episode_0085

*

Lucia was clinging to me on the dust-filled bed.

She leaned into me as if throwing her whole body at me, pressing her small, soft lips against my large, rough face.

Lucia, who showered me with kisses like a girl adoring a puppy, traced her lips along my jawline.

She ran her nose over my poorly grown beard, then buried her face in my neck and inhaled.

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

If the Ebony Wolf were to bite my neck right now, I would die a miserable death.

I would clutch my neck, where flesh had been torn away, and die spewing blood.

But I couldn’t stop Lucia.

No, rather, I pulled her trembling small shoulders closer, burying my face in her silver hair.

With every breath, an indescribably sweet fragrance sharply pierced my nostrils.

The scent of a young girl’s skin.

The sweet smell that seemed to explain why so many men act so foolishly in front of beautiful women stirred my mind into a mess.

At the same time that Lucia’s moist, soft tongue gently tickled the skin of my neck, her small hands, which had been hugging my back, moved down and slipped under my shirt.

Her thin, small fingers, cooled by the cold air, dug into the bare skin of my back, covered with muscles and scars.

Lucia parted her lips and kissed me as if to swallow my Adam’s apple, and I lightly bit her ear with the tip of my lips.

We were both seized by an unknown, bizarre excitement, and our bodies trembled.

As my breath tickled Lucia’s ear, Lucia’s hips moved back and forth as if recoiling.

Her pelvis, straddling my legs, gradually dug into me.

Her body, clinging to me from stomach to head without a gap, fit perfectly in my arms like a puzzle piece.

“Phew…”

Lucia took a deep breath with a flushed face and lifted her head.

“I thought I was going to die… I couldn’t breathe.”

“Were you holding your breath? You can just breathe.”

“Priest… if I keep smelling the Priest’s scent… my head spins… don’t you know?”

I stroked her hair and replied.

“… I know.”

“Huh?”

“I’m the same.”

Lucia’s face flushed even redder.

Lucia’s hands, hugging my back, moved upwards as if sliding over my skin.

Naturally, my shirt, caught on her arms, began to lift upwards, and Lucia slowly got off my legs and buried her flushed face in my abdomen.

Without her even pushing, my body naturally began to slide backwards.

I braced myself by placing my elbows on the bed, but she climbed on top of me and slipped her head into my shirt.

My chest tickled.

Her soft tongue licked my chest.

When I chuckled softly, she giggled in my arms.

Lucia slowly began to take off my shirt completely.

“It’s cold.”

“I’ll… warm you up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to hug you tight.”

“Really? You’re only going to do that, right?”

“Yes.”

Lucia slowly raised herself and nodded.

Then she slowly began to unbutton her nun’s habit.

The cloth that had fit her body snugly became loose and began to slip off her shoulders.

Lucia dropped her top down.

Instantly, her shoulders and chest, wrapped in her fair skin, were revealed.

Her clothes, hanging on her waist, hung like a girdle made of shed skin.

“You said you were only going to hug me.”

“That’s right… but, naked.”

Lucia slowly got off me and stood next to the bed.

Her clothes fell around her feet, forming a small puddle.

Lucia’s thin legs were lifted into the air, and her defenseless naked body instantly rose from the puddle onto my body.

“It’s cold… Priest, hug me.”

There’s no going too far.

Lucia is different from Anna.

She would never ignore my refusal, she would obediently follow my requests, and even if she begged me, she would never force me.

Just Lucia and I, we would just enjoy this sweet time.

But why is that?

From Lucia, touching my chest, I could feel a kind of hunger, almost violently restrained, in her gentle touch.

A shadow of dark desire, no less than Anna’s, was cast in her blue eyes.

Perhaps, in my eyes too.

*

It was late afternoon, long after Lucia and I had come out of the cabin.

Our faces were flushed, and we stared blankly at each other with hazy eyes, as muddled as our heads.

Despite indulging in each other’s skin for so long, some deep desire that could never be resolved was enveloping our bodies.

We both know the real way to resolve that desire.

We both knew that she would never refuse if I tried.

But I gritted my teeth and endured it.

The sight of her, held in my arms, breathing hot breaths on my chest, or the temptation of her pressing her cute breasts against my skin.

Even the sight of her flinching and closing her eyes tightly every moment her fingers touched her bare skin as I put her clothes back on.

Lucia was so cute that I wanted to give up everything I had believed in my whole life.

But I endured to the end.

An will, whether it was inertia or conviction, called out to me until the very end, as I wanted to stumble into corruption.

As I opened the door, I could feel the hot air condensed inside the cabin being sucked out into the cold world.

From a distance, it would look as if the cabin was exhaling.

We cooled our flushed bodies in the cold winter wind, held each other’s hands tightly, and returned to the village.

As we reached the entrance to the village, Sola came running to greet us from afar, swinging her red bob wildly.

She was panting, moving her red, flushed facial muscles greatly.

“Priest! Where have you been!”

“Exploring… far away.”

Lucia, standing behind me, fanned her face with her hand even though it was the middle of winter, and lowered her head.

Sola patted my body and said.

“I was going to show off the completed bathhouse! Anna isn’t interested, and Paolo helped me build it, so I can’t show it off to him either!”

Sola was sulking, puffing her cheeks full of air.

She was stomping her feet on the ground, and it looked like a small puppy getting angry, so I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Sola started huffing even more when she saw me laugh.

I ran my fingers through Sola’s messy, tangled hair and said.

“You did well, Sola. You worked really hard.”

“…Hmph, I even prepared a bath because the Priest said he was tired.”

“Bath preparation, like what?”

“I hauled water and poured it hard! I went back and forth over thirty times to fill the bathhouse, even though it was heavy.”

“Oh my, you put in a lot of effort.”

“And you can’t just pour that water in right away, you have to light a fire and boil it first, so it took a really long time.”

“Fire? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“I’ve been managing the lighthouse my whole life, Priest. I’m a professional at handling fire.”

“I see. Ah… hot water. It’s good timing because my body got cold from exploring. Thank you so much.”

“But it’s all cold now!”

Sola started getting angry again as she spoke.

“I have to fetch it again and boil it again! I worked so hard! My arms are all shaking! Paolo disappeared somewhere after he finished building the bathhouse, and Anna said she wasn’t interested and didn’t help! No one is interested in the bathhouse I worked so hard to make!”

Sola was genuinely angry, which was rare.

As she said, she was in charge of managing the lighthouse at the monastery.

Even though she seemed to live without any thoughts, Sola had a sense of responsibility and wanted to help the other nuns in her own way.

However, there was a limit to what she could do because she had few opportunities to accumulate knowledge and skills.

Building the bathhouse was quite a task for Sola.

After leaving the island, everyone was busy doing their part, but there wasn’t much work to assign to Sola.

Building the bathhouse was also an idea that Sola came up with herself.

To be honest, I was too busy and had too many things to worry about at the time, so I just let her do it as she pleased without paying attention, but it seemed that it had unknowingly hurt Sola.

The sweat droplets that had soaked into Sola’s tangled hair were proof of how hard she had worked to carry water and light a fire.

“Sola. Thank you. I’m so proud that you did everything from the idea to the completion.”

“… Hmph,”

Sola frowned as if holding back tears, then snuggled into my arms.

I patted Sola’s head and said.

“I’ll reheat the water. Don’t worry and rest. Thanks to you, I get to take a bath. There wasn’t a bathhouse in the monastery either. I’m really looking forward to it.”

“Mhm,”

“Thank you. You did really well.”

It wasn’t an empty compliment.

Being able to take a bath in warm water in this winter would be very helpful in relieving stress.

Of course, if you think about the effort it takes to prepare a bath, from fetching water, heating it up, pouring it into the bathhouse, and then carrying the dirty water out again.

When you think about the effort it takes to take a bath, you wonder how many times you’ll use it.

But there was no need to say such things to Sola.

Besides, I can fix any shortcomings.

There would probably be few people who would complain about the bathhouse that a girl in her mid-teens had worked so hard to make with her small hands, pointing out this and that.

I patted and comforted Sola, then walked to the bathhouse.

I didn’t forget to promise to tell her my impressions after the bath.

*

The bathhouse was more splendid than I had imagined.

The cleanly wiped stones were recycled from the bricks of the collapsed village buildings, and thanks to being wiped diligently, there was no dust or stone debris at all.

The gaps between the bricks were also tightly sealed, so there was no unfortunate event of water leaking.

However, as far as I know, bathhouses use stones with more special measures, but I decided not to argue because Sola, who had lived on the island her whole life, wouldn’t have known that information.

I probably won’t use it many times anyway.

In the middle of the bathhouse, there was a basket for placing heated stones, and if you poured water on the hot stones, hot steam would fill the bathhouse, creating a kind of sauna.

Sola said that Anna had told her the method, and Anna seemed to have predicted in advance that she wouldn’t be able to take a bath a few times because it was too troublesome.

Saunas with hot steam on cold days are a culture of the northern region, and they were quite popular, so saunas were popular in the capital every winter.

Anna, who was from a famous blacksmith in the capital, probably knew that fact well.

The water that Sola had filled the bathhouse with had already become lukewarm.

It was too much of a hassle to fetch this water again and heat it up, so I chose the method of throwing heated stones into the water.

After heating the water for a long time, I took off my clothes and soaked in it, and I felt good enough to think that the effort was worth it.

I felt like the fatigue that had seeped into my muscles was melting away.

Sola did a good job.

“…”

It was then.

I felt a presence at the entrance of the bathhouse.

The owner of the presence carefully opened the door and slowly walked into the bathhouse where I was.

“…”

“…Ha,”

It was Anna.