Facility Customization was the village skill I acquired recently.
Hoping I could increase the number of beds in the house, I imagined the form of the new bed. After doing so, a semi-transparent bed appeared before me. That seemed to allow me to adjust freely its size as well as to change where it was placed.
At one corner of this semi-transparent bed, there was a number. When I noticed the number, it said 2 points. When I tried to make the bed bigger, the number increased to 3; when I tried to make the bed smaller, it decreased to 1.
“I see. So this is the amount of points required to build the bed. When adding something into a facility, some village points are required, I think it said.”
2 points seemed to be the base cost for adding a new double-bed, but a bed worth 1 point looked enough to me. I built and placed a bed in the room on the first floor as well as in the extra room on the second floor.
“Alright. We each have our own beds now!”
Ever since Selen arrived, I had been sleeping between her and Millia. I had gotten a bit used to being sandwiched, but even so, men and women of marriageable age sleeping beside each other was definitely not normal.
…It might feel lonely, sure, but I’d just have to keep the feeling of missing them a secret.
“Next, I’d like to add toilets and baths.”
Back in the small house, the toilet and the bath were in the same room. In this medium-sized house, they were separate. There was still only one of each though. Like this, incidents were liable to happen. Like they have many times before…
Hopefully, adding more of them would decrease the likelihood of that.
“Woah, the cost jumped up, haven’t they?”
The bed only cost me 1 village points, but it would cost me 10 points to add another toilet room to the house. Meanwhile, it would cost me 5 points to add another bathroom.
However, in order to avoid those incidents, this customization was a must.
After being satisfied with that, I decided to build something in an unused space in the village: a public bathhouse.
<<150 village points will be consumed to build a public bathhouse. Proceed? *{Yes}||{No}>>
I chose yes.
In the next moment, a building larger than a terrace house appeared.
“Village chief, what’s this…?”
“Ah, Belrith-san. It’s a public bathhouse.”
Belrith-san came along at the perfect timing.
He was my mediator with the other villagers, so if I explained to him how to use this new facility, the other villagers would also learn how to do so through him. They might even suggest rules to follow when using the bathhouse.
“A public bath home…?”
Apparently though, Belrith-san wasn’t aware of what even a public bathhouse was.
Which wasn’t strange at all. If memory serves me right, even in the Albert territory, only the capital had such buildings.
“Well, why don’t we go inside first? Let’s check it out together.”
And so, Belrith-san and I walked inside the building.
It had a small entrance, and a bit further in, there were two routes. A curtain with text written on it was hung in front of each route. One had Male, and the other had Female written on it.
“Men and women have their own, huh.”
“Are you perhaps talking about toilets?”
“Nope. Trust me, it’ll make sense in a while. By the way, that place you’re talking about will be called a public lavatory.”
We proceeded to enter the men’s bath.
“This is the changing room, I guess.”
“The changing room…?”
I encouraged Belrith-san—who was still clueless about what kind of facility this was—to walk further.
After passing through a door, we found a large bathtub in the room.
Perhaps it was because it was made of wood, but an aroma assailed my senses.
There was already hot water in the tub, and the steam coming from it had clouded our visions.
From where this hot water came, I had no clue…
Well, if we were going to have an infinite supply of it like as was the case for the water from the wells and my home, I saw little point in bothering to figure it out.
“Do we soak our bodies there…?”
“Yes, actually. It’s called a bath. And this one can be enjoyed by everybody. Hence, it’s called a public bathhouse.”
“Such a thing…”
There was a washing area, so we rinsed our bodies there.
After doing so, we finally submerged ourselves in the bath.
“It doesn’t really offer much now, what with the warm weather and all, but once winter comes, this should solve the issue of the freezing water.”
“To build such a wonderful thing for our sakes…thank you very much sir!”
“Hey, it’s nothing. My Gift did all the work.”
“This is nothing? You are our sav…our village chief! Our village chief, after all!”
“…hmm? Save?”
“No, no, never mind that. Anyway, I’m sure that everyone will appreciate this!”
What was that? That sounded awfully like he was trying to hide something. Hmm…