Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 1 - Chapter 7

Summer of the Ninth Year

Player Character (PC)

A character that can be manipulated by a player.

In a form of recreation with many moving parts, these make up the main cast. From heroes to zeroes, some find themselves deeply linked with the world they inhabit, while others are swept away like stray strands of straw.

A beloved avatar whose untimely death brings great sadness and whose glory brings great joy—in some ways, they resemble a child.

My body’s ninth summer and my mind’s fourth were one and the same. The cool climate of southern Rhine and the safety of the Harvest Goddess’s protection meant that the season offered us all a tranquil respite. Seeing as the government went to great lengths to monitor the tempers of the gods and constructed tributaries to secure a source of water in the event of divine outburst, the only thing to fear was an unusually cool summer.

The chores that remained included fighting off vermin and building new roads—all things that were far from time-sensitive. The men generally labored to procure firewood for the colder months or spent some time away from home to earn a wage. The women began making winter rations; rows of salted meats dangling in the comfortably arid (especially compared to Japan’s humidity) heat were a common sight in the neighborhood.

The magistrate’s school offered more frequent lessons at this time of year, and my friends who attended were swamped. The way they mumbled in contemplation, fighting to improve the quality of their poetry, was heartwarming to see. My eldest brother Heinz was among these troubled souls as he struggled to practice his newly appointed woodwind. He had chosen a flute because he’d considered stringed instruments to be too difficult, but the fingering and chromatic notes had given him enough issue that he still couldn’t play through his piece a month after being assigned it.

Instrumental music was deeply embedded in the Trialist Empire’s culture, and children could learn either the flute or the violin at school. These two were popular for their refinement, and they were in a completely different league from the four- or six-stringed lyres found in common pubs.

I suppose every society comes with high society, and being able to demonstrate this sort of skill went a long way in the eyes of the bourgeois. I gave a silent prayer for my brother, who bemoaned that his long hours of practice were robbing him of his long-awaited summer.

Heinz wasn’t alone; I had been eagerly anticipating the season too. Long days and open schedules left me replete with time for wood whittling, and the Konigstuhl Watch’s training sessions were finally beginning to ramp up. The sweat I worked up playing with my friends was refreshingly cool, and the fruits chilled in the well that we ate afterwards were the greatest in the world. Though, of course, I couldn’t forget about the traveling merchants who brought treats frozen with magic. They were too expensive to fill my stomach, but I always looked forward to the one time a year my parents bought them for us.

These days reminded me of the summer breaks I spent in the Kyushu countryside. The television there only had two channels and the nearest store that stocked batteries was miles away, so I couldn’t use my handheld game console (although kids nowadays might not know that consoles used to run on simple AAs and AAAs). I looked back fondly on the memories of being invited out to play just as I was doing now.

Despite all of this fun, I looked forward to one part of summer above all else: the canton’s bathhouse was open every Sunday. Surprisingly enough, the denizens of the Empire were quite famous for their love of bathing. We were no strangers to the act: every canton had its own facility, and larger cities with thousands of people were certain to have a public bathhouse.

Frankly, when I imagined a feudal society, one of two settings came to mind: either the culture had some level of hygiene with aqueducts and baths, or people frolicked around in filth while cowering in fear of the Black Death. Between these two extremes, I was glad to see that I had been transferred from the clean nation of Japan into the former option.

As an aside, Rhine’s proclivity for washing up originated from one of the imperial houses that had founded the Empire. Long ago, the king of a small nation had stressed that boiled water prevented the spread of disease and one didn’t risk contracting an illness just from sharing a tub (though technically there were some bloodborne pathogens that could have posed a problem), which he proved by steeping himself in hot water. After he’d demonstrated the safety of bathing, he then moved on to emphasize the importance of hygiene, which led to the culture of today.

I may have been reading too far into this tale, but I’d suspected that this ancient king had been one of my people. When Margit had first told me the story of this bath-loving maniac, the first thought that ran through my mind was, You’re the same as me!

The rich history that struck a chord in my heart culminated in a building placed next to a small river on the outskirts of our village.

“All right kiddos, it’s your turn. Behave yourselves in there, okay?”

The men of the town shuffled out of the bathhouse with warm puffs of steam trailing off of them and waved us children over. I call them men, but most boys joined their group at the age of ten or so. Hmm? Me? Well...

“Shall we go, Erich?”

I looked at the gentle fingers holding my hand and wondered why their grip seemed so inexplicably tight. Past my hand, I could see Margit peering up at me with a change of clothes draped over her spare arm.

For whatever reason, I found myself in the children’s group. As a nine-year-old, I was pushing the upper bound, since even the latest bloomers joined the adults by age twelve. The kids weren’t separated by gender, probably because we were small enough to all fit inside together and it was cheaper this way. This wasn’t anything new to me; it wasn’t that different from my past life. Children without any real notion of gender sometimes changed in the same classrooms in early elementary school, so the reasoning was sound.

My only complaint was that my mental age was pushing forty. The fact that I had the occasional naive thought and innocently enjoyed foxes-and-geese despite that could probably be attributed to my body influencing my consciousness. This blind innocence was part of the reason why I didn’t have any reaction whatsoever to the naked bodies of girls my age. None at all...

“Eriiich? We’ll never enter the bathhouse if you don’t move these legs of yours.”

...With the exception of this spine-chilling eight-legged childhood friend of mine. Margit literally yanked me out of my escapist musings and pulled me into the building. I’m sure she knows that I’m feeling embarrassed... Can’t she cut me some slack?

Changing rooms were too much of a luxury for our humble facility, so we stripped ourselves under the open sky. There was a space to put one’s clothes for winter usage, but for all intents and purposes, the bath began as soon as one entered.

I opened the door with a pure heart and was immediately blasted by a wave of heat that the previous guests had left for us—in other words, a cloud of steam. The lower class of Rhine used steam baths as opposed to vats of boiling water. This was a matter of course: while water could always be taken from a river, the price of fuel was astronomically higher than that of modern Earth. The cost of gas and water may have totaled to an entry fee of a hundred yen in Japan, but it was a different story here. Even with a Roman boiler, the number of logs we would need to boil hundreds of liters of water would be unreasonable.

On the other hand, steam baths were beautifully efficient. A stove with a top layer of heated stone sat in the center of the room. By pouring water on the blazing rock, we could fill the room with steam. This steam then spread heat throughout the entire room, bringing the temperature up past a hundred degrees. Our sweat naturally flushed the dirt from our pores and brought it to the surface of our skin.

From there, it was a simple matter of scrubbing out the grime with a brush or a towel wetted with water heated with the stove. After thirty minutes of sweating, all that was left was to jump into the river or wash off with a bucket of water in the showering corner. Once the whole process was done, it felt like you’d molted off an entire layer of dirty skin. The only other thing to note was that some women who cared about their hair went the extra mile by using soap.

“Well, Erich?” Margit asked. “May I ask you to wash me again today?”

“Uh... Sure...”

Just like so. After laying on a towel and warming up for half an hour, Margit took me by the hand and led me to the showering corner. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt this way, but the walk there triggered a memory that was less than appropriate.

The sight of her hair draping down should have appeared childish but had a mysterious charm. I was thankful for my immature body and my mature willpower, because I knew I’d be met with a life’s worth of teasing if I gave her a reaction—though in truth I’d have preferred that to certain other lifetime commitments that lay among the possible outcomes.

“Be gentle, will you?” she said with a smile as she handed me a bar of soap.

Soap made from animal fat was common in the Empire, but this was a special product made by Margit’s family. Instead of beef tallow or lard, this had been crafted from wild game and infused with herbs. Unlike the cheap stuff on the market, her soap lacked the usual fatty odor, with a refreshingly sweet scent in its place.

I sat down behind her, dipped the bar into hot water, and began to slowly work the bubbles into her hair. Margit let out a pleased—and equally provocative—moan that made me think it was about time for me to drop dead. Man, I don’t get it. I’ve never had a thing for younger girls...

I emptied my mind but continued to focus on using a delicate touch as I thoroughly washed her hair. I traced my fingers along her locks, softened by the steam in the room. The fact that it remained silky despite its contact with bar soap was remarkable. Borrowing this for myself would leave me with a frizzy head, so perhaps this texture was an arachne staple.

After I finished washing Margit’s hair, I began to massage her scalp. It was important to clear away unwanted oils, but this was the most important part. In my past life, my barber had told me that excess dandruff could cause hairs to grow weaker or even fall out.

...Wait, why do I remember that? I could hardly recall my parents’ faces, but somehow I held on to an offhand comment I’d heard while getting shampooed. Just the other day, I’d spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out what my niece’s name was.

What’s happening to my memory? The memories tied to practical experience seemed to have been left untouched, but my episodic memories had begun to fade away. What was more, the titles of the novels and manga I died without finishing were all a blur. I could only remember the plots for a select few stories that I’d read again and again. What on earth...?

“Erich?”

“O-Oh, sorry... Let me rinse you off.” I had been so lost in thought that I’d completely forgotten about Margit. Soap was a pain to deal with once it dried, so I needed to hurry it up. I scooped a bucket of water and made sure it wasn’t too hot before trickling it onto her head.

“Whew,” Margit said. “Thank you, that felt wonderful.”

“You’re very welcome,” I replied.

Once I had washed out all the soap, the sunlight coming through the window formed a halo around her head. Her soft smile and the wet strands clinging to it made for a hauntingly beautiful scene. I don’t mean to say that her elegance stuck with me in her absence; I mean to say that she left me full of equal parts affection and dread. The irregularity of her monstrous legs and girlish body tickled some primitive part of my soul. I could feel it send a jolt from the tip of my tailbone into the center of my brain.

“Will you do me the favor of washing my back, as well?” Margit asked with the same haunting beauty in her smile. I couldn’t decide how to feel about her request as I took the bar of soap back into my hands. The sight of her scooping her hair over her shoulder caused me to instinctively gulp. Each and every casual movement had some kind of charm... How terrifying.

Chanting hymns in my mind, I started scrubbing Margit’s back with a soaked towel when the question Do I even need to do this? dawned on me. Arachne looked nearly identical to mensch from the waist up, but their skeletal structure was completely different. The range of motion on their joints was significantly wider to allow them to reach all the parts of their lower body with ease, so washing their own backs was natural and easy. Which meant that she’d asked me for help because...well.

Whenever I scrubbed around her shoulders or waist, she made sure to make contact with my fingertips, filling me with a ticklish sensation. I could remain calm thanks to the fact that I had yet to hit puberty, but thinking about how my future body would affect my mind caused me to tremble at the prospect of controlling myself. Margit had too good a grasp on what it took to arouse a man. If I had been any less experienced, she would have had me coiled around her finger in two seconds flat.

“There, done,” I announced after clearing my mind once more.

“Thank you. That was quite refreshing,” Margit said, turning to face me. As a matter of course, she wasn’t wearing a shirt. In fact, none of the children horsing around in the bathhouse bothered to hide themselves in any way (though I kept a towel wrapped around my hips) so she wasn’t out of place. Then, with her trademark shiver-inducing whisper, she asked, “Now, shall we switch places?”

[Tips] The Rhine Trialist Empire is leaps and bounds ahead of its neighboring states in the field of hygiene. An average farmer can be expected to bathe once a week in the summertime and once every two to three weeks in the wintertime. When trips to the bathhouse are impossible for whatever reason, it is a cultural expectation to clean oneself at home.

Margit watched the slender boy in front of her shut his eyes. This put a smile on her face: seeing him sitting naked like this gave her the same impression as a feast’s main dish, a white plate with top-quality game—no, he was splendid enough to be the piece de resistance at a noble’s dinner.

Two years her junior, the boy was just beginning to show signs of ripening. It must be because of his training with the canton Watch, Margit mused. Out of all the children their age, he was the only one that had been accepted to train with the Watch regularly. Where everyone else had lost their will to fight after being slapped around the one time, he had gotten up a total of seven times and even managed to deflect the final blow with a stone. It was little wonder that the Lambert had taken a liking to him.

A handful of painful bruises dotted his body, and a few edges had formed to replace the childish roundness he had sported up until recently. His once soft muscles had begun to harden, and his cute belly was tightening up. At this rate, he would soon mature into a farmer’s robust, labor-forged figure. The thought of his future form made Margit’s heart race.

His current state wasn’t bad, of course. Yet it was the refreshing sour sting of a citrus that had only begun to ripen. The flavor that melted the soul was a paralyzing sweetness that emerged with deeper color at a later season. Considering the way mensch aged, the boy was still far too green. There may have been some who’d contend this to be the best time to pick; however, Margit was particular to oranges that were on the cusp of overripeness.

Succumbing to the beckoning of her quickening pulse, Margit playfully poked at a dark blue bruise—the result of a blow from a blunted sword. It was a minor wound, but the pain was more than enough to surprise the boy, who had been wondering when she was going to wash his hair.

“Ow! Wha—huh?!”

This is it! This reaction is what I was looking for. The boy’s innocent shock spoke to Margit’s predatory instincts. But he wasn’t her average prey. He wasn’t a fleeing rabbit, nor a plated sheep. He was an undeveloped monster with the strength of a sharp-fanged boar and the agility of a cunning fox. If his talents are so apparent as a child, the little spider wondered, then what will he be like when he matures like me? The anticipation caused her heart to thump; after all, the greatest glory came from the greatest game.

“I’m sorry,” she cooed, “it looked so painful that I couldn’t help myself.”

“Wait, you thought it’d be painful and you still did it?!”

Despite all that had changed, the kaleidoscopic baby blue of his eyes remained the same. His accusatory glare paired with those delightful irises only further played into the arachne’s sensibilities.

Margit chose to let her instincts take hold. “I really am sorry, you know? Here...”

“Wait, wha—Margit?!”

Margit made her way around the boy’s crossed legs and sat on his lap. They had never been the same height, but this position let them see eye to eye. Knowing that he would soon grow to overlook her even here, Margit felt this moment to be terribly precious.

“Allow me to give you a thorough washing,” she whispered. Like a spider approaching panicking prey, the girl wrapped her arms around his neck with a bewitching smile.

[Tips] Arachne have a range of motion that can reach any part of their lower body, unlike most humanfolk races.