The inn room was large enough to fit two beds inside. It also had plenty of sunlight.
It was a good thing that there were two. I had been under the impression that, in this world, inns usually provided single beds that were meant to be shared, or that we might have to split beds with complete strangers. Maybe that still held true at cheaper inns.
Or maybe I had only had that preconception because in the game, inns had been designed as large rooms stuffed full with multiple beds.
The prince, who had been brought up to the room ahead of me, was standing next to the window and gazing out at the sights when I opened the door. The sight painted a perfect, enchanting picture.
It was patently obvious why the proprietress and her sister had mistaken Wald for a girl. His profile, which was aglow with shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, made him look divine—like a painting of a saint.
Although the more I examined him, the more his masculine features stood out. Like his physique, for example. But looking at him initially, it was as though my brain had filtered out certain visual cues to make me see him as a pretty girl.
“Kariya,” Wald called out to me as I entered. He smiled at me, and the skin around his emerald green eyes crinkled with joy. “I’m glad we were able to secure lodgings without issue. So, what will be our plans for the rest of the day?”
“First, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Since I’d been the one to suggest washing off the dirt and grime of our travels, I went downstairs once more to ask for the complimentary hot water for washing that came with our room.
I was really blown away by the level of service, though maybe I should have expected as much from a top-class inn. Apparently, we could use as much hot water as we wanted outside of mealtime hours.
Our room didn’t have a tub for washing or a private bathroom. We had wanted an inn with those; that would’ve been another level of luxury over this one. But at that point, I doubted they would let barbarians set foot through the door, much less permit us to stay. So while I’d gotten hot water for us to wash up, first and foremost, doing so had also been part of my camouflage efforts.
I laid out a waterproof sheet on the floor and then materialized a massive washtub on it with a thump.
“Come, let’s wash up,” I said. “You were touching mermerls, so you’ve got to clean up right away. It’s important to wash your hands after touching wild animals!”
“Are you not bringing out the water heater?”
“The sound of running water would give us away, so this time, I’ll be your human shower. I’ll help you wash your hair, but you’ll have to take care of everything else.”
“Oh, all right.”
I filled the tub with hot water, then had the prince seat himself in it after he’d undressed.
I’m not gonna look at your junk, so you really don’t have to go out of your way to hide it... Though I guess it’s not really something to be showing to other people anyway.
Summoning water at just the right temperature from the palms of my hands, I touched his dyed-dark hair.
His shoulders curled inward as he squirmed about; maybe he was ticklish. Now and then, strange little gasps would escape from his lips, but I dutifully ignored them as I continued my duty as a human shower.
I’d done this for him before. Out in the brush, when he’d been too tired from the day’s journey to move, I had washed his hair for him. He really didn’t have to be so fidgety about it at this point.
The prince was now once more nice, clean, and glowing with warmth.
After he got dressed in the pajamas that had been laid out for us in the room, I dried his hair like always.
“There we go,” I said after a moment of acting as a human hair dryer as well. “Let’s just take it easy in bed until it’s time for dinner.”
“No, we have to go to the merchant’s guild as soon as possible—”
I cut him off. “Don’t be so hasty. I’ll scope things out first.”
He balked at my suggestion and began to protest, but I pushed him into bed.
I closed the open window and drew the curtains, covering the room in a dim gloom. Wald looked at me but didn’t say a word.
I smiled in an effort to assuage his anxiety. “You haven’t slept in a bed in a while,” I reminded him. “It’s fine, just rest for today. Sometimes it’s good to just take things slow and easy, you know?”
Wald still said nothing.
I patted him on the head, and despite the look on his face evincing that he’d wanted to say something, his eyelids were growing heavy. Eventually, they closed.
The quiet, measured breaths of slumber began almost immediately. It ate at me a little how tired he must have been.
The prince had probably slept in beds his entire life, and now, all of a sudden, he’d been thrust into the wilderness and had needed to camp outdoors. Adjusting to the change must’ve been terribly hard.
But incredibly, despite the difficulties he’d been facing, he hadn’t uttered a single word of complaint. Were all princes like that?
Shaking that distraction from my mind, I mentally prepared myself to move out. “All right, time for me to get going.”
Being a transmigrator, my base stats were pretty high from the get-go, so I didn’t really need to take a break. And compared to eking out a life in the harsh peaks of Gaelius, surviving in the plains had been easy—cozy, even.
Locking the door behind me as I left, I also erected a magical barrier.
I brought the key down to the reception area and asked them to hold on to it while my companion rested. With that, I left the inn.
I casually wandered aimlessly down the street before slipping into a narrow alleyway. After I made sure I was away from any prying eyes, I cast Jump.
While my belongings had been safely stored away in my Pocket Dimension when the mermerl herd had come thundering through, the prince’s belongings had been left at our campsite. I hadn’t been able to collect his things before we’d evacuated.
To be perfectly honest, I had been fine with simply abandoning the pack there, but the tools I had used to generate the protective barrier had also been left at the camp. We couldn’t afford to leave those unaccounted for in the wild. If anyone happened to catch sight of them, they’d easily be able to tell the tools had been crafted by a transmigrator.