Chapter III.X (3.10)- Hot Spring

  That night Kizu awoke to Aoi shaking his shoulder. He groaned and swatted her away.

  “If you don’t get up, we’ll leave without you,” Aoi threatened. “Tonight’s the night we meet that mysterious necromancer!”

  That was likely supposed to be incisive in Aoi’s twisted logic, but it just made him want to sink further into the plush futon.

  “Aoi mentioned there would be a hotsprings as well,” Basil added.

  Kizu opened his eyes. Sure enough, it seemed Aoi had convinced Basil into joining their night time outing. Hopefully that wouldn’t result in additional trouble down the line.

  But it was Anata’s wide-eyed excitement that finally got him out of his futon. She seemed really keen on the idea of traveling to a hot spring.

  And so did Mort. The owl monkey launched himself onto Kizu’s face and yanked on his earring until Kizu got up.

  The previous night’s experience did not encourage him to allow Anata to tag along. In person or in spirit. But if he didn’t let her join, he’d have to deal with a sulking child for the next week. Or worse, she might try to sneak out while his back was turned. That could be disastrous. Better to get up and protect her himself.

  Even with Anata’s restoration of his blood, Kizu felt exhausted from his long day of training with Wakino. He still needed some sleep. So instead of jumping, the party traveled to the mountain hot spring village by foot.

  As they walked along the overgrown path, Basil chatted with everyone.

  “What did you all do today?” he asked.

  “Trained,” Kizu replied.

  “Studied,” Aoi said. Even as they walked, she continued to read through the sheets of notes Kizu had recovered from her laboratory. She looked like a student cramming for finals. Kizu had the impression that, despite her enthusiasm, she was extremely anxious about meeting another necromancer.

  Anata looked over to Kizu, obviously hoping he would answer for her.

  “And Anata spent the day hiding from Aoi’s sister,” Kizu said.

  Anata glared at him.

  “What? That’s what I saw when I checked in through Mort throughout the day. You were in the library, and whenever Kiiroi entered the room, you hid under the table or dashed around a shelf out of sight.”

  That was obviously not the answer Anata wanted him to share, and she continued to pout. More likely, she wanted to talk about the books she’d been reading. But he was still grumpy about being woken up and not in the mood to try dissecting fragmented memories from Mort to piece together enough of a mental picture to pull out book titles.

  “If you want to explain in further detail, you’ll have to speak up yourself.”

  “I don’t blame you for hiding from Kiiroi.” Aoi said. “Girl’s a menace. When Mother let my hobby slip, my sister made it her personal mission to find every ancient scripture from religious scrolls and quote every detail mentioning the sins of necromancy to me.”

  “Well I went down into the city,” Basil cut in. “There’s a lovely tailor who designs your family’s kimonos. His work is excellent. I have half a mind to terminate my education at Shinzou Academy and take up an apprenticeship under him. He’s glorious. And, as it turns out, Kizu your family actually has just recently taken up a trading contract with him. That is what Prince Iroi was mentioning last night at dinner. How did your family take the news?”

  Kizu sighed. “I have no idea, I barely talk to them. If I was on better terms, Anata and I would be with them in Daitoshi, not here.”

  Basil continued to fill the empty night with chatter as he moved onto the topic of hot springs. He reviewed hot spring etiquette with Anata. The shapeshifter had brought them all towels and was explaining which size was used at what times, when they finally reached the edge of the abandoned village. Thankfully, absent of zombies. But Kizu remained alert as they passed through the streets over to the inn.

  The same undead from the night previous lounged about the inn’s common room. A few of them even greeted the party as they entered. Basil introduced himself, removing his hat and bowing low.

  Both he and Mort were welcomed warmly as the undead returned the introductions.

  “The necromancer is out again,” the innkeeper said. “But I expect he’ll return soon. I see you brought towels. Why don’t you go and enjoy a bath in the meantime?”

  After descending the stairs, their party split, the girls passing under a red curtain while Kizu, Mort, and Basil passed through a blue curtain into the men’s baths. After stripping, they used buckets of cool water to rinse off their bodies and clean themselves. Kizu had to catch Mort by the tail and dunk him in the bucket to get him even remotely cleaned off. The owl monkey did not enjoy the experience. Afterwards, Kizu rewashed his hand to clean it of blood from bite wounds.

  There was one bath indoors with a door leading to another outside. The indoor area was steamy, a warm haze obscuring their vision.

  “Your leg fits together with your body seamlessly,” Basil commented, staring at Kizu’s bare lower body.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Kizu fidgetted, uncomfortable under the changeling’s gaze.

  “It’s just a leg,” he said lamely. He then used said leg to test the water temperature. It felt wonderful. But as he dipped his normal leg in the pool, he yelped and jumped a meter backwards in surprise.

  “It’s obviously not just a leg,” Basil said, watching Kizu with interest. “It looks more like a Tainted leg. But one far more scaled than anyone I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot of naked legs. I don’t think I could even replicate yours. It took me years just to get the basics of Tainted facial scales down. They’re nearly as foreign bodies as Kemon. I need to use actual body enhancement spells for anything like that. And I can’t maintain those for long.”

  Basil lifted a wooden block stopper that was damming the faucet and let cool water mingle with the scalding hot bath. It still took a few minutes before the pool dipped down to a reasonable temperature, but when Kizu stepped in again, he felt himself melting into the large wooden bath. Tension in his shoulders he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying soothed.

  Even Mort relaxed in the bath, simply enjoying being wrapped in the wonderful warmth. A silence stretched with all three of them enjoying the blissful sensation. Kizu closed his eyes and let the comfortable water ease tension from his muscles. Perhaps traveling for over an hour in the middle of the night had been worth it.

  “We need one of these at the academy,” Basil said. “The showers offered have nothing on this.”

  “There’s the beach,” Kizu pointed out.

  “That’s cold water. The best part of the beach is relaxing on the warm sand and not being wet. This is far better.”

  Kizu couldn’t argue with that.

  Eventually, they decided to leave the muggy indoors behind and exit the building out into the outdoor bath. Completely exposed to the night air, Kizu shivered and quickly crossed over to the steaming rocky pool. Slipping into the water, he let out another breath of ecstasy. With the fresh chilly air, the juxtaposition of warmth created perfection.

  High bamboo walls surrounded the outdoor bath, cutting off his view. Still, the moon and stars shone down on him. He stared up at the constellations, mapping them out and recalling the stories associated with each of them.

  After a few minutes, he heard Aoi’s muffled voice on the other side of the wall to their right. She was explaining to Anata how the hot spring water helped support the city of Kyonaka. Apparently, it was even used inside the World Dungeon, beneath Kyonaka. There were underwater rivers that weaved through the dungeon. The Royal Family had learned how to weaponize the hot water, creating a system to flood areas of the World Dungeon whenever monsters threatened the layers closer to the surface.

  Mort clambered out of the bath and shook himself off. Kizu didn’t think much of it until the monkey started toward the wall separating the two baths.

  “Mort!” he hissed, scrambling out of the bath after the monkey. He just barely managed to catch the monkey’s tale before he’d climbed out of reach. He yanked him back into his arms and held the squirming monkey. His cheeks flushed. That had been close. Aoi knew about how firm his soul bond was with Mort. And that they could see through one another’s eyes. If the princess spotted Mort on top of the wall, it would not have ended well for him.

  “Boo,” Basil called out as Kizu dipped back into the water with Mort in hand.

  Before the changeling made any further comments, the door opened, revealing a pale Hon man with deep bags under his eyes and black hair that draped down to his shoulders. His skeletal figure lacked almost any muscle at all, his bones threatened to pierce through his pale skin.

  Etched into his skin were scars. The healed wounds each looked to be unique designs, sometimes swirls and other times jagged patterns. They covered the right side of his body, his thigh an extremely complex design of tight cuts that resembled a crochet stitch. The left side of his body only had a single scar etched over his heart. It was a word written in Primordial. Kizu recognized it, it meant ‘again’ or ‘duplicate.’ While most of the wounds were long healed, that one was still red and swollen.

  Despite his malnourished appearance, the necromancer was definitely alive. He looked disappointed to see them. He scratched at the scab over his heart. The only deviation from the bored look on his face was when his eyes lingered for a second on Kizu’s monster leg.

  “Oh,” the man said. “I thought the necromancer was a woman.”

  “We’re her friends,” Kizu said, still wrangling Mort.

  “Fine.”

  Without another word, the necromancer slipped into the bath with them. He tilted his head back, placed his small towel over his eyes and began to meditate.

  After about another half an hour of soaking up the hot spring water in silence, Kizu decided it was time to leave. He stood, Mort perched on his shoulder and went inside to rinse himself off once again.

  “Bit of a creep,” Basil said, joining him a minute later.

  “He’s a necromancer,” Kizu pointed out. “They’re not known to be social butterflies. The company they keep usually doesn’t engage in riveting conversations.”

  After redressing, they returned to the inn’s main room. The innkeeper had set out actual snacks on a table in preparation for them. Pickled vegetables and a small pile of thumb-sized plums. She also served them both a fresh glass of milk. Kizu was surprised to see the ghost could move things despite her incorporeal nature. It looked like she could choose to solidify for short periods of time. He wondered if that was a form of soul manipulation and whether or not Anata could learn to do that while she projected her astral self.

  He and Basil sipped their cool drinks and chatted about Hon. Kizu told him about the Hon Basin’s weather patterns and Basil talked about last year’s school excursion which had been to some ancient ruins not too far away from Kyonaka. The class had spent a week in the city, going out to different historical locations every day.

  “Aren’t you glad you decided to come now?” Aoi said, kneeling on the cushion next to Kizu. Both her and Anata looked completely clean and content. “Worth waking up, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Kizu reluctantly admitted.

  Of course, the moment the word left his mouth, the entire inn shook.

  “KOTEI!”

  Kizu spun his head around. The necromancer stood at the stairs with his hands clenched in fists. Now dressed in a loose black cloak that concealed most of his scars. His eyes were fixed on Aoi. Then he blinked and they transformed into black flames that blazed. He shook with rage as he raised a hand. The palm had a spiral of scars that pulsed a sickly green. Any remaining resemblance to the haggard man from the baths vanished.

  The inn’s undead patrons scrambled out of the room, fleeing as the necromancer accumulated energy, sucking it out from nearby souls.

  “DIE!”

  Ten chapters (5 weeks) ahead of Royal Road.