V7C151 (2/2)

After waiting for about an hour, I thought I heard the voice of a young woman and turned around to see.

“It’s the young woman Onii wanted to see. How is it, are you excited?”

Miri appeared saying those words.

I wanted to scream “What’s the romance in going to mixed bath with a younger sister!”. I wanted to scream “If I want to, I can do so anytime I wish at home!”. Even before those, I shouted, “I can’t enter a mixed bath with a younger sister who hasn’t even gotten married!” and completely denying what I’ve been doing, I immediately made my younger sister leave the mixed bath. Incidentally, when we left the hot spring, there was a ‘temporary closed’ signage put up at the hot spring house which explained why there weren’t any women or men entering. It’s a pathetic story whereby both the brother and sister overlooked the conspicuous sign.

The next day, in that spa town, I heard a story of a girl who put in a lot of money to book an entire hot spring for three hours to enter the hot spring together with the guy she likes. I cursed that enviable man. As expected, to fully enjoy a mixed bath, unlike a guy like me who travels with his younger sister, it would have to be a Riaju-like guy so after that incident, I no longer held any expectations towards mixed baths.

After that long reminiscence, I shook my head.

“No no, that would be bad. Entering the hot spring together.”

“Why?”

“Usually men and women enter separately for hot springs right?”

“But, Ichino-sama said Carol was still young so, er, you said won’t do e … ecchi stuff.”

” … I did say that.”

I don’t remember saying it so explicitly but I certainly did say something similar before.

“Would Ichino-sama will feel guilty if he sees Carol’s naked body and er, do weird things?”

“Definitely not! I will not do something Carol doesn’t feel comfortable with.”

“Then, there shouldn’t be any problems entering the hot springs together right?”

” … Eh? Really?”

Once she put it that way, I realized that it didn’t seem that there would be any problems entering the hot spring with Carol.

” … There won’t be any problems entering the hot springs together?”

“No problems. Carol will help Ichino-sama wash his back.”

” ……… Let’s enter together?”

“Yes♪”

Seeing Carol nod with a smile, I somehow could not wipe off the feeling that I had made a huge mistake and that I was talked into it by Carol.

※※※

I took off my clothes and entered the hot spring.

Naturally, I did not forget to use the Lifestyle Magic 「Clean」 on myself as a substitute to showering before entering the hot spring.

I also applied 「Clean」on Carol while she had her clothes on.

“It’s a strange feeling to clean the body before entering the bath.”

She said but the purpose of a hot spring is to not only cleanse the body but also for relaxation.

The temperature of the hot spring was lowered to about 41 degrees. It might have been a little hot for Carol.

Putting that aside — I looked down at my feet. From the way the rocks were organized, the hot spring did not look natural no matter how I looked at it.

Even though I say that, there were no traces of anyone living there and there wasn’t any path either.

However, there was something strange.

There wasn’t much debris floating on the surface of the hot spring.

Normally, a natural hot spring like that should have leaves and such floating on the surface. I wonder just what was the reason behind it?

As I was lost in thought.

“Ichino-sama, how is the water?”

“It’s a little hot but it feels good.”

I turned back to reply to realize my enormous mistake — Carol was there without a single thread on her.

This, isn’t this quite bad?

If handled poorly, won’t this enter the adult’s section?

The sole saving grace was that steam-san was still doing his work properly even now.

Author’s note:

I’ll continue the story of the mixed bath, oops, mystery story a little more.