Seeing me looking bitter, having to ultimately choose whether I would abandon my past or my current self, Aste leaked a sigh. He shrugs his shoulders and leaned to the chair as if exhausted.
âGood grief, you really are one troublesome fellow. So you just want a magic item that can allow you to use Polymorph for now?â
âYeah, please. Iâll pay you how much you want, and Iâll do anything.â
âOh, youâll do anything?â
âAh, no. Except for anything immoral, okay?â
I mentioned it just in case after seeing the perverted smile on his face. Iâm sorry, but I had no plan of becoming someone whoâd cause discord in families. Not just families, even couples and such.
âAh, well. But Polymorph, huh⦠Iâve never made a magic item with that effect.â
âSo, itâs impossible for you too?â
âNo, if itâs just to load it into a scroll, I can do it even now. I even have the materials at hand.â
âThen do it already!â
âOkay, I got it already. But only after we drink the tea. Den makes some delicious tea. I drove those skills into him.â
Along with his words, Den brought herbal tea with a tray.
âI have kept you waiting. Itâs a blend of lemongrass and ginger.â
âOh, that looks quite delicious.â
Given that this place was half-sunk, the air was quite stagnant. The fragrant smell of the tea filled such a place now. The aroma alone stirred our appetites.
âGinger warms the body, while lemongrass has a calming effect, so it should help you calm down.â
âOhoh.â
While you could say the winter had passed its peak, the nights were still decently cold. His consideration was really helpful. Was this also due to Asteâs butler training?
âMoreover, it is also good for anemia and helps produce milk.
âPffffft!â
Wait, why did he try to make me drink something that helps with breast milk production? I donât even have milk yet to begin with.
âWell, I feared you might be feeling anemic. I smelled blood from Mâlady.â
âUgh.â
Now that he mentioned it, I did have my menstruation just recently. I couldnât deny that I had slight anemia.
âAnd, with all due respect, I have detected some problems with your chest area.â
âThatâs none of your concern, okay!?â
âIt has been six months since our meeting. Considering the growth so far, there are some concerns toââ
âEnough already! Also, we have things to do. Aste, hurry up and drink your tea already!â
Where did I go wrong for even the Ogre that I helped to start sexually harassing me? I forcefully ended the topic and poured the tea in Asteâs mouth.
âHot! Hey, hold on a bit, itâs hoot!â
âDid you awaken to hot water torture recently?â
âAre there other casualties?â
âAlready two.â
Wait, it wasnât hot water with Cloud. It doesnât count! And I burned that summoner guy with threads too. Iâve never splashed hot water at anyone.
âDonât spread baseless rumors. The night is short, hurry up, hurry up.â
âStop pouring hot tea in my mouth already!â
After a great fuss, we decided to head to Asteâs cave.
Den seemed to hold the sense of obligation to protect my hideout, so he didnât follow us to the cave and insisted on remaining behind.
Thus we headed there with just the three of us, and he guided us inside. The house inside the cave⦠Was a weird way of putting it, but in the room beyond it, there was a pile of materials that I had never seen before.
âThis is amazing. I havenât seen these even in my previous life.â
âItâs a collection that I have spent many years collecting.â
âWith this much, you really should be able to make a high-ranking scroll.â
âYeah, but as for work⦠Right, it will probably take about five hours even for me.â
âFive hours⦠Itâll be dead of night by then. Or rather, probably better to say itâll be dawn.â
Making a detour shaved away quite a bit of our time. It was already close to midnight. In five hours, itâll practically be morning already.
âIâll start right away, so you two rest in the guest room over there.â
âYou had a guest room?â
âThis is still a house, you know? Of course there is one.â
âItâs buried inside a cave, too late to call it a house.â
âItâs not like itâs buried because I wanted to. I just reformed my old house that got rolled up in a volcanic eruption.â
âWait, how long has this house been around forâ¦â
I have heard that this mountain had erupted before. But that happened so long ago even the folktales of it were uncertain.
At any rate, it would suit us if there was a guest room. It was already night, so I was feeling sleepy. I dragged Maxwell who seemed to want to stay and watch, and slipped into the room.
It was a room so pleasant it was unfit for an underground place. Near the ceiling, there was a substrate of something like a folding fan attached to it, and it slowly rotated, sending air to the outside.
This allowed the air inside to circulate, constantly bringing in fresh air.
âHoho, so that rotating fan is creating wind here.â
âIt has a strangely good angle too. Must be good during the summer.â
âThe cold wind machines have similar mechanisms too if I am not mistaken.â
The cold wind machines that were your summertime friends. They had Ice Wall spells inside them, and they passed the wind through it, breezing cold air out into the rooms.
Incidentally, it was the Whitey who created those apparently. Quite hard to imagine from her.
Other than that, I noticed one important thing.
âHey, this room⦠Thereâs only one bed.â
âT-That appears to be the case.â
There was only one smallish bed here. It would be quite cramped to sleep there.
âWell I have a small body, so I guess we could sleep somehow.â
âThat is not the problem here. You should start paying attention to the contact with the opposite sex at that age already.â
âHah? We are companions⦠What are you saying after all this time?â
âAgh, enough. I shall sleep on the floor.â
âI said I donât mind.â
âI do mind!â
Well, there was a thick carpet on the floor, so he wouldnât feel cold. Maxwell used his robe as a blanket and lied down. I looked at him with a gaze that questioned his obstinacy, and then also lied on the bed.