Chapter 35

Given my new skills, it was child’s play to move us to the new world while keeping Truck-kun out of the structure of the Isekai where the last world’s buggy coding had placed him.

There was an entire Isekai dedicated to the finer things in ancient Roman and Japanese bath houses. The combination might sound strange, but it was heavenly. A customer in this dimension could follow an ancient Roman that had stumbled, quite implausibly, into a chance to experience a modern Japanese bath house.

He had been delighted, and brought the tradition back to ancient Rome. He gave us a tour of the bath house he had created, and a portal that could take us to any onsen, a kind of Japanese hot spring.

I ignored the man and glanced at Nyarin. “This is basically an obvious excuse to make the ultimate, lifelong escape for onsen enthusiasts.”

She laughed. “It’s just some harmless fun. Everyone has a guilty pleasure.”

I shared the laugh, walking toward the onsen we had selected from literally hundreds of options. “I’m a fully evolved, maximum level Isekai nerd with nothing but time on my hands. I have sixteen different guilty pleasures. I collect guilty pleasures.”

She laughed.

“No really,” I continued, “there’s a spreadsheet.”

She laughed in earnest now. It was that ugly, honest laugh I had fallen in love with what felt like a lifetime ago. I had been a different person back then. Her safe mask fell away, the practiced and ingratiating cute facade melted and all that was left was her and me.

Still, beneath it all I knew she was tense. We both needed to relax, but Truck-kun was just outside of this reality, trying to get back inside. It was only a matter of time.

We parted ways at the men’s and women’s changing areas and walked into a full scale luxury bath house that had been rented exclusively for us.

I cleaned up and rinsed off before getting into the water. It was hot. I checked on Truck-kun one more time, discovering that he had started to become just a little bit restless in exile. But he didn’t dare try to peek his head back into this reality. Not after what I’d done to him.

I relaxed into the water. All of that focus, using the True Vision so much, had taken it out of me. Truck-kun did seem to have noticed what I did to him while he was stuck sucking down ramune soda with the top-heavy maiden and the damage announcer.

I closed my eyes and relaxed for the first time in hours. No, days? Years? The heat seeped into my muscles and I realized that I hadn’t felt this relaxed since long before I layed down in front of Truck-kun’s wheels.

I remembered Sachiko, and for the first time it didn’t hurt.

I wasn’t the same man that had entered these Isekai dreams.

I had lost a beautiful chance at love and it had been my fault. I guess it still hurt, but the pain was dull now. I was healing. I could begin to forgive myself, because I wasn’t the man that had made those mistakes any more. I was a level 80 wizard.

I was a level 80 wizard who screamed like a girl when a voice right next to my ear asked, “Mind if I join you?”

Nyarin laughed at my reaction, ears bouncing with each laugh. She wore a towel that was one size short of public decency considerations, her tail swishing back and forth, and nothing else. Well, she also wore a smile, but that somehow made the picture seem more revealing.

“Ah,” I explained, “You ah, well, then.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” she said, slipping beneath the water’s surface with graceful motions that left her towel on a dry rock beside the water and managed to hide everything while leaving little to the imagination.

That reduced me to a continued stream of incoherent babble.

“We chose an onsen from the Sengoku period,” she reminded me, “back in those days the Japanese didn’t separate the baths by sex. And I’m feeling so inexplicably grateful.”

Somewhere in my incoherent stream of babbling I managed to say, “nihon banzai”, the national cheer in celebration of Japan.

She laughed and sat next to me.

“I’ve never been able to stand the heat of the onsen for very long.” I admitted.

“Is something making you feel hot?” She said, suggestively.

I almost started stuttering again, but then I noticed something I wouldn’t have noticed if I was still the man I had been. Nyarin’s smile was enchanting, but it wasn’t actually her smile. I’d seen the real one. This was the fake smile. “What are you hiding?”

She shifted to a sultry expression. “I wouldn’t hide anything from you.”

I nodded. “Then what are you hiding from yourself?”

She looked at me, confused and wary.

“You’re worried or you’re not saying what you’re thinking. Does that make sense?”

Nyarin was naked in the water right next to me, nothing but rippling refractions keeping her hidden, but at that moment she actually seemed to worry that she had been exposed. “Don’t bother with it. I just want to have some fun before it all comes crashing down.”

“Crashing down?” Worried that she knew something I didn’t, I recheck my True Vision to see what Truck-kun was doing. “Are you naturally a pessimist?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know how dangerous the Baku is. I’m glad you’ve found a way to keep him occupied, but the truth is I figured I was dead the moment I was stuck in here with the Baku. Even I barely know how dangerous he is. I think even our employer Kisshoutennyo, Kisshin-sama I mean, doesn’t realize what a threat he can be. Even if we escape him, my employer isn’t very merciful.”

“We’re not going to escape Truck-kun, Nyarin.”

She deflated at the news, bravado and false confidence fleeing her.

“I mean,” I said, catching her eyes with a movement of my head, “ I’m going to accept his surrender and use him to escape, then I’ll barter a reasonable settlement with your employer.”

She laughed.

“I’m serious,” I told her.

“You've got no idea what you’re up against.”

“I’ve survived employers that wanted to end me. I’ve handled difficult negotiations. I didn’t come seeking an escape from life because I was a failure in my career. I came looking for Truck-kun because my successful career failed to make my life meaningful. But I’m not going to fail you.”

Nyarin was quiet. There was only the sound of slowly running, deliciously warm hot spring water.

“The truth, Nyarin, is that they’ve got no idea what they’re up against.”