese people won’t go on a long trip anytime soon, be it by land or by sea.

The hygiene awareness (or lack of it) of this world is actually playing in my favor.

The commoners don’t have many clothes; some only had the clothes on their backs. The rich can afford silk and other expensive clothes so you might think they’re better, but no. The hard water ruins the clothes so they simply don’t wash it. What a problematic choice.

Ack, just thinking about it makes me itchy all over. At any rate, I should also pull Dean and the other’s stuff and have them washed.