“If we’re going to spend the night here, let’s wash up first. We’ll get skin diseases at this rate.”
After finishing the conversation, Amy grumbled that we should wash up first, looking down at her body covered in rotten blood.
“Especially you, Hilde. You need to wash thoroughly. You’ve got minor wounds all over from fighting at the front, right? If you leave those untreated, you could get an infectious disease.”
“I suppose that’s true…?”
Infectious disease. It was a valid point.
The blood of undead is a mass of decayed pathogens. If it flows into wounds, there’s a high chance of causing infectious diseases like sepsis or decay disease.
Brunhilde’s body was set to have strong resistance to infectious diseases, so it probably wouldn’t happen easily, but…
‘…It doesn’t hurt to be careful, right?’
Resistance, not immunity, means there are exceptions and limits.
There’s no need to test those limits unnecessarily. If I catch a disease carelessly, I’d be the only one to suffer.
So, I agreed with Amy’s opinion that we should wash up first.
The problem was…
“Even if we want to wash, is there a water source in this forest that could be called suitable?”
If it’s just wiping the body with a damp cloth, we could manage with drinking water, but to properly wash, we’d need to find at least a decently sized stream.
However, it was unclear if such a water source existed in this small forest.
At least I hadn’t seen one, and it was quite ambiguous to start wandering the forest now in search of a stream.
We had decided to stay in this cave until tomorrow morning to get some rest before joining up with the paladins, but if we had to spend that time searching for a water source, wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?
“Um, there wasn’t any nearby…”
Friede, who had been listening, chimed in with an answer.
While there was some snow accumulated near the ruins, she said this area only had mud and streams too shallow and thin to even dip one’s feet in?
In other words, the luxury of bathing was out of the question.
“Who said anything about washing in a stream?”
However, Amy smiled as if we were worrying about nothing, and while taking out her spellbook and opening it on her left hand, she slightly raised her staff towards me.
“Huh, Amy?”
A posture as if she was about to fire an attack spell at me right now.
I reflexively stopped my right hand that was about to grasp my sword hilt and asked her intention in pointing her staff at me.
“I’ll wash you, so stay still. If you move too much, it’ll dispel right away.”
Amy answered while looking at me nonchalantly, apparently unaware that her neck had just narrowly avoided being cut off.
“Purgo.”
The next moment, magical power erupted from the spellbook and enveloped me, transforming into a fierce whirlpool of water.
Swoosh!
A spray of water that rotated rapidly, penetrating even inside my armor.
The blood and filth on my body and clothes were swept away as if dissolving into the water vortex.
It felt like being trapped inside a washing machine and being washed.
It was the effect of the cleansing magic, one of the non-combat spells recorded in Amy’s spellbook, ‘Book of Adventure’.
When did she learn such magic?
I don’t think she could use it last time… Perhaps thanks to her skills improving a bit, it seems the upper limit of magic she could learn had increased somewhat.
About a minute passed like that.
Splash!
The water spray, thoroughly contaminated after finishing the cleansing, detached from my body and crashed into a corner of the cave like a water balloon.
“Phew…”
I let out a satisfied sigh, feeling a refreshing sensation from the clean and fluffy texture of my clothes.
It wasn’t comparable to a proper bath since it was just washing with water without soap or cleansing agents… but this was good enough.
The fact that the blood that had been unpleasantly sticky and smelling of rot had completely disappeared was enough to make me exclaim with praise.
Oh, magician, oh.
Moreover, not just cleansing, but even drying was perfect. The water spray that detached after finishing the cleansing even scraped off and removed any remaining moisture on my body and clothes.
“How is it?”
Amy asked for my impression with a confident face and a grin.
“Ah… thank you. I didn’t think there was such a method.”
I expressed my gratitude while examining my thoroughly dried and slightly crisp clothes.
“And, I’m grateful, but… for things like this, let me know beforehand. I was a bit startled at first.”
I also added a word of advice.
If she was going to use cleansing magic, she should have said something before pointing her staff. I almost cut her down.
A magician pointing their staff is no different from a declaration of war that they’re going to cast magic at you.
I barely held back because we’ve become somewhat close, but if it had been someone I just met, I would have immediately drawn my sword and swung.
“You dumped water on my face too, didn’t you Hilde? Let’s call it payback.”
Of course, Amy, unaware that her life had been on the brink, just grinned and said it was a joke.
* * *
Amy, having put down her staff and finished cleaning herself, was about to put her spellbook away, saying she had used up all her uses of the cleansing magic.
While pointedly ignoring Friede, who was covered in sweat and blood just like we had been until moments ago.
“…Are you sure it’s all used up?”
“Hmm… hmm… I wonder?”
Amy trailed off, turning her head away.
It’s obvious. She can still use it one more time but she’s pretending she can’t, playing a prank.
“Um… I’m fine, Ms. Hilde. You know, Amy is an incompe… I mean, a newbie who just started adventuring…?”
Friede shook her head with a slight smile.
She narrowed her eyes and smiled as if trying to appeal to the composure and consideration of someone two years older…
“It’s natural for her to be lacking… incapable, so I can just endure it. As a senior.”
Maybe because of her youthful face, to my eyes, she just looked cute like a child bragging about their school grades.
“No, I can do it!”
Amy, perhaps with her pride hurt by the word ‘incompetent’, frowned and pointed her staff at Friede.
“Purgo!”
See there, she could use it after all.
I smiled, leaning against the cave wall, watching the water spray that seemed to particularly focus on Friede’s face.
The sight of them bickering made me chuckle involuntarily, as it looked like a cat and a crow fighting.
* * *
After washing our bodies with Amy’s magic, we filled our stomachs with the dried rations we had and rested for six hours straight to soothe our tired bodies.
Amy sat leaning against one wall, closing her eyes and meditating to pass the time, while Friede stuck close to my side, maintaining her greatsword and armor while chattering about various things.
“H-Hilde, do you have any particular favorite food? I, um, like roasted duck…”
“I’m not particularly picky… but if I had to say, I prefer meat over bread or fruit, I guess?”
Because people need to eat meat to gain strength.
Strength is muscle. Muscle is meat. It was my principle that a warrior living by the sword should gnaw on meat instead of bread.
“Wh-what are you planning to do when we return to the city after finishing this request…?”
“Well, I suppose I’ll look for the next request?”
It seems my luck has taken a bad turn, so I should probably look for something more ordinary for the next request.
To avoid the kind of ordeal we went through with this request.
Since I’ve finished my initial goal of rising to copper token adventurer, from now on, I can live more safety-oriented without any particular problems.
Actually, I thought this request would be safer than usual since the paladins were involved, but…
‘Safe, my foot. Those paladin bastards were absolutely useless.’
Just you watch, I’ll never take on a request from those church people again.
As expected of fanatics, the moment they saw the bait of a fake Abyss Priest, their eyes rolled back and they abandoned their main force en masse.
Moreover, who knows how far they chased, they didn’t even show their faces until I took down the undead giant after a desperate struggle.
Come to think of it, the fact that they didn’t join during the battle was actually a stroke of luck for me.
At the time, the situation was so urgent that the assistance of the paladins seemed desperately needed…
‘My thinking was too shallow.’
Now that I’ve calmed down and thought about it again with a clear head, if they had joined our party, it would have been a real disaster.
Just as Gerda had recognized my identity, some of the paladins might have recognized my appearance and fighting style, realizing who I was.
If that happened, they would all have turned against me. I would have been caught by them and dragged back to the city.
What would happen after that is, well, obvious, isn’t it?
The church that serves the Goddess wouldn’t just let go of a person who betrayed a hero appointed by the Goddess.
Without even needing to transport me to the Rhine Kingdom, they would have thrown me into an underground prison within the church and tortured me non-stop until I changed from Hilde to whatever Hilde used to be.
So, I absolutely had to cover my face in front of church-related people. If I couldn’t cover my whole face, at least a part of it.
Honestly, I had been a bit careless lately.
I thought even if I showed my face, could they really recognize me just from that? It’s not like women with blonde hair and blue eyes are rare.
However, after experiencing betrayal by a party member just a day after revealing my face, I couldn’t help but become alert.
Ah, those who can recognize me, do recognize me – that kind of thing.
Should I say Gerda’s betrayal gave tension to my relaxed mindset?
I can’t do anything about Friede and Amy who have already seen my face, but from now on, I should thoroughly cover my face in front of others.
At least until several years have passed and Brunhilde becomes a half-forgotten name in everyone’s minds.
* * *
Anyway, after resting for about six hours, some vitality returned to my body, which had been drained due to the continuous activation of Iron Arm and the effects of the paralytic poison.
Along with the confidence that I could at least escape if something happened.
…This should be enough rest, right?
As the sun was beginning to set, I stretched and got up from where I had been sitting, and started preparing for camping.
Things like laying out cloaks on the ground to make temporary beds, or cutting logs to set up a simple barricade at the cave entrance. That sort of thing.
Although we would know immediately if someone approached thanks to Amy’s alarm magic… still, you never know, right?
Setting up something at the entrance would allow for safer sleep. Both psychologically and physically.
After that, we lay down on the cloaks to sleep.
More precisely, only Friede and Amy fell asleep, while I stayed awake for several hours even after midnight.
It was my intention to check one last time what Amy might do while I pretended to sleep.
I hadn’t completely shaken off my suspicions about her yet.
I had shaken off about 80% of it, but to eliminate the remaining 20% of doubt, I needed to continue observing for a while.
In fact, that was the reason for spending a day in the cave in the first place.
If we had moved as soon as we woke up, there would have been enough time to find and join the paladins, but then we wouldn’t have had the capacity to deal with anything that might happen.
In the worst case, there was a possibility that Amy might immediately tattle ‘That woman is Brunhilde!’ as soon as we joined the paladins, so before joining up, we needed to recover our physical condition as much as possible.
If my stamina returned to its peak condition, I thought I could at least manage to escape even if the paladins turned against me.
Anyway, so after resting for a day to recover my stamina, I was now pretending to sleep while watching Amy…
…
Surprisingly, nothing happened. Even though it felt like it was already 3 AM.
…Was my worry excessive?
If Amy had intended to target me while I was sleeping, she would have started making moves long ago. Seeing that there had been no reaction so far, it seemed I could relax for now.
Therefore, I too stopped my surveillance and relaxed my tension, letting my consciousness sink into dreamland.
It was a peaceful night.
As if the fierce battle that had continued from last night through dawn and into the morning had been a lie.