Interlude

THUNDER SONIA PREPARES HERSELF

Women always take forever to get ready.

After the war, with peacetime in effect, it seemed everyone had more time to prepare themselves to leave the home. Women, more so than men, began to enjoy the rituals of bathing, dressing, and styling their hair. All time-intensive tasks. Thus, the above saying was born.

Naturally, such a thing was not true during the war itself.

Preparations were always to be done before sleeping, so that in an emergency, the soldiers could muster up speed. Such was the habit of a good soldier.

This rang true for everyone.

After all, death was the great equalizer.

Faced with certain annihilation, there was no time to say, Oh, my apologies, I wasn’t ready. Let me start over.

As a wise and seasoned soldier, Thunder Sonia had always handled preparations faster than anyone else.

As soon as they were alerted to the enemy’s approach, she would spring up, already dressed in armor, chomping on the field rations she drew from her pocket as she ran heedlessly through sludge and soot to join the battle. After the fighting was done, she would scarf down an evening meal, pack the next day’s breakfast rations in her pocket, and lie down to sleep still clad in filthy armor, so as to save time the next day as well.

She made sure to prioritize getting enough rest but always made sure she kept her wand and field rations on her person as she slept.

Sure, sometimes there was an official ceremony or something she had to attend, and she’d scrub up for that. But generally, Sonia was a warrior and hated to have to spend any extra time getting ready for anything.

At least, that was how it had always been. Over time, though, Sonia had learned there were some battles you couldn’t hope to win unless you spent a great deal of time preparing first.

Yes, Thunder Sonia had really changed.

Even though the war was over, she now always took well over an hour to prepare herself whenever leaving home.

This change could all be traced back to one root cause. Yes… The Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest.

“Time to wash up, eh?”

Thunder Sonia stood before a large bathtub. She’d had to order it special from a human blacksmith.

It was shiny and copper-colored, and its interior was covered with magic sigil engravings. It was clearly a magical artifact.

Thunder Sonia touched one of the sigils, activating it with her magical power. In the blink of an eye, the bathtub was full of steamy water.

She tested the water temperature with one hand and nodded to herself.

“That’ll do.”

Thunder Sonia slipped out of her clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket.

Her slim, supple body wasn’t really what anyone would call voluptuous, even for an elf, but if a certain virginal orc had been present to witness her disrobing, there’s no doubt that his passions would have been inflamed by the sight.

Before sinking into the steaming water, she crouched beside the bathtub and gazed at the array of bottles arranged there.

Yellow, green, pink… The bottles were filled with a variety of liquids, of all colors of the rainbow. They sparkled in the light, like precious jewels.

Thunder Sonia selected two bottles from her collection and held them up for scrutiny, her brow furrowed with concentration.

“Which one…? Hmm, the beastkin preparation is better for deodorizing. But then again, this one is fairy-made, and all the advertisements say fairy-made is best…”

A chilly draft sent goose bumps rising across Thunder Sonia’s exposed skin.

“Achoo!”

After letting forth an explosive, undignified, old-person sneeze, Thunder Sonia realized she could deliberate between concoctions all day and still not be able to come up with the best solution. Putting one of the bottles down, she opened the lid of the other one and dumped its contents into the hot bathwater.

Then she stirred the swirling water with a stick that was leaning against the wall, frothing up the water and causing thick bubbles to form.

Then, finally, she sank into the hot and steamy water.

“…Ah.”

Gasping with delight, Thunder Sonia became ensconced in the warm water.

But her brow remained furrowed.

Thunder Sonia began to massage the bubbles into her skin, splashing a little here and there, but a frown remained fixed to her face the entire time.

And she took special care when massaging the fragrant liquid under her arms and behind her ears.

It was the beastkin concoction that Thunder Sonia had chosen for her bath today.

The beastkin have sharp noses. So sharp, in fact, that they are able to hunt their enemies in the blackest of nights, using only their olfactory senses to guide them.

Since sniffing out their enemy was considered so essential to the beastkin, they also expended a lot of time thinking about their own smell—and how good their enemies might have been at smelling them.

The beastkin, particularly the night-wolves, who spent a long time waiting in place for their chance to perform an assassination or ambush, were well-known for bathing thoroughly before a battle. They would scrub their skin with deodorizing soap to completely neutralize their own body scent.

It was this special beastkin soap that Thunder Sonia was now using in her bath.

After a thorough bath with this stuff, not even a beastkin would be able to smell you. Not unless you got up real close.

That’s how potent this stuff was.

“That’ll do the trick, surely?”

After soaking herself in the scented water for a good half an hour, Thunder Sonia reached out and touched the magic sigil on the bottom of the bathtub.

As she channeled her magical energy into it, the water in the bathtub shimmered for a second before vanishing completely.

Then Sonia stepped out of the now-dry tub, steam rising from her body.

Touching the magic sigil again, she refilled the tub with fresh, hot water.

Now she picked up a different bottle.

Another half hour later, Sonia was squeaky clean.

After fully deodorizing, she had scrubbed every inch of her skin with high-grade, human soap.

Even if she really did have old-person smell, it would be a few hours before her body began producing smells of any kind. It was a kind of insurance policy for Sonia, albeit one that would expire before too long.

“Hmm…”

Now wearing underwear, with steam still rising from her body, Sonia rubbed her chin and hesitated.

Before her sat an array of colored bottles.

There had to be at least twenty in all.

They resembled her bath potions, but these ones contained what was called perfume.

“Should I put some on…?”

Thunder Sonia worried about her smell night and day.

Up until last year, she slathered herself in perfume after her bath, just to make sure.

But then one day, she overheard the gossip.

“Lady Sonia’s perfume sure stinks.”

“She’s probably trying to cover up her old-person smell.”

“I knew it! She really is a stinky old lady!”

Sonia had been attempting to hide any natural scent with perfume. But her plan had backfired. Because now she really did stink.

And everyone had noticed.

Thunder Sonia was thunderstruck by the gossip.

But at the same time, she could understand.

If she walked around reeking of perfume, no one would be able to tell if she really did have old-person smell or not.

Actually, during the war, with so much heavy fighting and camping out, and with no chance for a bath, she really did smell at times. Even she had to admit it. She’d actually used perfume quite often then, as a way to disguise the stink of sweat and battle.

But ever since overhearing the catty gossip about her perfume use, she had sworn off it. She would use only deodorizing soaks and soaps from now on.

But it took bravery on Sonia’s part to forgo the safety net of perfume. Now if her old-person smell really did waft out, there would be no safety net in place to prevent everyone else from taking notice.

She planned to skip the perfume again today as well.

But there was Bash to consider. If the orc was around, then maybe she should think twice.

Of course, her choice to wear perfume or not shouldn’t logically have been affected by Bash being in town. But she would feel safer hiding her scent entirely with the orc around. Just for insurance. Just in case.

It goes without saying, but Thunder Sonia did not smell bad. She smelled of nothing more than clean soap. Adding perfume on top was merely a placebo, something to ease her troubled mind.

“Maybe just a dab, then? Yeah.”

Thunder Sonia nodded, as if convincing herself, before selecting one of the bottles. It was her personal favorite, the scent she had often chosen during wartime. She dabbed a tiny bit onto her neck.

And with this, Thunder Sonia’s preparations were complete.

Just a quick bath, that’s all it was. No doubt those human aristocrats took twice as long as she did to get ready.

But those who knew Sonia before her paranoia began, who knew how lightning-quick she was to prepare for battle…they would be quite concerned with how long she took to get ready this time. Perhaps she had slipped in the bath and hit her head, they might wonder.

Well, there was one who was used to Sonia’s increasingly long “getting-ready” sessions.

Aconitum.

He heaved a huge sigh as he saw Thunder Sonia finally emerge from her room.

“Sorry for the holdup, Aconitum. Let’s go.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Aconitum bowed briskly, before falling into step alongside Thunder Sonia as she marched off.

He got a whiff of a clean, pleasant scent coming from her hair.

The scent brought him back to his childhood.

Every elf had to have caught that scent at least once. It was…reassuring.

“…Um, Lady Sonia?”

“Wh-what? What’s wrong with using a little perfume when the mood strikes?”

“This strategy meeting will be mostly attended by married people. It would be very bad manners to flirt with them…”

“I’m not going to flirt! You…idiot!”

Thunder Sonia tossed her hair indignantly, putting on an extra burst of speed to get ahead of her annoying grandnephew.

Aconitum hurried after her.

Oh dear, he thought as he jogged along in Sonia’s wake. Granny’s really going for it again today…