Chapter 11:
Underwear and Date
“GOOD MORNING… Wait, what are you doing, Gol?”
When I awoke the next morning, I found Gol with her face buried in my old underwear. I’d taken it off before I went to sleep, thinking about washing it in the morning, but now…
Gol continued to press her face against my underwear, making no other movements. She seemed to be in a kind of trance, though possibly that was just my imagination.
Oh, I understood now. My partner was giving my clothes a smell check to assess their filthiness…I think. She was determining whether they needed to be washed. In the few days we had lived in Zairein’s hideout in the basin, Gol had often sniffed my underwear for that very reason. I knew she meant no harm, but I was embarrassed and wanted her to stop.
Can you please maybe not…? I had asked her to stop doing so numerous times, but then Gol would just sniff my underwear in secret.
As you can see, Gol had a sense of smell. Still, this olfactory sense wasn’t particularly advanced. If I had to say, I’d guess it was slightly less acute than that of an average person’s. You see, it always took her a bit of time to determine if something needed to be washed.
On the other hand, her auditory abilities were nigh peerless. At times, she reacted to even the smallest of sounds. In spite of that, she wouldn’t listen to other people at all, except for me. It was a truly crippling case of selective hearing.
But the greatest among Gol’s five senses had to be her sight. Her eyes were extraordinary, especially her kinetic vision, which far exceeded human capabilities. Paired with her mysterious radar, her superior vision allowed her to maintain constant total awareness of her surroundings.
During our conversation the previous night at dinner, Mr. Chotos had explained that a shrine golem’s keen eyesight came from the crystallized “photoreceptors” in their eyes—i.e., the exquisite crimson gems acting as Gol’s irises. Meanwhile, the busty shrine golems had green irises, the emeralds to Gol’s rubies.
However, golems with photoreceptors were actually quite rare. Usually, golems relied on their “Detection Crest”—in other words, that strange pattern on their forehead—as an all-encompassing sensor of sorts. It perceived light, sound, and even smell, depending on the kind of golem, but none of its senses would be as keen as Gol’s.
All in all, I could now see why golems ceased to function once their head was destroyed, since their ability to navigate the world depended entirely on that head.
Be that as it may, Gol usually left her Detection Crest covered by her bangs, as if she were embarrassed and didn’t want me to see it. When her forehead was exposed, she would restlessly shake her head until her bangs hid it again. The only time Gol ever showed her forehead was when she was in a serious fight.
Now I was a bit concerned, though. Were my partner’s sensors functioning properly? Gol fluttered her ears whenever she listened to me, which I had thought indicated eagerness, but…what if she was actually straining to hear? Even now she was desperately shoving her face deeper into my underwear, trying in vain to smell them.
“Hey, Gol,” I called out. “I think that’s enough for a smell test.”
She didn’t move, so I went to check on her and halted, shocked. Gol’s eyes were once again turning that cloudy pink as her face remained lodged in my underwear.
“Oh no, she’s breaking again.” I snatched my underwear away from her. “Are you kidding me? Do my briefs really smell that bad…?”
I couldn’t believe it. Had I secreted an odor strong enough to make Gol malfunction? I worriedly looked over the underwear in my hand.
They were an ordinary pair of boxer briefs. I had brought them with me to this world along with my pajamas. But unlike my pajamas, these weren’t lame…or so I thought. I checked the smell myself and didn’t find them particularly noxious. I wasn’t deeply surprised; I had cleaned them just the day before.
Ah, but… They say you can’t detect your own body odor.
Also, Gol was definitely on the verge of malfunctioning.
I see. So my underwear really does stink…
A dagger sank deep into my heart.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What? You want to buy underwear?” Mr. Chotos frowned at me. We were in the shop once more, though I had Gol sitting to rest from her earlier glitch.
I nodded, tears in my eyes. “Yes. Due to my circumstances, I, uh, don’t have a lot of underwear on me. Um…I’m just concerned about…stuff. Like smells and so forth…”
In fact, my greater supply of underwear had been blown away during the fight with the ancient Earth Dragon, so I currently only had two pairs: the ones I was wearing at the moment and the boxer briefs I had protected by storing them in my duffel bag along with my pajamas.
In any case, given the morning’s events, I’d be in trouble if I didn’t purchase new underwear as soon as possible. I’d been rotating between my two pairs, but if one day it rained and I wasn’t able to do laundry, I’d be doomed.
“Hmm. In that case, why don’t you visit the clothing shop in town? It should be open by now,” Mr. Chotos said. “You said you wanted to read some books, too, right? You should drop by the bookstore while you’re at it.”
“Right, I’ll do that…”
Clothing shop then bookstore, huh? This might be a good opportunity.
As I later learned, there were a few different types of underwear in this world. The basic and most common ones were shaped like trunks as opposed to, say, loincloths. They had no elastic, so waist size was adjusted with a drawstring. The fabric wasn’t particularly starchy, so I didn’t mind wearing them at all.
Before I left, I asked Mr. Chotos, “Come to think of it, how much do briefs cost?”
“You don’t even know the cost of underwear? You really are a sheltered kid, huh?”
Hey, Mister! You can take your pity and sit on it.
“Your economy is different from my hometown’s,” I said. “Listen! Don’t make that face! It’s just the economy. So how much for briefs?”
“Men’s underwear should be…hm. I believe you can get a decent pair for fifty copper coins.”
“Fifty coppers…”
Then that means, um… How much is that worth again?
The meals at the restaurant had been around ten copper coins…probably. My memory was vague, at best. Then underwear was five times more expensive than a restaurant meal? So clothing was more expensive in this world. Still, from what I’d seen of this world’s culture, I had feared the cost of clothing would make my eyeballs pop, and this wasn’t so bad.
“I see. I shouldn’t have any problems buying them at that price.”
“Hey, Nemaki.” For some reason, just as I grabbed my wallet and headed for the door, Mr. Chotos stopped me. His eyes were those of a guardian watching his young child going on an errand for the first time. “I’ll be busy today with all the preparations for my journey to Zibil, so I can’t go with you. Will you really be fine by yourself?”
“What?! Condescending much? I can buy my own damn underwear, you know!”
Just as my tantrum and I threw open the door, Gol staggered up from her seat to join me.
Oh? Is she coming, too?
I had hoped she’d stay to rest and tend the shop, as she was still unsteady and looked like she was about to collapse at any moment. Oh jeez, was she okay?