Witchwood Romance Manipulation Team (2)

The Fifth Prince of the Argentia Empire. Antonio Robert Valtoria.

A moment ago, he entered the bathroom alone and began preparing for his bath, undressing with some difficulty.

“Indeed, it is inconvenient….”

To be honest, it wasn’t a very pleasant feeling.

Because he was realizing firsthand how difficult it was to undress with one arm tightly wrapped and fixed in a splint.

Of course, Antonio was also an Imperial Prince, so he had a history of training in swordsmanship and magic since childhood, and he had even suffered more severe injuries than this during recent sparring matches where he increased his training volume. However, undressing without the help of other servants, even with one arm injured like this, was a first for him, a member of the Imperial family.

“Ugh…! Urgh, haaah….”

“Prince Antonio-nim, surely wouldn’t it be better if I helped you?”

“I-I’m fine, Sir Colt. If I can’t even properly take off one set of clothes by myself, how can I go around saying I’m an Imperial family member?”

“But you cannot move one arm, can you? Lady Blaze-nim is still dining, so perhaps I could just assist you with your bath….”

“If Lady Agnes were to discover that sight, she would surely get angry. She would say if she was so untrustworthy that I had to make you do it, even though she offered to attend to me herself.”

“But….”

“I don’t want to be hated by her anymore. To be honest, I think what has happened so far is already a bit dangerous.”

He thought he could somehow make up for mistaking Agnes for younger and treating her like a child during their first meeting.

However, even after that, Antonio’s feelings for Agnes kept veering off in strange directions, only upsetting her, so now the Prince also realized.

That if he made any more mistakes here, even the slight possibility of things working out with Agnes would completely disappear.

That he, of all people, had hindered her and the Hero in a crisis where her precious friend, Lady Lillith’s, life was almost in danger. That he had upset Agnes by not giving her anything to do, under the pretense of being considerate. And that even after following her all the way to the Witch’s Forest, instead of showing a manly side, he kept revealing only pathetic aspects.

If only he had been able to coolly cut off one of the Three-headed Hydra’s heads in today’s battle, he wouldn’t have been injured so disgracefully. Antonio felt pathetic and insignificant for having ultimately sacrificed an arm, unable to properly wield his sword, so it was inevitable that his actions would become passive.

“There’s no need to borrow your hands, Sir Colt, so don’t worry. You accompanied me not as a lady-in-waiting or a maid, but as a coachman and escort knight, didn’t you?”

“…That is correct.”

“If you understand, you may leave now. If you needlessly remain here, you might just get caught by Lady Agnes. I can wash myself without necessarily needing another person’s help.”

“…Understood, Prince Antonio-nim.”

Listening to the receding footsteps of Sir Colt from the bathroom door, Antonio finished taking off the clothes he was wearing and prepared for his bath.

Even with one arm incapacitated, the discomfort was somewhat lessened after he took off his upper garments, which was at least fortunate news for Antonio. Of course, the process of putting his clothes back on after he finished bathing would certainly be troublesome again.

Originally, it was Agnes’s job to help with all these tasks, as she had volunteered to attend to him. In the first place, attending to a patient who cannot use one arm meant help in this regard more than with meals.

Of course, such service was only possible when Prince Antonio could confidently demand such things from Agnes.

If it were a definite subordinate like Colt, there would be no great difficulty in ordering people around, but Agnes was different. For her, with whom he had special feelings, even making such a small request felt somehow sinful.

In particular, asking for help with bathing in this manner was a type of attendance he could hardly ask for. Even if it was to take care of him as a patient, it was ultimately akin to showing his naked body to the person he loved.

He was also embarrassed, and above all, he thought Agnes would dislike seeing his naked body, so the Prince deliberately did not ask.

-Chwaaaak!

“Indeed, trying to do it with one arm…. It’s not that easy….”

Though a wet splint could be dried with magic, the act of washing itself without being able to use his dominant arm was a great ordeal.

Not only did washing his hair take more than twice the usual time, but there were also many areas he couldn’t reach with just one hand.

Thinking that he only needed to live like this for three more days, Prince Antonio was somehow lathering his body with soap using one hand when two light knocks were heard from outside the bathroom door.

-Knock, knock.

“Is that Sir Colt? As I said before, I’m fine. It’s not so difficult that I need to borrow your hands.”

“…….”

“And if you attend to my bath, wouldn’t Lady Agnes misunderstand again? Go in and rest first before she needlessly catches you.”

“…….”

There was no answer from beyond the door. Perhaps it was drowned out by the sound of the water in the bathroom.

Prince Antonio, who naturally assumed it was Sir Colt, simply focused on the act of washing his body with one hand. After all, it also seemed like it wouldn’t be a very good situation for her to catch him washing himself alone without Lady Agnes’s help.

The moment he turned his head back to somehow rub the towel on his back, which was hard to reach, Prince Antonio witnessed a woman entering the bathroom as the door opened.

-Kiiik.

“Well, I said I didn’t need bath service….”

“…Really, you don’t need it?”

“…………Huh?”

“……I asked if you don’t need bath service.”

“Ah, Lady Agnes…?”

Prince Antonio’s thoughts momentarily froze as he watched her calmly enter the bathroom.

In fact, if Agnes had merely entered to provide bath service, he might not have been so flustered.

Firstly, Antonio hadn’t accepted Agnes’s bath service because his fear that she might be displeased by seeing his body was greater than his embarrassment at showing his naked body.

So while he felt truly fortunate about the current situation, where she seemed to feel no particular emotion about his body, what made Antonio even more anxious was Agnes’s attire as she opened the bathroom door and entered.

Because she, too, was attired just like him… that is, she was entering the bathroom completely naked, without any clothes on.

Furthermore, Agnes’s confident appearance as she tried to enter, without even attempting to cover herself with a towel, was such a powerful impression that it turned Antonio’s mind into a blank slate, and he, who belatedly regained his senses, could barely tear his gaze away from that heart-pounding sight.

“W-What are you doing, Lady Agnes! W-We haven’t even gotten e-engaged yet, have we?! O-Of course, I would gladly accept Lady Agnes’s feelings like this, but s-still, something like this should happen after we’ve had enough time to get to know each other…!”

“…What are you talking about? I came in to give you a bath service, didn’t I?”

“……Huh?”

“I told you. I would attend to you for three days. Of course, bath service is included.”

“B-But that….”

“And for bath service, because the one receiving the service might feel embarrassed, it’s a servant’s rule for the one providing the service to also be naked, right? I came knowing all that.”

“Uh, uh…?”

W-Was there such a rule?

No, at least as far as he knew, it was absolutely not a rule. There were countless maids who had attended to Antonio, who grew up in the Imperial family, but not one of them had ever entered the bathroom showing their naked body.

That meant Agnes had entered the bathroom in such attire, having some strange misunderstanding. Though he didn’t know who had instilled that strange misunderstanding in her.

“W-Who told you such a thing….”

“…Lillith said so.”

“Lady Lillith, you mean…?”

“Yeah. She’s originally from the Blackwood maids. She taught me various things, saying that attending to someone of the same sex is different from a woman attending to a man.”

“…….”

What in the world is this supposed to mean?

Is the Blackwood Family a family that harasses its servants in this manner?

As far as he knew, Harold, the head of the Blackwood Family, was unable to forget his deceased wife and still hadn’t taken a second wife, and his son Ethan also seemed to be completely infatuated with Lillith for now.

Surely not, could the reason he could maintain such an attitude actually be because he had been sinisterly satisfying his sexual desires in this way behind the scenes?

That he would learn such a sinister secret of the Ducal Family, which had been hidden until now, in this manner….

‘No, no. That can’t be it.’

He shouldn’t jump to strange conclusions. Just recently, he had wrongly jumped to conclusions about Lady Agnes and angered her, hadn’t he?

And if such things were commonplace, there’s no way rumors wouldn’t have arisen disparaging the Blackwood Family as sexually promiscuous.

In the first place, Prince Ethan was the one who, like him, tried to avert his gaze when Lady Lara and Lady August were naked on the altar. It was utterly unimaginable that he was actually someone who received service bordering on harassment from the maids of the mansion in rotation.

In other words, the idea of ‘naked service’ was merely an idea that came from Lady Lillith’s mind.

Perhaps she played this prank to tease her friend, Lady Agnes… or she deliberately did this to help him.

But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why she had done such a thing. What benefit would it be for her to support his and Agnes’s relationship that she would do this….

“…Is this wrong?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Surely, this isn’t it? Was it actually right to come in clothed even at a time like this, just like when attending to someone of the same sex?”

Agnes’s voice, with a hint of anger, yet not quite, reached Antonio’s ears.

If he were to say, ‘Yes, one does not enter naked for bath service,’ the ensuing consequences were obvious.

Not only would she be furious at Lillith for deceiving her, but she would also feel shame for this act, which she had done without much thought, merely considering it ‘service,’ and her relationship with him would also grow even more distant. Therefore, there was only one answer Prince Antonio could give in this situation.

…In the first place, as Prince Antonio, he wasn’t exactly displeased with this situation.

“N-No, it’s not wrong, Lady Agnes.”

“……Really?”

“Y-Yes…. W-When a female servant attends to a male employer’s bath, it is correct for them to also be naked so that the employer doesn’t feel embarrassed…. O-Of course, Lady Agnes, being a noble by birth, didn’t necessarily have to follow it, b-but still, it’s not a wrong act, so there’s no need to feel embarrassed or angry.”

“…Then it’s fine. If I have to do it anyway, it’s better to do it by the rules.”

‘That way, I can surely repay the debt I owe you.’ Due to Agnes whispering the same words behind his back, Antonio’s heart began to pound wildly.

“I’ll only wash the parts you can’t reach. That’s enough, right? You wouldn’t want more than that, would you?”

“O-Of course, Lady Agnes….”

‘Endure. Endure. Endure somehow. Endure….’

As if this situation were natural. As if it were merely bath service and he wasn’t thinking any lewd thoughts at all.

Prince Antonio, somehow suppressing his libido that kept threatening to surge, while at the same time focusing on Agnes’s touch as she began to scrub his back.

Also, he was silently thanking Lady Lillith over and over again in his heart for creating this situation.