Chapter Six—An Excellent Establishment

Shiro sighed heavily. “Oh yes. That is so good. Oh. It’s been too long. Kami-sama.”

Did you buy a prostitute while I wasn’t watching?

“Agh! Silence, Jinni,” he commanded. “Let me relax.”

The steam from Shiro’s bath continued to rise toward the wooden rafters above him. He had never stayed in such a fine establishment since being isekaied into these lands. Darshuun truly was a city of fine comforts.

After so much travel on foot, the soothing waters of his hot bath were like the touch of a benevolent spirit upon his sore flesh.

He closed his eyes again.

“Hurry up, Shiro,” she said from behind.

Jerking in the tub, he opened his eyes and twisted his head to look at her. She wasn’t watching him, as he thought she might be, but instead she was looking out the window through the curtains.

She turned and looked at him with a smile. “Aren’t you excited?”

He slunk back into the tub. “I suppose I am.” His eyes wandered toward the wooden bench where he had his bag containing Jessamine’s lamp. In easy reach was his sword, which he had sat on the bench in an oblique angle. To get to it, all he would have to do is lean out of the tub and grasp the hilt hanging off the side of the bench.

In front of his tub on the other end of the bathing room was a fire with a cauldron of boiling water. It provided steam for the room, but also a source of heat that he could ladle into his bath when it began to cool.

And for the price…

I will come here again, he thought.

“How long do you need to soak like that?” Jessamine asked. “Are you a frog?”

Narrowing his eyes, a thought came to him. “Do you not enjoy such things?”

She giggled. “Of course I do.”

“Then why not partake and enjoy yourself a little?”

“I already have.”

“What?”

“I’m a jinni,” she said. “I can wisp about through these floors whenever I so decide. “I’ve already been in that bath of yours.”

“Are you—are you saying you dirtied my bath water before I got in here?” He turned to glance at her and he found a mischievous smirk on her face.

“I’m clean, Shiro.”

“Mmm,” he noised from the back of his throat.

“It is true,” she said. “Do you think being within my lamp is the same as being outside?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not.”

He nodded. “Mm.”

“What should we do first?” she asked. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Oh,” he said, thinking. “Get rich.”

She chuckled. “Is there anything more specific?”

That was a good question. He hadn’t thought of it much. Shiro was not a heavy planner. He went where the winds swept him and he reacted as necessary to the situation.

“I think… we should have a look around, maybe find a place to rent.”

“And then?”

“And then make some money.”

“Agh!” she noised in frustration. “Do you not want to see the city’s festivities? The drinking halls? What about the sights? The Temple of Harkunn or the waterfall of Jifa? The games? We have gladiatorial pits where adventurers fight monsters for sport!”

“Hmm.”

“All right,” she said, “perhaps the pleasure distract is more your area...”

“Iie!”

She laughed. “Let’s have some fun, Shiro!”

“We will see.”

“Ugh.”

When she didn’t say anything for a time he turned to see if she was still standing there. She wasn’t. She was gone, back to her lamp?

“Shiro?”

“Gah!” he screamed, startled by her sudden presence right next to him. “Why do you do that?”

After realizing that Jessamine was sitting on the floor completely naked with her breasts pressed against the tub, he looked up and away from her.

She laughed.

“Shiiiiro,” she said, stressing his name.

Kami-sama—her skin is perfect!

He glanced toward her to get a look at her face, but nothing more. She was dragging her finger playfully across the lip of the tiled tub.

“What is it? Do not play these games.”

“Games, Shiro?” she asked, sounding as seductive as ever. “I’m a jinni. I have no need for games.”

“Mmm,” he growled.

“Fine,” he said. “Today is your day. We will do whatever you wish.”

She giggled, disappearing within a plume of illuminated blue smoke, her effeminate sound lingering in the air for a moment.

Enjoying the hot water, he said, “Ah, just a little longer—“

Let’s get moving, Jessamine conveyed.

Sighing, Shiro sat up in the tub. In the next room his clothes would be there, washed and dried as part of the sentō service he had paid for. It wasn’t actually a sentō but in his mind a bath was synonymous with the word.

At least that made him smile.