Chapter 39 – Bathing and a Proposition

(slightly NSFW because of the lewd talk)

Edit (6/19/2016): Added part 2. Just search 'Part 2:' to jump down to the addition.

After walking several steps, she stops and turns around. "Oh yes. You're free to peep, but don't blame me if you become impotent because of it." She gives a parting nod and walks away. A minute later, her figure disappears behind the sand dune. The Royal Guards immediately ignite into a discussion when they can no longer see her.

"What the hell? A bath?!"

"Where is she going to find a bath?"

"Idiot. She's probably carrying a tub in the same place she's carrying the bodies."

"Isn't she just going to make a bath with that insane magic of hers?"

"Ooohhh. That's possible."

"What did she mean blaming her for being impotent?"

"Isn't it that she's so pretty that you won't be able to get it up with a normal woman?"

"She's a bit young, but that's possible. It would be better if she had a bit more chest."

"Freaking idiots! How optimistic can you be?!"

"Right? You're asking for hell if you keep thinking like that."

"What was that?!"

"She obviously meant that she'll castrate any dirty pigs that dare to peep on her!"

“Ugh…”

The soldiers hiss at the thought of becoming a eunuch. The desire to protect their little member overwhelms their sexual desire. On the side, Irene covers Princess Liliana's ears to prevent her from hearing the vulgar talk. Irene has a slight blush on her face from hearing the conversation.

"I'm just going to go over here."

"Right. Best not give her an excuse to attack us."

The guards immediately sidle away in the opposite direction. Irene does the same pulling the Princess along.

"Irene! Let me go! I want to take a bath too!" Princess Liliana cries out.

"No! Princess, you cannot go. Miss Senna wants to take a bath alone. You have to wait." Irene scolds Liliana. In all honestly, she wishes to immediately jump into a bath too. However, Senna has proven to be an extremely eccentric person with odd mood swings. Irene knows she would not survive to see another day if she accidentally angered Senna.

Princess Liliana kicks and struggles, but is unable to break free from Irene's grip. After several minutes, she's completely exhausted and can only wait until Irene lets her go.

30 minutes later, Senna returns lightly dressed in a long sleeved shirt and long skirt. Her skin is slightly flushed from the hot bath water. "That felt nice." Mika shakes her feathers flinging away droplets of water still clinging to her body. She flies off taking some distance from Senna with a resentful look.

“Senna! Can I use your bath?!” Liliana excitedly yells out breaking finally being released from Irene’s grip.

"Go ahead. I drew fresh hot water in case anyone wanted a bath. Feel free to enjoy it." Senna points to area she came from.

"Yay!" Princess Liliana dashes off happily.

"Ah! Princess!" Irene picks up the hem of her maid uniform as she chases after the Princess.

Senna gives them a parting wave as they dash off.

"Ahem. Miss Senna." Captain Lewis coughs walking up to Senna.

"Yes?" Senna turns to face the Captain.

"About the threat you gave us earlier..." Lewis hesitantly brings up.

"Threat? What threat?" Senna tilts her head rapidly blinking her eyes.

"...the one you gave before leaving for a bath..." Lewis rolls his eyes.

Senna's eyes dart about as she recalls what she said, but nothing revalent comes to mind. She shakes her head. "Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Lewis resists the urge to cover his face and lets out an exasperated sigh. "That we're free to look at you bathing, but we can't blame you for cutting our manhood off."

"Ah? Manhood? ......." Senna's expression lightens as understanding dawns on her, which quickly shifts into snickering as she attempts to stifle her laughter. "Pffft...th-that's how...haha.....you interpreted...haha...what I said?" Lewis frowns seeing her laugh so freely in front of him, but holds his tongue considering Senna's strength. Her laughter draws some of the guards over wondering what is going on. After a minute of laughing, Senna regains her composure wiping a tear from her eye. "You have an interesting interpretation on things. Listen, if you wanted to peep, you're free to. I honestly wouldn't care."

"But you said..." One of the guards blurts out.

"Yes. I know what I said, but I did not mean it in such a way." Senna stifles another bout of laughter emerging from her talk. "This is what I meant, 'I'm so ugly, you shouldn't blame me if you have issues getting it up in the future because my nasty figure is burned in your brain.'" Senna turns her gaze away silently chuckling to herself. The men stare incredulously at Senna. Most of them look up and down at Senna's figure and see a beautiful young lady. They quickly decide her words are a blatant lie meant to trick them.

Seeing their disbelief, Senna coughs lightly, composing herself. "I'm being completely serious. Frankly, if you were able to get excited with my naked body, I wouldn't mind accompanying you for a night." Bright expressions emerge on some of the younger guards, but the experienced guards maintain a stern expression waiting for the catch. Senna's smile widens as she continues. "But with my distorted body, I'm sure your friends will give you strange looks for your odd taste."

Many of them raise their eyebrows at her vague talk. Senna smiles pointing at one of the guards to the side. "You there. Mind showing off that scar on your shoulder?"

"Mn? Sure." The guard takes off the armguard on his partly exposed shoulder. He reveals a chunk of his shoulder missing with a red gash running down his upper arm before stopping at the elbow.

"It's a bit heavy, but not to the level that a high level healer couldn't treat." Senna ponders. Several of the guards scoff with her comment. Senna smiles guessing that it’s much harder to find a willing healer than she’s thinking. In truth, she hit the mark on how difficult treating such an injury is. An advanced ranked Healer would have to expend a large amount of magical power to completely treat the large scar and the surrounding absent flesh. It would cost the guard five years of pay to cover the cost for treating the injury. As a result, he left it alone despite the discomfort and residual pain from the injury. Senna continues speaking adding on a strange comment. "Anyways, it's very cute."

"Haa!? Cute?" The guard involuntarily retorts. Their gazes concentrate on Senna wondering what she's talking about.

"Yep. It's cute." Senna warmly smiles. "It isn't black, purple, or green like my scars that are heavily colored." She intentionally pauses letting the words sink in.

"So you're saying..." Captain Lewis mutters connecting the dots in the conversation.

"I have twenty or so scars that are far more... 'Attention grabbing' than that scar. Down there is in just as bad of a shape. You would get far less cuts sticking it in a tree's knot compared to my body. That's what I mean." Several of the men grimace imagining her words, but a sense of disbelief can still be seen in their gazes. “There’s no point in showing you. I’ll be taking a bath tomorrow evening anyways. Feel free to look if you really want to, if you have problems though, then it’s not my problem.” Senna snaps her fingers healing the guard's scar. His body visibly stitches itself repairing the missing flesh. In a matter of seconds, all traces of the scar completely disappear leaving it completely unscathed. Satisfied with her work, Senna nods and turns around walking away forcibly ending the conversation. With her departure, the Royal guards immediately break into conversation.

"...What do you think?"

"It's obviously a lie. There's no way she's that heavily scarred. I mean, look at her!"

"She looked serious though."

"That's just a lie, so people won't look at her."

"I wouldn't want to test it. Her talk made it seem terrible."

"Your loss."

"Hey, are you forgetting that she could kill everyone if you piss her off?"

"She said it herself that we could peep and even accompany us in bed. Wouldn't you love to taste a young girl like that?"

"Think of your age!"

"Shut up!" Vice Captain Hertz yells out interrupting his subordinates increasingly lewd talk. "Don't forget that she saved our lives! We would besmirch the Royal Family's name with such disgraceful behavior! The Captain has already gone to speak to her. Anyone attempting to solicit her for her body will be met with capital punishment." Hertz chastises the guards. In truth, he still doesn't trust Senna's motives, but he has to nip their lewd desires in the bud to prevent any scandal from damaging their reputation. The lack of ability to deal with the assassins was already a significant blow to their reputation. Any further scandal would drop their reputation down to rock bottom.

“Oi! Miss Senna!" Captain Lewis yells running to catch up with her.

Senna stops and greets him with a smile. "There's no need for honorifics you know?"

"...Then Senna... You shouldn't say such things to the other guards. It's been almost three weeks on duty. Many of them are quite pent up and won't be able to brush off joke like that so easily." Lewis explains hastily.

"That's fine. If they're interested, then I don't mind accompanying them, no matter how many of them are interested." Senna smiles mischievously.

"But..." Lewis tries to complain, but is unsure of what to say when both sides are consenting.

"That being said, I think everyone seems normal enough that they will have zero interest in me or my body." Senna laughs to herself. She continues explaining before Lewis can ask about the reason. "I was completely serious, you know? My appearance is really that bad under my clothes." She lifts up part of her shirt revealing her scarred abdomen. Captain Lewis' jaw drops seeing the criss-crossing mass of multicolored scars. "See? It's very disturbing. Many men have cursed at me in disgust after removing my top. Not that I can blame them. Embracing a person like me where even my breasts are cut to the point that it seems like it will fall off. That being the case, I expect none of your men will be interested in pursuing me. They might want to scratch out their eyes tomorrow evening, but I gave them sufficient warning. So hopefully the damage isn't too heavy." Senna laughs bitterly imagining their disgusted cries.

"R-Right. I'll inform my men." Captain Lewis replies shaking off his surprise.

"Mmm. Good luck. I will be taking a rest." Senna gives a parting nod before walking away. She walks to the perimeter of the camp and looks at Mika flying in the sky. {Mika, come here please.}

{Hmph.} Mika turns her head still feeling angry with Senna.

{Mika, I'm serious. I really need your help.} Senna sternly commands.

{Fine.} Mika reluctantly stifles her anger and flies down to Senna. {What is it?} Mika asks. She continues to talk mentally to Senna on Senna's request because of the other people in the area.

{I need you to keep watch. I overused my magic and need to deal with the injuries I’ve been accumulating.} Senna snaps her fingers forming a stone perch. As the stone base rises upwards, it splits into four perches in each cardinal direction.

Mika nearly jumps hearing that Senna's been hurt. {Are you okay?!}

{Mmm. It's just a bit of backlash. I need to focus on treating myself tonight. So please handle the night watch by yourself. Don't bother me okay? I need to focus on treatment.} Senna calmly explains.

{...Okay.} Mika reluctantly accepts. Senna being stubborn is nothing new to her. No matter how much she tries, Senna can be unrelenting when she makes a decision. Mika knows the best thing to do is do her best to protect Senna right now.

Watching Mika fly up onto the perch, Senna waves her hand casting her magic. Four thick stone walls form from beneath the sand. Rising five meters into the air, the walls turn and merge together sealing up the center. The final result ends with Senna completely encased in a stone box. Three layers of are quickly thrown up further isolating any sound.

With the preparations complete, Senna relaxes her tense body and drops on all fours. "Urgh...Uaa...."She gags as she throws up the blood she's been repressing. Her blood soaks into the sand as she hacks and coughs expelling out the blood still stuck in her throat. "Ugh. I can't believe that my [Blood Manipulation] doesn't work against at such a time." Senna forms a orb to brighten the sealed room. She looks at the sand soaked in blackened blood with a complicated expression. Her magic proves to be useful in collected the mixed blood and sand for future studies.

"Why though? Because I used enough Magic Power to equal ten high level mages? Or because I used almost 50% of my total Magic Power in such a short time period? The first sign was during battle, so I simultaneously casted too many spells in one go? Ugh..." Pain bursts from her chest as she ponders what caused her to cough up blood. The burning pain in her chest spreads to her arm making it feel as if she caught on fire. With her light orb illuminating the room, Senna watches as her left arm disperses in a wisp of black mist revealing nothing, but bone.

"Tch. Damn the ." Senna curses as she saturates the air with her magical power. "HHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" With a rare shout, she condenses all the leaking magical power back into her body. A whirlwind forms sucking in every drop of loose magical energy in the air into Senna's magical core. She concentrates the absorption on her shoulder drawing the rampant energy from the back into her core. Collecting her , she reseals the energy from the back into her core.

Senna spits out more blood that collected in her mouth. "Ugh. That was bad." Senna casts several healing type spells on her bony arm, but it backfires. Even though she avoided using , her skelefied arm was infused with too much undead energy to be restored through simple healing magic. As a result, her entire left arm corrodes into dust along with some of the exposed flesh on her shoulder exploding with a flurry of blood.

"Tch. Of all the times..." Senna suppresses any further blood loss with her [Blood Manipulation] skill. "I can't use any like this either or else that I'll relapse and damage my body again. Damn it. No choice, but to do it the old fashioned way." Senna takes out several potions and lines them up in front of her. "I didn't think I would end up testing these ones in such a situation."

Senna weakly sighs as she drinks five different potions at once. A strong to restore her lost health. An experimental potion to regrow her bones. Another experimental potion to quickly restore flesh. A strong to refill energy from the regrowth process. A to recover from blood loss. A tremor runs through Senna's body as the potions take effect. She rolls over and lies fall on her back. She grits her teeth as her severed shoulder begins to bulge. Globules of sweat form all over her body completely soaking her clothes.

After an agonizing four hours, her arm has completely reconstructed itself. The burning pain would have caused most men to cry out after the first few minutes, but Senna endured the ordeal because of her past experiences with pain. In a way, the new arm is an improvement because her upper arm is completely free from scars.

After resting from the recovery, Senna sits covers herself in cleaning off her body. She relaxes her body and stares at the ceiling. "It needs a lot of work. The potion is not bad for a prototype, but it's too slow and painful. I'll have to find a better recipe."

"What else?" Senna mutters to herself. She starts making mental notes of what happened today. The cause of her irregular blood injuries are most likely attributed to her excessive spell casting. The exact details are unknown and need more experimentation to determine what exactly is causing her injuries.

Her Lich's Blessing fed off her increase in level and has become much more potent. As a result, her previous bindings created from shattered to pieces. The Lich's Blessing spread through her body mixing with her physical body. A blessing from a Lich is an unheard of occurrence in most cases. However, there have been records of skilled necromancers receiving powers from the undead race. Their control over the nonliving would improve increasing their strength. But that was not the case for Senna. Her blessing was done by a whim of a capricious Lich King that did not understand anything about blessings. Normally, the blessing would be altered to function in the body of a human without harming the user. In Senna's case, her blessing corroded her body gradually attempting to transform her into one of the undead. As a result, she's firmly kept a seal on the blessing preventing it from altering her body unnecessarily.

"Tired. I'll think about the rest later." Senna murmurs to herself. She surrenders herself to her unconscious, quickly falling asleep.

Part 2:

The night comes and goes without event. Senna dispels her confines retracting the stone walls back into the ground. She unbinds the two captives from the water torture device. The nearby Captain Lewis and Vice Captain Hertz are taken aback when Senna unties the blindfold. Dark rings can be seen under their bloodshot eyes. Their foreheads are inflamed with a bright red bump from the exposure to the constantly dripping water. Not only their appearance, but also their atmosphere gives away their fatigue. When Senna retracts the device into the ground, the assassin and guard leap out of their skin from the light rumble and crash face first into the ground. When the Captains help the two captives up, they're surprised to see the captives twitching uncontrollably. Senna claps her hands making the captives jump and nearly crash into the ground again if the two Captains weren't already restraining them.

"I'm surprised. I figured that with their defenses they could endure much better than this." Senna presses against their eyelids taking a closer look at their bloodshot eyes.

"Are you planning on sticking them in that thing again?" Captain Lewis asks.

"Maybe… It would be a problem for your side if they broke before even reaching the city." Senna tilts her head. "...I can think about when we next make camp." Shrugging, she proceeds to shoving the food supplement pills down the captives' throats. Senna cooks breakfast right in front of them steadily making enough for all of the guards. The scent of potato pancakes and eggs stimulates their hunger drawing everyone over. The captives drool enviously as they are forced to watch everyone else devour Senna's food. Seeing them drool, she gives them a second serving of the pills.

After feeding everyone, the captives are loaded back into their carriage and they finally set off towards the Capital of Erein. With Senna carrying a large portion of the supplies, the march proceeds at a much more brisk pace with their lightened load. Senna accompanies them inside the Royal carriage on Princess Liliana's insistence.

The procession of carriages and guards gradually move along as they travel through the desert surroundings. That night, a few wails fill the night sky. When everyone gathers at the source of the commotion, they see three guards vomiting at the base of a sand dune.

"I did warn you~" Senna calls out from behind the sand dune.

"What happened?" Princess Liliana asks pinching her nose to avoid the smell.

Irene gives the Princess a handkerchief to cover her nose instead before using a spare for herself. "Princess, Senna probably punished the men for peeping at her bathing."

"I didn't do such a crude thing!" Senna calls out again. The occasional sound of splashing water reveals that Senna is continuing to bathe despite the commotion nearby.

"She mentioned the night before that her body is ugly." Captain Lewis comments. "It must be much worse than expected if these womanizers are suffering." He shows a wry smile, but is inwardly shaken at how bad Senna's appearance could be to cause such a reaction. It looked bad from the small glimpse he received, but could it possibly be that widespread?

"Senna! Can I see?" Liliana calls out.

"Eh?!" Senna inadvertently cries out at the unexpected question.

"Princess! That's rude!" Irene starts to scold Liliana.

"I'm really ugly though! It's not something you should see." Senna replies after composing herself.

"I still want to see." Liliana replies before Irene can cover her mouth.

"Senna! I apo..." Irene starts to apologize.

"…...Fine. Come see then." Senna reluctantly agrees. The sound of splashing water reaches their ears as Senna finishes speaking. Irene sighs reluctantly letting go of the Princess.

"Yay!" Princess Liliana runs over the sand dune stopping at the edge of a pool of water. Irene arrives a few seconds later. Their eyes widen as they spot Senna immersed in the pool. Most of her body is submerged with only her head and arm showing. She waves her arm drawing their attention to the heavy scars on her upper arm.

"Uwah! So nasty!" Princess Liliana cries out. Both of them recoil at the sight, but Irene is barely able to repress her disgust. She quickly covers Princess Liliana's mouth to prevent her from insulting Senna any further.

"Yes. It is really ugly isn’t it? You should go quickly before you see the rest of it." Senna shoos them away completely submerging her body in the water. At her urging, Irene obediently carries Liliana away. This time Liliana allows herself to be carrier as she goes deep into thought.

Senna surfaces after they leave continuing to enjoy her bath. When she emerges from the bath, she finds King Victor and the Princess having tea using crates as a makeshift table and chairs.

"Hopefully, that wasn't too disturbing for you Princess?" Senna comments.

Liliana shakes her head. "Senna, do those scars hurt?"

"Of course they do. You can't get a scar without getting hurt." Senna lightly smiles.

"Why do you keep them then? Why don't you use magic to make them go away?" Liliana asks. King Victor and the others listen in on their conversation, while pretending to drink their tea.

"Mmm..." Senna scratches her head thinking about the best way to answer her question. "Saying 'I can't' isn't right...'I need it' is the best thing to say."

"But why? You said it hurts." Liliana persistently asks.

"Mmm... I've had them for over 8 years now? Long before I learned magic. They're like clothes at this point."

"Clothes?" Liliana asks.

"Yes. Clothes because I feel strange not having them around. The adults might understand the feeling better. ...In Erein, is there a place where lots of people walk by?" Senna calmly talks with Liliana trying to explain her thoughts in a simple manner.

"You mean like the town square?" Liliana responds thinking about the capital.

"Yes. Like the town square. Then if you ask them 'Would they feel embarrassed walking through the town square without any clothes?'" Senna calmly smiles while repressing the urge to burst out laugh at her ridiculous question.

Liliana scrunches her brow imagining how weird that would be. Even though she senses how strange it would be, she still turns to Irene to try and pinpoint the right words to express her thoughts. "Irene?"

"No no no no no no no no! Th-th-th-that's impossible. It's too shameful." Irene shakes her head furiously. She buries her face in her hands. Her face is completely flushed red. Liliana turns to her father and Sebastian, but they also strongly shake their head.

"Because wearing clothes is a normal thing." Senna interjects pulling Liliana's attention back on her. "Everyone does it and there's a long history of wearing clothes. You could say clothes protect us in a way from dangerous things in the world. It's similar in a way for me. The scars I have don't protect me, but I've had them for so long that it's strange for me to not have them."

"But doesn't that mean you can't be pretty anymore?" Liliana asks.

"Princess!" Irene cries out scolding her for the incredibly honest question.

Senna shrugs. "I've been hit enough about being too ugly. I stopped caring."

"Isn't that really sad though?" Liliana asks.

Senna shrugs again. "That's how it is. It's not a problem for me, so I don't plan to worry about it. I have more important things to worry about after all."

"If I may..." Sebastian asks.

"Yes?" Senna replies turning to him.

"With that kind of power, how is anyone able to hurt you?" Sebastian takes a large plunge and decides to ask the burning question on his mind. With how lax Senna has been despite the young Princess' intrusive questions, Senna has answered everything with a carefree tone.

"Ahh..." Senna scratches her head awkwardly. "I've only learned how to do magic a year ago. Before that even my physical ability was around the level of the Princess here. In addition, my magic was nonexistant." Senna care-freely explains forming a zero with her hand.

"A year?! That's impossible!" Captain Lewis yells out unable to restrain his shock.

Senna shrugs with a straight face. "But it's the truth. Take it up with the Goddess if you have a complaint."

"The G-Goddess?" Sebastian interjects.

"Mmm. The Goddess Remilia. She gave me such an abnormal growth. It's a concession on her part to make me this way, so take it up with her if you have a problem with it." Senna apathetically responds. "I'll let you process what I said." She snaps her fingers leaving a simple cake on the makeshift table before walking away.

"Your Highness, what are your thoughts?" Sebastian asks.

"I find it hard to believe. Becoming so powerful in one year is completely abnormal." King Victor scratches his beard in thought.

"Of course it's abnormal! What kind of training did I spend all those years for to be overshadowed by someone with less than a year's worth of training?!" Lewis yells out unable to keep his emotions in check. The sheer thought of Senna's growth shakes every part of his beliefs.

"Senna's not lying!" Liliana cries out.

"I didn't say she was dear." King Victor pats Liliana's head as Irene cuts a piece of the cake for the Princess. "She's been very honest with us from the start."

"If she truly has received the favor of the Goddess, then it's all the more reason we should create some ties with her." Sebastian replies. King Victor grunts and nods thinking about who he can pair up with Senna. If he had a son of his own, then it would save him the trouble of convincing another noble to propose a marriage with her.

"But you shouldn't force her. Angering her would make her immediately leave." Irene interjects.

"Of course I understand that. But we can find out who she favors and make some arrangements." King Victor nods seriously.

Later that evening, Irene approaches Senna. “What’s up?” Senna closes the book she’s reading and looks at Irene.

“Senna, was everything you said about your sc…um…body really true?”

“Part of it. I didn’t want to say everything to the Princess. Explaining how these scars came to be is something I wanted to shield her from after all… No, it’s something that’s best not to know.” Senna replies. Her voice trails off thinking about everything that’s happened so far. Irene silently stands there hanging her head. “…Ah sorry. Did you need something else?”

“No. I’m done. Sorry for disturbing you.” Irene runs off.

“I see.” Senna sighs. “Trying to get to know someone while keeping them at arm’s length is truly difficult.” She mumbles to herself as she immerses herself in her book.

Author’s Note

I’m back! As for my test… more likely I bombed it rather than passed it. :P Well I did it as a resume filler more than anything, so can’t say I’m terribly depressed about passing it. Not to mention that certification had a 3 year expiration date, so its uses are limited. Funny how 5% of the test was never covered in the text book and another 40% only glazed over the topics without showing how to apply it the concepts covered.

My goal this month will be to have another chapter out next weekend and one more chapter out before July 2nd. Then I’ll be on another short hiatus as I travel to Japan on vacation for two weeks. We’ll see if I can follow through though since I’ve been kinda lazy. >_

That’s about it for now. Take care~

Edit (6/19/2016): When I was halfway into writing chapter 40, I realized I screwed up. There was still another part of chapter 39 that I forgot. So I backtracked and wrote it. It took longer than expected too, so I'm unfortunately able to release Chapter 40 this week. Search 'Part 2:' to find the addition. I hope that can stave off your chapter needs for a time.