“Geh! Blade?! And Kassim?!”
Yessica stood up from the bath, water splashing around her naked body, and pointed. Her gaze went right through Blade’s body and pierced Kassim, who was still hiding in the thicket.
“You’re peeping again?!” she shouted.
Her voice was loud enough to quickly attract a large crowd of girls. They stood tall around her, hands on their hips, trying out their best high-pressure glaring techniques on Kassim as he crouched in the bushes.
“N-no, uh, it’s not what it looks like! It’s really not!” Kassim tried to explain himself.
How is it not what it looks like? There’s no doubt he was “peeping.” He said so himself, didn’t he?
“No excuses!”
The girls were all furious. Every one of them was now in battle mode, their fighting force, magic, elemental power, and blazing auras of anger seeming to take physical form and fill the air.
Blade didn’t really get why they were so angry. He was a normal man who understood normal reactions, and his theory was that they were mad about being seen in the buff… But they all bathed together anyway, so they saw each other naked on a regular basis. Why was the same thing so wrong when it was framed as “peeping”? Hm… Blade felt like he was peering into an abyss.
“Any last words?” asked the girls.
“Eeep!”
They loomed over Kassim as he cowered in their presence. His life could’ve ended right then and there.
“Prepare to face justice! Time to fly up to the stars!”
A tremendous blow promptly sent Kassim into the sky.
“Oh… We sent him pretty high this time. I bet he’ll cover a lot of distance.”
Blade put a hand on his forehead to shade his eyes as he watched Kassim disappear from view. Given his trajectory, Blade thought he might wind up on the Proving Ground roof.
“…So. Were you peeping, too, Blade?”
Yessica, as nude as ever, put her hands on the well-defined curves of her waist and seethed at Blade.
“No, I just had something to talk to Kassim about.”
Blade was already in the water up to his knees when he began taking off his soaked pants. He tossed them, along with his top, onto a nearby rock, then removed the rest of his clothing. You were meant to be naked in the bath, a fact of which Blade, a master of common sense, was well aware.
“…All right.” Yessica snorted as she submerged herself. Blade sat next to her with a splash. “Kassim, though… He’s such a moron, isn’t he? Like, if he wants to watch, he could just hop in like normal. What’s he even thinking?”
“Has to do with masculinity, I think,” said Blade.
“‘Masculinity’? What’s that mean? Do you even know, Blade?”
“Nope. I’m a normal guy, though, so I should probably learn about it…”
“‘Normal’? I don’t think so, Blade.”
“Yes I am. I’m extremely normal. I’m a normal, healthy young man.”
“Okay. Well, in that case, Kassim isn’t normal, so don’t copy him, all right?”
“Oh? He’s not?”
“No. He’s a lazy idiot horndog who gets carried away all the time. If that’s normal, then I feel bad for men everywhere.”
“He’s not normal, huh…?”
Blade had been clueless. He’d thought everything apart from him was “normal,” but it seemed that, among the general public, there were both normal and abnormal people…and Kassim belonged to the latter tribe.
“No. And if you keep hanging out with Kassim, you’ll become just as idiotic and horned up as him, okay?”
Blade shook his head. If being a moronic horndog was normal, Blade would welcome the traits with open arms. But that didn’t appear to be the case.
“Oh, by the way, Yessica, I had something I wanted to ask you.” Blade scooted closer to her so their conversation would have a little more privacy.
“Wh-what is it?”
Yessica scooted away the same distance Blade had moved toward her, politely maintaining the space between them. Blade responded by scooting closer again. Yessica stayed put this time, giving up on her escape, and instead looked at Blade head-on.
“What are you…? So you don’t wanna peep, but you’re out to molest me or something? That’s exactly why I told you to not follow Kassim’s example. Unless you really want to…”
“Huh? What’s ‘molest’? Is that a normal thing to do? …Because if so, I want to learn all about it.”
“No. Sorry. I had the wrong idea. You scared me for a second.” Yessica fanned herself with her hand, apparently surprised about something.
“Anyway, so, you know how there’s, like, the Hero, right?” asked Blade.
“Um… Oh, sure. The Hero King who visited us, you mean? What about him?”
“Clay was all like ‘boy, I hope he comes back to teach us again,’ but what do you think?” Blade hit Yessica with his tried-and-true judgment method.
“Well…that’d depend on the Hero, wouldn’t it?”
She gave him a strange, probing look. Blade glanced around, wondering if anyone else was nearby. They weren’t. Apparently, she was shooting the glare straight at him.
“Kassim said it might not be possible,” said Blade. “Because the Hero’s too busy and stuff.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’m sure the Hero has a lot on his plate.”
“What would he be busy with?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s busy enjoying the springtime of his youth?”
“‘Springtime’…?”
Blade looked up. Two birds were circling around in the reddening sky—Ein and Zwei. They cried out, clearly wanting to go home. To them, home meant their family’s nest situated on the topmost spire of the royal palace.
“What’s ‘the springtime of your youth’?” asked Blade.
“Well…for example, a time when you might try to court someone you like.”
Yessica scooted closer. They had been sitting side by side in the bath, but now she was almost pressing herself against him. She took one of his arms and pressed her chest against it, using her other hand to tickle his thigh.
Blade frowned. Why was she clinging to him?
“Is this ‘molesting’?” he asked.
He figured he’d better check, just in case. Was this what Yessica was talking about a second ago? His extraordinary sensitivity to what was normal was telling him he was right—that “molesting” meant making physical contact. And if so, Yessica was molesting him by running her hand along his thigh, right?
“No,” she replied. “Molesting is physically forcing yourself on someone who doesn’t want you.”
“Oh, okay.” Then she wasn’t molesting him after all. He didn’t mind the contact or anything. “Then, what is this?”
“Hmm… A kind of seduction, I guess?”
Yessica pressed her supple breasts against him as she spoke. Everyone’s breasts felt different, and Yessica’s were the supplest. Blade looked at her face, which was now so close that he could feel her breath.
“How is seduction different from molesting?”
“…Not working, huh? Figures.”
“What’s not working?”
“I was just trying to figure out why you were probing me like that.”
“Oh, umm…” Blade was cornered. Yessica had really good intuition about this sort of thing. There was a reason she wanted to become an intelligence agent. “No, um, well…”
Blade was tongue-tied. He had no idea whether Yessica knew his secret or not; he was utterly clueless. She wasn’t giving him the same clear reactions that Clay and Kassim had provided.
“Wh-what about you, Yessica? Do you feel the same way as Clay and Kassim? Like…d-do you want to see the Hero again? Maybe?” Blade tried his hardest to continue with the question.
“Hm…” Yessica put a finger to her lips, considering the idea. “I don’t really care either way.”
“Wh-why not?”
“Because I have someone I’m interested in more than the Hero… Will that suffice?” Yessica pressed her chest against Blade’s arm again.
So does she know or not? Which is it? Blade didn’t have a clue. She kept answering his questions with more questions.
“Hey…,” she said. “What do you think? Rub, rub, rub…”
He was being rubbed.
“Well, uhhh…” It was all Blade could do to keep playing dumb.
“Oh, Blade. I didn’t know you were here.” Lunaria approached, her voice soft. “May I join you?”
She slid in next to Blade, not disturbing the water’s surface at all. Yessica was now on one side of Blade with Lunaria on the other. He was sandwiched. Lunaria took Blade’s arm, just as Yessica had, and pressed it tightly against her chest. She was much more well-endowed than Yessica was.