Nati

Finally, my stomach calmed down.

Going through my first cycle was quite a shock, and Fenna's remedies or not, I was practically useless for the last two days. But now that the bathhouse became operational, I wanted to wash away all my stress in its private chamber. I justified the extra wing with Hana's sensitive case, but I just wanted to soak myself in the hot water alone.

Of course, this didn't bother Mabel, and she nearly gave me a heart attack, sneaking in the moment I submerged.

"Who let you in?!" I yelled, my voice echoing in the large room. She pinched my sides, only her face above the water. Grinning wildly, she raised a sponge and swung a waterskin in my face. I should have expected her and locked the doors. "This place is off-limits for kids."

"Come on, Nati, who cares about the rules?" She giggled, flashing her tusks at me. "I'm here to wash your back and your hair too."

"My hair?" I asked, pondering. In the three weeks in this world, I never got to rinse it with anything but cold water, and it started to look messy. Even with all the care Mabel put into brushing and braiding it daily so was curious. "What do you have inside that?"

"Oh, this?" She opened the waterskin so I could smell it. "It's egg yolk mixed with ashes, soapwort, lavender, and cinnamon from the swamp."

"What's that for?" It had a nice fragrance.

"Fenna told me it's to get the grease out of your hair." She put it simply. "It should make it nice and shiny. Wanna try?"

"If it's already here..." I said, feeling a little reluctant to share the bath with her. I forgot about the necessities, busy trying to improve things for the tribe. Inventing shampoo was on my list, but I wanted to sort out many things before that. And this world already had something to that effect, or at least Fenna did.

"Okay, here it goes. Close your eyes so it won't get in there." Mabel announced, and I was too late to stop her. The use of chemicals was considered bad manners in a public bath's pool, and the place even had shower booths. One was supposed to rinse herself before entering, at least in the larger, common ones. But it was the private chamber, only meant for me and a selected few...

The plans for the bathhouse evolved rapidly. My first idea was to raise a roof over the stream to protect us from the elements.

However romantic it might have seemed to bathe outdoors, the water was cold, and the winter approached fast. A heated pool was necessary for the tribe. Then again, there was a difference between providing services for fifty people, or the two hundred, who lived here permanently now. The village just kept on growing.

Not to mention traveling merchants, envoys, and other guests we expected. The plans had to be adjusted and enlarged so that everyone could access the bath every time and all at once. Other than increasing capacity, we had to provide privacy for everyone.

Complete separation was required, and by that point, the bathhouse became a large complex. It had to include all the luxuries this world had yet to encounter. I introduced gravity-fed shower booths, and on top of the heated pools, I had the beastmen build a sauna.

"How does it feel?" Mabel asked, massaging the peculiar liquid into my scalp. This was the first time someone washed my hair in both of my lives. It was never this long either, beautiful but troublesome.

"Hmm... It's nice." I admitted, finally starting to relax. She scratched my fluffy ears, but I refused to let her do the tail. Just by being naked in this body, I felt all kinds of awkwardness. Even if I was alone, add another naked body to that, and it got way worse. This was the reason why I wanted the private chamber to begin with. But of course, when I needed to justify it, I only talked about Hana's delicate situation.

They could identify whatever they wanted, but the tribe's women would not let them enter their side of the bath. Hana didn't want to share with the men either. In that sense, we were the same. I was a boy in my previous life, but taking this majestic body into the men's bath seemed to be calling for trouble, and at the same time, bathing together with the women would have led to my death from excessive nosebleeds.

Orc girls were rough around the edges, their everyday clothing quite revealing, but some rather luscious. It wouldn't sit well with me if I infiltrated their ranks in such intimate circumstances, but heating all these separate pools seemed excessive.

The breakthrough came in the shape of a kobold refugee.

While Charlotte moaned about necessary imports including ore and charcoal, this little guy walked up to us to introduce himself as Sarka. If I wanted to oversimplify it, kobolds looked like goblins without their dark green skin. He was a charcoal burner in another village but got ostracized and driven out when their smithy burned down.

Sarka offered to burn charcoal for us in exchange for food and quarters. My brain kicked into overdrive. We needed charcoal, yes, and the warmth too. Wood had to be burned for days, if not weeks with low heat, which released excess energy, unlike smelting or firing bricks. Perfect to keep the water warm. It only took me ten minutes, to modify the plans once more.

I should have included this earlier when the embassy was still under construction. Well, that was Fenna's project anyway, but I tried to convince her to break up the foundations and let the warm water of the bathhouse circulate below the floors.

I saw the charcoal kiln as the future core of the village's central heating unit. So far it worked great, but I had no idea how this was used back in my world. It seemed a painfully obvious choice here.

Mabel rinsed my hair, then restarted the whole ordeal. Seeing the discolored water was embarrassing, but she quietly hummed as she washed it. The way she massaged my head felt nice after these stressful days, I felt rejuvenated.

In that sense, the new bathhouse was a big success, and I had plans for future expansions, like setting up a laundry in a building attached to this one or letting people borrow towels and other necessities by the entrance. The new smithy would be built behind the bath too, once the charcoal was ready to use, the blacksmith could take it immediately. His shop was marked for destruction anyway, like all other shacks by Fenna...

A new map started to take shape in my head. I felt like the village was my responsibility now that my name was attached to it, but I had plans aplenty. The short visit to the bestfolk village inspired many of them.

"How much wood do you have to burn to heat all these pools?" Mabel chattered while rinsing my hair a second time. The water looked much cleaner now and she scrubbed my back with her sponge.

"The kobold said he still has to release a lot of excess heat from the pile, so nothing extra." I took the opportunity to brag. "I plan to take advantage of this once the winter sets in, and keep the village warm."

"Sounds nice." She said, leaning against me. "Last winter was bad."

"Hey, where are you touching?!" I yelled, grabbing her hand. She pinched my belly, and I took that personally. I still couldn't start my workout routine. "Okay, it's my turn now, give me the sponge."

I took the scrub from her, and if my hair was dirty, this girl's back was made of mud. She didn't care about my scolding either.

"Oh, that tickles. A little lower." She demanded, leaning back against my hand. She could use some of Fenna's shampoo too, and by the time I was finished with her, the water in the pool got a few shades darker. I got a little lightheaded from the heat, so we left soon.

I felt embarrassed to leave the private chamber that dirty, and Mabel's comment didn't help.

"Come on, Lambert can just purify it with magic." She giggled, looking almost proud of the mess she made. Neither of us looked this clean in a long time. "Or we could use slimes for that..."

"I'd rather use any other method than to include him with us..." I claimed, putting on the clothes I got from Fenna. It didn't even register what she was saying. "Wait, what was that about slimes?"

"Oh, you don't know about them?" She grinned, jumping back into her rather dirty frocks. Yes, that laundromat needed to be built soon... "They live in the swamp and dissolve all kinds of living things."

"I had no idea this world had slimes too..." I was quite surprised.

"Oh, your's have them as well?" Mabel asked, but I shook my head. My long wet hair stuck to my clothes, making me wonder how difficult it would be to create hairdryers in this world.

"No, well... They often appeared in stories, but I never thought they existed somewhere..." I explained and toweled my hair.

"They are quite funny." Mabel claimed, doing the same. "Like large bubbles that jiggle when you poke them. They are almost completely transparent. When I went to swim in the lake and left my clothes on the shore, one crawled through them, and that part got cleaner than the rest."

"Aren't they dangerous though?" I asked, a little concerned.

"They sting a little, like jellyfish." She shrugged, then showed a mark on her arm. It was slightly reddish compared to the green of her skin. "It happened two days ago when we dug up clay for the next batch of bricks."

"Ouch, did it hurt?" It didn't look that bad, but it was still visible after two days. She was grinning though, again, orcs were built differently. Learning about slimes gave me an idea. "So if I were to capture a slime and put it into the pool, would it clean the water too?"

"Hmm, good question." Mabel seemed to be pondering. "I heard the chieftain say that the stream is only this clean because of a slime infestation a few miles ahead... But they also eat all the fish."

"And what about clothes? Would they dissolve them too?" I got excited. While drying our hair, I kept interrogating her about these creatures, and hair this long took quite a while to dry properly...

"They would if you left them alone for too long, but they would eat the grease and dirt off them..." She humored my questions. The laundry place seemed closer to reality than I thought.