Corpses lay strewn all around the guard station.
But first things first—I manifested a washtub from my storage and placed it in the middle of the stable.
“Kariya? What’s the tub for?” asked Wald.
“We’ve gotta get the blood off you. It’s hard to wash up out there with all the bodies around, right? At least you can’t see them from in here,” I told him. “Don’t mind the horses. Just clean yourself up as quickly as you can.”
I pulled some fresh clothes out of my storage as well. “Here, change into these when you’re done.”
I filled the tub with warm water and affixed a shower head to it, then gave him a small wave as I made for the stable exit.
“While you clean yourself off, I’m going to check a few things.”
I hadn’t gotten splattered with any blood myself, so I didn’t need to wash myself off right now. At most, I only had to rinse my hand—the one I’d grabbed the blood-soaked youth with.
“Be sure to get it all off,” I called back, and with that, I left the stable.
Now then...
I headed in the direction of the felled mercenaries. I had to make sure each and every one of them was truly dead.
Among the pile of prone bodies that lay near the spot where they’d assaulted the prince, I found a dismembered arm, still clutching Wald’s torn braid. I couldn’t leave it there. I ground my heel into the wrist to force the fingers to open and retrieved the prince’s hair.
Ensuring that nothing else of the prince’s had been left at the site, I went and recovered the pillaged pack.
I didn’t bother getting any of the things they’d stolen out of it. I hadn’t kept anything valuable in the pack in the first place; they’d all been ordinary, easily replaceable things.
All right, looks like I’ve finished them all off.
The mercenaries had seen me use Jump. If any of them were still alive, they’d only invite trouble.
Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, I stepped over the bodies I had left on the ground and entered a small house that had been built on the station premises. I had to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding in there.
When I finished going through the building, I indiscriminately ransacked the rooms.
I came across a desk that looked like it might’ve been used by an official. Yanking out its drawers, I upturned them and dumped their contents on the floor. A map had been posted on a wall—I tore that down too.
I kicked more chairs and desks over, pushing them from their proper positions.
Nice. This place totally looks like it’s been ravaged by intruders!
With that done, I headed back to the stable to check on the prince.
He was squeaky clean now. He had apparently just finished getting changed. I waved him over to me and once more performed my job of being a human hair dryer.
“Thank you, Kariya.”
“We can’t leave your hair wet, after all... You’d catch a chill,” I remarked. I gazed at his hair and couldn’t help but comment on it. “It’s so short now.”
“Right, about that...” replied the prince.
He grasped a lock of his hair—it now hung just past his shoulders.
“I was thinking I might like it shorter, actually. What do you think? With short hair, I’m sure people won’t mistake me for female anymore,” he remarked. Then, thoughtfully, he said, “I suppose there are some merits to being seen as a woman, but I believe the demerits are greater by far. This situation was proof of that.”
While men in this world wore their hair in varying lengths, long and short, all women wore theirs long. It was rare to see a woman with short hair.
On top of that, if a wanted poster of the prince were being circulated by now, the artist would’ve drawn him with long hair. So, cutting it short was a fantastic idea, at least in terms of strengthening his disguise.
“Wait, but is it actually okay to cut it? Isn’t there a rule that royalty has to wear their hair long?” I asked.
“No. I don’t deny that the men in the royal family tend to have long hair, but it’s not as though there’s a rule forbidding us from cutting it short. Well-groomed hair is seen as a sign of wealth, but there are many who aren’t concerned with such status symbols.”
Oh, I see.
All of the members of Tiuccian royalty I’d had the pleasure of meeting had worn their hair long, so I’d gotten the impression that there’d been a rule of some sort.
“You have scissors, don’t you? Since my hair’s already been cut and needs to be cleaned up anyway, I’d like you to cut it shorter,” he said.
“All right, got it.”
I seated him in a chair I produced from my storage and had him don his cloak to avoid getting his clothes dirty. Then, I cut His Highness’s hair just the way he requested—layers throughout, and the back shortened to the nape of his neck.
His hair had a slight curl to it, so overall, it ended up looking like he had a loose perm. But like this, he looked like a completely new person.
He was no longer a lovely young lady. All I could see now was a handsome young man.
While his face was arguably pretty similar to that of his sister, the strong lines of his face and neck were clearly visible as his hair was no longer obscuring them. Now, at a glance, it was clear that he was male.
Regardless, he still retained his captivatingly good looks. I couldn’t help but stare silently at him in fascination.
The prince blushed and grasped a curl of hair between his fingers. “I’ve never had my hair cut so short before. It...doesn’t look strange on me, does it?”
“No way, you look amazing! I was worried I might do a bad job, but I’m glad it actually looks pretty good.”
“Oh, okay,” the youth said with a smile.
“Maybe I should cut my hair as well,” I mused. “Since I’m doing haircuts anyway.”
“Don’t even think about it,” came his terse reply.
I continued thinking aloud, his words not quite registering. “We’d match that way— Wait, what?” I finally realized what he’d said. “Why not?”
“I admit that being a pair has a certain appeal,” he began, “but I don’t want you to cut your hair. Long hair suits you quite nicely, so I’d rather you keep it as it is.”
I was a little taken aback by the staunch conviction in his voice, but I nodded. “Okay. I won’t change it.”
Wow, the prince’s power of persuasion is really something.
Maybe he was just used to seeing me with long hair. I guessed that it’d be no big deal to leave it this long, and honestly? It was invaluable in the winter anyway. I packed up the hairstyling kit and put it back into my Pocket Dimension along with the tub.