2
Neutral city, the Volcanic City, also known as the Shio Crescent.
Communal baths.
A scent wafted on the steam that floated through the air. As over ten bathers sank into the milky white water, more was poured into the tub, keeping it filled to the brim.
“Ahhh! I’ve waited so long for this bath. Good-bye, stink!” Sisbell’s voice was full of joy as she looked at the bath from the changing room. “Even as we were coming here, I couldn’t stand the walk along the main road. Why, the tourists all gave us dirty looks and a child we passed put the nail in the coffin when he said we smelled!”
Sisbell had already stripped to her underwear.
She had given her soiled, stinky clothing to the cleaning service to deal with while she planned to bathe.
“Ugh, why bother?”
On the other hand, a certain soldier sat cross-legged in a corner of the changing room.
She was Mei, the Saint Disciple of the third seat.
She was there to guard the four Sovereignty citizens who insisted on having a bath—Alice, Sisbell, Rin, and Kissing. Mei herself still wore her soiled clothes.
“A bath every other month should be plenty. And your clothes are barely even dirty.”
“Two months?!”
Alice and Rin widened their eyes when they heard Mei’s grumbling.
“Did you hear that, Rin? That soldier Mei said that she…”
“Yes, Lady Alice. Imperial soldiers truly are savages. No, they’re a nation of Neanderthals. I believe even wild elephants take baths more frequently…”
“Have you really got the time to waste talking?”
Mei carried a stopwatch in her hand.
“We’ve got one hour and thirty-seven minutes until the transport takes off. You’ve gotta take a shower, change, and finish eating all in that time, so hurry up. I hate baths.”
“Then me first!” Sisbell was the first to take off.
She quickly stripped off her underwear and made a beeline for the bath.
“Oh, Sisbell… Don’t run like that! Think of the other customers!”
“There’s no need to worry, Lady Alice. The moment we entered, the other bathers caught a whiff of our stench and ran. We have the entire place to ourselves.”
Rin helped Alice remove her clothes.
They wrapped themselves in bath towels once they were done, but one from their group simply stood in the changing room stock-still. The black-haired girl was nearly left behind.
“…”
She was Kissing, the Zoa princess.
She was in her underwear after having left her clothes to the cleaning service, but all she did was stand and stare into space.
“What’s wrong? Do you not like baths?” Alice asked when she noticed Kissing.
Some people hated baths as a rule, like Mei behind them. Perhaps Kissing was a fellow bath-hater?
“Huh?! No, Lady Alice, I do believe…” Rin’s eyes opened wide.
She signaled to Alice with her eyes, then bowed before the Zoa princess.
“Lady Kissing, if it pleases you, would you like help preparing for your bath?”
No. She hadn’t hated baths after all.
Kissing had been so sheltered and pampered in the Zoa household that she had never even had to dress herself.
“…Yes.” Kissing nodded.
Rin skillfully helped her out of her remaining garments and wrapped a towel around her.
“There, you are ready now.”
“…”
“Lady Kissing?”
The Zoa princess still refused to move.
For whatever reason, while still wrapped in her bath towel, she stared right at Alice and refused to budge.
“What’s wrong?”
“…”
When Alice asked that, Kissing looked at Alice’s breasts and narrowed her eyes.
The two round mounds pushed her towel up. The deep, deep valley between them was exposed, as the towel failed to hide her entire bosom.
“Adult…” was all that Kissing said.
“Wha—?!” Alice’s face instantly turned bright red. “Wh-wh-what are you suddenly talking about?!”
She couldn’t hide her discomposure after hearing such an unexpected response from Kissing. Alice tried to hide her cleavage with her hands.
“How do you get them to become that big?”
“I—I have no idea!”
Alice was aware she was an early bloomer. She had similar exchanges with Rin on a regular basis, after all, but she simply couldn’t help her embarrassment when someone else said the same.
“And even your little sister…” Kissing turned to the bath.
Beyond the glass, Sisbell was happily taking a shower.
“It’s not fair…that even she has matured so early, even if it’s only her body…”
They caught glimpses of her through the steam. Though Sisbell had a youthful face, the rest of her body had begun to blossom, and they could clearly see she had the curve of a bosom.
“And yet…”
In contrast, Kissing was flat as a board. In other words, she still hadn’t hit puberty.
As Kissing had been allowed few opportunities to see other girls her age, Alice and Sisbell’s development had come as a shock.
“House Lou has formidable weapons… I cannot win against them yet…”
However, Kissing was a princess.
She hadn’t been trained to be so weak that she would allow this to dampen her spirits.
“You cannot give up.”
“Rather than fight an opponent you have no hope of winning against, find one you have a solid chance of defeating.”
This was what Lord Mask had taught her.
In that moment, Kissing attempted to faithfully put her uncle’s words into practice.
“…”
She looked to the side, away from Alice, to where Rin stood.
“Hmm? What is the matter, Lady Kissing?”
“Found one.” Kissing looked as serious as could be as she answered.
She stared with such intensity at Rin’s breasts, hidden by the bath towel, that her gaze was likely to bore a hole right through them. Rin’s bosom was just as flat as hers.
“There is always someone more inferior,” Kissing said.
“Wh-what does that mean?!” Rin’s voice cracked.
Kissing turned to the side to avoid Rin’s gaze.
“I’m afraid that even I have more than you, Lady Kissing!”
“Ha…”
“Did you laugh?! Guh…all right then! I accept your challenge!”
Two bath towels fluttered into the air. Rin and Kissing had not a scrap of clothing between them as they faced off in the neutral city’s bathhouse.
“Sisbell, what are those two doing?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue. Perhaps they’re exercising and enjoying their time together?”
Alice and Sisbell both were soaking in the bath. Alas, the two sisters had no idea that Rin and Kissing had challenged each other to a duel of busts.
“Haah… Haah…”
Their shoulders heaved. And then…
“You put up a fair fight, Lady Kissing!”
“You as well!”
As a result, they both came to a mutual understanding. In their heroic battle of life and death, they found that they were alike.
“Lady Kissing, I believe we can call ourselves rivals and comrades!”
“Rin!”
It had been a close match indeed.
After their strenuous duel, the two clasped hands.
“We’ll win together someday against those Lou.”
“Yes! Lady Alice and Lady Sisbell are simply early bloomers. We’re not the problem. In one or two years, we will also grow up and catch up to them.”
“Yes. There is still hope for the future.”
Kissing had wrapped the towel back around her chest and looked deeply moved.
“We’re still developing. Once we grow taller and become adults, they’ll naturally grow in.”
“Yes! And in order to—”
At that moment, the door from the bath to the changing room slid open.
“Whew… I hate being stinky.”
Beyond the steam, they saw the hazy silhouette of a small figure.
Rin and Kissing had turned around in reaction and saw an Imperial soldier holding a towel. It was Commander Mismis, and her voluptuous body was on full display.
Unfortunately, they saw her.
“Uhhh?!” Kissing let out a strangled scream.
Rin also lurched back as though someone had punched her. “Guh!” she cried out.
“What? What happened to you two?”
“Ah…uh …urgh …”
Kissing, unable to hide her fear and anguish, pointed a quivering finger at Mismis. She was pointing directly at the commander’s heaving chest.
Though her face made her look Kissing’s age, the breasts below her head were so large, they would have overflowed from her hands had she tried to hide them.
Her body was downright sensuous.
“Uh? Is there something on me?”
However, Mismis had no idea what was happening. Just as Alice and Sisbell had had no idea what Rin and Kissing’s hangup had been, Mismis couldn’t understand why they were so distressed.
“Oh, Miss Kissing, why don’t you let me wash your back for—”
“Huh! Get away!”
When Mismis attempted to approach her, Kissing couldn’t hide her fear.
Though she was short in stature and her face looked youthful, Mismis’s body was overwhelmingly voluptuous and erotic. Kissing had thought that Mismis’s bosom looked rather large when the commander had been wearing clothes, but she hadn’t imagined that Mismis’s breasts were like this under all that fabric.
She’d never imagined that Mismis’s clothes could make the commander look smaller than she actually was.
“What destructive force…Imperial soldiers have…”
“What?”
“Our opponent has revealed she has even greater assets than expected after removing her armor… Rin, what do we do?”
“We must retreat, Lady Kissing.”
Kissing had been incredibly serious as she spoke.
Rin moved forward as though to protect Kissing and spoke between her gritted teeth.
“Unfortunately, the enemy’s assets far surpass ours. We have no chance of winning even if we fight here… We should make a valiant retreat!”
“……Yes. We have no chances of winning against such massive assets…!”
“What are you both talking about?!”
She had no idea.
Mismis felt entirely lost as Rin and Kissing fervently whispered to each other.
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