The feeling of slipping into the bath was so pleasurable that without thinking, I let an “Ahhhh...” escape my lips. Though the heavy cloud of steam made the air in the room quite hot, the temperature of the water was just right.
I felt my muscles begin to loosen, the bath seeming to ease my accumulated fatigue. How many years has it been since I’ve taken a bath like this? I wondered to myself. I’d gotten into the habit of only taking showers. With how good the bath felt, I started thinking that someday I’d like to go on a tour of multiple hot springs. Maybe, I thought, I could even bring some friends along to enjoy it with.
But...I was the only man in the group.
I had been a person with no interests at all. Since coming to this world, I’d developed a taste for all kinds of new things, but women still weren’t one of them. I was overflowing with love for animal ears, but the object of that fixation had nothing to do with gender. It couldn’t really be said that it had anything to do with women’s bodies. Though I couldn’t vouch for the future, that was where things stood in the present. For that reason, I had no problem with the idea of mixed bathing, but my three friends would feel differently. After all, it wasn’t like we were all kids. Even though they held me in high regard and cherished our friendship, they still wouldn’t want to expose their naked bodies in my presence.
They could enter the bath wrapped in towels, but sometimes towels went transparent when wet... It would be fine as long as there was some surefire way to keep their bodies covered.
“...Wait a second,” I said, suddenly remembering something from the previous world. One time, when I was searching for something resembling a hobby to keep my attention, I had turned on the TV late at night. Some anime, the kind broadcast only after dark, had come on. In it, there was a scene in which a woman’s body had shone with light. An unnatural glow that seemed to come from no particular light source had conveniently hidden her chest and pelvic region from view. The light had been left completely unexplained by the story. Its origin was an enigma, but it was a light. My beams, too, were made of light. They, too, could be made to radiate out from just one part of the body.
Of course, even if their bodies were glowing, they’d still be taking off their clothes, which was nerve-racking for girls of their age regardless of how well they were covered up.
As I was thinking it over, I was suddenly interrupted by voices from the dressing room. They were fairly loud, so I was able to make out who was speaking without straining my ears: two of the voices were full of energy, merrily bantering like children, while the third was chiding them.
Oltea, Frieze, and Tigaro.
“Didn’t Chestnut say Kaito was already in the bath?! At least cover yourselves with towels or something!” Tigaro said.
“But if we aren’t naked, then we can’t fully enjoy the bath!” said Frieze.
“I haven’t taken a bath in such a long time! I’m so excited!” said Oltea.
“We’ll go in once Kaito finishes up!”
“But it’s so much more fun if everyone goes in together!”
“Hold on, Kaito! We’re coming!”
It seemed that they’d come here under the influence of alcohol after learning my whereabouts from Chestnut. Tigaro was frantically trying to stop the two of them from following through on the impulse. Tigaro hadn’t had much to drink, but Oltea and Frieze had gone pretty far with the wine.
With a loud bang, the door to the bath flew open.
“Whoooa! This place is huge!”
“You could swim in this thing!”
Oltea and Frieze were standing there, naked as the day they were born. Despite the fact that they were completely exposed to me, they showed no sign of caring. It didn’t seem like something they would have done sober, and I worried that they would be mortified after the drunkenness wore off... I decided to try out the method I had just devised in order to make them believe I hadn’t seen anything.
Suddenly, light began to emanate from their chest and hips and their eyes grew wide with surprise. Easily amused, they each began to poke at their glowing areas.
“Eh?! Frieze! You’re glowing!”
“Oltea, so are you!”
As I was explaining that I had fired a beam of shining light—Shine Beam—I used it on myself as well, completing the preparations for our bath.
“Kaito, Clean Beam, please!” called Frieze. The washing area had soap, of course, but Frieze must have felt that Clean Beam would be more effective. Oltea joined her in begging me to wash the two of them with my beam.
Firing Clean Beam, I rained a shower of bubbles down on Frieze and Oltea. After the bubbles passed over them, water splashed into the air as they leaped into the bath. As they completely submerged in the comfortably warm water, their faces melted into expressions of pure pleasure.
“H-Hey,” came Tigaro’s voice suddenly. She was peeking through an opening in the door. “That beam... Would it work even if you used it over clothes?”
“It should. Do you want to come in too, Tigaro?”
“W-Well... It would be a little lonely if I just went in all by myself, so...” she said in an embarrassed mumble. As I used Shine Beam on her, light began to faintly glow through the bust of her maid’s uniform.
Tigaro withdrew from the room before returning a little while later to nervously enter the bath, her chest and pelvic area concealed by dazzling light. Be that as it may, things wouldn’t have been much different without the light: Tigaro was hiding her breasts and everything below her abdomen with her hands. Oltea and Frieze smiled over at her.
“Come on, Tiga, the sooner you get in the better!” said Frieze.
“The water feels incredible!” said Oltea.
Perhaps spurred on by their encouragement, Tigaro mustered all of her courage and removed her hands.
“You...can’t see anything either, right, Kaito?”
“Everything’s completely hidden,” I said.
“I-I see. Good, that makes me feel better... By the way, your body is shining too, right?” she asked.
“Absolutely sparkling,” I said.
“I guess it’s all right, then...” she said and, taking a relieved breath, started rinsing off. Once done, she asked me to use Clean Beam on her.
Seeing her, Oltea and Frieze began to laugh.
“Tiga, your face is as red as a tomato!” said Frieze.
“You’re embarrassed!” prodded Oltea.
“You two are gonna understand how I feel perfectly once you aren’t dead drunk! I hope you’re ready!” Tigaro retorted, blushing with increasing intensity as they teased her.