The Villainess in the Romance Fantasy Is Strange - Chapter 76



76. A Journey for Two (5)

The thin snowflakes seemed to grow thicker and thicker quickly, and before we could even get back to the villa, they turned into sleet, and eventually turned into large, hail-like flakes that came pouring down.

At first, we were just walking without thinking much about it, but after just 15 minutes, the weather got so bad that we had no choice but to change our destination in a hurry.

Leah and I, trying to avoid being seen, went to the nearest inn to the beach instead of the villa.

Squeak-.

“Are you there?”

The exterior was shabby, like a store that was several decades old, so at first glance it didn’t look like an inn. However, there was a sign outside the building indicating that it was a lodging facility, so it was definitely an inn.

As I politely made a sound, a person’s head suddenly popped out from the front of the inn, which was covered with a blue cloth. He looked to be an old man in his sixties or seventies, but his face was pale and wrinkled, as if he hadn’t eaten well, so I was startled for a moment.

“Are you a guest?”

“Oh, yes. The weather outside is not good. I’m going to rent a room and stay there for a while.”

The old man, presumed to be the innkeeper, glanced at Leah and I at our attire, then shook his head as if he was displeased.

“You can’t just stay for a short while, you can only stay overnight.”

“Why not?”

“That’s our inn’s rule, so if you don’t like it, just leave and go somewhere else.”

I rolled my eyes and looked outside. It was still snowing so heavily that I wondered if it was okay for this much snow to fall.

If you go out and look for another hotel with the situation outside like that, there’s a 100% chance you’ll catch a cold or the flu the next day.

I couldn’t ruin a trip I had been looking forward to just to save a few bucks, so I nodded.

“I’ll stay overnight. How much is it?”

“Ten pennies per person, including dinner.

It’s not even ten pennies for two people, it’s ten pennies per person. A night’s lodging at an inn usually costs about a penny, so this old man is asking for twenty times that amount.

Twenty times the local price.

This is a truly outrageous profit, a price without any conscience. Normally, I would have rejected it outright, but unfortunately, given the current situation, I can’t do that.

“Ugh, Achoo… … !”

Like this, Leah, who is suffering from the cold, is clinging to my right arm, sneezing constantly, while it is snowing heavily outside.

Even though the innkeeper is staring at me with a face that says, ‘What are you going to do?’, I can’t say a single word I don’t like.

“… … Tsk.”

It was bitter, but I had no other choice. I had no choice but to give him what he asked for. I took out my wallet and handed him twenty pennies.

“I will stay one night and go.”

“Yes, I checked. Your room is at the very end of the second floor. Here, take your room key.”

The innkeeper hands over the key and adds, ‘Please note that if you lose your room key, you will have to pay an additional twenty pence for the key.’

I nodded in understanding and took Leah up the stairs. But then I heard the innkeeper say something behind us.

“Oh, I forgot to mention, the room and water are separate. If you want to use the shower and bathtub in the room, you have to pay an extra five pennies. Are you going to pay that?”

“… … Something like that.”

Are all humans there?

I cursed inwardly, but I couldn’t not take a shower after getting hit in the eye so many times, so I paid the extra five pennies and went. After that, Leah and I went up the stairs and entered the room at the end of the hallway on the second floor.

“Eww! Oh, really. I’m all wet… … .”

“Just a moment, Lady Leah. Before you go in, open your eyes first.”

“Oh, okay. Okay. It’ll be faster if we tell each other.”

The snow had fallen so heavily that it was piled high on his hair, shoulders, and outerwear. If someone who didn’t know saw him, they would have thought he was traveling to the northern continent.

I shook Leah’s clothes thoroughly with the palm of my hand, and Leah shook mine too, focusing on the places her hands couldn’t reach.

“Wow, there’s so much snow… … .”

When the snow that had been removed was almost a handful, we finally finished sorting out our clothes. Only then did Leah and I enter the room, and we immediately took off our wet outerwear and hung it on a hanger.

From noble mtl dot com

“Cain, are you going to wash up first?”

Leah, who was running her fingers through the ends of her damp hair, looked at me. I nodded while touching my wet shoulder.

“I think it’ll take a while, Cain, do you want to wash up first?”

Since I’m a man and can wash up quickly, it was right for me to go in first, but I was still nervous. After all, wasn’t Leah sneezing repeatedly just a moment ago?

Now that we’re in the room, it’ll be a lot better than before, but I think it’d be better for Leah to go in before me, at least to avoid any unexpected accidents like a cold.

“No, you can wash first, Leah.”

“If I go in to wash first, Cain will have to wait a really long time?”

As she herself says, Leah is the type of person who takes a really long time to wash up. Once she goes into the bathroom, it takes at least thirty minutes, and sometimes it takes an hour to get out.

It wasn’t just Leah who was wet, but I was wet too, so it was a bit much to just wait thirty minutes instead of ten. Just because your swordsmanship skills have reached the level of a Sword Master doesn’t mean you can avoid catching a cold.

That doesn’t mean I’m some kind of sword master…

“Umm… … .”

Anyway, what do I do? There are two people who need to wash right now, but there is only one bathroom available. Since there is only one bathroom, this kind of difficult situation can arise.

It was a moment when I was inwardly flustered, not knowing what to do, and just biting my lips, as I was experiencing a crisis of this type for the first time in my life.

“Oh, then there is.”

Ahem-.

Leah coughed and waved at me, telling me to come closer.

“yes.”

Why are you calling me? I asked curiously, but as I approached her, she grabbed my arm and gently pulled me closer to her so that we were at eye level.

“Because we both have to wash.”

And then, just like that, he turns his head slightly, leans right next to my ear, and says something.

“… … Should we just go wash together?”

For a moment, I thought I had misheard.

Without realizing it, I turned my head and looked at Leah.

When I asked with my eyes whether I had heard correctly, Leah smiled faintly and said,

“What… … . There’s only one bathroom and two people, so if you think about it efficiently, this is right, right?”

“No, but still… … .”

“And, if you two wash together, you can wash up quickly. You can wash each other’s backs, and you can get wet together. You can even use the bathtub together. … … Right?”

“… … .”

I don’t know what to say in response.

If I say no, I feel like I’ll be seen as a bad person who would coldly reject Leah’s offer.

As I was avoiding eye contact and just rubbing my poor shoulder, Leah looked up at me with her lips slightly pursed.

There was no particular word, but the meaning in the gaze was clear. It was a demand for an answer.

“Do you not like washing with me?”

Then, all of a sudden, Leah lowered her gaze and muttered in a voice that was completely devoid of energy. I was startled by her tone, so I quickly shook my head.

“No, that’s not it.”

“But why aren’t you answering… … ?”

“Uh, um. That’s… … .”

“… … You don’t like it, right?”

“Oh, no. It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s good. It’s good. Yes, I like it, but… … .”

The moment I was about to make an excuse, saying, ‘I was worried that Leah might find it burdensome.’

Leah jerked her head up and grabbed my sleeve tightly.

“So, is it decided?”

“……yes?”

“You just said with Cain’s mouth. If you said it’s okay to wash with me, then it’s okay if we go in together, right?”

The words were on the verge of coming out of my throat, even though they were different and the law was different.

I couldn’t bring myself to say that in front of Leah’s smiling face.

“… … Yes, well.”

I swallowed my words with a sore throat and nodded my head in a hesitant manner. Then Leah let go of my sleeve, walked behind me, and gently pushed my back while laughing quietly.

“Okay, okay. Now that we’ve decided, should we go wash up quickly?”

“… … Wait, wait. But don’t you think you should get dressed somehow?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Just take it off and leave it on. I’ll use magic to dry it later.”

Using magic to dry wet clothes? This is exactly what the instructors call a misuse of magic.

Leah, who was saying something absurd, kept trying to push me from behind and send me into the bathroom, wondering where she got her strength from. I kept trying to stop her, saying, “If you come out of the shower and don’t have any clothes to wear, you might catch a cold, so let’s dry our clothes first and then go in…” After insisting, we were finally able to come to an agreement.

-Rank, squeak.

After grabbing a towel from the cupboard, I took off my clothes. But then, all of a sudden, I heard Leah’s voice from behind the closed bathroom door.

─Oh, Cain! You know you have to leave your underwear behind and go in, right?

“… …Underwear too?”

─Yeah, wouldn’t it be easier if you dried them all at once? It would be uncomfortable if you didn’t dry your underwear.

That may be true, but don’t you think it’s a bit much to show all of your underwear to a girl?

I hesitated to answer because I felt embarrassed, but Leah added something as if she was driving a wedge into me.

─If you leave your underwear on because you’re embarrassed, I won’t dry your outerwear either, okay?

It’s really creepy how he knew what I was thinking when there was only a wall between us.

“……yes.”

Yeah, well. If you’re going to dry it anyway, you might as well dry the underwear too. It might be a little embarrassing, but it’s uncomfortable if it’s wet…

I paused for a moment, took off my underwear, folded them neatly, and went into the bathroom. Despite the shabby exterior, everything was there. Although it was a little shabby, there was a glass shower booth, soap, shampoo, and body wash, and a shower head that was considered modern in this world.

“It’s just like a motel.”

I once stayed at a local motel when I went out on an all-night mission because I didn’t have a place to stay, and the shower room here looked exactly the same as the one I stayed at that time.

Feeling a strange sense of foreboding, I muttered to myself and turned on the faucet to turn on the water.

-Whoosh.

As I was soaking in warm water all over my body, I started to feel tired and the distracting thoughts that I had been putting off for a while started to come back to me in a clump.

Advice from Venus that I heard in passing, and my plans for the future. When will the snow stop? If it keeps snowing until the evening, I might have to go to sleep instead of resting. Then what will happen to my promise to go see the night sea and open champagne in my villa and watch the night view?

“… … Hmm.”

Either way, the eyes, these damn eyes are the problem.

I knew that the climate of the southern continent alternates between dry and rainy seasons, and that there were frequent downpours, so I prepared for them. But who would have thought that it would snow instead of rain at this time when I forgot to bring an umbrella?

How many coincidences must overlap for this situation to unfold?

Also, how did I end up taking a bath with Leah… … .

“… … .”

It was at that time that I was trying to think about it seriously.

─… … Cain, shall we go in?