Chapter 382: Taking a Bath With the Enemy

After Solaris and Irnina descended through the rain and landed in the clearing, the massive fire dragon returned to her human form. Greeting them in front of the main cabin, Ryan offered them his courtesy as guests of the camp, a kind gesture that the two of them didn’t expect in the slightest from the King of Kowarre.

They had both arrived very early at the extraction zone to begin their surveillance. It was around seven in the morning when they touched down, and due to the heavy rain that had fallen throughout their journey through the sky, they were both completely soaked from head to toe.

Seeing them dripping wet at the wooden entrance, he wasn’t about to let them inside and make a mess of the house, so he bluntly suggested that they bathe first in the spacious bath the elves had prepared with their magic the day before.

Despite the appearances the Ignis royal family tried to maintain in front of others, Ryan continued to treat Solaris completely naturally as a woman, even though she remained steadfast in her useless attempt to fake her tone of voice and appear like a tough man in front of him.

"You are both here to watch us, just as I agreed with your older brother, but this doesn’t have to be an uncomfortable situation," Ryan commented calmly, looking at the two newcomers, who remained silent for a few seconds, unsure of how to respond to that sudden cordiality.

Irnina looked at her own clothes, soaked by the bad weather, and then turned to her master to advise her to accept the offer.

"Master Solaris, perhaps we should accept," the dragoness suggested, seeing that they gained nothing by standing outside in the cold morning air.

"But Irnina... fine, alright," Solaris replied, yielding reluctantly after thinking it over for a moment. "But don’t get any weird ideas. This is just proof that our nation, at least for the time being, does not plan to make an enemy out of you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Karol, take them to the bath," Ryan instructed, dismissing Solaris’s excuses and delegating the task to his mage.

"Yep. Come this way," Karol said with a slight smile as she motioned for them to follow her inside the cabin.

Karol guided them down the wooden hallway and showed them the bath at the back of the house, but as soon as they opened the door and entered the steam-filled room, they were surprised to see that the place was already occupied.

"What is the meaning of this?" Solaris demanded, stopping dead in the doorway and frowning at the scene before her.

Right in front of them, Lise, Chloe, and Irina were relaxing inside the large pool, which was filled with hot water and surrounded by arranged rocks, making the entire place look like a natural formation.

From inside the water, Lise also frowned immediately upon seeing the fire dragoness enter alongside her master. Perhaps she hadn’t thought those two would actually dare to accept Ryan’s invitation to come into his house.

Seeing the tense and surprised expressions of the five girls staring at each other in silence inside the bath, Karol clasped her palms together in front of her chest with an amused smile.

"It was an order from Ryan, so take your time," Karol said, turning around with every intention of leaving them there together.

"No way, I am leaving here right now," Solaris protested, refusing to share the bath with Ryan’s group, and tried to retrace her steps toward the exit.

"If you do, you’ll regret it," Karol said, stopping her at the door with a malicious smile. And before Solaris could say anything else to complain about the threat, Karol added in a lower tone, "Accept Ryan’s hospitality, otherwise I will reveal to the world that you are actually a woman."

"But you..." Solaris murmured, freezing in her tracks upon realizing that her most closely guarded secret had been exposed to them.

"Huh? Naturally, all of us know," the mage replied quite casually, making it clear that everyone in her group was aware of her true identity.

Seeing that her master had been cornered by Karol’s blackmail, Irnina decided to intervene, using Solaris’s own pride to convince her to stay without causing a scene.

"Hahaha, it’s alright, Master Solaris. There’s no point in arguing. If we leave now, they’ll just think we’re afraid of them," the fire dragoness commented, dropping the masculine form of address now that they were among nothing but women who already knew the truth.

"Huh, no way... Fine, we just need to bathe, isn’t that right?" Solaris replied, immediately falling for the provocation to make it clear she felt no fear in the face of Ryan’s subordinates.

"Yep, I’m glad you understand," Karol said, stepping out into the hallway, but not before turning her head to issue one last warning to her companions in the pool. "The same goes for you. Treat our guests well and don’t cause any trouble."

"This mage..." Lise grumbled under her breath, annoyed at having to put up with her old rival’s presence without being able to fight.

"There’s no point in arguing. It’s an order from Ryan," Irina commented calmly to prevent the wind dragoness from starting an unnecessary conflict inside the house.

Beside them, Chloe sank deeper into the hot water until it covered half her face, blowing bubbles with her mouth and looking quite uncomfortable being in the middle of this unusual situation alongside high-ranking members of Ignis.

Seeing that the girls in the water truly had no intention of arguing or attacking them, Solaris, firmly intent on not showing weakness, walked with a confident stride until she stood near the pool.

"How is it possible that they prepared something like this? Have you been here for a very short time?" Solaris asked, pacing around the spacious bath as she observed the stone finishes and the comfort of the facility in amazement.

"Naturally, the power of the elves is ideal for any type of situation," Irina commented, a hint of pride in her words as she spoke of her race’s ability to shape nature in such a short time.

"I didn’t think I’d be in such a strange situation," Irnina remarked calmly as she undressed beside the pool, setting her wet clothes aside.

"Are you really going to take all your clothes off?" Solaris asked in an embarrassed tone, hesitant to uncover her body in front of the others after spending so many years hiding her figure beneath men’s clothing.

"It is what one does in a bath, isn’t that right, Master Solaris?" her dragoness asked, looking at her naturally as she finished taking off her damp clothes.

"..." Having no excuse to refuse, she remained silent, gave a slight nod, and began taking off her garments one by one. Once she finished undressing, she undid her hair tie, letting a very long mane of hair fall that covered her entire back all the way down past her buttocks.

"Master Solaris, you are truly beautiful. I would prefer to see you like this every day," Irnina praised, admiring her master’s natural appearance without the usual disguise she wore in her father’s court.

"D-Don’t say such nonsense," Solaris replied, her cheeks flushing slightly as she walked quickly toward the water to cover herself.

Meanwhile, outside the bath, Ryan was leaving the house alongside Karol to tour the camp beneath the magical canopy, check on how the workers were doing after the early morning rain, and review the progress of the material extraction.

Back inside the room, Lise stared intently at Irnina as the fire dragoness slowly entered the hot pool.

"That’s the size of the fearsome fire dragon’s breasts? It’s nothing special," Lise said, smiling maliciously as she settled on the edge, purposefully bouncing her massive breasts in the water to mock her.

"How childish. Are you trying to compare our bodies because you can’t match my power? Wind tramp," Irnina shot back, stopping in the water and returning a cold glare at the provocation.

"Do you want to test that?" Lise challenged, ready to demonstrate her strength right then and there if the other took one more step.

As the tension escalated rapidly between the two dragonesses in the middle of the bath, Irina and Chloe exchanged a glance for a second from the other end of the water. Both wanted to get out of there as soon as possible before those two ended up destroying the cabin over such a ridiculous argument.

"Quiet. It is already very uncomfortable being in this situation. Don’t cause trouble, Irnina," Solaris ordered, intervening firmly as she sank into the pool and pushed her long wet hair back.

"As you command, Master Solaris," Irnina said, relaxing her posture instantly with a smile before glaring at her rival with disdain. "Provoke me all you want, Lise. I have no intention of playing your games."

After that awkward shared bath between enemy groups came to an end, Solaris and Irnina stepped out of the pool. Although Ryan had offered them clean clothes through Karol so they would be more comfortable, both refused to wear someone else’s garments and dried their own clothes in a matter of seconds using the body heat from their own fire energy.

From there, the rest of the day in the grove passed completely normally. The guests ate and drank in the main dining area, enjoying Ryan’s hospitality without any further issues arising, and he assigned a spacious room for the two of them on the upper floor of the house.

When night finally fell and work in the forest came to a halt, Ryan had everything ready to return to his kingdom.

His intention was to leave Karol and Beatrice in charge of supervising the camp until the harvesting was finished, although the young Infernal had spent the entire day away from the camp on the mountain, trying to perfect her darkness skills on her own.

Because she would be staying behind to work in Ignis, Karol, not knowing how many more days she would spend there without seeing Ryan, intercepted him alone in his room and refused to let him leave without having sex with him first.

"It’s not fair, I can’t hold back anymore, Ryan..." Karol murmured, approaching him with ragged breathing and tugging on his clothes to lead him straight toward the bed.