Chapter 166: Hygiene In The Winterlands
The Academy Entrance Exams were going to start in less than a week or so.
Klaus knew he couldn’t just walk into the Academy registration hall radiating the suffocating mana of a Tier 1 Wizard and an Aura Master.
He would immediately attract the attention of the Grand Archmages, the royal mages, and every major faction in the kingdom, completely ruining his desire to blend in as a low-profile participant...
’I also need a high-grade suppression technique,’ Klaus thought with his silver eyes narrowing. ’Something that can completely seal and conceal my mana reserves, so I can feign being a weak harmless Tier 1 Apprentice.’
He imagined the scenario in his head, a dark smirk spreading across his face.
He would hide his power, register as a weak nobody, attract all the arrogant young nobles and pretentious bullies who tried to step on him... and the microsecond they pushed him too far, he would release the restraints, unseal his Tier 1 Wizard mana strength, and go completely crazy on them.
It was going to be glorious.
’The perfect weak to strong trope...’
Klaus took a breath, pulling a clean black shirt from his inventory and sliding it over his broad, muscled torso.
He unlatched the heavy iron door of the control cabin and stepped through into the main cabin.
The main cabin was wide and brightly lit by two hanging alchemical lanterns.
The moment Klaus stepped through the doorway, his eyes swept over the room.
In the center of the spacious room, Tasha was standing in her athletic leggings and a light tunic.
Her pale face was slick with sweat with her light blue hair tied back as she methodically swung her father’s steel longsword through the air, practicing the fluid footwork and spirit-infused pivots Klaus had taught her earlier.
Beside her shoulder, her infant lightning spirit hovered, buzzing encouragingly with tiny blue sparks.
On the large fur mattress in the corner, Anya sat neatly with her legs crossed.
The six-year-old Shinigami was holding a thick ancient book in her lap, while her other arm was wrapped tightly around the massive, two-foot blue Ice Phoenix egg, keeping it warm against her body.
Near the alchemical stove, Mirela was wiping down a wooden bowl.
The moment the iron door clicked open, Mirela turned around.
Her blue eyes locked onto Klaus, and she instantly froze with her goat ears perking straight up.
She walked over to him, her nose twitching slightly as she got close.
"Master..." Mirela said flatly, her voice dropping into that deadpan affectionate tone as she looked him up and down. "You stink. And you look like a wild mountain hermit who hasn’t seen a mirror in six months."
Klaus raised a silver eyebrow, sniffing his collar. "I stink?"
"Yes," Mirela declared, placing her hands on her hips. "You smell like burnt sweat and old mana and look at your hair! You need a complete makeover!"
Klaus reached back, grabbing his long silver hair. "My hair isn’t that long."
He looked over at Tasha, who had stopped swinging her sword the moment Klaus entered the room. "Is my hair too long, Tasha?"
Tasha looked at Klaus’s towering frame.
Her light blue eyes locked onto his handsome face, then drifted down to his waist-length, luminescent silver hair spilling over his broad shoulders.
A sudden intense bright red blush exploded across Tasha’s pale cheeks.
Her mind completely short-circuited as a wild, thirsty intrusive thought flashed through her head.
"U-Uh... well..." Tasha stammered, her voice trembling as her eyes glazed over slightly. "It... it is a bit too long... but... but I don’t mind at all! It’s so long and pretty... I... I just want to grab two fistfuls of it from behind... pull on it hard... and put the ends straight into my mouth so I can—"
Silence violently descended over the cabin.
Tasha froze mid-sentence.
Her eyes bulged wide in horrifying realization as her brain registered the wild degenerate intrusive thoughts that had just spilled out of her mouth in front of everyone.
CLANG-THUD!
"AAAH!" Tasha let out a desperate mortified shriek.
She violently slammed the flat side of her father’s steel sword straight into her own face, intentionally knocking herself backward so hard she collapsed flat onto her back on the floorboards, curling into a tight desperate fetal position.
"I’M SORRY! I DIDN’T MEAN THAT! I’M A DEGENERATE! PLEASE ERASE MY MEMORIES!" Tasha wailed into the floorboards, her face burning hotter than a furnace.
Mirela stared at the groveling noble girl, shaking her head with a sigh. "Pervert..."
Mirela turned back to Klaus, clapping her hands together with firm, authoritative leadership.
"That settles it! All of us need a proper bath and a cleanup right now!"
Klaus rolled his shoulders, gesturing toward the alchemical stove. "I want to eat some of that boiled Ice Phoenix meat first. It smells amazing."
Mirela gave him a firm and unyielding look. She reached out, taking his large, calloused hand in hers, tugging him firmly toward the carriage exit.
"You will get your phoenix meat after you look good, Master," Mirela instructed bossily, a sweet, playful smile on her face. "All of you, follow me outside!"
Klaus let out a low, amused sigh, not bothering to resist her grip. "Fine, fine."
Mirela unlocked the heavy wooden side door, opening it wide, and stepped out onto the iron runner into the crisp, clear winter air.
"Come on!" Mirela called out over her shoulder, her dark tail wagging contentedly behind her. "We’re going to use the snow and my magic to build a giant hot pool!"
...
The heavy, iron-reinforced oak doors of the carriage swung open, and the biting sub-zero chill of the Haunted Winterlands instantly rushed into the warm cabin.
Mirela led the way out with her heavy boots sinking softly into the pristine, knee-deep snowpack.
Her dark goat tail swayed contentedly behind her, flicking away the faint traces of frost that clung to her fur.
The night air was crisp, cutting through the silence of the southern clearing, but the howling blizzard that had tormented them after Klaus had locked the control room had finally dissipated.
In its place, a wide, clear expanse of jagged white terrain stretched out under a pale distant winter moon, illuminating the frozen valley in a breathtaking glittering light.
"Alright, everyone out!" Mirela called back with her cheerful voice cutting through the frosty air. "It’s time to wash off the grime! A proper maid cannot allow her Master or his companions to travel smelling like dried monster blood and sweat!"
Reaching a flat, undisturbed drift of snow nestled between two towering formations of blue glacial ice, Mirela stopped and raised her moon-crystal staff with effortless grace.
Her dark goat ears perked up, and her brilliant eyes flared with a deep refined silver luminescence as she tapped directly into her internal mana core.
She didn’t summon a destructive blast, nor did she weave an offensive barrier.
Instead, she focused a dense wave of radiant Moon Magic directly into a thirty-foot section of the solid permafrost beneath the snow.
SKRRRRRKT!
The five-foot-thick slab of solid glacial ice beneath the snowpack instantly groaned and melted away, the physical structure collapsing under the intense controlled heat.
Subterranean water from a frozen underground spring surged upward into the newly carved pit, churning, bubbling, and steaming as the silver magic transformed it into a roaring perfectly temperature-controlled hot spring pool.
Thick plumes of white, mineral-scented steam rose into the freezing air, creating a private warm oasis in the middle of the frozen wasteland.
"Anya, go on in first," Mirela instructed gently, reaching down to help lower the six-year-old Shinigami over the snowy edge into the shallow, steaming water.
Anya sank smoothly into the hot pool with her small face completely devoid of expression while her small hands carefully kept the massive two-foot blue Ice Phoenix egg resting safely on a flat smooth rock at the pool’s edge, keeping the mythical embryo warm and elevated above the water line.
’Father entrusted me with it so I’ll take care of it...’
Tasha stepped up to the edge of the snowbank with her breath pluming in the cold air.
The moment she realized what was about to happen, her pale face turned instantly beet-red.
She fidgeted nervously with the hem of her torn leather tunic with her light-blue eyes darting frantically toward Klaus.
Klaus was standing a few paces back, leaning his broad, towering frame casually against a natural ice formation.
He was wearing his dark trousers and boots with his bare muscled chest exposed to the freezing air without a single shiver, looking like an ancient god of war like usual.
"U-Um..." Tasha stammered, her voice dropping into a mortified embarrassed whisper as her trembling fingers fumbled with the clasps of her tunic. "Klaus... please... please don’t look..."
Klaus let out a low amused sigh.
He rolled his broad shoulders, smoothly turning his back to her and folding his arms over his chest.
"I’m not looking, Tasha. Take your time. Don’t freeze to death while you’re unbuttoning."
Relieved, Tasha let out a shaky breath and hurriedly shed her ruined noble armor and rags.
The biting cold bit at her bare skin for only a fraction of a second before she stepped awkwardly into the steaming water.
"Haah~"
She let out a long, involuntary gasp of pure relief as the enveloping heat washed over her.
The hot, mineral-rich water immediately went to work on her aching muscles, soothing her sore joints and washing away the lingering bone-deep chill of her traumatic escape from the Death Cult.
"Tasha, help me wash Anya’s hair, will you?" Mirela called out from the edge, tossing a bar of sweet-smelling herbal alchemical soap across the steaming water. "I need to attend to the Master."
"Ah! Yes! Of course!" Tasha nodded eagerly, catching the soap with wet hands and shuffling through the waist-deep water toward the small Shinigami.
Mirela offered Klaus a sweet knowing smile, gesturing for him to follow her as she walked toward a secluded area behind a massive towering snowbank on the far side of the clearing.
Left alone in the main pool, Tasha sat behind Anya.
The little Shinigami sat perfectly still in the warm water with her striking, purple eyes watching the swirling steam with an unreadable distant expression.
Truth be told, the little girl didn’t particularly care for the noble newcomer yet.
They hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words since Tasha had been rescued, and Anya’s fiercely possessive loyalty belonged strictly, exclusively, and entirely to Klaus.
Everyone else was simply a secondary variable in her environment.
Tasha carefully sat in the water, lathering the sweet-smelling soap between her palms until a thick fragrant foam covered her hands.
She knew she was an outsider in this tight-knit group, and she wanted desperately to prove her worth and make friends.
"Your hair is so pretty, Anya," Tasha offered warmly with her voice soft and maternal as she tried her best to break the icy barrier between them, gently working the soap into the child’s short, pristine silver strands. "It’s so soft and thick... just like Klaus’s."
"It is standard biological hair," Anya replied deadpan with her voice completely flat, not even turning her head to look at the older girl.
Tasha blinked, her lips twitching with a stiff awkward smile.
She gently massaged the soap into the girl’s scalp, trying again. "R-Right... Um, do you like the warm water? It feels really nice after being out in the cold for so long, doesn’t it?"
"The thermal regulation is acceptable," Anya stated plainly, resting her small chin on her hands as she stared unblinkingly at the Ice Phoenix egg.
’Still that weird way of speaking... she really is a tough nut to crack,’ Tasha thought to herself, chuckling nervously in her mind as she cupped her hands to rinse the soap from the child’s hair.
As Tasha washed the suds away, she looked at the small girl’s stoic, emotionless expression.
Despite the trauma Tasha had just endured... losing her family, her wealth, her entire life... being here, in this strange, warm pool with these absurdly powerful people, made a sudden playful impulse rise in her chest. For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.
She cupped her right hand under the warm surface with a mischievous glint entering her light-blue eyes, and playfully flicked a small wave of water right into Anya’s face.
SPLASH!
Anya froze.
Droplets of warm water dripped slowly from her small nose and long, silver eyelashes.
The little Shinigami didn’t gasp as she simply turned her head, her striking purple eyes narrowing into tiny serious slits as she fixed her gaze on the blue-haired noble girl.
"Target has initiated aquatic hostility." Anya declared flatly.
Before Tasha could even open her mouth to apologize or laugh, Anya cupped both of her small hands under the water, tapped into her terrifying physical strength, and unleashed a massive forceful wave of warm water right into Tasha’s face.
SPLASH!
"Gah! Hey!" Tasha laughed out loud, wiping the warm water from her eyes, her noble decorum completely shattering.